The high-value council tax surcharge may only raise £400m but it’s the best opportunity for a bigger, fairer tax on wealth

Rachel Reeves won little credit last week for lifting the lid on one of the most heated tax debates of the past three decades.

Who in their right mind would consider engaging in the fight that would inevitably lead to some of the richest people in the land calling for your head?

Democracy, birds and hangover cures – famous fans put their questions to the visionary author

After the ­phenomenal global success, not to mention timeliness, of the TV adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale in 2017, Margaret Atwood has been regarded as “a combination of figurehead, prophet and saint”, the author writes in her new memoir Book of Lives. Over 600 pages this “memoir of sorts” ranges from her childhood growing up in the Canadian backwoods to her grief at the death of her partner of 48 years, the writer Graeme Gibson, in 2019, with many friendships, the occasional spat and more than 50 books (including Cat’s Eye, Alias Grace and the Booker prizewinning The Blind Assassin and The Testaments) in between.

The author, who turned 86 last week, always likes to take the long view, often from a couple of centuries’ distance. As Rebecca Solnit notes below, she now has a long view of our times. Age and the freedom of being a writer (as she says, she can’t get sacked) make her fearless in speaking out.

Photographers Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer capture the families, farmers and fishers who have been forced to leave their homes by extreme weather – and the landscapes they left behind. Introduction by Dina Nayeri

In 2009, Swiss photographers Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer set out to document the people suffering the first shocks of the climate crisis. They had just returned from China, where rapid, unregulated development has ravaged the natural landscapes. Back home, though, the debate still felt strangely theoretical. “In 2009, you still had people who denied climate change,” Braschler recalls. “People said, ‘This is media hype.’” So the couple, working with the Global Humanitarian Forum in Geneva and supported by Kofi Annan, began The Human Face of Climate Change, a portrait series that showed the people on the frontline of a warming world.

Sixteen years later, climate change is no longer up for debate; the urgent discussions now revolve around solutions. Braschler and Fischer, too, have shifted their focus. “This is going to be one of the central issues for humanity,” says Braschler, “and we want to make sure that people know that the major effect of climate change will be displacement.”

Venues promoting destruction as stress relief are appearing around the UK but experts – and our correspondent – are unsure

If you find it hard to count to 10 when anger bubbles up, a new trend offers a more hands-on approach. Rage rooms are cropping up across the UK, allowing punters to smash seven bells out of old TVs, plates and furniture.

Such pay-to-destroy ventures are thought to have originated in Japan in 2008, but have since gone global. In the UK alone venues can be found in locations from Birmingham to Brighton, with many promoting destruction as a stress-relieving experience.

The Daily Mail owner has the Telegraph titles in his sights as part of a long-held ambition to create a dominant stable of rightwing newspapers

Waiting two decades for another chance to snaffle a prized business acquisition is a luxury not afforded to many executives. The Rothermere family, however, takes a more relaxed approach to time.

While most business boards draw up five-year plans, the Rothermeres, having compiled a feared media empire over more than a century, are used to thinking in terms of generations.

Methanol, a cheap relative of ethanol, is entering the supply chain, causing thousands of deaths around the world

For Bethany Clarke, poison tasted like nothing. There was no bitter aftertaste, no astringent sting at the back of the tongue. If anything, she thought in passing, the free shots she and her friends were drinking at a hostel bar in Laos had probably been watered down – she wasn’t detecting a strong vodka flavour through the veil of Sprite she had mixed it with.

All in all, Clarke remembers drinking about five of those shots, sitting with her best friend, Simone White, and a crowd of others at the hostel’s happy hour. CCTV footage shows the group laughing in the warm air of the open bar in the town of Vang Vieng, green and red lights dancing over their shoulders.

A theatrical sensation since the 1960s, whose dramas included Arcadia, The Real Thing and Leopoldstadt, Stoppard also had huge success as a screenwriter

• Tom Stoppard: a life in pictures

• A brilliant dramatist who always raised the temperature of the room

The playwright Tom Stoppard, whose playful erudition dazzled the theatregoing world for decades, has died aged 88.

One of a select band of writers from any discipline to earn his own adjective – “Stoppardian” – in the Oxford English Dictionary, he delighted in the most improbable juxtapositions: philosophy and gymnastics in Jumpers (1972); early 19th-century landscape gardening and chaos theory in Arcadia (1993); rock music, dissident Czech academics and the love poetry of Sappho in Rock ’n’ Roll (2006).

Sultana skips Saturday’s proceeding in solidarity with delegates expelled over links to other parties

Zarah Sultana has boycotted the first day of Your Party’s inaugural conference, throwing the party’s first official gathering into chaos amid disagreements with co-founder Jeremy Corbyn over how the party should be run.

Corbyn confirmed to journalists on Saturday that he preferred a single leader and is likely to stand for the role but Sultana said she would vote for collective leadership and that she did not believe parties should be run by “sole personalities”.

Rightwing activist claimed Commons deputy speaker Nusrat Ghani should be barred because she was born in Pakistan

GB News is facing calls to cut ties with a regular contributor who has been accused of racism after claiming that the House of Commons deputy speaker, Nusrat Ghani, should not be allowed in the house because she was born in Pakistan.

The comments by Lucy White, a rightwing activist, have drawn criticism from across the political spectrum amid warnings that explicitly racist language is becoming increasingly normalised in British life.

Move, which is part of crackdown on costs, comes after it emerged Home Office spends £15.8m a year on service

Asylum seekers will be banned from taking taxis to medical appointments after it was revealed the Home Office spends about £15.8m a year on the service.

From February they will have to use alternative transport such as buses, no matter how urgent their medical needs.

Committee highlights allegations including dog attacks and sexual violence, raising concern about impunity for war crimes

Israel has “a de facto state policy of organised and widespread torture”, according to a UN report covering the past two years, which also raised concerns about the impunity of Israeli security forces for war crimes.

The UN committee on torture expressed “deep concern over allegations of repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, waterboarding, use of prolonged stress positions [and] sexual violence”.

President made declaration in a social media post, after FAA last week warned airlines of ‘worsening security situation’

Donald Trump said on Saturday that the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela is to be closed in its entirety.

Trump, in a Truth Social post said: “To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY.”

Staff at human rights body said to be ‘desperate for regime change’ over inertia after court’s legal definition of a woman

The ongoing impasse over guidance from the UK’s human rights watchdog on access to single-sex spaces is distracting from other pressing issues, including the rise of the far right, insiders have told the Guardian.

Some members of staff at the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) are described as “desperate for regime change” ahead of the new chair, Mary-Ann Stephenson, taking up her post in December.

Missile and drone attacks come amid Moscow’s campaign to break Ukrainian civil resistance by attacking energy grid

Two people were killed and 37 were injured by a Russian drone and missile attack on the Ukrainian capital that cut power to the western half of the city, leaving at least 500,000 residents without electricity.

Nearly 600 drones and 36 rockets were fired into the country in an attack that its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said highlighted Ukraine’s need for western help with air defence, as well as other financial and political support.

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A wicked inswinging corner from Lewis Miley is headed in from three yards by Malick Thiaw. It was a good header, steered decisively wide of Pickford, but the delivery from Miley was outstanding.

19 secs: Pickford denies Elanga! An early chance for newcastle. Woltemade sturns Keane expertly in the centre circle and slides a simple pass that allows Elanga to stretch his legs. He’s too quick for O’Brien and slides a slightly tame low shot that is pushed round the post by Pickford. No matter, because from the corner…

Exit of Zelenskyy’s most powerful aide could also have impact on Kyiv’s negotiating position in talks over ending war

Ukraine’s political system is bracing for a “mini-revolution” as the county’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is forced to adapt to life without his closest adviser, chief enforcer and most loyal associate, Andriy Yermak, who resigned on Friday after his apartment was searched as part of a widening anti-corruption probe.

Yermak’s resignation could have tremendous consequences for domestic governance, as well as for Ukraine’s negotiating position in talks over ending the war with Russia, where he had served as the head of Ukraine’s delegation to peace talks with the White House.

Car lease scheme for people with mobility problems portrayed as ‘free’ but is funded by benefits and their own contributions

A decade ago, Rachel Reeves was pictured with a disabled constituent, congratulating him on being given the “keys to freedom” afforded by a Motability vehicle.

Since then, Reeves – now Britain’s chancellor – has barely mentioned the scheme that leases 300,000 cars a year to people with mobility problems, aside from criticising Tory cuts affecting its users.

Our in-house eco-chef sampled a range of the most sustainable, delicious and well-priced smoked salmon for your Christmas table

Silky, buttery, aromatic smoked salmon is one of Christmas’s purest pleasures, yet salmon farms have a well-earned reputation for poor welfare and environmental damage, so choosing a sustainable one is more than a little daunting. Some certifications, however, are genuinely rigorous. My main guide, as ever, is the Marine Conservation Society’s (MCS) Good Fish Guide, which rates wild-caught Alaskan salmon as the best choice and ranks European Aquaculture Stewardship Council-certified salmon as a good farmed choice.

Organic salmon, meanwhile, scores well for feed sustainability, fish health and management, but fares pretty poorly for environmental impact. If you’re interested in the wider impacts of salmon farming, check out Off the Table and remember, there are delicious, sustainable alternatives out there.

The singer on going solo, bringing back George Michael, and why a dog made her rethink motherhood

Born in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, Rebecca Lucy Taylor, 39, was in the duo Slow Club. After 10 years, she went solo as Self Esteem and received Mercury prize, NME and Brit nominations for her second album, 2021’s Prioritise Pleasure. This year, she won the Ivor Novello Visionary award and released a book and album, both called A Complicated Woman. In March, she stars in David Hare’s Teeth ’n’ Smiles at the Duke of York’s theatre, London. She lives in London with her partner.

When were you happiest?
Five to 10, when I was just playing out and I didn’t realise I was a girl. Before my boobs came in, basically.

Unique properties of fungi have led to groundbreaking innovations in recent years, from nappies to electronics

From the outside, it looks like any ordinary nappy – one of the tens of billions that end up in landfill each year. But the Hiro diaper comes with an unusual companion: a sachet of freeze-dried fungi to sprinkle over a baby’s gloopy excretions.

The idea is to kickstart a catalytic process that could see the entire nappy – plastics and all – broken down into compost within a year.

The rite of passage for many Australian teenagers at Surfers Paradise has changed since the first party on Broadbeach in the 1970s

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It’s 9pm on Friday at Surfers Paradise and a DJ on the main beach is playing a club mix of Reel 2 Real’s I Like to Move It as teenage boys wearing sunglasses shuffle enthusiastically on the sand.

