The new Data (Use and Access) Act, which criminalises intimate image abuse, is a huge victory won fast in a space where progress is often glacially slow

For Jodie*, watching the conviction of her best friend, and knowing she helped secure it, felt at first like a kind of victory. It was certainly more than most survivors of deepfake image-based abuse could expect.

They had met as students and bonded over their shared love of music. In the years since graduation, he’d also become her support system, the friend she reached for each time she learned that her images and personal details had been posted online without her consent. Jodie’s pictures, along with her real name and correct bio, were used on many platforms for fake dating profiles, then adverts for sex work, then posted on to Reddit and other online forums with invitations to deepfake them into pornography. The results ended up on porn sites. All this continued for almost two years, until Jodie finally worked out who was doing it — her best friend – identified more of his victims, compiled 60 pages of evidence, and presented it to police. She had to try two police stations, having been told at the first that no crime had been committed. Ultimately he admitted to 15 charges of “sending messages that were grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing nature” and received a 20-week prison sentence, suspended for two years.

Aitana Bonmatí has been voted the best female player on the planet by our panel of 127 experts ahead of Mariona Caldentey and Alessia Russo

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Touted as a cure for everything from wrinkles to autism, the treatment has been hyped by Robert F Kennedy Jr and various celebrities. Experts say it needs to be regulated

• Warning: this article contains distressing content

It was the kind of cold, damp morning that makes it hard to get out of bed, much less get a child out the door. The sun had not even risen when five-year-old Thomas Cooper and his mother, Annie Cooper, arrived for an appointment on 31 January at the Oxford Center in Troy, a northern suburb of Detroit, Michigan.

Thomas was an exuberant child with a button nose and pinchable cheeks – a little kid who loved running fast, playing Minecraft and watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, according to a GoFundMe set up by his family. He had just received money in a special red envelope for lunar new year, and he planned to spend it later that day with his little brother. But first, he was going to receive hyperbaric oxygen therapy for his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and sleep apnea.

Terry Ball – renowned shoe salesman, friend to former mafiosi – has vowed to spend his remaining years finding ways to cheat authorities he feels have cheated him. His greatest ruse? A tax-dodging snail empire

It is a drizzly October afternoon and I am sitting in a rural Lancashire pub drinking pints of Moretti with London’s leading snail farmer and a convicted member of the Naples mafia. We’re discussing the best way to stop a mollusc orgy.

The farmer, a 79-year-old former shoe salesman called Terry Ball who has made and lost multiple fortunes, has been cheerfully telling me in great detail for several hours about how he was inspired by former Conservative minister Michael Gove to use snails to cheat local councils out of tens of millions of pounds in taxes.

Reports of escaped wallabies are on the rise, especially in southern England. But how easy is it to spot these strange and charismatic marsupials – and why would a quintessentially Australian creature settle here?

It was about 9.30 or 10 on a dark, late November night; Molly Laird was driving her pink Mini home along country lanes to her Warwickshire cottage. Suddenly, the headlights’ beam picked up an animal sitting in the road. “I thought it was a deer at first,” Molly tells me. “But when it moved, its tail wasn’t right, and it was hopping. It took me a while to realise, but I thought: that’s a kangaroo!”

Molly’s next thought was: “I’m going insane,” closely followed by, “No one’s going to believe me.” So she got out her phone and filmed it. Later, she posted the video on social media, where she was told it was likely to be not a kangaroo, but its smaller cousin, the red-necked wallaby.

The imposing concrete buildings that defined British postwar architecture held a vision of the future – but many fell into disrepair. A new book finds the finest examples

Richard Tice says testimony by about two dozen people about party leader’s school days is ‘made-up twaddle’

• Nigel Farage faces fresh claims of racism and antisemitism at school

Reform UK’s deputy leader has described a celebrated film director and a large and growing group of corroborating witnesses as liars over their allegations of Nigel Farage’s teenage antisemitism and racism.

With the bigotry row continuing to dog Reform, whose lead in the national polls has slipped in recent weeks, Richard Tice turned on those who claimed to have been abused and those who say they saw it.

‘Overwhelming’ evidence that Russian state planned attack on ex-spy Sergei Skripal that led to Sturgess’s death in 2018, says chair

Vladimir Putin is “morally responsible” for the death of a British woman killed after she sprayed herself with a nerve agent smuggled into the UK by Russian agents to assassinate a former spy, an inquiry has concluded.

Lord Hughes, the chair of the inquiry, said the assassination attempt on the former spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in March 2018 must have been authorised by the Russian president.

Lord Evans of Watford and other directors of investment firm deny claims made in lawsuits they say are ‘meritless’

A peer suspended by the House of Lords for breaking lobbying rules is now facing claims that he received at least $1m (£760,000) from an allegedly corrupt deal.

Lord Evans of Watford, a longtime Labour peer, was found last week by the House of Lords watchdog to have broken its rules four times after undercover reporting by the Guardian, and will be suspended for five months.

• Second Test, day one: England 325-9

• Starc has 6-71 but Root and Archer add 61* for 10th wicket

It was one of the most intense opening days to a Test match in recent memory. The Gabba was like a cauldron, the air as thick as soup, and with the pink ball zipping around for Mitchell Starc as he continued his bulldozing start to the series, the pressure on England felt relentless.

And yet at 8.38pm local time all this melted away as Joe Root tickled Scott Boland fine for four to seal his 40th Test century and – far more notably – his first on Australian soil at the 30th time of asking. Root insisted this tour was never about addressing the gap in his otherwise stellar CV but, even with a cheeky shrug upon doing so, the sense of relief was palpable.

Party is investigating Ian Cooper as Labour MPs call for him to resign as leader of Staffordshire county council

• UK politics live – latest updates

Nigel Farage has been urged to sack a Reform UK council leader accused of racism over social media posts including one saying a black British lawyer should have “F’d off back to Nigeria”.

Ian Cooper, the leader of Staffordshire county council, allegedly called Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, a “narcissistic Pakistani” and said migrants were “intent on colonising the UK, destroying all that has gone before”.

Angela Rayner drops plan to force earlier implementation after talks, says source, with start date to be announced in Commons

• UK politics live – latest updates

Ministers will speed up the implementation of protections against unfair dismissal for workers so that they start from 2027 after brokering a compromise with Angela Rayner.

Rayner, the former deputy prime minister and architect of the employment rights bill, had been planning to lay an amendment to ensure the protections come into force from early next year. But she will no longer do so after conversations with Peter Kyle, the business secretary.

German magazine Der Spiegel has reported the warning, quoting a leaked note from a recent call between the European leaders

But on a more serious note, we are hearing that German chancellor Friedrich Merz has postponed his planned visit to Norway scheduled for Friday and will travel to Brussels instead.

Merz will travel to Belgium for a private dinner with Belgian prime minister Bart De Wever and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, his spokesperson said in comments reported by Reuters.

Watchdog investigating South East Water contamination issue had previously warned of potential health danger

• UK politics live – latest updates

A water treatment centre that failed and led to tens of thousands of people in Tunbridge Wells being cut off from the supply had previously been served a warning by the regulator over bacteria and pesticide contamination risks.

The Kent town is under a boil water notice after residents’ water supplies were cut on Saturday. South East Water has told residents the water from their taps is unsuitable for drinking, giving to pets, brushing teeth, washing children , or bathing in with an open wound.

Any Lucia López Belloza, 19, was detained at Boston airport while on the way to see family in Austin for a surprise trip

Any Lucia López Belloza had not seen her parents and two little sisters since starting her first semester at Babson College, near Boston in August. A family friend gave her plane tickets so she could fly home to Austin and surprise them for Thanksgiving.

The 19-year-old business student was already at the boarding gate at Boston airport when she was told there was an “error” with her boarding pass; when she reached customer service, she was handcuffed and arrested by what she believed were two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

Once home to gold and prospectors, the Nevada desert is now the site of a new kind of expansion: tech datacenters

Driving down the interstate through the dry Nevada desert, there are few signs that a vast expanse of new construction is hiding behind the sagebrush-covered hills. But, just beyond a massive power plant and transmission towers that march up into the dusty brown mountains, lies one of the world’s biggest buildouts of data centers – miles of new concrete buildings that house millions of computer servers.

This business park, called the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center, has a sprawling landmass greater than the city of Denver. It is home to the largest data center in the US, built by the company Switch, and tech giants like Google and Microsoft have also bought land here and are constructing enormous facilities. A separate Apple data center complex is just down the road. Tesla’s gigafactory, which builds electric vehicle batteries, is a resident too.

Vehicle hire firms have struggled to succeed in London but other European countries offer examples to follow

Rotherhithe Community Kitchen in south London has been delivering hundreds of cooked meals a week for the last two years to pensioners and vulnerable residents. Yet the volunteer group’s plans have been thrown into disarray by the news that they will not have access to cars and vans on New Year’s Day.

The group had relied on Zipcar, the car-sharing company that offered customers the ability to access its fleet of vehicles from the street using an app. The company caused shock across London on Monday when it said it would shut down UK operations from 1 January.

Five families around the world share their struggles to keep their children away from UPFs

• Parents and young people: share your concerns about ultra-processed foods (UPFs)

The scourge of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) is global. While their consumption is particularly high in the west, forming more than half the average diet in the UK and the US, for example, UPFs are replacing fresh food in diets on every continent.

This month, the world’s largest review on the health threats of UPFs was published in the Lancet. It warned that such foods are exposing millions of people to long-term harm, and called for urgent action. Earlier this year Unicef revealed that more children around the world were obese than underweight for the first time, as junk food overwhelms diets, with the steepest rises in low- and middle-income countries.

The actor on playing Draco Malfoy, all-night fishing with his brother and taking a beating from Chadwick Boseman

Who is your favourite other school bully: Donovan from The Inbetweeners, Biff Tannen from Back to the Future, Heather Chandler from Heathers, Nelson Muntz from The Simpsons or Gripper Stebson from Grange Hill? Dr_J_A_Zoidberg
I have so much compassion for Draco [Malfoy], knowing that he is the result of piss-poor parenting on his father’s side. I know James Buckley from The Inbetweeners very well. His character is an example of a comedic bully. But as a lifelong fan of The Simpsons, I’m going to have to say my favourite is Nelson Muntz.

What’s the biggest fish you’ve ever caught? TopTramp
A 37lb 4oz common carp caught on the St Lawrence river in New York state 15 years ago. Chris, my older brother, got me into fishing, while he was my chaperone on Harry Potter. My mum chaperoned me for the first film, and my grandfather for the second. He looked so much like a wizard that [director] Chris Columbus cast him at the teachers’ table next to Dumbledore. Then my brother was commandeered. He was one of the worst chaperones in history – all he seemed to do was sleep the entire day – but that’s probably because we’d been up all night, fishing. Some days we’d leave set at 6pm, drive two hours back to Surrey where we lived, go straight to a lake, cast our rods, set up a tent, sleep – barely – for a few hours, wake at 6am, pack up, and head straight back to Hogwarts. It was a great introduction to a lifelong passion of being outdoors, fishing and walking the dogs.