This is the last night of schoolies, and it’s going to be large. The evening’s official costume theme is “good, evil, iconic”, which is open to wide interpretation. Someone is dressed as The Lorax, another as a Christmas tree.

Sarah, 53, a psychologist, meets Russell, 61, a behaviour officer

What were you hoping for?
A romantic connection. Failing that, getting to know someone I might not otherwise have crossed paths with.

At a time when distrust of big tech is high, Silicon Valley is embracing an alternative ecosystem where every CEO is a star

A montage of Palantir’s CEO, Alex Karp, and waving US flags set to a remix of AC/DC’s Thunderstruck blasts out as the intro for the tech billionaire’s interview with Sourcery, a YouTube show presented by the digital finance platform Brex. Over the course of a friendly walk through the company offices, Karp fields no questions about Palantir’s controversial ties to ICE but instead extolls the company’s virtues, brandishes a sword and discusses how he exhumed the remains of his childhood dog Rosita to rebury them near his current home.

“That’s really sweet,” host Molly O’Shea tells Karp.

Need something brilliant to read this weekend? Here are six of our favourite pieces from the past seven days

Sydney Sweeney as you’ve never seen her before – genuinely – in a boxing biopic, and the godfather of grunge revisits his dark stuff

Christy
Out now
Based on the life of the American boxer Christy Martin (nickname: the Coal Miner’s Daughter), this sports drama sees Sydney Sweeney Set aside her conventionally feminine America’s sweetheart aesthetic and don the mouth guard and gloves of a professional fighter.

Here’s how to follow along with our coverage – the finest writing and up-to-the-minute reports

The supernatural drama inches closer to the end, while Ethan Hawke fully encapsulates Lorenz Hart in Richard Linklater’s Broadway breakup drama. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews

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The countdown is on.

One point in Verstappen’s favour: his teammate Yuki Tsunoda is ahead of him by one place. He is unlikely to mess with Red Bull’s main man.

• Wales 0-73 South Africa

• Springboks score 11 tries but Etzebeth sent off for eye gouge

Every bit as dispiriting as expected. Worse, was it pointless? Well, it certainly had more points to it than Wales would have liked. But, worse again, was it actively alienating? A record defeat, the first time since 1967 Wales have failed to score a point here, 11 tries conceded.

South Africa continue to demonstrate their superiority over every other nation. People are starting to compare them to the best sides we have ever seen. And they remain as brutal as ever, mostly legitimately, sometimes less so. They received their third red card of the autumn, their third to a second row, but there was no arguing with this one. Eben Etzebeth, a full head taller than any of his opponents in the middle of a fracas two minutes from time, jabbed his thumb into the eye of Alex Mann. The least contentious red card of the autumn.

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The lights show has happened, a concert by Self Esteem has been performed and the anthems are about to happen. This one is almost underway.

Former England star Fran Kirby, who won the Euros in 2022, has been celebrated on pitch before this clash. She walked out at Wembley and posed with a framed 77 shirt. One of the Lionesses greats.

Top tier football is awash with motivational slogans and some are so trite that many players quite possibly ignore them. Yet Sunderland’s adopted motto – ‘TIL The End’ – has become so much more than just another piece of cod psychology. After sustaining them through last season’s successful playoff campaign it has morphed into a true mantra, encapsulating everything that is so refreshing about this impressively resilient team.

Thanks partly to Granit Xhaka’s superb on-field leadership from central midfield, Sunderland have developed a habit of recovering from losing positions. Here though they surpassed themselves, conjuring a memorable victory after swiftly falling 2-0 behind to a similarly determined, and talented, Bournemouth.

When Phil Foden struck the winner in the second minute of added time Pep Guardiola’s leap was laced with relief at Manchester City’s pursuit of Arsenal still being alive.

City had spurned a two-goal interval advantage after Dominic Calvert-Lewin, a half-time substitute, had terrorised the hosts. The 28-year-old scored in the 49th minute, then claimed the penalty that led to Lukas Nmecha’s 68th-minute equaliser, rattling Josko Gvardiol enough for him to scythe Calvert-Lewin down clumsily.

• Outsider repeats Champion Hurdle success

• The New Lion also falls when leading two out

There was another twist to what is becoming a sorry tale here on Saturday as Constitution Hill, whose first two seasons over jumps led him to being ranked among the finest hurdlers of all time, fell for the third time in his past four starts in the early stages of a much-anticipated Fighting Fifth Hurdle.

The New Lion, unbeaten in five starts, also fell in the closing stages, leaving Golden Ace to pick up the pieces at long odds, just as she had in a similarly dramatic Champion Hurdle in March after Constitution Hill suffered the first fall of his career.

• La Liga leaders recover to beat Alaves 3-1

• Munich set summit record with stoppage-time goals

Barcelona recovered from an early setback to secure a 3-1 victory over Alavés, with first-half goals from Lamine Yamal and Dani Olmo and a late second for the latter sealing the win at the Camp Nou.

The win lifts the defending La Liga champions to the top of the standings on 34 points, two ahead of second-placed Real Madrid, who have a game in hand at Girona on Sunday.

• Coventry stay ten points clear with win over Charlton

• Gelhardt’s Hull winner sparks mass confrontation

Coventry maintained their 10-point lead at the top of the Championship with a 3-1 victory over Charlton. Harvey Knibbs put the visitors ahead before Josh Eccles and Ellis Simms completed a first-half turnaround for the hosts.

Simms added his second with 15 minutes to go to make it five goals in three games. The Addicks, who have now conceded 11 in their last three outings, slumped to a fourth defeat in a row after losses to Wrexham, Southampton and Stoke.

Contrite leader owns up to mistakes in Perth but hopes to address shortcomings against Australia in the day-nighter

The sheer number of Australian voices triumphantly telling England to show some humility this past week has been slightly ironic. The first Test finished as an eight-wicket thumping, done inside 48 hours and worthy of criticism, but it was not without a genuine wobble from the hosts en route.

Either way, Ben Stokes looked to do so when his players resumed training at Allan Border Field on Saturday morning before next week’s day-night second Test at the Gabba. Gone was the “shell-shocked” captain seen during the immediate aftermath of going 1-0 down and in his place, having reflected during the past few days, a far more conciliatory figure.

Survey data suggests more and more girls can’t imagine getting married, while their male counterparts are keener. That disparity holds a clue

According to recent data, marriages in England and Wales are down by nearly 9% after a post-pandemic spike, while civil partnerships have risen by almost the same percentage. This downward trend is also reflected in the US. The Vatican has piped up in defence of the institution, releasing a 40-page doctrinal note, Una Caro (One Flesh): In Praise of Monogamy: Doctrinal Note on the Value of Marriage as an Exclusive Union and Mutual Belonging. Sworn celibates would not be my personal first port of call when seeking relationship advice, but to each their own – exclusively and indissolubly, if the Catholic church is to be believed.

Among the younger crowd, gendered expectations about marriage are changing, at least according to a survey by the University of Michigan, which found that only 61% of high-school girls want to be married one day, compared to 74% of the boys. Perhaps this is behind the burgeoning genre of opinion pieces in which a rightwing man complains that women don’t want to date him. Often enough, he is an avowed libertarian, leaving it a mystery why he does not simply accept the workings of the free market.

Naoise Dolan is an Irish writer and the author of Exciting Times and The Happy Couple

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The conflict is neither a clearcut defeat nor a feelgood victory, but an in-between outcome that contains profound elements of each

No one should be satisfied with the unjust peace that Ukraine may be forced to accept. The aggressor would be rewarded with territory and other concessions from the victim it has brutalized. Yet the horrified reaction in Washington to recent peace proposals is troubling in its own right.

The Trump administration’s recent 28-point plan, roundly denounced in Congress and the commentariat as a “capitulation” to Moscow, actually offered Kyiv a remarkable strategic outcome. Under its terms, Ukraine would face no meaningful limit on its peacetime military, despite Russian attempts to impose draconian restrictions since 2022. (The only requirement, a cap of 600,000 personnel, probably exceeds the number of active-duty forces Ukraine would maintain anyway.) Moreover, Ukraine would receive a substantial security guarantee from the United States and Europe – the strongest in history, even if short of a Nato-style commitment.

Stephen Wertheim is deputy director of research and policy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and Research Scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University.

Trump has a disconcerting tendency to attack the press – but especially female reporters, whom he holds in particular ire

There was a time when it would have been a scandal for the president of the United States to call a journalist “ugly” or a politician “retarded”. Now it’s just another day in America. During a holiday when many Americans were gathering with family and reflecting on what they were grateful for, Trump was crouched over his keyboard slinging insults at his perceived enemies.

On Thanksgiving day, for example, Trump posted a rant on Truth Social about immigration. He called Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, an ableist slur, and then made an Islamophobic jab at “the worst ‘Congressman/woman’ in our Country, Ilhan Omar, always wrapped in her swaddling hijab”.

A harrowing US podcast documents a community’s struggle against immigration raids – and warns us about herd mentality

Earlier this year, the Trump administration reversed the convention that nobody would be snatched by immigration and customs enforcement, or ICE, by a school, church or hospital. Since then, teachers have reported classrooms a third empty, as parents are too scared to send their kids in – volunteers walk them there and back.

In the Rogers Park area of Chicago, a group of citizens are organising to resist such immigration raids. Sometimes, it’s simple non-violent tactics, such as slowing officers down by walking in front of them. Last month, 50 people rushed to a church, where the congregation was trapped, having got word that there were ICE agents waiting outside. Maybe their most evocative tactic is whistles – coded blasts for when a convoy is suspected to be ICE agents, a different code when it’s confirmed. They have numerous accounts of undocumented migrants warned off driving right into a raid, which is galvanising, but they also see and hear dismaying things all the time: vehicles standing empty, one door open, not robbed, merely relieved of their drivers; landscape gardeners arrested off ladders. Earlier this month, the Protect Rogers Park group got 1,500 calls in a day.

Farage has cosied up to US figures who espoused conspiracy theories about Jews. That kind of talk is becoming alarmingly mainstream on the Maga right

Nigel Farage could have strangled this story at birth. Confronted with the testimony of more than 20 former schoolmates, who shared with the Guardian their memories of a young Farage taunting Jews and other minorities in the most appalling terms – telling a Jewish pupil that “Hitler was right”, singing “Gas ’em all” and making a hissing sound to simulate lethal gas – he could have said: “I have no memory of what’s been described, but such behaviour would of course have been atrocious and if I was involved in any way, I am genuinely sorry.”