From Ewan Roy in Succession to Sideshow Bob in The Simpsons, here are 15 truly unforgettable characters who elevated their shows – when they eventually turned up

Mike Hannigan was the only character to truly feel like a seventh Friend. He was the perfect match for Phoebe, a lightning rod for her kookiness and providing the solid family she’d never had. It wasn’t just the fact that he was played by Paul Rudd that managed to win over the viewers. His profile was nowhere near what it would later become, so the audience weren’t responding to star power in the same way they had, say, to Bruce Willis, Tom Selleck or Reese Witherspoon. Mike had to play the long game, put in the graft and win Phoebe’s trust, and won ours in the process. AJ, London

He’ll be forever known for his festive hit, but Wood was virtually the face of 70s glam rock – writing and performing stomping hits with the Move, ELO and Wizzard

Roy Wood occasionally wrote for others – psych fans should check the Acid Gallery’s splendid 1969 single Dance Round the Maypole – and the single he made with girlfriend Ayshea Brough, an early 70s TV presenter, exemplifies his idiosyncratic pop skills and his kitchen-sink approach to arrangement: kettle drums! More oboe!

At 88, the Canadian reflects on a golden era of underwater discovery and how shipwrecks and the cruel sea are the ‘greatest of all teachers’

Joe MacInnis admits there are simply too many places to begin telling the story of life in the ocean depths. At 88, the famed Canadian undersea explorer, has many decades to draw on. There was the time he and a Russian explorer and deep-water pilot, Anatoly Sagalevich, were snagged by a telephone wire strung from the pilot house of the Titanic, trapping the pair two and a half miles below the surface.

Another might be the moment he and his team stared in disbelief through a porthole window at the Edmund Fitzgerald, the 222-metre (729ft) ship that vanished 50 years ago into the depths of Lake Superior, so quickly that none of the crew could issue a call for help. MacInnis and his team were the first humans to lay eyes on the wreck.

MacInnis diving in Lake Huron, off Tobermory, Canada, in 1969. Photograph: Don Dutton/Toronto Star/Getty Images

When you make art proof of virtue, you can make it feel like a drag, advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith writes. Instead, encourage him to develop his own sensibility

• Read more Leading questions

My eight-and-a-half-year-old son is a voracious reader and budding writer. I am very happy that he enjoys reading and want to help him find the next good read. Unfortunately he’s extremely easily influenced by cover art. He will unwrap a gift book and immediately dismiss it and refuse to give it a go if he doesn’t like the cover. He doesn’t even read the blurb. When I was still reading to him, we had a pact that he had to listen to at least one page, and that’s how he was introduced to many of his favourite books despite initial reluctance. I completely understand the appeal of great illustration, but now that he reads chapter books, I wish he could get over the two least important pages. How can I help him not to judge a book by its cover?

Eleanor says: I totally appreciate the virtue of getting him to see beyond the cover, but on the other hand … could you just change the cover?

In the 21st-century imbalance of power, Europe and Nato have neither the arms nor the wealth to impel Russia or the US to take its peace settlement seriously

The failure of this week’s peace talks between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff fits into a now well-established pattern of standoffs on Ukraine during Trump’s second term. But the dynamic that produced these talks may be becoming more entrenched. The US and Russian interests driving the process have not changed, while the conflict on the ground is intensifying. The lack of progress this week means there will be another attempt to end the war soon, and perhaps another after that, until, one day, there is some kind of US-backed deal to halt the conflict on terms broadly favouring Russia.

The geopolitical algorithm driving this effort is too consistent to ignore. It has been repeated ever since Trump re-entered the White House in January. On the campaign trail, Trump had claimed he could stop the war in a day. That was never going to happen. But from 12 February onwards, when Trump first talked directly to Putin about Ukraine, the intention and approach have not altered. There is no reason to suppose they will do so now. Indeed, Tuesday’s impasse may spur them on again.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

The granting of patents and trademarks to foods and words from the global south is part of a long colonial grab. It’s time to realise we share what we cook, and what we call it

Vegetables, in my experience, rarely cause controversy. Yet last month I found myself in the middle of a legal storm over who gets to own the word sabzi – the Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Persian, Dari and Pashto word for cooked veg or fresh greens. It was a story as absurd as it was stressful, a chain of delis threatened me with legal action over the title of a book I had spent years creating. But what began as a personal legal headache soon morphed into something bigger, a story about how power and privilege still dominate conversations about cultural ownership in the UK.

When the email first landed in my inbox, I assumed it must be a wind-up. My editor at Bloomsbury had forwarded a solicitor’s letter addressed to me personally, care of my publishers. As I read it, my stomach dropped. A deli owner from Cornwall accused me of infringing her intellectual property over my cookbook Sabzi: Fresh Vegetarian Recipes for Every Day. Why? Because in 2022, she had trademarked the word sabzi to use for her business and any future products, including a cookbook she hoped to write one day.

From income to home ownership and public services, everybody is disgruntled – but for different reasons

The British economy has endured a series of setbacks in recent years: austerity, Brexit, the global pandemic, soaring energy prices and an increasingly fractured and uncertain world. The early optimism that accompanied Labour’s election victory faded quickly, with a recent poll ranking Rachel Reeves as the worst chancellor in modern history.

But is this fair? Is the economy really in as bad a shape as people feel?

Jonathan Swarbrick is a lecturer in economics at the University of St Andrews Business School

Corbyn and Sultana’s fledgling party has been marred by false starts and squabbling. But spending time with its activists, I’ve seen signs of a refreshing challenge to stale mainstream politics

It’s not every day that Jeremy Corbyn and some of his closest comrades are described as “the right” in a political argument. But I first heard them given that potentially lethal label – for socialists, at least – shortly after arriving at Your Party’s acrimonious founding conference in Liverpool last Sunday.

The young man who used the words did not seem to be one of the hardbitten leftwing fanatics who had taken over the party, according to most of the press. He was attending his first political conference and enjoying it immensely. Which faction did he think was ahead, I asked, in the weekend’s maze of votes and debates? “Not the Corbynists,” he said with a grin. “But us – the left!”

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

Twenty years on, the social media-savvy contestants will have greater power. His brutal approach to judging them will have to change, too

There is a moment in the trailer for Simon Cowell’s new Netflix show, The Next Act, that is almost touching in its adherence to the way things once were. Cowell, who we see on a variety of beige sofas primly clutching his knees, talks about how to curate a new boyband, 20 years after the launch of his first TV talent show. “There is a huge risk here,” he says, heavy with drama. “If this goes wrong, it will be: ‘Simon Cowell has lost it.’” In fact, as anyone who has an eye on dwindling audience figures for his existing shows knows, for the vast majority of 18- to 24-year-olds – or even for younger millennials – the more likely response will be, “Simon who?”

Which doesn’t mean that a new generation of viewers can’t be lured in by Cowell’s expertise. The question of whether 66-year-old Cowell can tweak a dusty and decades-old model has less to do with current music trends – just as well, since pop music has moved from TV to TikTok, which Cowell says he hates – than the music executive’s extremely well-tested ability to make good TV and bend his persona to align with the times. In the rollout of publicity for the new show, Cowell has made a good fist of expressing regret at how rude he used to be to contestants, apologising in the New York Times, after some cajoling, for “being a dick”, and putting his eye-rolling, grimacing performance as a judge down to the tedium of audition days rather than what most of us understood it to be: the extraction of lolz out of confused individuals who had the misfortune to appear on his shows.

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist

Discussions are ‘taking longer than expected’, which may mean regulator is tearing chunks out of creditors’ proposal

A good 20 months have passed since the shareholders of Thames Water declared they wouldn’t be putting another penny into the “uninvestable” company and would rather take a thumping write-off of their investment.

So surely, you’d think, we must be nearing the endgame in the attempt by the creditors – the people who lent money to Thames – to rescue the company via a debt write-down and a recapitalisation with new equity. After all, the 100-odd class A bondholders have been negotiating with Ofwat, the regulator, since June. Indeed, they started work on their proposal six months before that, in case the original preferred bidder, the US private equity group KKR, took fright at the political heat on Thames, which is what happened.

As society becomes increasingly weird, birthdays are a chance to build connection. Even if it means 300 attempts at conversation with other tired parents

When my beautiful firstborn turned one, about 70 people came to the pub to celebrate. There were drinks, there were meals, there were balloons, there was singing. They were celebrating me. Since then his birthdays have become about him and his friends and the quality of the event has spiralled precipitously.

These days, with two kids out in society, kids’ birthday parties dominate our family’s schedule. Barely a weekend goes by without a scramble to find a gift that’s appropriate, I’m getting increasingly desperate for some form of wrapping apparatus, and I have long given up on cards.

Calls for disenfranchisement rest on a single assumption: that women’s citizenship is partial and conditional

Sexism can be very modern and tech savvy. Misogyny is an ever-evolving idiom, and men and women alike have found particularly of-the-moment ways to operate within the genre. Think of the apps that take images of women and remove their clothes, or the AI bots that men and boys can use to generate pornography or depictions of graphic violence against women and girls for the crime of going to the same school as they do or running for office. Think of the influencers of the so-called “womanosphere” who tell their female audiences that women who seek out friendship or equality with men are morons or cows, all through the gleam of a TikTok filter. Sexism may be the world’s oldest prejudice and its first unjust hierarchy, but it is continually innovating, adapting to new technologies and the most recent rhetorical needs of male supremacy.

But some of the forms of misogyny that have been bubbling up in American political discourse lately can seem a bit retro. I don’t just mean the tradwives, who dress alternately like June Cleaver or like Ma Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie – evoking bygone eras, or at least the ways those eras are depicted on television. And I don’t just mean the pro-natalists, either, who don weird bonnets and propose national breeding medals for prolific mothers. Since last month’s massive election victories for Democrats, some on the right have looked to revive a form of sexism that has been out of fashion for more than one hundred years: the idea that women should not have a right to vote.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

Washington’s betrayal of its allies has been averted for now, but preparations must be made for a world where its support cannot be relied on

Donald Trump’s desire to end the war in Ukraine might be sincere, but his motives are selfish. He wants the glory of having brokered a deal and does not care whether it is fair or not. As for Vladimir Putin, he only wants peace on terms that achieve things which the Russian army has failed to manage with force. The Kremlin demands territory not yet won on the battlefield and limitations to Ukraine’s capacity to act as a fully sovereign state.

Mr Trump has never shown much natural aversion to giving Mr Putin what he wants. He has not applied serious pressure on the Kremlin to end its aggression, nor rebuked the Russian president for starting the war. He sees nothing wrong with a process that discusses the fate of a country, including de facto partition of its territory, without representatives of that country at the table.

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

England’s teacher shortage is fuelled by burnout and unpaid overtime. New working patterns would help without compromising results

Can you guess which professionals in England work 26 hours of overtime a week without compensation, give up time with friends and family to deal with the workload and often find themselves on call in the holidays? Not CEOs, bankers or even doctors, but teachers. No wonder, then, that teaching vacancies are at the highest level ever. Workload is the top concern that teachers cite for leaving the profession, with almost as many quitting as those who joined last year. The consequences are stark: a quarter of English schools do not have a physics teacher, and many key subjects aren’t being offered at A-level in the poorest places.

The 4 Day Week Foundation believes that a shorter working week could alleviate these pressures if trialled in a way similar to the Scottish proposals of a four-day week, with a flexible fifth day that allows dedicated time for marking and lesson preparation. This means the work that teachers are currently forced to do at weekends and evenings would be integrated into the working week instead of being unpaid overtime.

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

Jurors bring a humane, rounded perspective to the system, says Simeon Wallis. Plus letters from Diana Good and Francis FitzGibbon KC

Simon Jenkins implies that removing juries will give us the benefits of European inquisitorial judicial systems or the enlightened Scandinavian approach to justice (David Lammy is right to slash the use of juries – it’s an open-and-shut case, 28 November).

Neither the Leveson report nor David Lammy’s memo suggest anything of the kind. They seek to retain the adversarial system and simply remove the democratic element that is its best safeguard in serious cases.

Disabled customers and their carers will lose out as suitable vehicles and tax reliefs are removed, says Colin Hughes

The Motability changes announced in the budget represent one of the most damaging shifts in disability policy for years (Motability scheme to drop BMW and Mercedes as it aims to buy UK-made cars, 24 November). The government’s removal of “luxury” vehicles may sound reasonable, but these cars account for just 5% of Motability leases and disabled people already pay the extra costs themselves through advance payments.

At the same time, the government is abolishing £300m in Motability tax reliefs – a move that Motability itself says is likely to be passed on to disabled customers. This means higher advance payments, more expensive leases and fewer suitable vehicles available. These cuts will reduce independence, not public spending.

Benjamin Selwyn argues that the company’s power lies not in escaping capitalist logic, but in intensifying it

Yanis Varoufakis argues that Amazon marks a shift to “technofeudalism”, claiming its ownership of digital infrastructure forces capitalists, governments and users to pay it economic rents (How Amazon turned our capitalist era of free markets into the age of technofeudalism, 27 November). This rests on an idealised view of capitalism. Early capitalism saw similar dynamics: the East India Company, backed by the British state, controlled trade routes, exploited resources and wielded political power, enabling it to charge above-market prices for commodities such as tea and spices.

In Capital, Karl Marx noted that English landlords helped establish capitalism by dispossessing peasants and commodifying land. They earned monopoly rents from their exclusive control of this productive resource – a portion of surplus value originally created by exploited labour and first appropriated by industrial capitalists before being transferred to landowners.

Deregulation danger | Your Party | Talking up pork | Nowhere Lane | Abattoir address

Keir Starmer wants to sweep away “unnecessary” regulation to promote growth, but fails to say how the government will decide what regulation is necessary (There are those on the left and right who offer only grievance: Labour is getting on with the job of economic renewal, 30 November). He is adopting the market viewpoint rather than that of the public. The cognitive linguist George Lakoff argues that regulations should be reframed as protections rather than burdens. The key question then becomes: “Who is being protected and from what?”
Sally Bean
Weybridge, Surrey

• More than 62% of the members voted against calling the new party Your Party, and yet that is its name (Your Party members vote to make name permanent at charged first conference, 30 November). It reminds me of the general election, where more than 60% of voters voted for a party other than the one that won a massive majority. Funny old democracy.
Deirdre Burrell
Mortimer, Berkshire

• Spinner ‘pretty gutted’ after Australia choose all-pace attack

• Crawley praises Root’s first away Ashes ton as ‘one of his best’

Nathan Lyon admitted he was furious after being dropped by Australia for the first time in 13 years of home Tests as the battle for the Ashes got back under way in Brisbane on Thursday.

In his absence Joe Root plundered the home side’s all-seam attack for an unbeaten 135 on the first day at the Gabba, his 40th Test century and his first on Australian soil, an effort Zak Crawley acclaimed as “one of his best”.

Unbeaten in Europe and with eight wins in eight games domestically, the club are aiming high after name change

When the Olympique Lyonnais women’s team officially became OL Lyonnes on 19 May, they came with a new mantra: “New story, same legend”. The eight-time European champions, now owned by Michele Kang and part of Kynisca – a multi-club ownership group dedicated to women’s sports that also already includes the Washington Spirit – are a “new project” with the aim of “developing as a women’s club with our own model”. As Kang put it: “The women’s team cannot just be a little sister to the men’s section.”

The OL Lyonnes era kicked off on 7 September, coinciding with the Lyon’s 1,000th match in the French women’s top division, against Marseille. Kang was present, alongside Mikel Zubizarreta, Kynisca’s global sporting director, who was poached from Barcelona Femení last year. On the pitch, new recruits snatched from other European clubs this summer – Jule Brand, Lily Yohannes, Ashley Lawrence, Ingrid Engen, Korbin Shrader and Marie-Antoinette Katoto – discovered what it will be like to play at the Groupama Stadium, where the men’s team plays, for the entire season.

Perhaps the data-soaked discourse of modern football actually does this Premier League centurion something of a disservice

Stack them up. Pile them high. Sort them and arrange them, parse them and categorise them, order them to your table like items in a Chinese restaurant. Personal favourites? Give me the No 33 against Arsenal, the one with the flowing hair. I’ll also take a No 81 against Chelsea, when he spots a hapless Robert Sánchez out of goal, and lobs him deliciously from the edge of the area.

Give me a No 98 against Bournemouth, in which he deliberately slants his run around the keeper, slots it in from a tight angle, tries to clamber atop the advertising hoardings in triumph, loses his balance, collapses in peals of giggles. And maybe chuck in a No 53 against Brentford, in which Kristoffer Ajer somehow manages to fall over without being touched, spooked into incoherence by his very presence.

Our cartoonist on what inspired him to draw some of his finest cartoons this year

• Buy a special print from his collection here

• David’s new book, Chaos in the Box: buy it now

“Denis Law is one of the few footballers I’m too young to have seen play live, but like all followers of the game, I’m aware of his impact and talent. What I hadn’t fully appreciated was what a kind and generous person he was – something that became obvious as I read the many tributes to his character, in preparation for this cartoon”.

• Reds goal ruled Sunderland own goal in blow to Wirtz

• Mohamed Salah ‘still important’ after being dropped

Florian Wirtz should ignore his Premier League numbers and not lose confidence in his world-class ability at Liverpool, believes Virgil van Dijk.

Liverpool’s £116m summer signing thought he had scored his first goal for the club against Sunderland on Wednesday only for the 81st-minute equaliser to be deemed an own goal by defender Nordi Mukiele. The decision means the 22-year-old is still without a goal or an assist in 13 league appearances for the champions. Van Dijk, however, is convinced Wirtz is on the right path at Liverpool and will prove he is an elite level player.

England fans were bracing themselves for a familiar and depressing few hours before the opener finally came good

Anthems over, Zak Crawley left the field and took the water handed to him by Matt Potts. If he was a little dry of mouth it would hardly be a surprise – even without the burden of the brace of ducks he took from the first Test, the situation he was about to walk into might have verged awkwardly close to terrifying. He downed half the bottle, donned his helmet and turned back around.

Mitchell Starc, the bowler who dismissed him in the opening over of each innings in Perth and is even more effective in these day-night games, dried his hands on the sun-baked turf as Crawley made his way to the middle, and picked up the new pink ball.

We publish the full breakdown of the 104,140 votes cast this year plus a chance to search for any player who has ever received a point

Aitana Bonmatí has been voted the best female footballer in the world 2025 by the Guardian’s panel of experts. We asked 127 people in total, including players, coaches and journalists from all over the globe to create our definitive list for the year.

We asked the judges to choose 40 names each and rank their selection in order from 1-40, No 1 being their choice of the best player. The No 1 choice of each judge was awarded 40 points, No 2 given 39pts, down to 1pt for their No 40 choice. All the votes were added together to give a raw score. To minimise the influence of outliers in the list, the highest score awarded to a player was then deducted to give a final score.

Up against the brilliant Mitchell Starc and his band of bowlers, even a dot ball for England in the Ashes is a moment of relief

“Must be amazing to be in Australia for the Ashes, what’s the atmosphere like?” It’s an understandable, if slightly daft question. Brett Lee isn’t in my house. I don’t wake up next to a furious Jonathan Agnew. “WHY AREN’T YOU IN CANBERRA, MAX?” I’m 850 miles from Brisbane.

Apart from me the atmosphere is one of wild indifference amongst the family. The good news is I’m hosting the Guardian Ashes Weekly podcast - now a professional excuse to watch another five (or two) days of agony.

Los Angeles have turned a feelgood reunion into a late-career humiliation for one of their greatest players – and exposed a franchise stumbling into a darker new era

Pull out your Los Angeles Clippers bingo cards. Anyone have the square marked “owner and star player accused of skirting the salary cap through improper means”? Go ahead and stamp that one. How about “losing 14 of 16 after a hopeful 3-2 start”? Mark it. And yes, you can fill in “other star averaging nearly 27 a night at age 36 – including a 50-piece against the Detroit Pistons, one of the league’s best teams”. The box reading “Clippers fans tearing out their hair at alarming rates and contemplating shameful, fairweather defections” is probably safe to cross off, pending review. And after the wee-hours media cycle on Wednesday morning, everyone gets to tick the most dispiriting square of all: “beloved, decorated veteran unceremoniously kicked to the curb in his final season”.

The Clippers had posted a winning record every year since 2010-11, building a reputation as one of the NBA’s most reliable playoff fixtures. Twenty-one games into this young season, that identity has dissolved into something hazy around the edges – and unmistakably sinister.

Images and videos taken in 2020, a year after he died in jail, show the late sex offender’s home

• US politics – live updates

House Democrats released photos and videos from Jeffrey Epstein’s private Caribbean island on Wednesday, offering a rare glimpse into a secretive place where Epstein is alleged to have trafficked young girls.

The new images and videos show Epstein’s home, including bedrooms, a telephone, what appears to be an office or library, and a chalkboard on which the words “fin”, “intellectual”, “deception” and “power” are written. Several photos show a room with a dentist chair and masks hanging on the wall. The New York Times reported that Epstein’s last girlfriend was a dentist who shared an office with one of his shell companies. The videos appear to be a walk-through of the property.

Regulator leaves door open for follow-up as it rejects calls for formal inquiry into claims against Treasury officials

• Treasury launches inquiry into budget leaks with Reeves’s support

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The UK’s financial regulator has decided not to immediately investigate Rachel Reeves and the Treasury over pre-budget briefings but left the door open for further examination of what the Conservatives claimed amounted to market manipulation.

In a letter addressed to the chair of the Treasury committee, Meg Hillier, the the chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said the regulator had turned down requests by politicians including the shadow chancellor, Mel Stride, to open an inquiry into briefings made before last week’s announcement by the chancellor.

Exercise levels have increased but less than half do more than 60 minutes of activity per day, survey shows

Children in England are the most active they have been since 2017, according to research that warns that less than half are meeting government activity level targets.

In 2024-25, 3.6 million children took part in an average of more than 60 minutes of sport and physical activity per day across the week, according to Sport England’s annual active lives survey. This represents 49.1% of five- to 16-year-olds in England – a 1.3% increase on the previous year, and a 5.8% increase on 2017, when the survey began.

Average of 1,717 patients in beds last week after ‘unusually early’ start to flu season, which has not yet peaked

The NHS is facing an “unprecedented flu wave”, a senior healthcare leader said, as the number of people with the illness in hospitals across England hit a record high.

The statistics, published by NHS England as part of its first weekly snapshot of the performance of hospitals this winter, found that an average of 1,717 flu patients were in beds each day last week – more than 50% higher than last year – including 69 patients whose condition was critical.