Sure, it would have been more of an “ifpology” than an apology, its admission of guilt wholly conditional, but it would surely have closed the story down. Reassured that the Reform UK leader had declared racist and antisemitic abuse unacceptable, most observers would have allowed that these events took place half a century ago and moved on.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

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On Wednesday 21 January 2026, join Jonathan Freedland, Tania Branigan and Nick Lowles as they reflect on the first year of Donald Trump’s second presidency – and to ask if Britain could be set on the same path.
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Labour can proudly say this was a budget for working people – that is, if your job happens to be prime minister

Thanks to Labour’s incredible Black Friday deal, breaking manifesto policies is buy-one-get-one-free. As part of its all-promises-must-go drive, it’s ditching its flagship policy giving the right to claim unfair dismissal from day one of employment. Employers will now have up to six months to summarily sack workers who don’t pan out – unless they’re the government, in which case people have to wait till 2029.

The employment rights bill was drawn up and championed by Angela Rayner, who resigned in September following a series of discoveries about her tax affairs. Weird to think that Rayner could easily have been in the I’m a Celebrity camp right now. The former deputy PM reportedly got pretty far along in her discussions with ITV in terms of booking a spot on the current series of the fauna-testicle-based format, and could at this very moment have been giving us her Queen Over the Water/Queen in the Jungle Shower for 80 minutes of primetime a night. But in the end, Rayner seems to have concluded – or had it concluded for her – that there wouldn’t be a way back to frontline politics if she took that particular leave of absence.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

A year in Westminster: John Crace, Marina Hyde and Pippa Crerar
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Russia’s president is only interested in a deal on Moscow’s terms. Equipping Kyiv with the resources to fight on is the quickest route to a just settlement

As Donald Trump’s Thanksgiving Day deadline for a Ukraine peace agreement came and went this week, the Russia expert Mark Galeotti pointed to a telling indicator of how the Kremlin is treating the latest flurry of White House diplomacy. In the government paper Rossiyskaya Gazeta, a foreign policy scholar close to Vladimir Putin’s regime bluntly observed: “As long as hostilities continue, leverage remains. As soon as they cease, Russia finds itself alone (we harbour no illusions) in the face of coordinated political and diplomatic pressure.”

Mr Putin has no interest in a ceasefire followed by talks where Ukraine’s rights as a sovereign nation would be defended and reasserted. He seeks the capitulation and reabsorption of Russia’s neighbour into Moscow’s orbit. Whether that is achieved through battlefield attrition, or through a Trump-backed deal imposed on Ukraine, is a matter of relative indifference. On Thursday, the Russian president reiterated his demand that Ukraine surrender further territory in its east, adding that the alternative would be to lose it through “force of arms”. Once again, he described Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government as “illegitimate”, and questioned the legally binding nature of any future agreement.

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Capturing the changing landscapes of the 18th century, the rivals transformed British art. The climate emergency gives new urgency to their work

JMW Turner appears on £20 notes and gives his name to Britain’s most avant garde contemporary art prize. John Constable’s work adorns countless mugs and jigsaws. Both are emblematic English artists, but in the popular imagination, Turner is perceived as daring and dazzling, Constable as nice but a little bit dull. In a Radio 4 poll to find the nation’s favourite painting, Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire – which even features in the James Bond film Skyfall – won. Constable’s The Hay Wain came second. Born only a year later, Constable was always playing catch-up: Turner became a member of the Royal Academy at 27, while Constable had to wait until he was 52.

To mark the 250th anniversary of their births, Tate Britain is putting on the first major exhibition to display the two titans head to head. Shakespeare and Marlowe, Mozart and Salieri, Van Gogh and Gauguin – creative rivalries are the stuff of biopics. Mike Leigh’s 2014 film shows Turner (Timothy Spall) adding a touch of red to his seascape Helvoetsluys to upstage Constable’s The Opening of Waterloo Bridge at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition of 1832. Critics delighted in dubbing them “Fire and Water”. The enthralling new Tate show is billed as a battle of rivals, but it also tells another story. Constable’s paintings might not have the exciting steam trains, boats and burning Houses of Parliament of Turner’s, but they were radical too.

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Prof David Feldman, Dr Ben Gidley and Dr Brendan McGeever from the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism say it is wrong to characterise Jewish support for the Greens as ‘paradoxical’

We were fascinated to read your article on the important report by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) on Jewish voting patterns in the UK (British Jews turn to Greens and Reform UK as support for main parties drops, 20 November). This demonstrates that growing numbers of Jews are deserting the Labour and Conservative parties in favour of the Green party and Reform UK.

As JPR points out, there is no symmetry here. The turn to Reform among Jewish voters is half the size of the growth in support for the party within the population as a whole. On the other hand, support for Greens among Jews is 900% the size of the turn to the Green party overall.

Life’s five ‘eras’ | Levelling up Huddersfield | Favourite headlines | Posh breakfasts | Grieving nominative determinism letters

As one of your older readers, I was looking forward to reading the interesting article on the five epochs of brain development (Brain has five ‘eras’, scientists say – with adult mode not starting until early 30s, 25 November). But why was I not surprised to find the final two epochs given just one sentence between them?
Dave Headey
Faringdon, Oxfordshire

• I was delighted to find out that the Royal Opera House is replacing its 26-year-old stage curtains. Perhaps the old ones could be reused to make new riser cushions for the stage of Huddersfield town hall. We’re still waiting to be levelled up. (See my Guardian letter, 14 February 2022.)
Lynn Brooks
Kirkburton, West Yorkshire

It seems likely the artist’s family wanted to get rid of a woman who was just difficult to get along with, writes Helen James

JMW Turner mother’s died when she was 29, when he was busy preparing for and opening his first public exhibition, and her “mental illness”, referred to in your review of the BBC Two documentary Turner: The Secret Sketchbooks (19 November), should be described as “purported”.

We only have the testimony provided by the actions of her husband and son, who sent her to a lunatic asylum designed for paupers, when they were in fact not poor and could have accommodated her in a better environment with better care, and thereby lengthened her life.

A concerned NHS midwife responds to an article about the Free Birth Society

I’m an NHS midwife, despairing over your article (Influencers made millions pushing ‘wild’ births – now the Free Birth Society is linked to baby deaths around the world, 22 November). My key frustration, though, is how, as with any successful charlatanism, there is truth and real fear being exploited: medical overreach blights lives, women can and should trust their bodies, and a healthy body rarely grows a baby it can’t birth.

However, physiology is not a perfected endpoint. Evolution continues with genetic variation spreading through a population by “survival of the fittest”. In the brutal “wild”, the least “well-adapted” (whether by health or circumstance) do not survive. Human beings, however, don’t like those odds. Medical intervention, yes, but a body of life-saving social knowledge has been passed down since language began, towards facilitating successful birth.

Exclusive: Chancellor says she made ‘fair and necessary choices’ in budget, and was unwilling to make cuts

Britain’s wealthy must shoulder the burden of paying to rebuild the UK’s “creaky” public services, Rachel Reeves has said, as she warned Labour MPs that leadership speculation was bad for the country.

The chancellor said she had opted to increase taxes by £26bn in this week’s budget to improve schools, hospitals and infrastructure, rejecting calls to “cut our cloth accordingly” after a downgrade in productivity forecasts.

Exclusive: Rail regulator pulls Avanti service from timetable from mid-December but it is needed for staff travel

The good news for rail travel between Manchester and London is that a morning train will continue to link the two cities in under two hours. The bad news: passengers will no longer be able to get onboard.

The rail regulator has axed one of Britain’s fastest and most lucrative intercity services, the 7am Avanti West Coast from Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston, as part of a timetable shake-up that will take effect in mid-December.

People implicated in the late sex offender’s crimes might face criminal charges or, at the very least, social ostracism

As the clock ticks toward the congressionally mandated deadline of 19 December by which Donald Trump’s justice department must release its files related to Jeffrey Epstein, there is intense speculation about the contents of these documents – but also questions as to what happens when they are released.

The US president on 19 November signed a bipartisan bill requiring that the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, disclose these documents to the US public within 30 days. Given that other tranches of materials related to the disgraced financier included damning correspondence with high-profile individuals, many expect that still more names of the rich, famous and powerful will be named.

More than 300 people killed on Indonesia’s Sumatra island with 162 reported dead across Thailand

The death toll from devastating floods and landslides in south-east Asia reportedly climbed past 460 on Saturday as clean-up and search-and-rescue operations got under way in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.

Heavy monsoon rain overwhelmed swathes of the three countries this week, killing hundreds and leaving thousands stranded, many on rooftops awaiting rescue.

After Jeffrey Epstein abuse victim died intestate, sons reject claim that documents presented by her lawyer and carer represent her final intentions

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An unsigned will has emerged as the crux of the battle over the estate of Virginia Giuffre, one of the most prominent victims of disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Details of the document surfaced on Friday as hearings began in Western Australia’s supreme court, where her sons, her longtime lawyer and her former carer are all vying for control of the assets.

Exclusive: UCL scientists find large swathes of southern Europe are drying up, with ‘far-reaching’ implications

Vast swathes of Europe’s water reserves are drying up, a new analysis using two decades of satellite data reveals, with freshwater storage shrinking across southern and central Europe, from Spain and Italy to Poland and parts of the UK.

Scientists at University College London (UCL), working with Watershed Investigations and the Guardian, analysed 2002–24 data from satellites, which track changes in Earth’s gravitational field.

Exclusive: Concerns over impact on health and environment, as well as £1.63bn in avoided landfill tax

The UK is estimated to have at least 8,000 illegal waste sites, containing approximately 13m tonnes of rubbish, research has revealed.

The scale of the criminal dumping means at least £1.63bn of landfill taxes have been avoided, according to an analysis of data from the satellite company Air & Space Evidence, shared with the Guardian and Watershed Investigations.

Biden earmarked billions for former coal communities in Appalachia – and his successor came and took it away

For a moment, Jacob Hannah saw an unprecedented opportunity to make Appalachia great again.

In 2022, the Biden administration earmarked billions of dollars to help revitalize and strengthen former coal communities. The objective was to lay down building blocks for the region to transition from extractive industries like coal and timber to a hub for solar and other advanced energy technologies, with a view to long-term economic, climate and social resilience.

The Canadian PM’s breakthrough oil deal with Alberta cost him a cabinet minister and will still face stiff opposition

When the people of the Haida nation won a decades-long battle for recognition that an archipelago off the coast of British Columbia in Canada was rightfully theirs, it was a long overdue victory.

The unprecedented deal with the provincial and the federal governments meant the Haida no longer had to prove that they had Aboriginal title to the land of Xhaaidlagha Gwaayaai, “the islands at the boundary of the world.”

Exclusive: London mayor says allegations of teenage racism against Reform leader remind him of being called P-word

• Opinion: Antisemitism allegations against the teenage Farage matter – look at what he went on to do

Sadiq Khan has spoken of his dismay at Nigel Farage’s “desperate” denials of allegations of teenage racism as he described how his experience as a child shaped his life.

The mayor of London said testimony from more than 20 individuals who made allegations about the Reform leader had summoned memories of his own past.

Woman cancels all benefits including disability living allowance for daughter after policy change announcement

A low-paid carer from Ghana has cancelled all the benefits she is legally entitled to, including the disability allowance one of her children receives, owing to fears about her immigration status after the policy changes announced by the home secretary.

The radical changes to legal migration announced by Shabana Mahmood on 20 November will penalise those who are living and working legally in the UK, but who claim benefits.

Councils consult on removing former prince’s name as residents report ‘embarrassment’ and ‘smirks’ when giving their addresses

Streets named after Andrew, formerly known as Prince but now plain Mountbatten-Windsor, can be found from Broadstairs to Belfast to Birmingham. Roads, avenues, terraces, lanes, crescents, closes, drives and ways are all afflicted – to the dismay of some residents.

In Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, Prince Andrew Way, celebrating Mountbatten-Windsor’s 1986 marriage to Sarah Ferguson, will be purged after Mid and East Antrim council passed a motion, described by one councillor as “sad but necessary”, to rename. A public consultation is under way.

Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea says it is checking whether data taken contained residents’ details

A London council has urged thousands of residents to be “extra vigilant” when receiving calls, emails or text messages after confirming that data had been taken in a cyber-attack.

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC), which has 147,500 residents, said some data had been copied from its systems in an attack this week.

The PM becomes the first Australian leader to celebrate a wedding while in office with a private ceremony followed by a reception at his official residence, the Lodge

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The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has married his partner, Jodie Haydon, in Canberra, making him the first Australian leader to tie the knot in office.

The ceremony took place on Saturday afternoon at Albanese’s official residence, the Lodge, witnessed by a small group of close family and friends, including Albanese’s son, Nathan, and Haydon’s parents, Bill and Pauline.

Lead FDA vaccine regulator announced new approval process after claiming Covid vaccine had killed 10 children

The leading vaccine regulator at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced a far stricter course for federal vaccine approvals, following claims from his team that Covid vaccines were linked to the deaths of at least 10 children.

Experts suggest the announcement will make the vaccine approval process significantly more difficult.

Immediate software change on ‘significant number’ of jets to result in disruption to half the worldwide fleet

Airlines around the world cancelled and delayed flights heading into the weekend after Airbus announced on Friday that it had ordered immediate repairs to 6,000 of its A320 family of jets in a recall affecting more than half of the global fleet.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), which is the main certifying authority for A320 aircraft, issued the instruction on Friday night as a precautionary action, saying that “safety is paramount”.

The first autopen was patented in the 1800s and has been used by many American presidents

On Friday, Donald Trump claimed that he will reverse everything that Joe Biden has signed with an autopen.

The automated signature machine has been a tool used by presidents at the White House for decades.

Airline says 55,000 people signed up to Prime, making €4.4m, but passengers benefited by more than €6m

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Ryanair is shutting its frequent flyers members’ club after only eight months because customers exploited its benefits too much.

The budget airline said on Friday it was closing the scheme, which offered benefits including flight discounts, free reserved seating on up to 12 flights a year and travel insurance.

JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs to expand UK presence after sector was spared from higher taxes in budget

Over canapés of beef and stilton pie, bone marrow gravy and mushy peas, the financiers at JP Morgan’s New York headquarters held their champagne flutes aloft for a toast: “His majesty the king.”

Just days before Rachel Reeves’s budget – amid the chancellor’s efforts to soothe business fears and bond market jitters – Jamie Dimon, the Wall Street banking company’s boss, was hosting a birthday celebration for King Charles at its new $3bn (£2.3bn) Manhattan headquarters.

Exclusive: It follows calls from US senator Elizabeth Warren to investigate bank executives including ex-Barclays boss Jes Staley

US regulators say they are taking allegations that top banks may have facilitated Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal activity “very seriously”, as they faced calls to investigate executives including the former Barclays boss Jes Staley.

In correspondence seen by the Guardian, bosses from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) said they had reviewed a letter from the Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren, which raised concerns over bankers’ alleged support for the convicted child sex offender Epstein.

Advocates are fighting against the $16.7bn global smart-toy market, decrying surveillance and a lack of regulation

As the holiday season looms into view with Black Friday, one category on people’s gift lists is causing increasing concern: products with artificial intelligence.

The development has raised new concerns about the dangers smart toys could pose to children, as consumer advocacy groups say AI could harm kids’ safety and development. The trend has prompted calls for increased testing of such products and governmental oversight.

Endometriosis, miscarriage, failed relationships, suicide and gaslighting … they are all laid bare on the singer-writer’s new album. But just as she finished recording it, she got a shock diagnosis. She explains why it’s made her determined to be in the moment

You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. There she was preparing for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the mother of a toddler having struggled to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Then in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

The singer-songwriter, real name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, miscarriage, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then second single, Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with breast cancer. A month later she went public, and in early July she had a mastectomy.

Few sights are as cheering as the tiny Dane scurrying down a continental alleyway, like a Womble chased out of a boulangerie. This Côte d’Azur travelogue is marvellous fun

A tiny figure is beckoning to us from across a blazing stretch of beach. We approach, tentatively. Who is this squinting gesticulator? Closer inspection reveals a hat (sensible) and a suitcase (brown). The heart leaps. Could it be Paddington? Close. It’s Sandi Toksvig. “And this,” she says, as the camera swoops over her shoulder to reveal a gasp-inducing sweep of Mediterranean coastline, “is my Great Riviera Rail Trip”. A montage of coming attractions sets out our guide’s stall. Here is Toksvig eating bouillabaisse in a bib; Toksvig bobbing, seal-like, in an infinity pool; Toksvig pounding up a set of steps, her fringe bouncing like a blond trampette in the breeze. The idea? “I want to explore the region’s rich past and vibrant present,” she says. “A simple rail trip of just over one hundred miles” allows her to take in the artists, writers and “freethinkers” who helped transform the Riviera from a fluttering ribbon of snoozy fishing villages into “one of the world’s dream destinations”.

So, it’s all aboard the Toksvig express for the first of a four-part choo-choo along the Côte d’Azur.

Along the French Riviera with Sandi, following generations of artists, writers and freethinkers. Plus: Strictly tries to shrug off its troubles with a new, time-pressurised challenge. Here’s what to watch this evening

8.05pm, Channel 4
Lovely Sandi Toksvig is travelling along the French Riviera, following in the footsteps of artists, writers and freethinkers who made the glamorous holiday destination “the beating heart of intellectual life” in the 20th century. After the shock of the first train actually arriving on time in Marseille, Toksvig heads to Sanary-sur-Mer, where Brave New World author Aldous Huxley and German writers Thomas Mann and Bertolt Brecht spent time. Hollie Richardson

François Ozon’s handling of classic novel draws both praise and criticism, including from the author’s daughter

More than 80 years after it was published, Albert Camus’s L’Étranger remains one of the most widely read and fiercely contested French books in the world.

Until now, few attempts have been made to adapt the novel, published in English as The Outsider, for television or cinema: it is considered problematic and divisive for its portrayal of France’s colonisation of Algeria.

A controversial Netflix documentary follows an investigation into the truth behind one of the most important wartime photos ever taken

It is one of the most recognizable photographs of the 20th century: a naked girl – arms wide, face contorted, skin scorched and peeling – running toward the camera as she flees a napalm attack in South Vietnam. To her right, a boy’s face is frozen in a Greek tragedy mask of pain. To her left, two other Vietnamese children run away from the bombed village of Trảng Bàng. Behind them, an indistinguishable group of soldiers and, behind them, a wall of black smoke.

Within hours of publication in June 1972, the photo, officially titled The Terror of War but colloquially known as Napalm Girl, went the analog version of viral; seen and discussed by millions of people around the world, it’s widely credited with galvanizing public opinion against the US war in Vietnam. Susan Sontag later wrote that the horrifically indelible image of nine-year-old Kim Phúc in distress “probably did more to increase the public revulsion against the war than a hundred hours of televised barbarities”. Sir Don McCullin, the legendary British photojournalist who covered the conflict, deemed it the single best photograph of what would later be called “The Television War”. Napalm Girl is, “simply put, one of the most important photographs of anything ever made, and certainly of the Vietnam war”, said Gary Knight, a British photojournalist with decades of combat photography experience.

Noah Baumbach’s meditation on celebrity sees George Clooney deliver easy charm alongside Adam Sandler, while Michelle Pfeiffer stars in what will certainly be 2025’s best festive movie

Jay Kelly is Noah Baumbach’s meditation on the meaning of true celebrity, and he benefits greatly from casting George Clooney – perhaps the last classic movie star – in the lead. Co-written with Emily Mortimer, it explores the personas A-listers tend to trade in, and what happens when that starts to fall away. It’s a role right in the centre of Clooney’s comfort zone, and he inhabits it perfectly; imagine the heightened knowingness of Hail, Caesar! twinned with the easy charm of his Nespresso adverts. Plus it helps that he’s backed by a couple of Baumbach all-timers in Adam Sandler and Laura Dern. Catch it now, before all the Oscar buzz kicks in.
Friday 5 December, Netflix

Despite being exiled from pop’s mainstream, he’s outlasted his contemporaries and is still selling out big rooms – what’s the secret to the national institution’s success?

At 85, Sir Cliff Richard is out on the road again. Last week, he wrapped up a run of shows in Australia and New Zealand. Tomorrow, the UK leg of his Can’t Stop Me Now tour opens in Cardiff, finishing at the Royal Albert Hall on 9 December. He was the artist who opened the British rock’n’roll era, with Move It in 1958, and after 67 years he is still selling out big rooms.

To the uninitiated, Sir Cliff’s continued presence is at best a mystery, and at worst an affront to taste. That is to misunderstand him: Sir Cliff doesn’t operate in the music business – despite his gripes with it – so much as in the Cliff Richard business. When he disappeared from national radio, to his great distress, it was because he had long since ceased to operate in a world recognisable to the rest of pop.

Even though he’s partial to hideous noise, free jazz is mostly unknown to the Guardian’s pop critic. A new guidebook from Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore may change his mind

In the 1980s, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore asked his friend, the writer Byron Coley, to furnish him with a selection of jazz tapes to listen to on tour. Moore had experienced New York’s fabled avant-garde jazz loft scene first-hand in the late 1970s but “wasn’t so clued in”, he says. “Perhaps I was too young and too preoccupied by the flurry of activity in punk and no wave.” Now, he was keen to learn more.