Study reveals US earmarked billions to stockpile critical minerals for military use, including precision-guided weaponry and AI-driven warfare

The accelerating global arms race is hindering climate action as critical minerals that are key to a sustainable future are being diverted to make the latest military hardware, according to a report

The study from the Transition Security Project – a joint US and UK venture – reveals how the Pentagon is stockpiling huge stores of critical minerals that are needed for a range of climate technologies including solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles and battery storage.

Co-founders’ acquisition of Venture Global shares before key permit granted draws scrutiny as pair deny wrongdoing

Two fossil-fuel billionaires with close ties to Donald Trump bought millions of shares in the company they co-founded just days after a meeting with senior White House officials, who then issued a key regulatory permit that helped expand the company’s fortunes in Europe.

Robert Pender, an energy lawyer, and Michael Sabel, a former investment banker, are the founders and co-chairs of Venture Global, a Virginia-based company that develops and operates liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals.

Nootka lupins, introduced in the 1940s to repair damaged soil, are rampaging across the island, threatening its native species

It was only when huge areas of Iceland started turning purple that authorities realised they had made a mistake. By then, it was too late. The Nootka lupin, native to Alaska, had coated the sides of fjords, sent tendrils across mountain tops and covered lava fields, grasslands and protected areas.

Since it arrived in the 1940s, it has become an accidental national symbol. Hordes of tourists and local people pose for photos in the ever-expanding fields in June and July, entranced by the delicate cones of flowers that cover the north Atlantic island.

Pesticide Action Network Europe study finds average concentrations 100 times higher than in tap water

High levels of a toxic “forever chemical” have been found in cereal products across Europe because of its presence in pesticides.

The most contaminated food is breakfast cereal, according to a study by Pesticide Action Network Europe (PAN), with average concentrations 100 times higher than in tap water.

Many now concerned about ability to make living in fast-changing climate after one of worst grain harvests recorded

Record heat and drought cost Britain’s arable farmers more than £800m in lost production in 2025 in one of the worst harvests recorded, analysis has estimated.

Three of the five worst harvests on record have now occurred since 2020, leaving some farmers asking whether the growing impacts of the climate crisis are making it too financially risky to sow their crops. Farmers are already facing heavy financial pressure as the costs of fertilisers and other inputs have risen faster than prices.

Health secretary has asked experts to investigate whether normal feelings have become ‘over-pathologised’

The health secretary, Wes Streeting, has ordered a clinical review of the diagnosis of mental health conditions, according to reports.

Streeting is understood to be concerned about a sharp rise in the number of people making sickness benefits claims because of diagnoses for mental illness, autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the Times reported.

He has asked leading experts to investigate whether normal feelings have become “over-pathologised”, the newspaper said, as he seeks to grapple with the 4.4 million working-age people now claiming sickness or incapacity benefit.

The figure has risen by 1.2 million since 2019, while the number of 16 to 34-year-olds off work with long-term sickness because of a mental health condition is said to have grown rapidly in the same period.

Streeting told the Times he knew from “personal experience how devastating it can be for people who face poor mental health, have ADHD or autism and can’t get a diagnosis or the right support”.

He added: “I also know, from speaking to clinicians, how the diagnosis of these conditions is sharply rising.

“We must look at this through a strictly clinical lens to get an evidence-based understanding of what we know, what we don’t know, and what these patterns tell us about our mental health system, autism and ADHD services.

“That’s the only way we can ensure everyone gets timely access to accurate diagnosis and effective support.”

The review, which is expected to be launched on Thursday, is set to be led by Prof Peter Fonagy, a clinical psychologist at University College London specialising in child mental health, with Sir Simon Wessely, a former president of the Royal College of Psychiatry, acting as vice-chair.

Residents report homes shaking from quake with epicentre near the village of Silverdale in Lancashire

Residents were shaken by what felt like an “underground explosion” after England’s biggest earthquake in two years affected towns and villages across Lancashire and Cumbria.

A 3.3-magnitude earthquake was felt as far as 12 miles from the epicentre near the coastal village of Silverdale in Lancashire shortly after 11.23pm on Wednesday.

AVS Group, which runs 18 websites, has 72 hours to make changes required by UK’s Online Safety Act

A pornography company that runs 18 adult websites has been fined £1m by the watchdog Ofcom for not having strong enough age checks, in the largest fine yet under the UK’s Online Safety Act.

The Belize-based AVS Group has been hit with the punishment, plus a further £50,000 for failing to respond to information requests.

Passengers welcome climbdown and say plan to turn Avanti West Coast service into ‘ghost train’ made no sense

“I don’t think I’ve seen it this busy in years,” said Liam, a customer service specialist struggling to deal with a growing line of tired customers onboard the 7am Avanti West Coast service from Manchester to London.

They were made more agitated by the news that the microwave was broken and bacon sandwiches were off the menu. “I don’t think there’s been this many people on the 7am since before Covid,” said the beleaguered staff member.

Bombs were placed near both Republican and Democratic party HQs in Washington DC the night before US Capitol attack

US authorities have made an arrest in connection with pipe bombs that were planted outside the headquarters of both the Democratic and Republican parties in Washington DC on the eve of 6 January 2021, according to reports on Thursday morning.

Explosive devices were placed at night and then, on the afternoon of January 6, the US Capitol attack occurred, when a mob of Donald Trump’s supporters stormed Congress in an effort to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential election.

Pentagon’s Law of War manual clearly prohibits attack, but justification for whole campaign also faces tough questions

Graphic depictions of two survivors being killed by a second US military strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug ferrying boat have provoked outrage where previously there was none – or at least relatively little.

A firestorm of controversy has greeted a recent Washington Post report which suggested that a deadly attack on a vessel carrying 11 people in the Caribbean was followed with a second assault after the initial strike failed to kill everybody onboard.

President did not follow the usual review process, experts say, making it more likely they would commit other crimes

Among the beneficiaries of Donald Trump’s pardons and commutations, there is a group that legal experts and political scientists see as some of the clearest evidence of how such actions undermine the rule of law: those who were released from prison and again arrested for different alleged crimes.

During his first term, Trump issued 237 acts of clemency – including to someone who was a predatory lender and drug smuggler and to another who ran a Ponzi scheme. Since taking office again, Trump has issued more than 1,600, most for people involved in the January 6 attack on Congress.

Swiss bank says bequests made 91 people billionaires, while overall number jumped from 2,682 in 2024 to 9,919 this year

The super-rich are inheriting record levels of wealth as they pass down billions of dollars to their children, grandchildren and spouses, research by a Swiss bank favoured by billionaires shows.

Globally, there are 9,919 billionaires this year, up from 2,682 in 2024, UBS found.

Separate data finds jobs were cut at fastest rate in four years but experts suggest figures skewed by budget speculation

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The UK construction sector last month suffered its sharpest slowdown in activity since the first Covid lockdown as building projects were scaled back and jobs cut amid budget uncertainty, according to a closely watched survey.

In a blow to Labour’s aims to boost infrastructure projects and build 1.5m homes by 2030, the poll of UK construction firms showed output in November shrinking at the fastest pace since May 2020, when all building stalled as the pandemic shut down sites.

Trade group tells Rachel Reeves her property tax changes threaten the survival of community pubs

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Brewers have joined calls for the chancellor to reconsider changes to business rates that it says could be “the difference between closure and survival” for pubs.

In an open letter to Rachel Reeves, the Society of Independent Brewers and Associates, which represents about 700 beer makers, said it wanted to “express our deep concern at the impact of last week’s business rates decisions on the hospitality sector”.

Plan to improve gas networks and rewire electricity systems across Great Britain likely to add £30 to average annual bill

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Households face higher energy bills after network companies were given the green light to spend £28bn on Great Britain’s gas and electricity grids.

The energy watchdog, Ofgem, approved more than £17.8bn of spending plans to upgrade gas transmission and distribution networks in the five years from April 2026.

Owner of Sports Direct chain says consumer confidence ‘very subdued’ with sales at sports division down 5.8%

The owner of Sports Direct and Flannels has said sales have fallen at its UK retail businesses amid heavy discounting by rivals and “very subdued” consumer confidence.

Frasers, which is controlled by the former Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley, said sales at its UK sports division were down 5.8% in the six months to 26 October to £1.3bn despite growth at the main Sports Direct chain because of “planned decline” at its Game outlets and the Studio Retail online arm.

Anthony Hopkins and Kathy Burke on acting, Jacinda Ardern and Nicola Sturgeon on politics, plus Margaret Atwood on a life well lived

Not all memoirists are keen to share their life stories. For Margaret Atwood, an author who has sold more than 40m books, the idea of writing about herself seemed “Dead boring. Who wants to read about someone sitting at a desk messing up blank sheets of paper?” Happily, she did it anyway. Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts (Chatto & Windus) is a 624-page doorstopper chronicling Atwood’s life and work, and a tremendous showcase for her wisdom and wit. Helen Garner’s similarly chunky, Baillie Gifford prize-winning How to End a Story (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) is a diary collection spanning 20 years and provides piquant and puckish snapshots of the author’s life, work and her unravelling marriages. Mixing everyday observation and gossipy asides with profound self-examination, it is spare in style and utterly moreish.

In Arundhati Roy’s Mother Mary Comes to Me (Hamish Hamilton) and Jung Chang’s Fly, Wild Swans (William Collins), formidable mothers get top billing. In the former, The God of Small Things author reveals how her mother, whose own father was a violent drunk, stood up to the patriarchy and campaigned for women’s rights, but was cruel to her daughter. Describing her as “my shelter and my storm”, Roy reflects on Mary’s contradictions with candour and compassion. Fly, Wild Swans is the sequel to Chang’s bestselling Wild Swans, picking up where its predecessor left off and reflecting how that book was only made possible by the author’s mother, who shared family stories and kept her London-dwelling daughter apprised of events in China.

Tall, handsome and used to receiving fire emojis on his social media posts, the dancer has, with his partner Mayara Magri, been called ‘the Posh’n’Becks of ballet’. But there is suffering in his art: ‘I kind of enjoy negativity,’ he says

In the expensive hush of a hotel bar over the road from the Royal Ballet and Opera in Covent Garden, London, Matthew Ball asks for a mint tea. I’m having a white wine; Ball’s body is clearly more of a temple than mine, although you don’t need to know our drinks orders to see that: he has an effortlessly straight-backed posture, muscular arms under a white T-shirt. On stage, ballet dancers can seem like mighty gods and goddesses, but often IRL they are petite. Not so Ball, whose tall stature is part of why he’s much in demand for princely roles and partnering. With the fine features and strong angles of his face, and those piercing eyes, there’s a bit of the Robert Pattinson about him. Is he as brooding and romantic in his roles on stage? Certainly. Tortured? We’ll come to that.