The tapes, “of Coltrane, Mingus, Dolphy, Sun Ra, Monk et al”, led him by degrees to free jazz: the style of jazz unmoored from standard rhythms and phrasings, resulting in arguably the most challenging and far-out music one can listen to. “A music both liberated and yet wholly indebted to the learned techniques of its tradition” is how Moore enthusiastically describes it. “In some ways, it’s similar to noise and art rock, where the freedom to experiment with open form comes from a scholarship of the music’s historical lineage … truly a soul music, both political and spiritual.”

Californian singer-songwriter Lukas Frank is picking up rave reviews for his second album’s epic choruses and lush orchestrations

From Los Angeles
Recommended if you like John Grant, Scott Walker, Father John Misty
Up next A cover of Duran Duran’s The Chauffeur is out now, with another single due in February

After several years of perseverance, things are happening for Storefront Church. The audience at this month’s sellout gig at St Pancras Old Church in London included Perfume Genius and members of the Last Dinner Party and the Horrors and their self-released second album, Ink & Oil, is picking up rave reviews. One used the term “emotional flood” to describe the album’s epic, baroque pop, big pianos and drums, sweeping choruses and Travis Warner’s lush, cinematic orchestrations.

(Ghostly International)
Sharon Van Etten, Stephen O’Malley, Perila and more transform the duo’s gloomy, sensual songs on an album of covers and remixes

HTRK have been making their gloomy, sensual brand of music, at the intersection of electronic pop and noise rock, for 22 years. To mark the milestone comes String of Hearts, a collection of covers and remixes featuring an all-star cast of friends and collaborators, from next-gen underground favourites like Coby Sey to fellow old-school experimentalists Liars. This brilliant, genre-agnostic record allows you to trace the breadth of the Melbourne band’s shapeshifting sound, echoes of which can now be found all over underground and commercial music, without leaning too hard on nostalgia.

The record spans HTRK’s early hits right up to their most recent album Rhinestones, a period in which they’ve shifted from a darker, industrial palette to warmer territory. Not that you’d be able to tell here: instrumentals are reshaped by Loraine James’s IDM-style glitches and Zebrablood’s atmospheric breaks, while Jonnine Standish’s disaffected vocals are transformed into desperate alien wails by Liars.

This collection of macabre stories set across England explores class, hierarchy and the enduring nature of inequality

Folk horror may have had a dramatic resurgence in recent years, but it has always been the backbone of much of our national storytelling. A new anthology of 10 stories set across England, Bog People, brings together some of the most accomplished names in the genre.

In her introduction, editor Hollie Starling describes an ancient ritual in a Devon village: the rich throw heated pennies from their windows, watching those in need burn their fingers. Folk horror by its nature is inherently connected to class and hierarchy. Reverence for tradition is a double-edged sword – or a burning-hot coin.

The rain stops, the sun shows, another night comes dark and flowing with energy. I don’t sleep; I feel my way through the landscape, the trees that reach and catch my shirt sleeves, holding on to me, saving me from slipping on mossy roots, the unfriendly gorse keeping me at a distance, saying don’t step here, stopping me from tearing my feet on its throne of thorns. Stars alive, alight, I wish you could see them…

First light fattened like a dying star and formed the signature of an industrial town already at toil predawn, its factory stacks belching the new day black, the mills dyeing the forked-tongue river sterile inside that Hellmouth north of Halifax where paternal cotton kings had housed their workers in spoked rows of blind back-to-backs quick to tilt and rot.

The author on Anna Karenina, the brilliance of Anita Brookner and finally getting Nabokov

My earliest reading memory
I acquired from somewhere, in my more or less atheistic family, a Ladybird Book of the Lord’s Prayer, whose every page I can recover in all its lurid 1960s naturalism. “As they forgive us our trespasses against them …” The horrified boy leaves a hand mark on the wall his father has just painted.

My favourite book growing up
One of my favourites was E Nesbit’s The Wouldbegoods. The lives of those Edwardian children seemed as rich as a plum pudding, with their knickerbockers and their ironies, their cook and their sophisticated vocabulary. I didn’t understand, in my childhood, that they were separated from me by a gulf of time and change. Because of books, the past seemed to be happening in the next room, as if I could step into it effortlessly.

Andy Serkis revels in his narration of the first murder mystery from the author of This Is Going to Hurt, which showcases Kay’s signature pitch-black humour

Dr Eitan Rose is stark naked in a gay sauna when he is called upon to perform CPR on an elderly man and fellow patron who is having a heart attack. When arriving paramedics ask Eitan for his details, he declines to give his real name, instead giving them the name of his work supervisor and nemesis, Douglas Moran. Eitan is a hard-partying consultant rheumatologist who has just returned to work after several months off following a mental health crisis, and who uses liquid cocaine secreted into a nasal inhaler to get through the working day.

When Moran dies in unexpected circumstances, Eitan suspects foul play and sets about finding the culprit. Soon he is performing illicit postmortems and impersonating a police detective so he can cross-examine a suspect. But when he tries to blow the whistle, his colleagues and the police decline to take his claims seriously. Eitan may work among medical professionals, but they are not above stigmatising a colleague diagnosed with bipolar disorder and taking his outlandish claims as evidence of his instability.

It’s always crushing when a wildly anticipated game turns out to be a dud, but this RPG’s awful story and clunky dialogue gave my son and I something to talk about

It was an exciting November for the Diamond household: one of those rare games that we all loved had a sequel coming out! The original Outer Worlds dazzled our eyeballs with its art nouveau palette and charmed our ears with witty dialogue, sucking us into a classic mystery-unravelling story in one of my favourite “little man versus evil corporate overlords” worlds since Deus Ex. It didn’t have the most original combat, but that didn’t matter: it was obviously a labour of love from a team totally invested in the telling of this tale, and we all fell under its spell.

Well, when I say all of us, I mean myself and the three kids. My wife did not play The Outer Worlds, because none of those worlds featured Crash Bandicoot. But the rest of us dug it, and the kids particularly enjoyed that I flounced away from the final boss battle after half a day of trying, declaring that I had pretty much completed the game and that was good enough for a dad with other things to do.

Two decades on, its influence still lingers, marking a moment when gaming felt thrillingly new again

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Almost 20 years ago (on 1 December 2005, to be precise), I was at my very first video game console launch party somewhere around London’s Leicester Square. The Xbox 360 arrived on 22 November 2005 in the US and 2 December in the UK, about three months after I got my first job as a junior staff writer on GamesTM magazine. My memories of the night are hazy because a) it was a worryingly long time ago and b) there was a free bar, but I do remember that DJ Yoda played to a tragically deserted dancefloor, and everything was very green. My memories of the console itself, however, and the games I played on it, are still as clear as an Xbox Crystal. It is up there with the greatest consoles ever.

In 2001, the first Xbox had muscled in on a scene dominated by Japanese consoles, upsetting the established order (it outsold Nintendo’s GameCube by a couple of million) and dragging console gaming into the online era with Xbox Live, an online multiplayer service that was leagues ahead of what the PlayStation 2 was doing. Nonetheless, the PS2 ended up selling over 150m to the original Xbox’s 25m. The Xbox 360, on the other hand, would sell over 80m, neck and neck with the PlayStation 3 for most of its eight-year life cycle (and well ahead in the US). It turned Xbox from an upstart into a market leader.

Nintendo Switch 2; Bandai Namco/Sora/HAL Laboratory/Nintendo
It takes some getting used to, but this Mario Kart challenger soon reveals a satisfyingly zen, minimalist approach to competitive racing

In the world of cartoonish racing games, it’s clear who is top dog. As Nintendo’s moustachioed plumber lords it up from his gilded go-kart, everyone from Crash Bandicoot to Sonic and Garfield has tried – and failed – to skid their way on to the podium. Now with no one left to challenge its karting dominance, Nintendo is attempting to beat itself at its own game.

The unexpected sequel to a critically panned 2003 GameCube game, Kirby Air Riders has the pink squishball and friends hanging on for dear life to floating race machines. With no Grand Prix to compete in, in the game’s titular mode you choose a track and compete to be the first of six players to cross the finish line, spin-attacking each other and unleashing weapons and special abilities to create cutesy, colourful chaos.

From Minecraft chess and coding for kids to retro consoles and Doom on vinyl for grown-ups – hit select and start with these original non-digital presents

Gamers can be a difficult bunch to buy for. Most of them will get their new games digitally from Steam, Xbox, Nintendo or PlayStation’s online shops, so you can’t just wrap up the latest version of Call of Duty and be done with it. Fortunately, there are plenty of useful accessories and fun lifestyle gifts to look out for, and gamers tend to have a lot of other interests that intersect with games in different ways.

So if you have a player in your life, whether they’re young or old(er), here are some ideas chosen by the Guardian’s games writers. And naturally, we’re starting with Lego …

Beauty and the Beast or Wolf Alice? Queen Marie Antoinette or Count Arthur Strong? Come and behold: the holiday season offers stage, film, music and art that’s worth singing about

The 12 Beans of Christmas
Touring to 19 December
Last year, character comedians Adam Riches and John Kearns joined forces for an archly silly tribute to crooners Michael Ball and Alfie Boe. Now Riches is back with another leftfield celebrity riff as he gives his Game of Thrones-era Sean Bean impression (as seen on 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and his Edinburgh show Dungeons’n’Bastards) a yuletide twist. Rachel Aroesti

From Michelangelo and Leonardo to Picasso and Matisse, bitter feuds have defined art. But are contemporary artists more collaborative than their renaissance predecessors?

“He has been here and fired a gun,” John Constable said of JMW Turner. A shootout between these two titans would make a good scene for in a film of their lives, but in reality all Turner did at the 1832 Royal Academy exhibition was add a splash of red to a seascape, to distract from the Constable canvas beside it.

That was by far the most heated moment in what seems to us a struggle on land and sea for supremacy in British art. It’s impossible not to see Tate Britain’s new double header of their work this way. For it is a truth universally acknowledged, to paraphrase their contemporary Jane Austen, that when two great artists live at the same time, they must be bitter and remorseless rivals. But is that really so, and does it help or hinder creativity?

Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, London
Director Holly Race Roughan transposes the summer tale into the darkest of winters as the fairies’ feud over the stolen child leaves the snow smeared with blood

Puck snatches the lovers’ breath from their bodies. They stop mid-sentence, floating under his spell, lanterns shining in the frozen night. Sergo Vares’ malevolent clown, dressed in half tux, half tutu, has chaos in his veins. In this wintery co-production between Headlong and the Globe, comedy and horror sit cheek by jowl, as director Holly Race Roughan conjures a nightmarish take on Shakespeare’s classic dream.

Vares’ crow-like Puck, a nimble shapeshifter, may be the face of the dark deeds in this frosty landscape, but Michael Marcus’s Oberon is the vengeful controller, his every action designed to get his hands on the young girl (Pria Kalsi) in Titania’s care. By shifting the show’s centre of gravity to revolve around this changeling, Roughan brings the play’s brutal undercurrents roaring to the surface.

The Lucky Chance, Frome
Joy radiates from the stage as an ensemble cast from the Emma Rice Company bring Thomas’s twinkling poem to life

Dylan Thomas’s beautiful Christmas poem has that amazing ability to slow life down. It’s a poem to rest inside, with its gently tumbling sentences and twinkling memories of Christmases past. Emma Rice’s exquisite adaptation shares these qualities. There are just five performers – one pianist and four actors – but they bring a flurry of characters to life. There is a little bit of magic in every scene, all of which glow with a very Thomas-esque combination of hope and melancholy.

The ensemble performs in the Emma Rice Company’s new home, a converted church in Frome. It’s tiny. The audience sits on plastic chairs and – perhaps this is just Thomas’s poem casting its spell on me – but it feels like the memory of past communal gatherings lingers here. When encouraged to join in with the carols, the audience responds quickly and with relish. We throw snowballs and socks at the actors and pass around family photos of the characters in the play, handling them as fondly as if they’re our own.

She made a short, and much-ridiculed, trip to space. She tried to buy a house and fell foul of public opinion. And she’s found love, apparently, with Justin Trudeau. Time to get up to speed before this singer next hits the headlines

Do you ever feel like a plastic bag, drifting through the wind, wanting to start again? No? Just Katy Perry then. Seven months since her sense-defying jaunt into space, life on planet Earth hasn’t let up for the embattled hitmaker. She’s back in the headlines this week, implied to be raiding the pockets of a “disabled veteran” while facing scrutiny for her somewhat inexplicable new romance with Justin Trudeau. Yes, that Justin Trudeau. Shall we?

1. Perry wins in court, but loses online
By one metric, such as “relative to the rest of 2025”, this might have been a good week for Katy Perry. Since 2020, she has been embroiled in a legal battle against Carl Westcott, who sold her an eight-bedroom, 11-bathroom mansion in Montecito for $15m. Westcott then attempted to renege on the deal, claiming to have been incapacitated by painkillers (prescribed after a back operation) when signing the paperwork. A judge ruled in Perry’s favour in May last year, finding that Westcott was sound of mind when the sale went through. This week, another judge ruled that Perry was owed $1.8m in damages. This sounds like a win, you might think – except Perry had pushed for Westcott to pay $4.7m, and it’s been widely written up as Perry money-grubbing from an “85-year-old disabled veteran”. To give military.com’s headline, from earlier in the dispute in 2023: “Katy Perry Is Fighting a Dying, Elderly Veteran to Force Him to Sell His Home.” It is true that Westcott served in the 101st Airborne Division, is 85 years old and seriously ill with incurable Huntington’s disease. But the insistent framing may say more about Perry’s unenviable position as pop culture’s preferred punching bag.

One line from Ridley Scott’s classic movie was the shove I needed to walk out on my husband after years of his controlling behaviour

It was 1991, I was in my early 40s, living in the south of England and trapped in a marriage that had long since curdled into something quietly suffocating. My husband had become controlling, first with money, then with almost everything else: what I wore, who I saw, what I said. It crept up so slowly that I didn’t quite realise what was happening.

We had met as students in the early 1970s, both from working-class, northern families and feeling slightly out of place at a university full of public school accents. We shared politics, music and a sense of being outsiders together. For years, life felt full of promise. When our first child arrived, I gave up my local government job to stay at home. That’s when the balance between us shifted.

Tooth was delighted to capture one of Antony Gormley’s statues on Crosby beach – the dog was an unexpected bonus

Twenty years ago, 100 cast-iron, lifesize sculptures were erected across Liverpool’s Crosby beach. Sculptor Antony Gormley – also the man behind Gateshead’s Angel of the North – had created the figures several years previously, and London-based Roger Tooth had for years wanted to visit the Another Place installation and see them for himself. “I was in Liverpool with my wife and friends for a weekend away, and Sunday was an arty day,” Tooth says. “We began at Walker Art Gallery, and ended with a Guinness in the Philharmonic Dining Rooms. In between we headed the two miles outside the city to the statues. Seeing the rusting figures, all facing the sea amid the moving sands, was stunning.”

This was October 2025 and Storm Amy was in full effect. Tooth notes that it was blowing the sand around, and possibly also this dog. “I was taking a closeup of one of the sculptures when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a small white dog bounding towards me,” he says. “I was amazed that an iPhone (and I) could freeze the dog in mid-air.”

Operatic bass-baritone known for his commanding stage presence and exceptional abilities as a singer-actor

At the 1976 premiere of the Bayreuth centenary production of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, there came a moment when Donald McIntyre, playing the part of Wotan, ruler of the gods, turned, in the second act of Die Walküre, to look into a full-length drawing-room mirror. While he whispered his innermost thoughts to his reflection as though scrutinising his own soul, the stillness in the Festspielhaus was breathtaking.

It was one of the great coups de théâtre of the iconoclastic director Patrice Chéreau, and McIntyre carried it off with aplomb. With his leonine physique, commanding stage presence and renowned abilities as a singer-actor, he was able to realise Chéreau’s concept of Wotan as a fallible, compromised worldly ruler rather than a supernatural being worthy of glorification.

Black Friday isn’t all about pricey electronics. Here are all our favourite 2025 deals under £50

• How to shop smart this Black Friday
• The best Black Friday deals on the products we love

Garmin watches and iPhones whose prices fall from insanely unaffordable to merely very expensive may be the headline-grabbers of Black Friday, but they’re not exactly cheap. In a cost-of-living crisis, the true bargains of the sales season are those useful and joy-giving items discounted to genuinely affordable prices.

Here we’ve assembled the best sub-£50 bargains we’ve found so far, with prices falling even further as you scroll down the page. These deals span the Christmas gifting gamut from premium vodka to Sealskinz socks, plus the Filter’s top-rated household items and tech – all now for less than the price of a takeaway.

Quirky and characterful, our gift ideas run from socks and chocs to sleep aids and lovely homeware – and all of them with affordability in mind

• The best Christmas gifts, handpicked by the Filter

We’ve all had it, that sinking feeling after drawing the name of a colleague you barely know from the Secret Santa hat. You’ve shared little more than pleasantries with them, know nothing of their life outside work and don’t even know how they take their coffee.

Then there’s the price cap, which dramatically limits the gift options, and the worry of misjudging who you’re giving the gift to, or even buying something so irrelevant to them that it will end up in the bin.

Never mind the food, what about the vibe? Restaurateurs share tips and tricks that will bring a touch of restaurant magic to your table

Restaurants are temples of aspiration. From sound, scent and ceramics to hand soap and elegant wine glasses, I’ve often wanted to recreate elements of my favourite restaurants at home. I’m unlikely to sous-vide celeriac or triple cook my chips, but I can elevate my plate of pasta with a drizzle of amazing olive oil, or invest in a cutlery set that gives even a midweek dinner a sense of occasion. As much as the cooking, it’s the little details that are, as celebrated chef Skye Gyngell puts it, “what you take away and what make you feel wonderful”.

I spoke to restaurateurs across the UK about the little touches that make their restaurants distinctive – and easy ways to bring their magic into our homes.

Where to find premium versions of this beloved kitchen staple to bring to your next dinner party or Christmas do

This festive season, olive oil is the new bottle of wine. If booze or a scented candle used to be a fail-safe gift option for a party, retailers and food experts are reporting a surge of interest in the kitchen cupboard staple.

The trend is being driven by several factors including a decline in drinking and a shift from dining out to dinners at home. It is premium extra virgin olive oil – or evoo to the experts – that is dominating.

We’ve tasted, sniffed and inspected more than 300 presents to bring you our ultimate Christmas gift guide – from must-have Lego and smoky mezcal to Meera Sodha’s favourite knife

Don’t you just love Christmas shopping? There’s a massive thrill in finding a present you know they’ll love and won’t have thought to ask for, but the pressure is enough to drive any sane person to hibernation.

We’ve gone the extra (2,000) miles to help you find the perfect gifts: we’ve tested out the latest products to see which ones are worth the hype (and which aren’t); trawled shops in person; enlisted babies (OK, their parents), tweens and teens to test out toys and give us their must-haves; tasted the good, bad and the did-I-really-put-this-in-my-mouth; and rounded up some of the products that were tried and tested by us this year.

This Eryri refuge for hillwalkers and climbers has been reborn, breathing new life into the once-struggling mountain village of Llanberis

Pete’s Eats, the famous climbers’ cafe in the heart of Eryri (Snowdonia), reopened this summer after almost three years of being shuttered. The newly minted version is a swish affair, with a copper-topped bar, distressed wood panels, local craft beers, tacos and a handsome crew of young locals in branded T-shirts. A lot of money has clearly been spent on the refurb, and it seems to be at the forefront of a new wave of developments in the historic village of Llanberis.

When Pete Norton and his wife Victoria opened a cafe here in 1978, they envisioned a refuge for climbers, hillwalkers and anyone else who was hungry after a day out on the hills of Eryri. Rain-lashed visitors stumbling in from a long hike could look forward to pint mugs of tea poured from a metal teapot the size of a rhino’s skull, huge plates of steaming chilli and vegetable curry on brown rice, an all-day breakfast or mountainous chip butties.

It may not be as glamorous as Monaco, but it was on the raceway where a seven-year-old Norris first caught the eye of motor sport trainers

Monaco, Las Vegas, Singapore. The list of pitstops on Lando Norris’ road to the top of Formula One is like a luxury travel agent’s catalogue.

So when I was asked to trace the young man’s journey ahead of a weekend in which he could become the first British champion driver since Lewis Hamilton, my hopes were high.

The French know how to do Christmas, be it a tender roast capon with rustic chestnuts and layer upon layer of baked, buttery potatoes, or an unmissable cheesy souffle

Rooted in French tradition, this menu celebrates the elegance of seasonal cooking. The twice-baked comté soufflé, light and delicately cheesy, is a timeless favourite that’s simple to prepare yet sure to impress. It’s followed by a roast capon, the festive bird of choice in France, prized for its tender, delicious meat, and paired with chestnuts and pommes Anna. These classic recipes are not just reserved for Christmas tables, but I think the combination captures the spirit of comfort and indulgence that defines traditional French gastronomy.

A stunning but simple festive vegetarian centrepiece for the whole table to enjoy

Last year I wrote about how I lost my food fandango, got it back, and now simplify matters, especially in the kitchen. This means I no longer do feasts with lots of elements, even at Christmas, but I still adore a showstopper, especially one that the whole table, irrespective of dietary requirements, can enjoy together. This year’s offering is such a centrepiece, an aubergine timbale (timbale means drum) packed to the gunnels with vegetables, rice, nuts, fruit, spices and, should you wish it (you should), one of the finest cheeses to come out of Normandy: Boursin.