At 31, Ball is riding the crest of a career that seems to have gone pretty smoothly so far. Growing up in Liverpool, he didn’t get much stick for being into ballet as a kid (the worst comments came from another girl in his ballet class). Joining the Royal Ballet School at 11, he graduated straight into the Royal Ballet company and was promoted each year, making it to the top rank of principal in 2018. He has loved getting his teeth into meaty dramatic roles, especially the psychological turmoil of Kenneth MacMillan’s ballets: the suicidal Crown Prince Rudolf in Mayerling or the doomed poet Des Grieux in Manon. As a guest star he was smouldering as The Stranger in Matthew Bourne’s popular Swan Lake and made a virtuoso cameo, spinning in a Paul Smith suit, in the recent Quadrophenia ballet. Plus, he dances at galas all over the world, often with his Brazilian girlfriend and fellow Royal Ballet principal Mayara Magri. He would groan at me telling you that Tatler called them “The Posh’n’Becks of ballet”. “They really went to town on that,” he shakes his head bashfully, “Golden Balls!”

Icy mining magnate Gillian Anderson goes head to head with rebellious rancher Lena Headey in a drama that takes itself so very, very seriously

Angel’s Ridge, Washington Territory, 1854. It’s dusty, there’s a saloon bar, there are horses, an ineffable sense of – I don’t know, let’s call it manifest destiny – about the place, and the only colour settlers have brought with them is sepia. But wait! What’s this? The owner of the local silver mine riding into town? And it’s a woman! In a western?

Yessir, it is. Not only that but she is played by Gillian Anderson (in full ice mode, despite the dust) and is clearly trouble. Not only that, but there is a second woman about to go toe-to-toe with her and do battle for the town’s soul over the eight episodes that comprise The Abandons, the latest venture from Sons of Anarchy’s Kurt Sutter. Its joint lead is Lena Headey as Fiona Nolan, a devout Irish Catholic woman who has gathered a misfit ragtag bunch of motley orphan crew outcasts about her and lives with this patchwork family in Jasper Hollow. Jasper Hollow, alas, is full of silver that Constance Van Ness (the local mine owner, played by Anderson) wishes to bring under her control to placate one of her investors.

How festive favourites The Muppet Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life were made. Plus: are Bunny Munro and son nearing the end of the road? Here’s what to watch this evening

8pm, Sky Arts
“No cheeses for us meeces.” The Muppet Christmas Carol, in which Michael Caine starred with a straight face opposite Kermit the Frog, and It’s a Wonderful Life, which bombed at the box office when it was first released in 1946, are the two greatest festive films of all time (no arguments, please). Author Ian Nathan delves into the stories of how they were created, to kickstart a seasonal series about perennial holiday classics. Hollie Richardson

This risibly sombre, laughably self-important documentary about the felling of the tree on Hadrian’s Wall is 90 minutes of your life that you will never get back

It’s not often, honestly, that I truly feel my time has been wasted. I have a really, really low bar for what constitutes an amiable or reasonable way of passing the hours. I do not habitually feel a tremendous urge to fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds’ worth of distance run, admirable though I find the people who manage it. But filling 90 of them with a two-part documentary about the felling of the Sycamore Gap tree by a pair of local berks two years ago? Come. On.

The wildly inflated sense of the film’s own importance is demonstrated by the fact that its original title was The Slaying at Sycamore Gap. The slaying. The slaying. Just before broadcast it was renamed The Sycamore Gap Mystery, but it is the original that better suits the risibly sombre tone of the programme and the gathering bathos as the 90 minutes – 90 minutes! – progress.

The Sycamore Gap Mystery is on Channel 4.

The musician, who wrote My Way and Puppy Love among others, talks career longevity, shrewd business and which star bullied him in his youth

In 1956, when Paul Anka was 15 years old, he idolized Chuck Berry. So, when the star came to play his home town of Ottawa, Canada, the ambitious kid made sure to sneak backstage with his guitar to play him a song he’d just written. “I started singing Diana to Chuck Berry when, suddenly, he stops me and says, ‘That’s the worst song I’ve ever heard in my life, go back to school.’”

Rather than slink away from such a pronouncement, however, Anka used it as a spur. “Revenge is a motivator like you won’t believe,” the 84-year-old star said with an eruptive laugh the other day. “I said to myself, ‘I’m going to show him.’ That attitude has prevailed for me through my entire life.”

(AMF/Black Butter)
With shades of Jeff and Tim Buckley, the Galway-born artist writes tunes so strong they seem as familiar as old friends

The information age has made it much more difficult for artists to cultivate mystique. Gone are the days when David Bowie could seemingly arrive fully formed with Space Oddity and Hunky Dory, with most of the record-buying public unaware of his years of struggle in bands such as the Lower Third; or when Robert Zimmerman could become Bob Dylan and invent a backstory about running away with the circus as a teenager. Today’s artists are so intensely scrutinised once they get even a glimmer of success that there’s always the chance some internet sleuth will blow a performer’s cred by unearthing a terrible video of them caterwauling through Wonderwall in sixth form. Which makes Dove Ellis so thoroughly unusual, because so little is known about him.

His debut album arrives with no biography and barely any information at all apart from the track listing and a few minor details. He doesn’t appear to have ever given an interview and in one song here scolds: “Keep their cameras off my face.” His publicist, whose job thus far seems solely to be sending out music, describes Ellis as a “an introverted character”.

This year’s outstanding tracks – from post-punk rap to indie-disco and operatic pop – as voted for by 30 Guardian music writers

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20

A flock of Father Christmases share the seasonal songs that capture the magic, merriment and occasional heartbreak that comes with donning the red suit

My father was a Santa and my wife got me into doing it. It’s the best thing I ever did. I do schools, universities, supermarkets, Christmas lights switch-ons … As soon as Santa comes along, everybody melts. One little girl brought her guinea pig, who leapt off her hand and dived straight into my Santa beard. The parents were in stitches while we tried to get him out. My favourite Christmas songs are Eartha Kitt’s sultry version of Santa Baby, because it gets all the adults in the mood to get up and have a boogie with Santa, and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, because the lyrics are so pure. No Christmas songs drive me mad. It’s Christmas: they’re all great. Paul Fessi

‘I told the producers I didn’t know how to do a song for a film – and added that, frankly, I didn’t fancy writing one called Back to the Future. They said, “No problem, just give us one of your songs”’

Steven Spielberg and Bob Zemeckis asked to meet us, along with Bob Gale and Neil Canton. They said they’d just written this film whose lead character was a guy called Marty McFly, and whose favourite band would be Huey Lewis and the News. They asked: “How about writing a song for the film?” I said: “I’m flattered but I don’t know how to write for film necessarily. And frankly, I don’t fancy writing a song called Back to the Future.” They said: “No problem. We just want one of your songs.” I said: “Tell you what, we’ll send you the next one we work on.”

Space-travelling telepaths, LGBTQ+ activism, a war-torn Britain, online alter egos and feminist trailblazers

Torchfire
Moira Buffini (Faber)
In her 2024 YA debut Songlight, Buffini plunged young adult readers into a dystopian landscape inspired by John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids, with nations bitterly divided by attitudes to telepathy. The second in the trilogy pits the Brightlanders, who persecute those with “songlight”, against the Aylish, who prize them – and the Teroans, spacefaring telepaths who see ordinary humans as disposable. As multiple finely drawn protagonists – including Elsa, searching desperately for sanctuary, Nightingale, forced to appease a terrifying captor, and Rye, trying to understand an extraordinary discovery – fight to find love, acceptance and safety, the book blazes like its title, consuming the reader more fiercely with every page. Fans will find it hard to wait for the final instalment.

We Are Your Children
David Roberts (Two Hoots)
“Words, when hurled like stones, wound deeply,” asserts Roberts, introducing his bright, brilliant history of LGBTQ+ activism by describing his own childhood experience of homophobic bullying. The power of words to wound, but also to tell of authentic living, courage and change, delivered via sit-ins, marches and protests on every scale, is apparent throughout this book, which chronicles queer activism in the UK and US from the 1950s to the early 21st century. Though it contains many stories of violence and suffering, from the assassination of Harvey Milk to the ravages of HIV/Aids, the prevalent mood, emphasised by Roberts’s bold, colourful, expressive artwork, is of defiance, joy and proud hope – from Quentin Crisp’s flamboyance to the iterations of the Pride flag, Julian Hows wearing a skirt as a London Underground worker in the 70s to the first same-sex pre-watershed kiss. An outstanding achievement, setting out via individual, accessible narratives the hard-won rights that remain continually under threat.

A tricky age gap, a dose of wedding day drama, literary love affairs, office rivals and the sexy side of Brexit

Consider Yourself Kissed
Jessica Stanley (Hutchinson Heinmann)
Clever and contemporary, this modern romance between short king single dad Adam and magazine writer Coralie accrues depth as it jumps from initial meet-cute to a decade-long romance, all the while embracing stepmotherhood, work and politics. (You didn’t think you could get Brexit into a romance?) The writing is wonderful, and the book has genuine heft – which might dial back the escapist fun, but it’s no less enjoyable for that.

Problematic Summer Romance
Ali Hazelwood (Sphere)
Hazelwood, a behemoth of current romantic fiction, specialises in funny and sharp hot-nerd affairs. Despite highlighting its own issues in the title, this novel got a rather mixed reception from the more judgmental corners of the internet on account of the age difference between the lovers. The gap between Maya and Conor, her big brother’s best friend, is 15 years – she is 23 to his 38. Depending on your generation and point of view, this is either completely and absolutely fine, or intensely concerning, despite the heroine insisting valiantly on her own agency and a reluctant romantic hero who resists the affair for this very reason. The book itself is typically charming and incredibly enjoyable, full of one-liners and cheek. (Far less controversially, she has followed it up with Mate, about a vampire bride falling in love with a werewolf. Sex with an actual animal is notably less problematic than an age gap in 2025.)

From the threat of superintelligent AI to the secrets of a longer life; plus the evolution of language and the restless genius of Francis Crick

This felt like the year that AI really arrived. It is on our phones and laptops; it is creeping into digital and corporate infrastructure; it is changing the way we learn, work and create; and the global economy rests on the stratospheric valuations of the corporate giants vying to control it.

But the unchecked rush to go faster and further could extinguish humanity, according to the surprisingly readable and chillingly plausible If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies (Bodley Head), by computer scientists Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares, which argues against creating superintelligent AI able to cognitively outpace Homo sapiens in all departments. “Even an AI that cares about understanding the universe is likely to annihilate humans as a side-effect,” they write, “because humans are not the most efficient method for producing truths … out of all possible ways to arrange matter.” Not exactly cheery Christmas reading but, as the machines literally calculate our demise, you’ll finally grasp all that tech bro lingo about tokens, weights and maximising preferences.

The revolutionary spirit in politics and architecture; histories of free speech and civil war; plus how the Tories fell apart and Starmer won

We live in a hyper-political yet curiously unrevolutionary age, one of hashtags rather than barricades. Perhaps that’s why so many writers this year have looked wistfully back to a time when strongly held convictions still made waves in the real world.

In The Revolutionists (Bodley Head), Jason Burke revisits the 1970s, when it seemed the future of the Middle East might end up red instead of green – communist rather than Islamist. It’s a geopolitical period piece: louche men with corduroy jackets and sideburns, women with theories and submachine guns. Many were in it less for the Marxism than for the sheer mayhem. Reading about the hijackings and kidnappings they orchestrated makes today’s orange-paint protests seem quaint by comparison.

As the Grand Theft Auto co-writer launches a new project, he reflects on his hugely successful open-world adventures and where game design might go next

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It is hard to think of a more modern entertainment format than the open-world video game. These sprawling technological endeavours, which mix narrative, social connectivity and the complete freedom to explore, are uniquely immersive and potentially endless. But do they represent a whole new idea of storytelling?