A festively fizzy, rosy-red aperitif based on a rustic Italian strawberry liqueur

Earlier this year, we launched a range of tiny cocktails in collaboration with drinks writer Tyler Zielinski to reimagine Italian classics in miniature form, all designed to serve as light, pre-dinner tipples. This one’s suitably red, to go with the festive season.

Matteo Pesce, head of beverage, with Tyler Zielinski for Bar Lina, London and Manchester

Make all the individual elements ahead of time, then, on the day, as if by magic, you can conjure up this amazing tower of choux buns and smother it in boozy chocolate sauce

Christmas is the perfect time for something a bit more extravagant and theatrical. And a very good way to achieve this is to bring a tower of puffy choux buns to the table and pour over a jugful of boozy chocolate sauce and coffee caramel while everyone looks on in awe. To help avoid any stress on the day, most of the elements can be made ahead: the chocolate sauce and caramel can be gently reheated before pouring, while the choux shells can be baked the day before and crisped up in the oven for 10 minutes before filling.

Shaped by lockdown and two Trump presidencies, gen Z are grappling with a lot in love, dating and the bedroom

The sex lives of gen Z are of great interest – to politicians, to parents, to influencers and dating app executives and to you, apparently. Are gen Z so lonely they are falling in love with AI robots? Are they forming polycules across the US? Are they having enough sex? Are they having sex at all?

Gen Z is defined roughly as young Americans aged 13 to 28. This generation came of age with information about sex readily available to them, for better (the internet provides both sex education and community) and arguably for worse, too (in 2022, 54% of US teens reported first seeing online pornography at age 13 or younger). They are more likely to embrace non-traditional identities and are progressive on issues such as abortion rights and same-sex marriage – especially gen Z women.

It’s important to express your disagreement: for their sake as much as yours, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. But first decide on what you aim to accomplish

• Read more Leading questions

How do I respond to someone who contributes to a conversation with “I’m not racist, but … ” and then inevitably proceeds to say something racist, such as talking about immigrants on benefits or getting priority for housing?

I’m referring to social occasions with people that I am not necessarily close to but rather acquaintances I may bump into semi-regularly. I feel myself getting simultaneously angry and tongue-tied and I mostly sit with my frustration to maintain some sense of harmony in the group.

Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning

From picking your guests (always add a random) and your outfit, to coping with drunks and nudity, this is what you need to know

When I was young, I thought the worst thing you could do, as a host, was to run out of booze. Then, when I was less young, I thought it was to not have enough food, and now I am perfectly wise, I know that those things don’t matter at all, because you can always go to the shop. The important thing is not to look harried, and to not look that way, you need to not be that way.

It is said to be harder to make friends as you age. But I found that a mix of apps and other tools, as well as a happy attitude, led to a world of potential new pals

Tonight, Rachel, Elvira and I will meet for dinner. A year ago, none of us knew the others existed. Six months ago Rachel and Elvira were strangers until I introduced them. But now, here we are, something as close to firm friends as is possible after such a short time.

If you’ve ever consumed any media, you would be forgiven for thinking that life after 35 is a burning wasteland of unimaginable horrors: the beginnings of incessant back pain, an interest in dishwasher loading, the discovery that you’re ineligible for entire industries billed as “a young person’s game”, and, apparently, an inability to make friends.

From Isas to salary sacrifice and inheritance to property tax, here’s how to best navigate the chancellor’s changes

• Your questions about your finances answered

• ‘Struggling to pay the bills’: Britons under pressure react to budget

• Video: tax, pensions and energy bills: how the budget could affect you

After much anticipation, the chancellor delivered her second budget this week, unveiling a series of changes that could affect how you spend and save your money.

Here are some suggestions to consider what might lessen the impact on your finances.

Use our interactive tool to see how you have been affected by Rachel Reeves’s tax and spending announcements. Use the arrow keys to scroll sideways and enter your details

• How does freezing tax thresholds affect your tax bill?

• Budget 2025: key points at a glance

From joint bank accounts and pooled savings to mortgages and tax allowances, talk about money for a happy financial future together

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer for whether you should manage your finances jointly, separately or somewhere in the middle.

Rachel Reeves’s ‘mansion tax’ may encourage people who were considering downsizing to do so. Here are some options

If you aren’t getting the quality time or intimacy you need, try these connection experiments to shake up interactions

Lately, life has felt like Groundhog Day: work, gym, sleep, repeat. Between a punishing work schedule, the grim weather and my desire to hibernate, my social life has suffered. I feel dissatisfied, restless and isolated. But I have plenty of friends and active group chats – I can’t be lonely, surely?

Wrong!

It used to be all boozy lunches and late-night carousing. Now it’s hyperbaric chambers and longevity chat. Andrew Carnie, CEO of the private club, explains how life and trends have changed since the Covid era

Friday night in the north of England. On the ninth floor of the old Granada Studios, a very chi-chi crowd is drinking tequila and eating crisps. Not Walkers out of the bag, mind, but canapes of individual crisps with creme fraiche and generous dollops of caviar. A young woman – leather shorts, chunky boots, neon lime nails, artfully messy bob – winks at me from the other side of the silver tray. “Ooh, caviar. Very posh for Manchester.”

Soho House’s 48th members’ club has caused quite the stir. Thirty years after Nick Jones opened the first club in Soho, London, the first north of England outpost of the empire is raising eyebrows. An exclusive club, in the city that AJP Taylor described as “the only place in England which escapes our characteristic vice of snobbery”. (The home, after all, of the Guardian.) An open-air rooftop pool, in the climate that fostered the textile industry because the rain created the perfect cool, damp conditions for spinning cotton. Will it work?

Here’s what you should know before getting an epidural – and why it might not provide full pain relief as expected

The first time I got an epidural, it was too late.

I’d heard it was best to wait, for fear the medication would run out mid-labor (I later found out this is a myth). So I gritted my teeth through hours of contractions, and when I finally told the nurses I was ready, the anesthesiologist was with another patient.

Our muscles, bones and organs are held together by a network of tissue that influences our every move. Is there a way we can use it to our advantage?

Fascia, the connective tissue that holds together the body’s internal structure, really hasn’t spent all that long in the limelight. Anatomists have known about its existence since before the Hippocratic oath was a thing, but until the 1980s it was routinely tossed in the bin during human dissections, regarded as little more than the wrapping that gets in the way of studying everything else. Over the past few decades, though, our understanding of it has evolved and (arguably) overshot – now, there are plenty of personal trainers who will insist that you should be loosening it up with a foam roller, or even harnessing its magical elastic powers to jump higher and do more press-ups. But what’s it really doing – and is there a way you can actually take advantage of it?

“The easiest way to describe fascia is to think about the structure of a tangerine,” says Natasha Kilian, a specialist in musculoskeletal physiotherapy at Pure Sports Medicine. “You’ve got the outer skin, and beneath that, the white pith that separates the segments and holds them together. Fascia works in a similar way: it’s a continuous, all-encompassing network that wraps around and connects everything in the body, from muscles and nerves to blood vessels and organs. It’s essentially the body’s internal wetsuit, keeping everything supported and integrated.” If you’ve ever carved a joint of meat, it’s the thin, silvery layer wrapped around the muscle, like clingfilm.

If ‘naked dressing’ is a stretch too far, sheer fabrics can provide a real-life friendly compromise

Fashion loves nothing more than an extreme trend, one difficult to imagine transferring to most people’s everyday lives. See naked dressing, where stars on the red carpet wear transparent and sometimes barely there gowns.

This party season, however, there appears to be a real-life friendly compromise. Enter the sheer skirt.

Now a hugely popular photographic genre, many women pay thousands to have intimate portraits taken of themselves by a professional. What do they get out of it?

A few hours into Brittany Witt’s boudoir shoot, with the mimosas kicking in and the music going strong, the photographer asked: “How do we feel about some completely nude photos?” Witt was lying on the bed in lingerie, in a studio in Texas, and hadn’t considered nudity an option. “I was like: ‘OK, we’re on this trust path.’” She undressed. The photographer, JoAnna Moore, covered Witt with body oil and squirted her with water, then asked her “to crawl across the floor with my full trust,” Witt says. “I did so. The pose was nude, and it was completely open. I wasn’t covered with a sheet. It was all out, it was all open, and it brought that worst level of self-doubt. I was terrified.”

Witt, 33, has come to see that terror as an important part of her experience. She used to be a competitive weightlifter. “I had a very masculine aura. I showed up in strength,” she says. At school and work – in the construction side of the oil and gas industry – she was “type A – scheduler, planner, had everything together, kind of led the group”. A turbulent home life when she was growing up led her to develop robust protection mechanisms which, in adulthood, acted as a block to relationships – issues she had been addressing with a life coach. But in that moment, on all-fours in Moore’s studio: “I felt those protections stripped away. There was nothing to hide behind, literally, figuratively.”

What begins as a harmless scroll through the secondhand app quickly turns into a window on our anxieties, ambitions and alter egos

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This week’s newsletter idea stemmed from where all good ideas stem from – procrastinating while on a deadline. All it took was for one person to reveal what was on their Vinted Favourites list and suddenly everyone was whipping out phones to compare.

The Lithuanian resale platform launched in the UK just over 10 years ago, but really revved up during 2021 when many of us ran out of excuses to avoid clearing out our wardrobes. Today, “it’s from Vinted” has become a humblebrag indicating you are the type of person who can track down a great deal and don’t buy new from mass retailers.

Whether it’s a tipple with the neighbours or your office party, dress to impress in tactile fabrics and jewel tones

From an ancient castle in Easter Ross to a cosy cabin on Lough Erne, our tipsters share their favourite country boltholes for an active winter escape
• Tell us about a UK winter walk – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

After a beautiful wintry walk along the Roaches in Staffordshire (having been fuelled with Staffordshire oatcakes), we stayed at the historic YHA Hartington Hall youth hostel, a period drama setting for a cosy bunk. We woke up to find the Peak District under a blanket of snow, calm and with that magical silence that makes the world feel at peace.
Ruth Campbell

A series of walking festivals and cultural programmes aim to lure visitors to the Algarve’s woodland interiors and pretty villages to help boost tourism year round

‘I never mind doing the same walk over and over again,” said our guide, Joana Almeida, crouching beside a cluster of flowers. “Each time, there are new things – these weren’t here yesterday.” Standing on stems at least two centimetres tall and starring the dirt with white petals, the fact these star of Bethlehem flowers sprung up overnight was a beautiful testament to how quickly things can grow and regenerate in this hilly, inland section of the Algarve, the national forest of Barão de São João. It was also reassuring to learn that in an area swept by forest fires in September, species such as strawberry trees (which are fire-resistant thanks to their low resin content) were beginning to bounce back – alongside highly flammable eucalyptus, which hinders other fire-retardant trees such as oak. Volunteers were being recruited to help with rewilding.