This week I met Dan Houser, the co-founder of Rockstar and lead writer on Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, who has been in London to talk about his new company, Absurd Ventures. He’s working on a range of intriguing projects, including the novel and podcast series A Better Paradise (about a vast online game that goes tragically wrong), and a comedy-adventure set in an online world named Absurdaverse. He told me that, 15 years ago, he was doing press interviews for the Grand Theft Auto IV expansion packs when he had something of a revelation about the series.

PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox; Eyes Out/Blumhouse Games
Psychedelic visuals and a promising premise are let down by tired game design in this first-person horror with an appearance from the synthpop pioneer

Video games have delivered a feast of singular and wondrous sights in 2025: ecological fantasias teeming with magical beasts; stunning, historically obsessive recreations of feudal Japan. But here is an end-of-year curio: psychological horror game Sleep Awake serves us synth-rock pioneer Gary Numan stepping into what is perhaps the schlockiest role of his life – a gigantic floating head named Hypnos.

This late-stage cameo is not quite indicative of the game as a whole; the handful of hours prior to Numan’s arrival are more mournful than madcap. Mostly, you explore the dilapidated, tumbledown streets of what is thought to be the last city on Earth. This setting is a magnificent work of imagination. You see it through the eyes of a young woman named Katja, who moves along rooftops, gazing out upon a barren, lifeless hinterland, into labyrinthine streets whose darkness and arcane logic recall the stirring subterranean etchings of Italian artist Piranesi.

Nintendo Switch/Switch 2 (version tested); Retro Studios/Nintendo
The bounty hunter – Nintendo’s most badass and most neglected hero – returns in an atmospheric throwback sci-fi adventure that’s entirely untroubled by the conventions of modern game design

In a frozen laboratory full of cryogenically suspended experimental life forms, metal boots disturb the frost. A lone bounty hunter in a familiar orange exosuit points her blaster ahead. Making my way towards the facility’s power generator, scanning doors and hunting for secret entrances, broken hatches and hidden keys, I suspect that I know exactly what’s going to happen when this place begins to thaw; every clank and creak sounds as if it could be a long-dormant beast busting out of one of those pods. And yet Samus Aran delves deeper, because she has never been afraid of anything.

This section of Prime 4 is classic Metroid: atmospheric, eerie, lonely, dangerous and cryptic. Samus, Nintendo’s coolest hero, is impeccably awesome, equipped here with new psychic powers that accent her suit with pulsing purple light. (I have taken many screenshots of her looking identically badass all over the game’s planet.) She is controlled with dual sticks, or – much better, much more intuitive – by pointing one of the Switch 2’s remotes at the screen to aim. Or even by using it as a mouse on a table or your knee, though this made my wrist hurt after a while. She transforms into a rolling ball, moves statues into place with her mind, and rides a futuristic shape-shifting motorcycle across lava and sand between this distant planet’s abandoned facilities, unlocking its dead civilisation’s lost knowledge.

As the Xbox 360 turns 20, we celebrate its most influential and memorable games – both exclusives, and those that came to the console first

Originally featured as a minigame in Project Gotham, this 80s-style twin-stick shooter was rebuilt as a standalone digital-only release, attracting a huge new fanbase. Fast, frenetic and super stylish, with lovely vector visuals, it was the game that first showed the potential of Xbox Live Arcade.

Baltic, Gateshead
ASMR prophets, Soviet hypnotists, mountaintop rituals … there is scene after scene of breathtaking beauty, elemental ambience and disorienting anxiety in this first solo UK show by the Uzbek artist film-maker

Your heart almost stops the moment you enter Saodat Ismailova’s As We Fade. Within a minute, you’ll forget about the outside world. The Baltic has curated a concise, brave first solo exhibition in the UK of film pieces by the Uzbek artist and film-maker. It is exhilarating, terrifying and unforgettable.

The room is dark. Four works are arranged around a padded black square in the centre for sitting or lying down on – a reference to the void, something Ismailova has been fascinated with throughout her two-decade practice. She grew up during perestroika, a period of widespread political, social and economic reform in the late 1980s, when Soviet ideology began to collapse leaving a void in the culture. Ismailova felt this deeply – her father was a cinematographer and she was on sets with him from a young age. The family lived in a building opposite the largest and oldest film studio in Uzbekistan. During perestroika, films stopped being screened in public.

Menier Chocolate Factory, London
Janie Dee and Alexandra Gilbreath are excellent as wives preparing to meet an old flame in an entertainingly directed play that builds to comic chaos and a marital reckoning

Some revivals really do need the drama of their original setting. Noël Coward’s comedy of (wishful) female infidelity is one such play, first performed 100 years ago and brought to life now as a period piece that offers insight into the mores of the day – and Coward’s fearlessness in the face of bourgeois morality. Almost banned by the UK censor, it was deeply shocking then, and amusing now, with its two interwar-era “girls behaving badly” on a champagne-fuelled night before and regretful morning after.

All of Coward’s preoccupations are here, from disappointment and distance in a pair of marriages to sexual yearning and unfaithfulness – even if the latter is not realised. Except now it is two women plotting it together. The play kicks off at the residence of Julia (Janie Dee) and Fred Steroll (Richard Teverson), over breakfast, when a newspaper notice of a divorce is read out. A sign of things to come?

Sadler’s Wells East, London
Scrooge is a glam ice queen fashion maven until her heart is melted in ZooNation’s delicious festive show – danced to a blisteringly high standard

Who knew Bob Cratchit was such a good dancer? In hip-hop theatre company ZooNation’s new Christmas show, Charles Dickens goes to places he’s never been. Choreographer and director Dannielle “Rhimes” Lecointe has created a fresh, fun and very funky reinvention of A Christmas Carol, with a Caribbean twist, which flips the story and turns Ebeneezer into Ebony. This Scrooge is a fashion maven, “cold as a December wind in London”, strutting across the floor in sweeping cape while her employees freeze in her wake. No Christmas holiday for them, machine-like as they make her monochrome designs. Meanwhile, her sweet niece Freddie is neglected and Bob Cratchit dreams in colour amid Ebony’s strictly black and white world (but has a secret soft spot for her nonetheless).

Leah Hill’s Ebony is a glam baddie, the sharp edges of her catwalk dancing matching her personality. But of course, the ghosts come for her: ghosts of the present first, who pull off her chic platform heels and make her wear trainers instead – now that’s a nightmare! Back in the past, Scrooge returns to her Caribbean roots, and suddenly a warm glow and new rhythms flood the stage, and Ebony’s backstory of grief and loss comes to the fore.

The characters aren’t fully fleshed out. ZooNation shows always have fairly broad strokes but a lot of heart. One minute you’re wondering if you really buy the emotional journey, the next you’ve got a lump in your throat. And the story absolutely does work as a framework for fantastic dancing. The standard is just blistering across the board, the energy effervescent. Lecointe pulls from a wealth of street dance styles – buoyant locking, infectious house dance, slick and sassy vogue – every scene succinct (and clearly narrated through text and songs, with music by award-winning Michael “Mikey J” Asante).

Egg theatre, Bath
The puppet star of a popular children’s show has been multiplied for this entrancing new adventure

The Egg theatre has made a tradition of festive plays about inquisitive animals. A couple of years ago, Midnight Mole burrowed through a Chekhov-inspired cherry orchard. Back in 2019, the irresistibly nutty yet chic Squirrel, which returns to London’s Unicorn next month, was sheer perfection. But the Egg’s most enduring Christmas critter is Snow Mouse, the puppet star of a popular early years show. It’s now been multiplied for this new hourlong adventure aimed at slightly older audiences, aged three to nine.

After a trio of mice fly in like Mary Poppins, clinging on to brollies with their tails swinging, we meet three children who have reluctantly moved from the city to the countryside. The reason is unspoken – perhaps a divorce, as the eldest child, Megan (Nikki Warwick), speaks of her embarrassment. Her sister Juliette (Linda Scaramella) is a bookworm seeking everyday excitement to rival her novels while the youngest, Timmy (Martin Bonger), is a slightly fragile bundle of excitement.

The director remembers holing up in his in-laws’ garage with Stoppard to work on Anna Karenina, teasing him about his accent – and trying to turn him into a surrogate father

In 2010, I was preparing to direct Anna Karenina and told the producer, Tim Bevan, that if anyone should adapt Tolstoy’s novel, it should be Stoppard. Surprisingly – because he was already a hero – Tom agreed to meet.

I went to his apartment and we talked about the novel and the idea of love as a form of madness. It was a theme that was quite personal to him. I think he’d lived that a few times, and it became the thesis for the adaptation. Tom very simply went through the book and removed anything that didn’t relate to it.

OVO Hydro, Glasgow
The novelty headgear tally is high and frontman Jay Kay is in impressive voice – but strong material is smothered by polished playing and flashy production

By the look of the crowd, there aren’t many fluffy, oversized or sparkly hats left on the shelves in Glasgow. Among the originators of the quintessentially 90s acid-jazz genre, Jamiroquai are now a legacy act worthy of their own themed dress-up. Tonight, sole founding member and noted headgear enthusiast Jay Kay (hat tally: four) draws from three decades of material, ranging from their 1993 debut Emergency on Planet Earth to new material set for release next year.

Because many of these songs rely on flashy production, their strongest elements often get lost when translated to a live setting. The sweeping strings of Little L get buried in the mix, as do the beats on disco-leaning tracks such as Canned Heat. Seven Days in Sunny June is a bit livelier, benefiting from loose arrangements and acoustic instrumentation. Early single Too Young to Die is a showcase for Jay Kay’s impressive vocal range, still intact more than 30 years on.

As the band celebrate their 60th anniversary, a California exhibition draws attention to the unique psychedelic artwork that has long told their story

Artist Bill Walker is one of those guys who always seems to be in the right place at the right time. Having met Phil Lesh, the Grateful Dead bassist and avant-garde classical composer, as a student at Nevada Southern University (now the University of Nevada, Las Vegas), Walker was invited in 1967 to make an album cover for the band’s second album, Anthem of the Sun. This experience led to an epic LSD and ayahuasca trip in the Valley of Fire outside Las Vegas over New Year’s Eve and when Walker returned to San Francisco, he painted Anthem of the Sun, complete with figures he came across in the desert.

The Anthem of the Sun painting visually demonstrates the intense innovation that happened in the psychedelic revolution, when music was electrified and LSD became central to the burst of culture that defined the 1960s. The Grateful Dead encapsulated this spirit in their music and came to be considered the most American band of all time for being at the center of the psychedelic movement and its transition from the Beat generation that preceded it.

Forget aprons and baking trays: these tried-and-tested gifts – from a lime squeezer for margaritas to a bare root rose – hit the spot for mothers

• The best home gifts for Christmas and beyond

Mothers do A LOT in the buildup to Christmas: studies show the mental load increases significantly for women in particular. Yet while they’re often the ones finding thoughtful gifts for every relative (and their dog), they can sometimes feel a bit forgotten on the big day.

We’re here to change that, with a selection of the best, most thoughtful gifts for mothers. You won’t find any washing-up sponges, reusable baking-tray liners or three years’ worth of pink leather driving gloves (all genuine gifts that haunt my Christmas past). But there are a few dos and don’ts.

Sequins shed, pollute and rarely get worn. From peplum to ribbons, here are the festive alternatives that bring all the glamour and none of the damage

• Jess Cartner-Morley’s December style essentials

Halloween hadn’t even happened this year when my local supermarket began proudly displaying its festive womenswear. Almost exclusively spattered in sequins, it looked much the same as the previous year’s party offering and was already reduced by 50% by – wait for it – 11 November. For £9 you could pick up a black sequin vest a mere two weeks after it was available at an already worryingly low full price.

Judging by the sale and well-stocked rails, the items didn’t appear to be in demand, and with so many identikit sequin garments in existence (more than 500 black sequin vests at the same price and under on Vinted at the time of writing in the UK), what’s the point of producing more every year?

Our beauty editor reveals her festive wish list, from silky socks and home comforts to the perfect blush

• The best self-care gifts for Christmas

I am told that buying for me is difficult, but I’m more easily pleased than people imagine. A vintage Welsh blanket from eBay to add to my collection, a gift voucher, olive oil, a vintage magazine or a perfect mug (they have to be large, pottery, not porcelain, for heat retention, and white inside so I can properly gauge the colour of the tea) will all keep me very happy.

I’ve nonetheless received some brilliantly imaginative presents over the years. My husband once bought me the complete catalogues of the late Elizabeth Taylor’s belongings, which I treasure (and subsequently bought for my best friend). My girlfriends once adopted me a rescue goat, because I adore them. And recently, all my friends clubbed together to commission the ceramicist Alice Mara to make a miniature replica of my house, and it is now my most beloved item.

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.

Our sex expert unwraps her favourite risque Christmas gifts – from cheeky stocking thrillers to mini massagers and toys

• The best self-care gifts for Christmas

Giving a sexy present requires careful consideration. If you proffer a heavy-duty vibrator, piece of bondage gear or other bit of “serious” kit, the recipient may feel obliged to use it with you straight away so as not to look ungrateful – even if they’re secretly a tad intimidated, or aren’t ready to get freaky before the leftover turkey’s been turned into stir-fry.

I advise bundling risque gifts with softer playthings such as a bath bomb (try Lush’s Sex Bomb), or a massage candle (I love Neom’s treatment candle).

Our fashion editor picks out the items that’ll keep you in style no matter how cold and icy it gets

• The best coats for winter

First things first: this is absolutely not a last-minute-Christmas shopping guide. Yes, I am fully aware that it’s December already, but I intend to float serenely above the rising panic.

It drives me absolutely nuts the way that Christmas shopping from mid-November onward is now labelled as “last minute”, as if gift-buying is a two-month full-time activity. Please can we normalise starting your Christmas shopping in December? Otherwise, we will all go insane and bankrupt. Thank you for listening to my Ted Talk. Here are some lovely things to buy – for the people you love, or for your good self – this month.

Whitney thinks Haile would be happier in a relationship. Haile says she’s fine by herself. You decide who’s being too single-minded
• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

I’m being treated like a sad case, but I am fine by myself. I’m not interested in dating at the moment

Haile’s happiest when she’s in love. I’m glad she’s found peace, but I worry she’s closing herself off

From morning drinks to nolo suggestions for the non-drinkers, and from stocking fillers to showstoppers and after-dinner port

I make the same mistake every single year. And that mistake it this: I underprepare. “How is that possible, Hannah?” you may well be asking. “You’re a wine writer with presumably dozens of half-drunk bottles in your flat at any given time?” It’s because I spend Christmas with my parents, who live about two hours away by train, and there’s no way I’m risking the spill of any bottles on EMR.

So, I usually bring up three or so bottles that are always in the recycling bin by Christmas Eve. What I really need to do is not leave things to the last minute, and instead order ahead. And not just for Christmas dinner, either, but for every moment of the day. From the opening of presents to the falling asleep in front of the umpteenth viewing of The Good Life Christmas special, each instance calls for something entirely different to meet the moment.

From homemade puddings to neighbourly tipples, the quiet exchange of festive treats reveals a world of kindness

• Sign up here for our weekly food newsletter, Feast

A guest at our restaurant recently told me about her mother’s seasonal side hustle, though no one would have dared call it that out loud: in the weeks before Christmas, she became a quiet merchant of puddings. The proper kind of pudding, too: all dense but not leaden, heavy with prunes and warm with careful spicing.

As December crept in, forgotten cousins and semi-estranged uncles seemed to find reasons to drop by her place. She never advertised the fact, of course, but everyone knew that if you came bearing even a modest offering, you might just leave with a pudding wrapped in waxed paper and still warm with possibility. The exchanges were subtle. One neighbour would “pop by for coffee” and just happen to bring two dozen mince pies; a friend would promise to collect the Christmas turkey from the butcher and bring it round, saving this lady the schlep across town. Nothing was said, no ledger kept, but the pudding always travelled in the right direction.

Two make-ahead Italian after-dinner treats: a rich chocolate and hazelnut tart, and a traditional boozy dessert that will send nonna to sleep

When you’re the cook of the house, you spend quite enough time in the kitchen on Christmas Day as it is. And, after those time-consuming nibbles, the smoked salmon starter and the turkey-with-all-the-trimmings main event, the last thing you want is a pudding that demands even more hands-on time at the culinary coalface. For me, the main requirement of any Christmas dessert is that it can be made well in advance, not least because, by the time the pudding stage comes around, I’ll be completely knackered and more than ready to put up my feet and finally relax (or, more likely, fall asleep on the sofa).

From a cranberry katsu curry to a dozen thickly glazed doughnuts, the biggest chains are getting Christmassy. I found out which seasonal meals will leave you carolling and carousing – and which will leave you cold

By now, most major fast food outlets will have launched their festive special. There is no established framework for what “festive” means, and no recognised metrics of Christmassyness. It could be indicated by a lurid green/angry red colour in a place you’re not expecting it (McDonald’s Grumble Pie, I’m looking at you); or an existing thing, made into a more seasonal shape, or the introduction of a quintessential Christmas ingredient, such as a brussels sprout (though seriously, food giants, get over yourself if you think it’s cinnamon – this is an autumn spice).

I am not here to critique the essentials of fast food (I love it). If you want someone who will come over like the critic in Ratatouille, you’re just going to have to go and rewatch Ratatouille. I am merely here to eat six festive specials, and ask myself: do I feel Christmassy, punk?

Waitrose has published its annual report on what goes into the middle-class shopping trolley – and the results are spicy

Name: Posh nosh.

Age: We’re talking new food trends here, so – new.

After my dad died, I tried to cope by keeping busy: a day job, a side hustle, socialising and working out. But I kept bursting into tears in public. At a Quaker meeting, it was as if someone had turned down the volume of the world

It was 2022, and my dad had just died from a rare blood disease. In the aftermath, I quit my PhD and moved back to London from Brighton. I coped by keeping incredibly busy. I regularly informed friends “I’m fine, actually”, as I threw myself into a new job in communications, went clubbing every weekend, picked up a side hustle selling secondhand clothes and got suspiciously invested in my gym routine. If I could just keep busy, I thought, perhaps I could drown out the growing tidal wave of grief.

And it worked, until it just didn’t any more. I began to burst into tears randomly – during a work meeting, at the gym, on my commute – and everyone around me would politely pretend they didn’t notice the 28-year-old man weeping on the tube at 8.30am. I tried to push through it, but my ability to keep up with my own life was faltering, and all of it – the clubs, the job, the gym – suddenly felt unbearably loud and overwhelming.

Experts still debate whether ‘love addiction’ appropriately describes destructive romantic fixation

Elizabeth Gilbert was using people like drugs: a point she emphasizes throughout her memoir All the Way to the River, released in September.

In the book, Gilbert describes falling in love with her friend Rayya Elias. Elias’s terminal cancer diagnosis compelled Gilbert to reveal her feelings, despite being married at the time. She admits to enabling Elias, a self-described “ex-junkie”, to access hard drugs and alcohol during her final months as a warped act of care.

For John, group sex is a fantasy he wants to make reality. For Sophie, it is a mistake she does not want to repeat

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

There’s still so much I want to do sexually, and I want to do it now while I still can

It is good that you are getting expert counselling, but seeking support from other solo mums might be helpful too

I am a very lucky person who has a huge amount to be happy and grateful for. But although I have many excellent friendships, I have had very few romantic relationships. I am now 36 and after 10 years of giving dating a real “go”, I have decided to become a single mum by choice. This has been a very positive decision for me and I am excited about the journey.

During a pre-screening psychological counselling session, the psychologist spoke about the grief many women in my shoes experience as a result of not having the family they’d hoped for. Although I was aware of this and have worked extensively on self-acceptance with my own therapist, I now feel deep sadness and regret at being unable to have formed a relationship with someone who wanted to have children with me. In my friends and colleagues groups, this sets me apart from most women my age. I am envious of the companionship and support my peers receive from their partners.

Major attractions often don’t take lone-parent families into account in their pricing structures, making days out more expensive

I’m frequently irked by family tickets – as a parent of an only child there’s rarely a deal to be had for my circumstances. But at least in my set-up there are two adults. In families with only one earner it must be especially frustrating to be charged as much as a family where there are two.

Vaila McClure from the charity Gingerbread, which campaigns for lone parents, says they are often low earners and have pressures on their finances. “So many single-parent families really struggle to afford to go out,” she says. “Single-parent families shouldn’t be overlooked – they are still part of society. Money shouldn’t be a barrier for them because of unfair ticket pricing.”

Prices are rising on everything from energy to food – but there are ways to cushion the impact

Inflation measures how much prices rise over time. It is measured officially by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Weird tales of meter mix-ups, incomprehensible bills, and to foment the drama, a teenager threatened with a trashed credit rating

On a dark winter’s night, what could be more engrossing than my latest tragifarce about energy firms, guaranteed to set spines tingling?

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.

New York venues aren’t required to give out water – but nightlife workers say it could make the difference between a safe evening out and an ER visit

When the Brooklyn metal band Contract performs around New York, they expect a mosh pit: thrashing bodies shoving and jumping along to the music. They also want to make sure the amped-up, usually drunk crowd stays hydrated. Without water, a mosher might feel sick, faint or pass out. “You don’t want anyone to get injured or hurt,” frontman Pele Uriel said.

Most of the spaces Uriel plays or visits have water stations where customers can easily fill up. But some do not. The worst offenders sell bottles of water at astronomical prices, from $5 to $10. “There have been times when I asked for water, but they charged a lot, so I went to the store next door to buy some,” Uriel said.

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.

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?

The many elegant South Korean brands dominated the year, but France’s faultless Mimétique and the reasonably priced The Ordinary also make the cut

One can’t reflect on this year’s best skincare without acknowledging the domination of South Korean brands. Collectively, Yepoda, TirTir, Anua, Aestura, KraveBeauty, Beauty of Joseon, Dr Althea, Innisfree, Laneige and Then I Met You – to name but 10 of dozens – have succeeded in tempting droves of British consumers away from traditional products and towards very hydrated, unagitated and glassy-looking skin.

Space forbids me from covering all their impressive product launches, and so I’ll pick out Beauty of Joseon’s Relief Sun Rice + Probiotics SPF50+ to wave the Korean flag on the nation’s behalf.

Amid all the fairy lights and tinsel, an understated getup can look a bit curmudgeonly – you need to add some fashion sparkle

Christmas has begun. Don’t come for me with your pedantry about partridges and pear trees. The lights are lit, the turkey sandwiches are in Pret: ’tis the season, already. For the next few weeks we will be in a bubble that has its own festive rules. This is an alternate universe in which it is perfectly acceptable to have Michael Bublé on your Spotify playlist and to drink at lunchtime (to be fair, it is almost dark by then) and non-negotiable to play parlour games.

Christmas also comes with its own set of fashion rules, some of which are set in stone, and others which are updated every year. So I thought it may be helpful to have a quick refresher on how to dress for Christmas. Not least because one of the ways in which this time of year is its own little world is that even people who don’t like parties go to parties.

Irish fashion designer whose linen dresses were a staple of Princess Diana’s wardrobe

Paul Costelloe had a very Irish career. He learned and practised fashion internationally as a migrant in Paris, Milan and New York, and designed for such British institutions as Diana, Princess of Wales, and British Airways at its 1990s zenith.

But he was rooted in the island of Ireland’s terroir, appreciating its fibres, wool and, especially, linen, by fingertip feel as much as eye. Fashion only rediscovered linen after synthetics lost appeal with the oil price shock of the mid 70s. For Ireland, and Costelloe, linen was always an essential resource.

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.

A new overnight bus service in the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland offers comfort and sustainability

I feel my travel-scrunched spine start to straighten as I stretch out on the plump mattress, a quilted blanket wrapped around me and a pillow beneath my head. As bedtime routines go, however, this one involves a novel step – placing my lower legs in a mesh bag and clipping it into seatbelt-style buckles on either side; the bed will be travelling at around 50mph for the next 12 hours and there are safety regulations to consider.

Last month Swiss startup Twiliner launched a fleet of futuristic sleeper buses, and I’ve come to Amsterdam to try them out. Running three times a week between Amsterdam and Zurich (a 12-hour journey via Rotterdam, Brussels, Luxembourg and Basel), with a Zurich to Barcelona service (via Berne and Girona) launching on 4 December, the company’s flat-bed overnight sleeper buses are the first such service in Europe.

By avoiding the famous hotspots and travelling in December, we enjoy culinary delights and historic charms without the summer crowds

The copper pot is filled with a custard so golden it looks like liquid sunshine. Our waiter carefully ladles the sugary, egg-yolk elixir, zabaglione, into two bowls for dunking warm pansarole doughnuts. Our conversation stops, a silent competition to nab the last one. We are literally living la dolce vita.

This dessert is a tradition in Apricale, a fairytale-like village in Liguria, Italy’s crescent-shaped region that hugs the Mediterranean. It’s a far cry from crowded Cinque Terre and posh Portofino to the east. This western edge, on France’s south-eastern border, feels more authentic and calmer in the winter, with more local people than tourists. Unburdened from competing with others for reservations, you are free to live in the present. Let spontaneity be your guide – or, in my family’s case, our appetites.

From city rooftops to seafront winter wonderlands, these are some of the best places to slide into Christmas

Leicester Square in the West End of London has its first ice rink, encircling the statue of Shakespeare that has stood on the spot since 1874. Unusually for a London pop-up rink, there are tickets available every day for walk-up visitors, with skating sessions starting every 15 minutes from 10am to 10pm. A bar serves hot chocolate, mulled wine and mulled cider, and Christmas market stalls surround the rink. The attraction is run by Underbelly, best known for its shows at the Edinburgh festival fringe, and is raising money for the Angel Child Fund at The Brain Tumour Charity (optional £2 donation).
Adults and teens from £14.50, under 13s from £9.50, families from £40, until 4 January, skateleicestersquare.co.uk

The route showcases the North Pennines’ unsung landscapes. We road test a 50-mile section that takes in golden forests, high moors and pretty villages

Up on Langley Common the wind is rising. The tussocks under my boots cover the Maiden Way, perhaps the highest Roman road in Britain, but the sense of being close to the sky – today a simmering grey – remains as palpable as it would have been 2,000 years ago. Looking north, a rainbow arcs across the horizon, the full reach of it clearly visible from this high ground. Buffeted by the squall with every step, it feels as though I’m striding across the top of the world, which is apt, since I’m following the new Roof of England Walk.

This 188-mile, multi-day trail was developed by the North Pennines national landscape team, and launched in September. Taking in lofty footpaths and some of the best-loved elements of the North Pennines – among them High Force, Cross Fell, High Cup Nick, the Nine Standards and England’s highest pub, the Tan Hill Inn – the aim is to showcase this sometimes overlooked corner of the country.

Janet’s wishlist, which ran in Leeds Mercury, and letter from Hampshire girl in 1898 unearthed in newspaper archives

The toys on the Christmas wishlist may have evolved in more than 140 years but children, it seems, do not change. That, at least, is the suggestion of a newly uncovered letter to Father Christmas dating from 1883, believed to be one of the earliest known such messages in the UK.

The letter, addressed to “DeAR SAnTA CLAus”, was written by a six-year-old girl called Janet and preserves her idiosyncratic spelling and capitalisation. “PLeAs BRIng a Doll to Me with a cRADEL, AND a TRuMPtet to JiMMie, AND SoMe OTHer THing to MA AND PA,” wrote Janet, demonstrating both a touching concern for her family members and a canny nose for publicity.

Are you feeling festive? If not, here are some great and unexpected shortcuts, from fish pie to ‘intermittent wrapping’ to watching a seasonal film every day of December

If I haven’t wrapped up warm and wobbled around in circles, it isn’t Christmas. I can measure out my life in London’s ice rinks. Broadgate Circus in the early 00s, because it was cheapest and I was skint. Several seasons of Skate at Somerset House with my ex, because it was our “romantic” Christmas tradition (actually, he hated skating). This year, I’ll be mixing old and new: Hampton Court Palace, where people have been skating since the 1800s, and the inaugural Skate Leicester Square. As long as there’s a mug of something mulled afterwards, I’m happy. Rachel Dixon, travel writer

Years ago, a regrettable ex-boyfriend bought me a merman Christmas tree ornament so bizarre that it short-circuited my brain, unleashing something primal within me. Ever since, I have scoured department stores, gift shops and the darkest reaches of the internet for more mermaid baubles, like some kind of gay Gollum. I now have more than a hundred, including a flautist mermaid, several Santa Claus mermen and (my favourite) a merperson who is somehow also a pig and a ballerina. Unboxing my treasures at the start of December is both the first gladdening sign that Christmas is upon us and – arguably – a cry for help. Joe Stone, lifestyle editor, Guardian Saturday magazine

Ease your houseplants into winter by giving them a seasonal reset and moving them away from radiators

The problem
As soon as the heating is switched on, houseplants start to struggle. Warm, dry air strips moisture from leaves, dries soil faster, and turns cosy corners into arid microclimates. Many people mistakenly think radiator heat is similar to sunlight – warm and life-giving – but it isn’t. Sunlight provides energy for photosynthesis, while radiator heat is dry, stagnant and relentless, closer to a slow cooker than sunshine.

The hack
Before turning on the heating, give your plants a seasonal reset. Move them away from radiators or vents (at least half a metre, ideally). Group plants together to create a pocket of humidity, or place a bowl of water nearby to counteract dryness. Top-dress tired soil with fresh compost, trim off any yellowing leaves and wipe dust from the foliage so the plants can breathe. Water lightly, then let them rest in bright, indirect light to adjust before winter sets in.

Transformative gratitude occurs within sincere relationships, but building those links is not always an easy process

Recently, my psychoanalyst annoyed me. She said something and I felt misunderstood, criticised – and that she was wrong. I wanted an apology. As we worked through this, as she listened to me and I listened to her, I gradually realised that she hadn’t meant exactly what I thought, and that I was the one who had misunderstood, who was being so critical. But why couldn’t she have made it easier for me to understand, phrased it like I would have done? She responded: “That isn’t what I thought.”

In that moment, something clicked. I felt the rush and the relief of sudden emotional clarity. I think this came from seeing that my psychoanalyst, by not apologising to appease my anger, by not taking an easy way out of the conflict, by persisting in offering me her honest thoughts about what was going on in my mind and by bearing my struggle to take them in, was giving me an extremely rare and precious experience. I felt an overwhelming and surprising surge of gratitude.

Cristina Dorador is on an urgent mission in the world’s driest desert, the Atacama in Chile. As the rise of drug-resistant superbugs kills millions per year, Cristina has made it her mission to uncover new, life-saving antibiotics in the stunning salt flats she has studied since she was 14. Against the magnificent backdrop of endless plains, microscopic discoveries lead her team of scientists to question how critically lithium mining is damaging the delicate ecosystem and impacting Indigenous communities

The controversy over flags has faded from the national agenda – but street by street, late at night and with ingenious equipment, their raising and removal is the subject of a roiling dispute over local identity

The Christmas lights have gone up in Stirchley. A multifaith mix of stars and swirls add a festive air to the lamp-posts along the main street of this south Birmingham suburb. Stirchley is a modest kind of place, sandwiched between better known (and better off) areas such as Bournville and Moseley, but there is plenty of evidence here of the lively community spirit that last year resulted in the area being named the best place to live in the Midlands.

Posters in shop windows along Pershore Road advertise a knitting group, a neighbourhood winter fair and the local food bank, while in the former swimming baths, now a community hub, friendly flyers for coffee mornings and choirs are stacked.

Women in Ireland and the UK linked to Free Birth Society among scores around world to have suffered loss or serious harm after births

• Full story: How the FBS is linked to baby deaths around the world

Over a weekend in late June 2024, Emilee Saldaya, the leader of the Free Birth Society, hosted a festival on her 21-hectare (53-acre) property in North Carolina. It was a celebratory gathering for FBS, a multimillion-dollar business that promotes a radical approach to giving birth without medical support.

Promotional footage from the Matriarch Rising festival shows Saldaya dancing beside her private lake, wearing a crown. That same weekend, more than 3,000 miles away, in Dundalk, a town on the east coast of Ireland, Naomi James, bled to death after freebirthing her son.

We’d like to hear from temporary workers in the UK who have not received their correct holiday pay by their agency

Harrods warehouse staff have been underpaid thousands of pounds after the temporary recruitment agency employing the workers failed to award them the correct levels of holiday pay.

The warehouse workers were underpaid by a temporary staffing agency that employs staff and then supplies them to Harrods.

We would like to hear about your music listening habits – and how they’ve changed over time

A new tool in this year’s Spotify Wrapped calculates subscribers’ “listening ages” by comparing their music listening habits to those of other age groups. So, we’d like to know yours.

What have your listening habits been like this year – and how have they changed over time?

Tell us about your standout stage production of the year – we’ll feature a selection of your favourites

We would like to hear about your favourite theatre shows of 2025. Which play captured your heart? Maybe a dance company moved you? Or a musical left you speechless?

Please briefly explain why (100 words max) by filling in the form below and we will feature a selection of them.

We would like to hear from centenarians, their family and friends

The number of centenarians (aged 100 years and over) in the UK has doubled from 8,300 in 2004 to 16,600 in 2024, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Between 2004 and 2024, the number of male centenarians has tripled from 910 to 3,100. During the same period, the number of female centenarians almost doubled from 7,400 to 13,600.

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