Visitor numbers to the Algarve are growing, with 2024 showing an increase of 2.6% on the previous year – but most arrivals head straight for the beach, despite there being so much more to explore. The shoreline is certainly wild and dramatic but the region is also keen to highlight the appeal of its inland areas. With the development of year-round hiking and cycling trails, plus the introduction of nature festivals, attention is being drawn to these equally compelling landscapes, featuring mountains and dense woodlands. The Algarve Walking Season (AWS) runs a series of five walking festivals with loose themes such as “water” and “archaeology” between November and April. It’s hoped they will inspire visitors year round, boosting the local economy and helping stem the tide of younger generations leaving in search of work.

With stunning beaches, cosy cafes and a lot fewer people, the unspoilt surfing village of Croyde has just as much to offer out of season

It’s been a while since I’ve struggled into damp neoprene of a morning. It’s the second day of a wintry weekend in Croyde, north-west Devon; I’m stiff from an hour in the sea the previous afternoon, and the upper part of the super-thick wetsuit won’t budge past my elbows. Together, my husband, Mark, and I jiggle and pull and yank it over my limbs. Finally, five minutes later, I am in a silver-blue sea, entirely empty, save for us. White-crested waves roll in, broiling and foaming, rocketing us forward towards the empty swathe of sand. For once there are no other boarders to dodge, no surfers whisking past: it’s exhilarating, extraordinary and … really rather cold.

Croyde has long been a family favourite, but visiting in November does feel a bit of a gamble. It has a reputation as something of a ghost town in the off-season, with a large number of second homes and rentals that stay dark from October to April. But when an unexpected email landed from Endless Summer Beach House offering a 20% discount on winter stays, it seemed the ideal 30th birthday treat for my nephew, Ben. So, together with his girlfriend, Tasha, best mate, Rob, and my sister Caroline, we decided to take the plunge and find out what off-season Croyde is actually like.

The Alicante region is renowned for its rice and seafood dishes. Less well known is that its restaurant scene has a wealth of talented female chefs, a rarity in Spain

I’m on a quest in buzzy, beachy Alicante on the Costa Blanca to investigate the rice dishes the Valencian province is famed for, as well as explore the vast palm grove of nearby Elche. I start with a pilgrimage to a restaurant featured in my book on tapas, New Tapas, a mere 25 years ago. Mesón de Labradores in the pedestrianised old town is now engulfed by Italian eateries (so more pizza and pasta than paella) but it remains a comforting outpost of tradition and honest food.

Here I catch up with Timothy Denny, a British chef who relocated to Spain, gained an alicantina girlfriend and became a master of dishes from the region. Over a fideuá de mariscos (seafood noodles, €20), we chew over local gastronomy. “For me, Alicante epitomises the Mediterranean – for rice, seafood and artichokes,” he says. “But there are curiosities, too, like pavo borracho.” Tim explains that so-called “drunken turkeys” are cooked in vast amounts of cognac plus a shot of red wine and eventually emerge as a hefty stew, perfect in winter.

The online banker sounds concerned, as if he’s trying to keep me on the line until the ambulance arrives

Certain contractual terms oblige my oldest sons to periodically appear at their places of employment. On rare occasions they both go in on the same day. On this particular day, my wife and the dog are also out. I’m alone in the house.

I’m lingering over lunch – because, why not? – when my phone pings in my pocket. It’s a text from my bank.

From Charon, Styx and Nix to Dr Fink and Bobby Z, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz

1 Which famous portrait is claimed to be of Magdalena van Ruijven from Delft?
2 Charon, Styx and Nix are satellites of which body in the solar system?
3 What type of passport was abolished in 1996?
4 Which Commonwealth capital was built by the Knights of St John?
5 Which African-born influencer is the most followed person on TikTok?
6 Whose Book of Household Management was a Victorian bestseller?
7 Which Devon racecourse is the southernmost in Britain?
8 Whose backing band included Wendy & Lisa, Dr Fink and Bobby Z?
What links:
9 Derwent; Dove; Etherow; Goyt; Wye?
10 Luton Town; Oldham Athletic; Preston North End; QPR?
11 Crucifixion; assassination of Abraham Lincoln; signing of Belfast agreement?
12 Ani Mikheeva; Bella Baxter; Evelyn Quan Wang; Tammy Faye Bakker?
13 Lift; drag; thrust; weight?
14 Singer Marc Almond; comedian Thomas Derbyshire; chemist John Farrow?
15 Golden (English); stone (German); royal (French and Spanish)?

Purwell Ninesprings, Hertfordshire: A chilly evening spent interpreting rustles and admiring the silhouetted trees – now that’s what I call a bargain

I used to regard November as the D month. Dank. Dismal. Dreary. Depressing. That is, until I discovered the Dark. My conversion took place on Black Friday 2019, as I sat alone in a Bedfordshire wood under a sliver of moon.

With eyes slowly acclimatising, I started to pick out night’s nuances – the pale suggestion of leaves underfoot, a glimmer of eyes? What surprised me, though, was the sound. Behind me, the woodland stream continued flowing as loudly and vigorously as by day, yet it seemed incongruous in the darkness, as if the water should be slowing and quietening, preparing to bed down for the night. The irrepressible gushing dispelled any anthropocentric notion that the natural world is a diminished place after dusk.

Dread the thought of party chat? This selection of cultural keypoints will put some fizz in your conversation

It seemed Trump had finally dealt with domestic terrorist Jimmy Kimmel after his chat show was briefly cancelled, but now it’s back on air. So should we expect more censorship? Surely South Park is skating on thin ice by mocking the president and his allegedly inadequate penis? Maybe the president will throw a curveball and declare a nature show about squirrels to be a secret antifa recruitment operation? Or perhaps he will simply cut the niceties and just put Oprah Winfrey up on Showtrial (“Ratings like you’ve never seen before!”)?

Alan, 87, has devoted his life to trying to defy death, and has promised his wife, Sylvia, that they will be cryogenically preserved upon death to be reunited in the future. However, when Sylvia dies all too soon, Alan unexpectedly falls in love with another woman and is forced to reconsider his future plans. An extraordinary love story, told with humour and tenderness about how we deal with loss, our own mortality and the prospect of eternal life.

As navies seek to counter submarines and protect cables, startups and big defence companies fight to lead market

Flying drones used during the Ukraine war have changed land battle tactics for ever. Now the same thing appears to be happening under the sea.

Navies around the world are racing to add autonomous submarines. The UK’s Royal Navy is planning a fleet of underwater uncrewed vehicles (UUVs) which will, for the first time, take a leading role in tracking submarines and protecting undersea cables and pipelines. Australia has committed to spending $1.7bn (£1.3bn) on “Ghost Shark” submarines to counter Chinese submarines. The huge US Navy is spending billions on several UUV projects, including one already in use that can be launched from nuclear submarines.

Ahead of their 11th movie together, the actor and director discuss musicals, the legacy of Philip Seymour Hoffman and what being bald and 5ft tall does to your flirting skills

‘I like this, it’s good,” Ethan Hawke tells Richard Linklater, midway through a lively digression that has already hopped from politics to the Beatles to the late films of John Huston. “What’s good?” asks Linklater. “All of this,” says Hawke, by which he means the London hotel suite with its coffee table, couch and matching upholstered armchairs; the whole chilly machinery of the international press junket. “I like that we get to spend a couple of days in a room,” he says. “It feels like a continuation of the same conversation we’ve been having for the past 32 years.”

It’s all about the conversation with Linklater and Hawke. The two men like to talk; often the talk sparks a film. The director and actor first met backstage at a play in 1993 (“Sophistry, by Jon Marc Sherman,” says Linklater) and wound up chatting until dawn. The talk laid the ground for what would eventually become Before Sunrise, a star-crossed romance that channelled an off-screen bromance as it sent Hawke and Julie Delpy wandering around mid-90s Vienna, walking and talking and stopping to kiss. “Yeah, that was the moment. That set the tone,” says Linklater, remembering. “Meeting Ethan backstage, then flying out to Vienna.”

Twenty years after the first face transplant, patients are dying, data is missing, and the experimental procedure’s future hangs in the balance

In the early hours of 28 May 2005, Isabelle Dinoire woke up in a pool of blood. After fighting with her family the night before, she turned to alcohol and sleeping tablets “to forget”, she later said.

Reaching for a cigarette out of habit, she realized she couldn’t hold it between her lips. She understood something was wrong.

We would like to hear from people who could be affected by the new council tax surcharge on homes worth £2m or more

Rachel Reeves has announced that from April 2028, owners of properties in England valued at £2m and over in 2026 will be required to pay an annual council tax surcharge.

The value of qualifying properties will be determined next year by the government’s Valuation Office Agency, with four price bands. The surcharge will rise from £2,500 a year for properties valued between £2m and £2.5m, to £7,500 a year for those valued in the highest band of £5m and above.

If you have a question about the budget, let us know here and we’ll try to answer it

Rachel Reeves has set out her budget, in which she has scrapped the two-child benefit cap, brought in a new “mansion tax” on high-value properties and introduced higher income tax rates on savings, dividends and money earned from property.

As expected, the chancellor also announced that income tax thresholds would be frozen until the 2030-31 tax year. Basic rates of income tax, VAT and national insurance will not go up, which Reeves says means Labour has kept its manifesto pledge not to raise taxes on working people.

As Sean Duffy has urged passengers to mind their manners, we would like to hear about the worst breaches of airline etiquette that you’ve seen

The US transportation secretary Sean Duffy has started a “civility campaign” for air travel, urging passengers to dress smartly instead of wearing PJs and slippers, keeping children’s behaviour in check and remembering their manners.

With this in mind, we would like to hear about the untoward airline behaviour you’ve witnessed. What is the worst breach of aeroplane etiquette you’ve seen?

Guardian column the Pet I’ll Never Forget is returning and we’d like to hear your stories about the amazing pets that you’ve loved

After a one year hiatus - and due to popular demand - the Guardian will soon be resuming the Pet I’ll Never Forget, a column celebrating the magnificent creatures and mischievous critters who have left an indelible mark on their owners.

It’s a real who’s who of pet royalty. There’s Nelson, the unapologetic one-eyed cat; Verity, the kleptomaniac pug; Thumper, the frisky rabbit who got pregnant through her cage; Rambo, the Dexter-watching tarantula, to name but a few.

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The Hong Kong tower block fire, Russian drone strikes in Kharkiv, floods in Thailand and Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York: the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists