As midlife audiences turn to digital media, the 55 to 64 age bracket is an increasingly important demographic

In 2022, Caroline Idiens was on holiday halfway up an Italian mountain when her brother called to tell her to check her Instagram account. “I said, ‘I haven’t got any wifi. And he said: ‘Every time you refresh, it’s adding 500 followers.’ So I had to try to get to the top of the hill with the phone to check for myself.”

A personal trainer from Berkshire who began posting her fitness classes online at the start of lockdown in 2020, Idiens, 53, had already built a respectable following.

Usually found at Monday press conferences, the Reform leader has taken a vow of silence in the face of mounting allegations

The dog that didn’t bark in the night.

You can normally set your watches by Reform. It’s a rare Monday morning in which Nigel Farage doesn’t pop up somewhere in central London to give a press conference.

From prog cabaret and joyful jangle-pop to a rapper who rhymed ‘bonkers’ with ‘chompers’, here are the year’s finest LPs as decided by 30 Guardian music writers
• More on the best culture of 2025

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Handing the Egyptian a contract extension while also bringing about a new identity has backfired terribly

• Sign up for Soccer with Jonathan Wilson here

There is perhaps nothing in a career as hard as the leaving of it. Unless something utterly remarkable happens, Mohamed Salah has played his last game for Liverpool. Left out of the starting lineup for each of the last three matches, he trained on Monday after his extraordinary post-match tirade following the 3-3 draw with Leeds but he has not been selected for the Champions League against Inter on Tuesday. He may or may not be with the team for Saturday’s game at Anfield against Brighton (“I don’t know if I am going to play or not but I am going to enjoy it,” he said). After that, he will be in Morocco for the Africa Cup of Nations with the Egypt national team and the transfer window will have opened by the time the tournament is over.

How has it come to this? Salah is one of Liverpool’s all-time greats. He lies behind only Ian Rush and Roger Hunt in their all-time goalscoring charts. Across all clubs, only Alan Shearer, Harry Kane and Wayne Rooney have scored more Premier League goals. He played a key role in two Premier League titles and a Champions League. He’s won the Premier League Golden Boot four times and been named player of the year three times by both his fellow players and soccer writers – including last year. He’s only 33 and there has been no obvious sign yet of him fading with age. This is not the end anybody would have wanted.

The War Between the Land and the Sea may already have been given a rude nickname on fan forums, but does the latest addition to the Whoniverse hold the key to the future of the franchise?

The War Between the Land and the Sea, which debuted on BBC One and iPlayer on Sunday, is the only new “Whoniverse” content fans are getting for the next 12 months. Starring Russell Tovey, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Jemma Redgrave, it features a radical overhaul of a Doctor Who monster first seen in Jon Pertwee’s era: the Sea Devils.

The drama plays as an ecological thriller, with humanity’s mistreatment of the oceans used as a stick by the Sea Devils – now dubbed Homo aqua and Homo amphibia – to justify their demands. Tovey’s “everyman” character is thrust into the global spotlight as humanity’s representative in negotiations that feel increasingly impossible.

Sanctions, instability and external meddling are still problems for Ahmed al-Sharaa, one year after Assad’s fall

• Ddivided Syria struggles to escape cycle of violence

• The fall of the house of Assad – in pictures

If ubiquity and handshakes were the only measures of success, Ahmed al-Sharaa would be diplomat of the year.

Since he formally became president of Syria on 29 January 2025, the former leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham – a jihadist group with an al-Qaida lineage – has made a total of 21 public international trips to 13 countries. These include a visit to the UN general assembly, the climate change conference in Brazil, and numerous Arab summits.

Hopes rise of a breakthrough in using £78bn of frozen Russian assets to bankroll Kyiv

European leaders rallied behind Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday night amid hopes they might finally achieve a breakthrough to allow Ukraine access to billions of pounds of frozen Russian assets.

Despite vociferous support for the Ukrainian president, who has come under heavy pressure from Donald Trump to cede territory in order to bring the war to a speedy end, there was still no agreement on the thorny question of turning immobilised assets into a loan for Kyiv.

Party denies councillor’s claim it falsely reported expenses during Farage’s run to become Clacton MP last year

• UK politics live – latest updates

Police are looking into allegations Reform UK breached electoral law during its campaign to win Nigel Farage’s Commons seat at last year’s general election.

Political opponents have urged the party’s leader to “come clean” over a former aide’s claims that Reform falsely reported election expenses in the Clacton constituency he represents after his 2024 electoral win.

Defense secretary’s comments recirculating amid dispute over US strikes on alleged drug boats in Caribbean

The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, stated repeatedly in 2016 on Fox News that US service members should refuse “unlawful” orders from a potential president Trump – exactly the position he called “despicable” when Democratic lawmakers said it last month.

The debate about whether US soldiers should refuse illegal orders is now at the center of a fiery political dispute over the US killings of alleged drug traffickers in boats off the coast of Venezuela and Colombia.

MPs, media and supporter groups accuse club of attacking press freedom with bar after reporting on owner

Brighton & Hove Albion has been accused of setting a “dangerous precedent”, as it faced criticism for banning Guardian reporters and photographers from home matches after reports on allegations concerning the club’s owner.

MPs, media and football supporter groups accused the Premier League club of attacking press freedom after its decision to bar the Guardian from the Amex Stadium, after coverage of allegations relating to Tony Bloom.

Jan Jahanzeb and Israr Niazal could face deportation, with their victim saying the attack ‘changed me as a person’

Two teenage Afghan asylum seekers who abducted and raped a 15-year-old girl have been given custodial sentences.

Jan Jahanzeb and Israr Niazal, both 17, face possible deportation and were ordered to register as sex offenders following the sentencing at Warwick crown court on Monday.

Former UK leader loses out on key role in transitional authority after objections from Arab and Muslim nations

Tony Blair will not occupy a key position on Donald Trump’s Gaza “peace council” after Arab and Muslim nations were reported to have objected to the involvement of the former UK prime minister.

According to the Financial Times (FT), Blair has been quietly dropped from consideration for Trump’s “board of peace”, which Trump has said he would chair himself.

Charity worker had joined 40 demonstrators ‘bearing witness’ to the loss of three lime trees in Falmouth

A charity worker suffered a head injury when police tried to remove her from a protest against trees being felled in a Cornish seaside town.

Debs Newman, 60, was “bearing witness” to the loss of three mature lime trees in Falmouth when she was seized by officers.

90,000 people advised to take shelter after 7.5-magnitude quake, but tsunami warnings downgraded

A powerful 7.5-magnitude earthquake has shaken north-eastern Japan, prompting orders for about 90,000 residents to evacuate and tsunami warnings that hours later were downgraded to advisories.

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) initially said a tsunami as high as 3 metres (10ft) could hit Japan’s north-eastern coast after the earthquake struck off the coast at 11.15pm (2.15pm GMT).

Bunches appear on West Sussex beaches after containers fell off ship, but council asks for space for cleanup

It isn’t quite Whisky Galore! – the classic British film in which residents of a Scottish island attempt to pilfer 50,000 cases of spirits from a shipwreck.

Rather than a warming dram or two, people on the south coast of England have been finding bunches of bananas from containers that fell off the back of a ship and washed up on beaches in West Sussex.

Donald Trump has loomed large over Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s meeting with European leaders, after the US president took aim at the Ukrainian leader once again. It comes in the wake of a new White House national security strategy that has caused fear in Europe, but drawn praise from the Kremlin. Lucy Hough speaks to our Europe correspondent Jon Henley.

Labour leader remains bullish about defeating any challenge, but jostling for top job among rivals and their supporters continues

With Keir Starmer’s poll ratings getting worse and the Labour party alarmed by the prospect of wipeout at next May’s local elections, there is much speculation at Westminster about whether he can last the course.

The prime minister is bullish about the prospect of standing aside for another candidate, saying he has defied his detractors before and would do so again. But with many on his own side fearing that he doesn’t have what it takes to turn things around, he may not have the chance.

Norfolk county council wants to demolish a ‘beloved’ 1950s bus shelter in Sheringham, but campaigners are staging a 24/7 sit-in

It was about 4am on Monday, under the cover of darkness, when protesters camping at their town’s 1950s bus shelter were woken by the arrival of bailiffs. Days earlier, the council had served an eviction notice to those fighting to save the shelter, claiming their occupation was illegal.

This marked the latest escalation after a week-long sit-in at the Sheringham bus shelter on Station Approach near the heritage railway station, after the council announced its decision to demolish and replace the site due to accessibility and safety concerns.

Forget sprawling mansions or quirky architecture, Zoopla’s most-viewed listing in 2025 was notable for being relatively affordable and surrounded by countryside …

Name: Britain’s most desirable home.

Age: Newly crowned.

Want to shrink your festive footprint? These practical, expert-backed tips can help make silly season more sustainable

• Where do all the products the Filter tests end up?

Whether it’s the gift wrap (108m rolls discarded annually), the food (the average family wastes about £60 of it over the festive period) or the dreaded plastic packaging (more than 114,000 tonnes of it is discarded during Christmas in the UK), there is a lot of unnecessary festive stuff. According to Waste Direct, the UK produces 30% more waste at Christmas than at any other time of year.

A few years ago, a family member started a conversation about finding Christmas overwhelming because they were receiving gifts they didn’t really want or need. That sparked a chain reaction whereby we now have a more considered Christmas, choosing presents more wisely (or not at all) and cutting down on the excess. I’ve taken this experience – which has been truly rewarding – plus the advice of experts, to explore easy and joyful ways to be less wasteful this Christmas.

Every year, 1bn tonnes of food are wasted. I value my meals and the work that has gone into them, so I am now always prepared and ready to take home delicious leftovers

I’ve always loved catching up with friends and family over a meal out. Not only is it a chance to find out the latest gossip and what everyone’s up to, but it’s also an opportunity to try out new foods and share that experience together.

But looking back, I’ve realised that I’ve been guilty of contributing to food waste by leaving meals unfinished. Sometimes, I didn’t realise how big portions would be or I’d get so focused on chatting to everyone that I would forget to eat everything until it was time to go.

A reader found there seemed no way to cancel a subscription for Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s new party

I subscribed to Your Party at its shambolic start and am now finding it impossible to cancel my membership. No one replies to emails. My local party branch told me it can’t help.

The portal requires me to open a new account and commit to another payment in order to cancel anything.

Brilliant biopics, daring documentaries and a host of chillers and thrillers – our critics pick the best from another sensational year of cinema
• Read the US version of this list
• More on the best culture of 2025

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A mindblowing new show reveals the human cost when the political system turns against the people, putting stories and faces to the hundreds of thousands of citizens thought to have died due to austerity

The Museum of Austerity, which has just arrived in London having toured Manchester, Newcastle and Bristol, is such a simple idea: you put on a headset, and walk into an empty room. As you walk around, holograms appear; a man about to collapse, clinging to a wall with one hand; a woman leaning on a desk, such a plain image it could be any desk, but you know it’s a benefits office by her look of beseeching desperation; a man who has died in the street, his dog waiting for him to wake up. Approach any scene from the right angle, and the testimony of one of their relatives will start playing through the headset

In 2022, a study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health estimated that there had been over 330,000 excess deaths caused by austerity, one way or another, between 2012 and 2019. It was public knowledge and yet it was somehow too large to wrap your mind around: did it mean the coalition and then Conservative governments knowingly let people die? Or was it more a case of, modern life was different, and governments no longer took responsibility for whether or not people died? That seemed like a narrative everyone was more comfortable with, that these were straitened times, and the state no longer made health and life its core business. But how is that different to letting people die? And how is it comfortable?

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.

Starmer’s ailing government is happy to pursue ideas like cutting Motability, but all ministers will do is damage lives and themselves

Months before the government used the budget to launch plans to tackle Motability – the scheme that leases subsidised vehicles with some disability benefits – a website started quietly spying on disabled drivers. Motability Check – run by an unknown third party and now offline – allowed members of the public to type in any number plate and (largely incorrectly) see if it was a car provided by the firm. The purpose appeared simple and disturbing: spot that neighbour who says they have a bad back and check with a few clicks if they are milking the taxpayer.

From the spring, the idea that Motability was offering disabled people “free” BMWs and Mercedes began to spread. While the rightwing press suggested someone could get a vehicle for “bed wetting” and acne, blue tick accounts on X gleefully argued the only car available to claimants should be cheap, ugly and “have MOTABILITY written on it, preferably in neon”. By October, the narrative had gone mainstream as the supposed scam of free cars was leapt on by the Conservatives and Reform UK.

Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist

Linklater is missing from the best director list despite having two nominated films, and actors including Sydney Sweeney and Josh O’Connor are nowhere to be seen. It looks like Paul Thomas Anderson’s year

• Golden Globe nominations: One Battle After Another leads the charge

• Golden Globes 2026: full list of nominations

It’s become traditional to look for the snubs in any award list – and heaven help anyone whose job it is to curate the “in memoriam” montage on the night and then the next morning apologise for the inevitable hurtful omissions.

Snubs have become a cliche of awards season commentary, but you have to wonder about the best director list of this year’s Golden Globes nominations. No Richard Linklater? This amazing director actually has two films in the “best musical or comedy” section (so I guess he can’t really be that depressed). There’s his amazingly witty and poignant chamber piece Blue Moon, with Globe-nominated Ethan Hawke playing depressed Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart, and his eerily accomplished pastiche-homage Nouvelle Vague, about the making of Godard’s classic Breathless, shot not in the boring old colour in which these events happened but in a beautifully realised monochrome – a little reverential for my tastes but still a marvellously accomplished picture. Two films in one year, and such different films. Quite a feat.

The proposed acquisition would see yet more of Hollywood controlled by a tech company and one that doesn’t seem to care about the theatrical experience

Did Netflix just exacerbate a bunch of seasonal affective disorders in cinephiles? Timed to ruin holidays like a round of end-of-year layoffs, the streaming giant announced plans to buy Warner Bros, a movie and television studio with a full-century legacy. It’s possible that the acquisition won’t actually go through – and if it does, it won’t be for at least a year. But the news still looms over year-end awards and list-making, and it’s going to take more than a jingle-bell heist to steal back any holiday cheer for the entertainment industry, much less halt the march of corporate consolidation and monopolization. Even more depressing: the entity that seems most able to take action against this is … another attempted consolidation. Paramount has launched a bid for a hostile takeover of Warner Bros Discovery, which would bring two big studios under one extremely Trump-friendly umbrella. This would almost certainly further cull the number of wide-release movies released each year.

Depression might not seem like a rational response, especially for anyone who doesn’t actually work in said industry. (There are plenty of reasons that various unions are making their opposition to either sale known.) Yet the news last week had hundreds of film fans posting eulogies and defenses not just of Warner Bros as a studio – which on its own includes a vast history encompassing classics like Casablanca, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Departed, Bonnie and Clyde, The Searchers and The Matrix, among hundreds – but the very fabric of theatrical moviegoing.

We can move from defensive crouch to position of strength but only if we use the economic cards we have against US coercion

Europe is on a trajectory towards nothing less than “civilisational erasure”, the Trump administration claims in its extraordinary new National Security Strategy, a document that blames European integration and “activities of the European Union that undermine political liberty and sovereignty” for some of the continent’s deepest problems.

Everybody should have seen it coming after Washington’s humiliating 28-point plan for Ukraine. JD Vance’s shocking Munich speech in February, in which he suggested that Europe’s democracies were not worth defending was an early red flag. But the new words still land as a shock. The security document is the clearest signal yet of how brutally and transactionally Washington wants to engage with the continent. It marks another phase in Trump’s attempt to reshape Europe in his ideological image while at the same time abandoning it militarily. US policy, the paper says, should enable Europe to “take primary responsibility for its own defence”.

Georg Riekeles is associate director and Varg Folkman a policy analyst at the European Policy Centre

While those who defend the status quo and those who say ‘simply rejoin’ the EU are both wrong, there is a new mood and a clear opportunity

Being right that Brexit was a bad idea is no substitute for knowing what to do next. Our chance of salvaging something from the mess it created is being undermined by those selling false hope – either that Brexit can work, or that it can be easily undone. For the 16,000 businesses that have now given up trading with Europe because of paperwork, prospects remain bleak unless the government stops offering a sticking plaster and starts major surgery on our future with Europe.

Forgive pro-Europeans for thinking the momentum is now with us. Labour has been slow to say what it wants from the EU reset, and slower still to acknowledge the inevitable tradeoffs required. Until the summer, ministers promised to “make Brexit work” and endlessly repeated “red lines”. Yet in recent weeks, a major study has found that leaving the EU cost the UK 6-8% of GDP per capita; now the chancellor calls the damage of Brexit “severe and long lasting”; the prime minister condemns the “wild promises” of the Leave campaign. Belatedly, a window of opportunity to change course may be opening.

Stella Creasy is the chair of the Labour Movement for Europe and MP for Walthamstow

Teachers in England and Wales are burnt-out and barely functioning. Solving that will help young people and their families too

Tis the season to be jolly, unless you’re a teacher, in which case you are most likely a zombified wreck tenuously held together by caffeine and chocolate bars that aren’t even made of chocolate any more.

In the popular imagination, teachers finish at 4pm and have “all those holidays”. Yet at this point in the year, most I know are barely functioning. Colds are battled for weeks on end as we stumble through brief lulls in the day as though dazed, unable to string thoughts together. The half terms are, yes, a perk, but they are also a necessary buffer against complete burnout.

Lola Okolosie is an English teacher and writer

Miner will have to do things by the book after ditching plan to pay bosses millions in bonuses after Teck deal

• Anglo American drops plan to pay bosses millions in bonuses

Shareholder rebellions over executive pay aren’t what they used to be. In the past 18 months, bumper incentive arrangements for the bosses have been approved at AstraZeneca, the London Stock Exchange Group and Smith & Nephew. All those companies have managed to argue successfully that, since the bulk of their revenues are made on the other side of the Atlantic, the executives should be paid like Americans.

Perhaps it was such favourable votes (for the executives) that persuaded the remuneration committee of FTSE 100 miner Anglo American that its cheeky “resolution 2” within the proposed $50bn all-share merger with the Canadian group Teck Resources wouldn’t cause a fuss.

Sun-dimming risks putting the planet’s thermostat under Donald Trump’s control. Better to adopt the precautionary principle with high-stakes science

It is fitting that this week’s UN environment talks are in Nairobi, with Africa shaping the global climate conversation. The continent’s diplomats are dealing with the vexed question of whether it is wise to try to cool the planet by dimming the sun’s rays. While not on the formal summit agenda, on the sidelines they are arguing that it’s time to stop promoting solar geoengineering technology as a solution to global heating. It’s hard to disagree.

African nations have acted because they don’t want their continent to become a test bed for unproven schemes to spray particles into the high atmosphere to reflect sunlight away from Earth for a small, uncertain cooling gain. They point to environmental, ethical and geopolitical risks. That’s why the continent is pushing for a global “non-use” agreement that would rule out public funding, outdoor experiments, patenting and official promotion of these technologies.

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.

US pressure over Ukraine has revealed Sir Keir Starmer’s limitations and a British state too hollowed out to shape events at home or abroad

The bullying of Ukraine by the Trump White House has exposed Sir Keir Starmer as a prime minister adrift in shifting geopolitics. Unable to describe Britain’s position, he managed only a hope of “lasting” peace. This reveals a British state that has been hollowed out, as well as the diminishing returns of a political order built for another age. For decades, UK leaders assumed that the US would underwrite Europe’s security; that, as Washington’s closest ally, Britain would punch above its weight; and that British institutions would stabilise order, if not justice, in turbulent times. That world has gone.

Monday’s Downing Street summit with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, threw the dilemma that Sir Keir faces into sharp relief. Mr Macron could speak of the cards in Europe’s hand; Germany’s leader could voice scepticism about American proposals. Even Mr Zelenskyy, fighting for national survival, could pithily articulate why he needed both Europe and the US. Each spoke from within a political system that, however imperfect, has begun adapting to a post-American world. Britain has not – and, under its present leadership, shows little inclination to even envision one.

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

Readers respond after another former Dulwich college pupil spoke out with allegations of racist behaviour by the Reform UK leader

Regarding Nigel Farage’s difficulty believing that people can remember schoolboy “banter” of more than four decades ago (Former Dulwich pupil says Farage told him: ‘That’s the way back to Africa’, 5 December), perhaps I can helpfully direct him to an African proverb: “The axe forgets, the tree never does.” This succinctly summarises the disparity in recollections of interactions between victims and perpetrators.
Juliet Winstone
Dorking, Surrey

• “Farage has suggested that it is simply inconceivable that anyone could recall such events of over four decades ago,” says Yinka Bankole in your article. Such events that hurt children or young people, whether words or actions, are remembered for the whole of a lifetime. I remember a similarly unpleasant event that happened to me at the age of 13 on 14 February 1964. I could go to the exact spot. That was more than six decades ago, not four.
Name and address supplied

Readers respond to an article by John Harris on how the budget has left middle-income families anxious and angry

John Harris’s stimulating article on the “squeezed middle” missed one area of concern for those of us trapped in it (The ‘squeezed middle’ is back – and this time it could be Labour’s undoing, 30 November). We knew that even if we’d paid our cheap mortgages off (lucky us), we would either have to downsize or have taken out our own pensions. We knew the state pension would never be enough.

So we did. And if we were lucky, it covered the cracks. Except that when we retired, we were taxed again on our pensions, having already been taxed on the funds we used to take them out in the first place.

Sagal Hassan and Dr Lisa Williams respond to the news that Wes Streeting has asked experts to investigate whether normal feelings have become ‘over-pathologised’

As a psychotherapist with child and adolescent mental health services, I welcome Wes Streeting’s change of heart on his comments about the “overdiagnosis” of mental health conditions, ADHD and autism (I realise now that my view on mental health overdiagnosis was divisive. We all need better evidence, 4 December). Political point-scoring has no place in public health.

By setting up this taskforce, Streeting acknowledges the complexity of the picture and that conversations must be led by research, where science and suffering can be held together.

A photographer’s legacy | Getting in the Christmas spirit | Crossword cat | New dictionary entry | Peace prize for Putin

Martin Parr’s photographs are full of wry humour and an affection for the quirkiness of life (Martin Parr, photographer acclaimed for observations of British life, dies aged 73, 7 December). He encouraged ordinary people to observe and celebrate the world around us. A few years ago, I had two photographs published on the Guardian’s letters pages, something that would never have happened to me in a million years had I not been inspired by Martin.
Toby Wood
Peterborough

• I enjoyed the article on getting into the Christmas spirit (2 December). Please can Joel Snape provide a list of the 31 festive films he watches in December? For me, the festive feeling starts when I add the first house to my Marks & Spencer advent village bought in 1998 – and getting out my festive tea towels.
Cathy I’Anson
London

• Minute-by-minute report of the 8pm GMT kick-off

• Amorim: Mainoo is proof I trust United’s academy

• Get in touch! Email Will with any thoughts

Matt Burtz emails: “There are some who don’t believe in xG, and that’s fine. For those who do, Wolves’ xG per 90 minutes is -0.44. Not great, but it’s only the fourth worst in the Premier League. (Interestingly enough, it’s ahead of Sunderland’s -0.52.) But the main stat for Wolves is an xG against of 18.9, which is seventh in the PL (and better than that of third place Aston Villa). This means they’ve been incredibly unlucky in keeping goals out. Clearly they need to score more goals as one every two games isn’t going to cut it at any level, but if their luck balances out defensively there is a theoretical chance of them putting some results together.”

It’s a nice theory.

• Forward trained before trip to Milan but not travelled

• Club made decision following Salah’s outburst at Leeds

Mohamed Salah has been left out of Liverpool’s Champions League trip to Milan to play Inter on Tuesday following his criticism of the club and Arne Slot.

Liverpool, in consultation with Slot, have decided to remove Salah from the first-team picture for a short period but have not disciplined the 33-year-old for his outspoken comments. The forward will miss the game at San Siro and may also be absent when the champions host Brighton in the Premier League on Saturday.

Brendon McCullum’s regime may be unravelling but there is rarely any suggestion of what to do next and how the team can be improved

Overprepared. Overconfident. Overblown. Over there. And now just over. We know how this goes from here, don’t we? We know this cycle.

The days since England’s defeat in Brisbane have boiled down to a real-time competition to become the hate-click boss, to describe in the most sensual, eviscerating detail the depth of England’s badness, not just at cricket, but at the molecular, existential level.

National League North side Macclesfield have drawn the holders Crystal Palace, while Exeter City travel to Manchester City

Crouch and Cole are in the clubhouse … we are getting closer.

TNT are hosting the draw at Brackley Town before they face Burton Albion.

• F1’s new superstar shares memories from road to glory

• Briton tells of ‘cool flashbacks’ on track in Abu Dhabi

After becoming Formula One world champion for the first time, Lando Norris revealed that he had enjoyed the final moments of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Sunday by considering all the moments that had brought him to the pinnacle of the sport.

Norris was speaking the day after he won the world championship by taking third place at the Yas Marina circuit. His title rival Max Verstappen won the race but fell short of Norris by two points. The fight remained tight to the decisive last round with Norris’s McLaren teammate, Oscar Piastri, who had led the championship for a large part of the season, also in the mix for the final race but who ultimately finished third.

Manchester City show their resilience, Spurs eye the Champions League and Liverpool look to splash the cash

How much has Manchester City’s mentality evolved and strengthened? After they overcame a stubborn Leicester City side 3-0 on Sunday to claim a ninth straight win, it would appear the answer to that question is “significantly” compared to recent seasons, as they demonstrated a unity and a composure that has perhaps evaded many title hopefuls of old. December last year brought moments when Manchester City’s campaign began to unravel, through a combination of injuries and surprise defeats. On Sunday they looked like potential champions in the sense that they found a way to win what could very easily have become a frustrating game, against a back five in a low block. Andrée Jeglertz pointed to this professionalism and calmness at full time: “I’m very proud and pleased with the patience the players are showing, the trust, the belief. They are not starting to yell at each other, they just keep believing in each other and believing in what we are doing.” Tom Garry

The minimum bet rule model is there in Australia for all to see and the Gambling Commission should act now

Racing enjoyed its biggest win for many years in last month’s budget. The threatened harmonisation of duty rates for betting and gaming was not simply seen off, but routed, with the differential between the two rates significantly increased. As an added bonus, meanwhile, racing was excluded from the small rise in the duty rate for bets on football and other sporting events.

Having celebrated the win, though, the next step is to ensure that the benefits are maximised. And since, in relative terms, racing has just become a more attractive product for bookmakers, what better moment could there be to address one of the major obstacles that many punters face when they want to bet on the horses?

• Fly-half labels change a ‘backward step’ for sport

• ‘Unfortunately I think it’s changed how everybody plays’

The Gloucester fly-half Ross Byrne believes international head coaches could convert second-rows into wings for the next men’s Rugby World Cup in 2027 to capitalise on the crackdown on escort defenders.

Last October World Rugby instructed referees to scrutinise and punish defending teams obstructing opponents chasing high contestable kicks, a move that has had a profound tactical impact on the elite game.

President says farmers are ‘the backbone of our country’ and says China has committed to buying $40bn in American soybeans

In a statement, Pamela Smith said she was “deeply humbled, grateful and deeply appreciative” of her time in her role, which she described as the “greatest honor” of her career. She gave thanks to the mayor for appointing her in 2023 and supporting her throughout her tenure, which she acknowledged had been both “challenging and rewarding”.

Smith adds that “tremendous progress” has been made but the city is not at “zero percent crime” yet.

I am confident that the department is in a strong position and that the great work will continue, moving in a positive trajectory to combat crime and enhance public safety. Washington, DC is an extraordinary place to live, visit, and work, and I remain inspired by the resilience and spirit of this community.

I am profoundly grateful for the opportunity to serve in this capacity as Chief of Police. It has been an honor to lead the men and women of the Metropolitan Police Department, and I will always carry with the me the pride of having served this city.

When Chief Smith stepped up to lead the Metropolitan Police Department, we had no time to waste. She came in at a very challenging time for our community, when there was significant urgency to reverse the crime trends our city was facing post pandemic. Within a year of her tenure, we opened the Real-Time Crime Center.

We deployed newer and better technology. We worked with the Council to pass comprehensive legislation that prioritizes accountability. And Chief Smith got all of this done while also navigating unprecedented challenges and attacks on our city’s autonomy.

Justice secretary says government wants to protect journalists and activists who ‘shine a light on corruption’

David Lammy has said the UK will go further to tackle abusive and spurious lawsuits aimed at silencing whistleblowers and journalists, raising the prospect of further legislation next year.

The deputy prime minister told campaigners and officials at the launch of the government’s anti-corruption strategy that he was determined to crack down on the practice known as Slapps – strategic lawsuits against public participation.

Actor, who starred in The Passion of the Christ, will play the disgraced ex-Brazilian president in film written by his one-time secretary of culture

Jair Bolsonaro, the former Brazilian president now in prison for plotting a coup, is getting the biopic treatment.

Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in Mel Gibson’s 2004 film The Passion of the Christ, is reportedly filming a “heroic” portrait of the rightwing ex-politician in secret. Dark Horse, directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh and written by Mário Frias, who served as secretary of culture under Bolsonaro, started shooting three months ago in Brazil, where Bolsonaro served as president from 2019 until 2023. He was sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison in September 2025 for leading a criminal conspiracy to stop his leftwing rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, taking power, though his supporters deny the allegations and have compared the prosecution to the “lawfare” allegedly faced by Donald Trump before he was re-elected.

Nicolas Sarkozy’s new book, The Diary of a Prisoner, is being released this week – and also details the time he spent in jail

The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has said Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) party is “not a danger” to France, and he would not support a united front of parties against Le Pen at the next election.

In his new book, written at a “small plywood table” in prison where he recently served 20 days of a sentence for criminal conspiracy, Sarkozy said many of his former supporters were now potential Le Pen voters, and he appeared to include the RN in his vision of a broad French right.

Virus caught by person who travelled to Asia combines more severe form of mpox with less virulent type

Health officials have identified a new variant of mpox in England after a person who recently travelled to Asia was tested for the virus.

Genome sequencing showed that the virus was a “recombinant” form containing elements of two types of mpox currently in circulation: the more severe clade 1, and the less virulent clade 2, which sparked the 2022 global mpox outbreak.

Study of 11,000 births in New Hampshire shows residents’ reproductive outcomes near contaminated sites

Drinking water contaminated with Pfas chemicals probably increases the risk of infant mortality and other harm to newborns, a new peer-reviewed study of 11,000 births in New Hampshire finds.

The first-of-its-kind University of Arizona research found drinking well water down gradient from a Pfas-contaminated site was tied to an increase in infant mortality of 191%, pre-term birth of 20%, and low-weight birth of 43%.

Species extinct as breeding birds in Britain since 1416 to be reintroduced in Barking and Dagenham as part of rewilding effort

Above the roar of traffic, the rumble of the tube and the juddering construction noise of a towering new datacentre in Dagenham, east London, will soon rise a beautiful and unlikely melody: the bill-clattering of white storks.

The birds will next year make a historic return to the UK capital as part of an ambitious rewilding effort to bring charismatic nature into busy city communities.

As Bulahdelah mourns dead firefighter, residents recall lucky escapes and say they have ‘never had fires like this’

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When Garry Morgan arrived home on Friday afternoon, his rural mid-north coast property was surrounded by a “big plume of smoke”. Less than 24 hours later, two houses on his street would be lost and the surrounding forest reduced to blackened skeletal remains.

Morgan’s township of Bulahdelah, about 200km north of Sydney, was where a veteran firefighter died on Sunday evening when he was struck by a falling tree, marking what the NSW premier called a “foreboding start” to the bushfire season.

Exclusive: Congress urged to act against energy-hungry facilities blamed for increasing bills and worsening climate crisis

A coalition of more than 230 environmental groups has demanded a national moratorium on new datacenters in the US, the latest salvo in a growing backlash to a booming artificial intelligence industry that has been blamed for escalating electricity bills and worsening the climate crisis.

The green groups, including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Food & Water Watch and dozens of local organizations, have urged members of Congress to halt the proliferation of energy-hungry datacenters, accusing them of causing planet-heating emissions, sucking up vast amounts of water and exacerbating electricity bill increases that have hit Americans this year.

Forecasters say flooding and travel disruption possible amid warnings for Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and western England

Storm Bram will lead to strong winds and heavy rain in the UK later on Monday and throughout Tuesday, forecasters have warned.

Named by Met Éireann, Ireland’s equivalent of the Met Office, Storm Bram will move north and to the west of the UK on Monday, bringing heavy rain and winds to parts of the country.

Leader John Swinney says independence could cut household energy bills by a third in the long term

The future of Scottish renewables will underpin the Scottish National party’s Holyrood election campaign, the party leader, John Swinney, has said, as he claimed independence could cut household energy bills by a third in the long term.

At what was billed as the first campaign event before next May’s elections to the Scottish parliament, Swinney declared: “It’s Scotland’s energy” – mirroring the famous 1970s slogan “It’s Scotland’s oil”, which bolstered the SNP’s first Westminster breakthrough.

Artist, whose real name is Justin Clarke-Samuel, pleads guilty at Old Bailey over hit-and-run death of Yubin Tamang, 20

The rapper Ghetts has pleaded guilty to causing the death of a student in a hit-and-run while driving dangerously.

The award-winning artist, whose real name is Justin Clarke-Samuel, appeared at the Old Bailey in London by video link from Pentonville prison and admitted causing the death of 20-year-old Nepali student Yubin Tamang on 18 October.

Sandie Peggie wins harassment claim but tribunal dismisses allegations of discrimination and victimisation

A nurse who complained about sharing a women’s changing room with a transgender doctor has won part of her employment tribunal against NHS Fife but her claim against the doctor in question was dismissed.

Sandie Peggie, who has worked as a nurse for more than 30 years, contended she was subject to unlawful harassment under the Equality Act when she was expected to share a changing room with Dr Beth Upton.

Attorneys for the victims struck deal with the church’s largest insurer to increase $230m settlement approved earlier

• New Orleans Catholic archdiocese gains approval to pay $230m to sexual abuse survivors

Roughly 600 survivors of the clergy molestation scandal that drove the New Orleans Catholic archdiocese into bankruptcy have secured the opportunity to collectively be paid $305m after attorneys for the victims and the church’s largest insurer struck a deal Monday, according to some of the lawyers.

The insurer in question, Travelers, had refused to join a proposal officially approved Monday to pay $230m to the abuse survivors to effectively wrap up a bankruptcy protection case that the US’s second-oldest archdiocese filed in May 2020.

Sinners, Hamnet and Sentimental Value also key contenders for first major awards ceremony of the season, while Bradley Cooper, Sydney Sweeney and Brendan Fraser among those snubbed
• Full list of nominations
• Peter Bradshaw’s take
• The best films of 2025

At present, the mantelpiece of Paul Thomas Anderson remains strikingly light on major trophies. Despite being responsible for some of the films widely acknowledged to be the best of the century so far, including There Will Be Blood, The Master and Phantom Thread, the writer-director is yet to win an Oscar, Golden Globe or more than one Bafta (original screenplay for 2021’s Licorice Pizza).

This year’s Golden Globe nominations suggest this is about to change, with his counterculture epic One Battle After Another leading the pack of nominees with nine mentions on the shortlist, including for best comedy or musical, best director, best original screenplay, leading actor for Leonardo DiCaprio, leading actor for Chase Infiniti, supporting actress for Teyana Taylor and two chances to scoop supporting actor – for Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro. Jonny Greenwood’s score was also recognised.

Study of 8,300 US children suggests social media may be contributing to a rise in ADHD diagnoses

Increased use of social media by children damages their concentration levels and may be contributing to an increase in cases of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to a study.

The peer-reviewed report monitored the development of more than 8,300 US-based children from the age of 10 to 14 and linked social media use to “increased inattention symptoms”.

Cyril Ramaphosa says theories, promoted by Donald Trump, ‘conveniently align with wider notions of white supremacy’

White supremacist ideology and false claims that South Africa’s Afrikaner minority is being racially persecuted pose a threat to the country’s sovereignty and national security, the country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has warned.

Since taking office for his second US presidential term in January, Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that South Africa’s government is seizing land and encouraging violence against white farmers.

Paramount’s bid for the entire company counters $82.7bn Netflix deal for WBD’s studio and streaming operation

David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance is not giving up in its aggressive campaign to acquire Warner Bros Discovery (WBD), launching a hostile bid for the entertainment company despite the announcement on Friday that Netflix had agreed to buy its studio and streaming operation.

Netflix’s bid for WBD’s storied Hollywood movie studio, as well as its premier HBO cable network, valued the company at $82.7bn. But it did not agree to acquire WBD’s traditional television assets, including the news network CNN and the Discovery channel.

Backlog delaying ‘shovel-ready’ ventures will be cleared with aim of building virtually zero-carbon power system by 2030

Britain’s energy system operator is pulling the plug on hundreds of electricity generation projects to clear a huge backlog that is stopping “shovel-ready” schemes from connecting to the power grid.

Developers will be told on Monday whether their plans will be dismissed by the National Energy System Operator (Neso) – or whether they will be prioritised to connect by either the end of the decade or 2035.

FTSE 100 miner’s U-turn follows investor opposition to payouts when deal completes, including estimated £8.5m to CEO

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London-listed miner Anglo American has dropped plans to award its bosses multimillion-pound bonuses if its planned $50bn mega-merger with a Canadian rival goes through, after a backlash from its investors.

The FTSE 100 miner had sought shareholder approval for a plan to award its chief executive, Duncan Wanblad, a share bonus worth £8.5m if the deal to buy Teck Resources to create a copper producing giant was completed.

President vows to get involved in controversial takeover described as ‘unprecedented’ by ex-chair of regulator

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• Analysis: Netflix inks deal for troubled Hollywood giant

Donald Trump has warned of potential competition problems over Netflix’s $83bn (£62bn) deal to buy Warner Brothers’ movie studio and streaming networks.

The US president, speaking at an event in Washington DC on Sunday, confirmed he would be involved in deciding whether the government approved the takeover.

The Bridge theatre in London presents Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s classic this Christmas. Take a closer look – and revisit past revivals

From Franz Ferdinand fusing a basement pub’s lights to high-rise flats just days before their demolition, a new show captures the changing city. Its photographers talk us through their shots

In the mid-1960s, with a shot called Beatle Girl, Joseph McKenzie made one of the most enduring images of Glasgow. His photograph showed a youngster in the slums of the Gorbals wearing a dirtied dress. Smiling and holding a cane, she stands next to a young woman who is wearing a dress patterned with the faces of the Fab Four.

Images like McKenzie’s, and the street photography of Oscar Marzaroli, came to define Glasgow’s distinctive character – its Victorian tenements, grit and hardiness – charting industrial boom and subsequent bust, cycles of dereliction, regeneration and demolition. But what happened next? Featuring 80 photographs by artists of different generations, Still Glasgow, at the city’s Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA), captures its changes and complexities through the eyes of people who have been there since the 1940s.

HBO’s new show is part of a wave of gay-themed romance – from Heartstopper to Red, White and Royal Blue – that desexes gay men just enough to make them palatable, like pets for young women

Even before it dropped on HBO Max last month, this new drama series about two horny gay rival ice hockey players shagging each other off the rink while fighting for sporting supremacy on it was generating its own steam. Perhaps it was creator Jacob Tierney’s terse response to questions of his leading actors’ sexualities while on a recent promotional tour. Or that the show is based on a series of concupiscent novels by Canadian writer Rachel Reid that centre hockey (!), and which ride the current trend for “hate-to-love” romance driving the kids crazy. Actually, it’s probably just all the hot gay sex.

Because Heated Rivalry does get heated. One minute aloof Russian player Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) is making eyes at meek local champion Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams), the next they’re wanking in the shower together. Then getting blowjobs in classy hotel suites. Pretty soon, the boys are going at it hammer and tongs – broken at regular intervals by months-long ellipses, waiting for the hockey circuit to bring them back into each others’ arms. This is also convenient for sexual tension, which would otherwise have to be developed through character and dialogue.

He is the prickly, hotheaded journalist who uncovered the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and torture at Abu Ghraib prison. Finishing Cover-Up, a film about his astonishing life and countless scoops, was never going to be easy

One morning last month, Seymour Hersh set off to buy a newspaper. The reporter walked for 30 minutes, covered six blocks of his neighbourhood, Georgetown in Washington DC, and didn’t see a single sign of life. No newsstands on street corners selling the glossies and the dailies. No self-service kiosk where you can slide in a dollar and pull out a paper. “Finally, I found a drugstore that had two copies of the New York Times in the back,” Hersh recalls. He bought one for himself. He can’t help but wonder whether anybody bought the second.

Hersh was born in Chicago in 1937, the year the Hindenburg airship blew up and the aviator Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Pacific. That makes him a man of hot metal, the media’s ancient mariner, with metaphorical newsprint on his fingers and a cuttings file that reads like an index of American misadventure. Hersh has been a staff writer at the New York Times and the New Yorker. He’s broken stories on Vietnam, Watergate, Gaza and Ukraine. But the free press is in crisis, newspapers are in flux and investigative journalism may be facing a deadline of its own. “I don’t think I could do now what I did 30, 40, 50 years ago,” says the now 88-year-old. “The outlets aren’t there. The money’s not there. So I don’t know where we all are right now.”

Abandoned by his parents and fresh out of juvenile prison, the wide-eyed Wellington meets a charismatic hustler on the restless streets of São Paulo

Channelling the urban restlessness and vibrancy of São Paulo, Marcelo Caetano’s bracing drama centres on those who live on the fringes of an ever-changing metropolis. Fresh out of juvenile prison, 18-year-old Wellington (João Pedro Mariano) finds himself at a crossroads; abandoned by his parents, the wide-eyed young man finds solace in the arms of others. On an evening out with his rowdy group of queer and non-binary friends, Wellington crosses paths with Ronaldo (Ricardo Teodoro), a hunky, charismatic hustler more than twice his age. Bathed in the flickering glow of a neon-lit porn cinema, their first meeting is sensuous and erotic, with an edge of danger. Ronaldo quickly introduces Wellington to the shadowy world of sex work and drug dealing.

Caetano depicts Wellington’s new life of crime with tender empathy rather than as a sensationalist cautionary tale. Now going by the name of Baby, he approaches his transactional encounters with cocky bravado and touching naivety. To his customers, Wellington lends not only his youth and his body, but also moments of care. In the feverish excitement of São Paulo, filled with bustling alleyways and colourful shopfronts, there’s a gnawing loneliness, as unmoored souls cling on to one another for momentary bliss.

The latest in our series of writers paying tribute to their most loved comfort films is an ode to the 2000 teen classic

The opening sequence of Bring It On is – in a word – unapologetic. A dozen cheerleaders scream “I’m sexy, I’m cute, I’m popular to boot” in synchronicity – and I have yet to meet anyone (and I have tried) who has the willpower to look away.

It’s certainly not an exaggeration to say I wanted to be one of them – that is, one of the Toros, Rancho Carne high school’s premier cheer squad. But, as a six-year-old watching in north London, I was a world away from the cornucopia of herkies, suggestive dance moves and hair flips of competitive cheerleading in San Diego.

An esoteric blend of folklore and festivity reveals the lesser known, dark side of Christmas, from horse skulls and Yule cats to Icelandic ogres

Christmas nowadays tends to revolve around family, food and a furtive visit from a pot-bellied stranger down the chimney. But in The Dead of Winter, the historian and folklorist Sarah Clegg reveals a lesser known side to the festive season, unearthing unsettling midwinter traditions and stories that fell out of favour in the Victorian age.

Subtitled The Demons, Witches and Ghosts of Christmas, the book opens with Clegg embarking on a pre-dawn walk to a graveyard on Christmas Eve. She is recreating an old Swedish tradition called årsgång, or “year walk”, which is said to offer glimpses into the walker’s future along with “shadowy enactments of the burials of anyone who will die in the village this coming year”.

Available via WF Howes, 4hr 21min

The big-name US talkshow host goes all Fab Four superfan in this historical take on the lives of John, Paul, George and Ringo. Plus, Naomi Fry delivers a rich deep dive into The Doors’ legacy

The popular show’s two-part special on the Fab Four has, bizarrely, prompted its Beatles sceptic co-host Dominic Sandbrook to refuse to appear. But his mega-starry replacement is Conan O’Brien, in for an engaging chat with Tom Holland through the career of John, Paul, George and Ringo. Their USP? Says Holland: “We’re a history podcast rather than a music podcast so we need to make the case that the Beatles are significant historically.” Alexi Duggins
Widely available

Producer says creatives need to own their intellectual property so they can license it to generative AI platforms

The Eurythmics co-founder Dave Stewart has said artificial intelligence is an “unstoppable force”, and musicians and other artists should bow to the inevitable and license their music to generative AI platforms.

These platforms use artificial intelligence to analyse existing songs and tracks, using that knowledge to generate completely new ones as prompted by a user. For example, someone could ask the AI platform to generate a song about a boozy night out in the style of a Britpop band, and it would draw on songs with similar sounds and themes to create its own.

The DJ, producer and singer likes the kind of dancehall her dad disapproves of, and her funk to be electronic. But whose songs make her feel bougie?

The first single I ever bought
Aaliyah, Rock the Boat. My nan sent me and my cousin to pick up some bits in Dalston and there was some change left over so I went into HMV and bought this CD for £1.99. I shouldn’t have been stealing my nan’s change but I felt so grownup. If my Jamaican dad had found out, he wouldn’t have been happy. I would have got a couple of licks.

The song I inexplicably know every lyric to
Mambo No 5 (A Little Bit of …) by Lou Bega. I was working on my album recently and realised I knew every word. I was so impressed because I barely remember my own lyrics.

A meticulously researched account of the controversial businessman’s rise and shocking demise

At least two terrible ironies surround the death of Mike Lynch. One lies in the name of his superyacht, which sank off the coast of Sicily in the early hours of 19 August 2024. He had named the boat Bayesian to honour Bayes’s theorem, a mathematical rule that helps you weigh up the probability of something given the available evidence, which served as Lynch’s guiding light over the course of a tempestuous career. The theorem was “a beautiful key to our minds”, Lynch believed. But it was entirely incapable of predicting the outcome that morning, when the yacht capsized during a storm, killing seven people, including Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter Hannah and his US lawyer, Chris Morvillo.

A second irony lies in the fact that Lynch had just come through the trial of his life, one he felt was bound to end in jail, where he thought he could die. Somehow, to everyone’s astonishment, an American jury had acquitted him and his co-defendant on all 15 counts of fraud.

Written in 1951 and now translated into English for the first time, this family saga by the acclaimed German author recaptures a golden age for Jewish life

In 1948, the German Jewish author Gabriele Tergit travelled to Berlin. There, in ruins, was the city in which she was born and grew up, reported on, then chronicled in fiction. Tergit had been one of the shining lights of interwar Berlin’s flourishing journalistic scene; she had also married into one of the city’s most prominent Jewish families. In 1931 her debut novel announced her as a literary phenomenon.

Then the Nazis came to power. Tergit was on an enemies list. She fled, first to Czechoslovakia, then to Palestine, and finally to London, where she lived from 1938 until her death in 1982. Never again did she call Berlin home. When she visited after the war, she found no real place in the conservative postwar German literary world – and no real audience for The Effingers, her newly completed magnum opus. A version was printed in 1951, but to little acclaim; only recently has a critical rediscovery in Germany established Tergit as one of the country’s major authors. Now, thanks to an excellent translation by Sophie Duvernoy, The Effingers is appearing in English.

Finch defends her daring to practise the male profession of poetry using heroic couplets and subversive jokes

The Apology

’Tis true, I write; and tell me by what rule
I am alone forbid to play the fool,
To follow through the groves a wandering muse
And feigned ideas for my pleasures choose?
Why should it in my pen be held a fault,
Whilst Myra paints her face, to paint a thought?
Whilst Lamia to the manly bumper flies,
And borrowed spirits sparkle in her eyes,
Why should it be in me a thing so vain
To heat with poetry my colder brain?

New novels from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Ian McEwan, plus the return of Slow Horses and Margaret Atwood looks back … Guardian critics pick the must-read titles of 2025

The Guardian’s fiction editor picks the best of the year, from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Dream Count to Thomas Pynchon’s return, David Szalay’s Booker winner and a remarkable collection of short stories.

A surprising economic bubble is making it hard for anyone to buy Pokémon cards – especially children

Pokémon has been huge since the late 90s. Millions of people have fond memories of playing the original Red and Blue games, or trading cards in the playground for that elusive shiny Charizard (if your school didn’t ban them). The franchise has only grown since then – but, where the trading cards are concerned, things have taken an unexpected and unfortunate turn. It’s now almost impossible to get your hands on newly released cards thanks to an insane rise in reselling and scalping over the past year.

Selling on your old cards to collectors has always been part of the hobby, and like baseball cards or Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon cards can sometimes go for thousands of pounds. However, the resale market for Pokémon has climbed so high that even new cards are valued at hundreds, before they’ve even been released. The latest set, Phantasmal Flames, had a rare special illustration Charizard that was being valued at more than £600 before anyone had even found one. When a pack of cards retails at about £4, there’s a huge potential profit to be had.

Pulled by Steam and Epic Games Store, indie horror Horses shook up the industry before it was even released. Now it’s out, all the drama surrounding it seems superfluous

On 25 November, award-winning Italian developer Santa Ragione, responsible for acclaimed titles such as MirrorMoon EP and Saturnalia, revealed that its latest project, Horses, had been banned from Steam - the largest digital store for PC games. A week later, another popular storefront, Epic Games Store, also pulled Horses, right before its 2 December launch date. The game was also briefly removed from the Humble Store, but was reinstated a day later.

The controversy has helped the game rocket to the top of the digital stores that are selling it, namely itch.io and GOG. But the question remains – why was it banned? Horses certainly delves into some intensely controversial topics (a content warning at the start details, “physical violence, psychological abuse, gory imagery, depiction of slavery, physical and psychological torture, domestic abuse, sexual assault, suicide, and misogyny”) and is upsetting and unnerving.

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.

Punchdrunk Enrichment Stores, London
This gentle and generous piece of immersive theatre combines captivating storytelling with moments of wonder

We’re on our way to see Fireside Tales and my five-year-old son, Benji, is full of questions. Will the fire be real? Where will we sit? Luckily, it doesn’t take long for Benji’s anxiety to settle. Punchdrunk Enrichment’s new show has, like its predecessors, been created with schools, communities and children in mind. It’s a gentle and generous piece of immersive theatre – one that often, quite literally, takes the children by their hands and invites them to become part of the story.

To start off, we’re invited to browse the “bookstore”, crammed full of intriguing trinkets to touch and play with. Anxiety quelled and curiosity piqued, it’s time to enter the Punchdrunk Enrichment store where the show proper begins. And what a store it is, designed with immaculate attention to detail by Mydd Pharo. The shelves spill over with quirky objects; clusters of feathers, boxes of globes, bundles of photos, twinkling lava lamps and dusty typewriters.

OVO Wembley Arena
With additional sets from Dru Hill and Joe, this revue is a little too nostalgic and lacks the advertised festive spirit – but the vocal prowess on show is undeniable

All of the artists on the lineup for the second annual R&B Xmas Ball – Dru Hill, Joe, Toni Braxton and Boyz II Men – have Christmas albums from the last two decades, but rather than putting a twist on carols or crooner standards, this is an evening that merely uses Christmas as an excuse for a night out to hear earnest, heart-rending 90s R&B.

Dru Hill deliver classic R&B in matching outfits, as their 2000s music videos – as seen on kebab shop TVs nationwide – play out behind them, while a set of mostly slow jams from Joe sets the stage for Braxton.

Linbury theatre, London
An alter ego of the Nirvana frontman is hounded by a stream of fans, friends, Jehovah’s Witnesses, deliveries and even a private investigator

We first see him clambering around, slowly, under the scaffolding that supports his crumbling home (part doll’s house, part squat). He mutters constantly. In one scene he falls suddenly out of a kitchen cupboard. In another, he pulls his lurid green coat closed over his head, childlike in his efforts to disappear.

Blake is the deeply troubled protagonist of Oliver Leith and Matt Copson’s 2022 opera Last Days, based on Gus Van Sant’s film of the same name. With his 90s grunge-icon blond hair and baggy jeans, Blake is unmistakably the alter ego of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain: these imagined last days are his. But it is what we hear in Leith’s operatic version, revived for the first time at the Royal Opera’s Linbury theatre, that transforms this depiction of a person undone into something truly disturbing.

Citizens theatre, Glasgow
Lewis Hetherington’s reworking of the 18th-century fable is creepy and creative, serious and scary

It is rare for a family show to be both funny and spine-tinglingly creepy, but an achievement playwright Lewis Hetherington pulls off in his imaginative reworking of the 18th-century fable. You would expect one to cancel out the other, but here the narrative cracks forward with such certainty, you can afford the odd moment to laugh.

It is funny that Baron Aaron (Tyler Collins) is deep in denial about his failed shipping business; that Beauty (Israela Efomi) carries with her a copy of an etiquette manual called How to Be a Lovely Young Lady; that her sister, Bright (Holly Howden Gilchrist), cares more for inventions than everyday expressions of affection; that the cat and dog (Michael Guest and Martin Donaghy) are falling ever so sweetly in love; and that the housekeeper Mrs Flobberlyboo (Elicia Daly) has a taste for modernist singing that makes the rest of Nikola Kodjabashia’s angular score seem conventional.

Until she reached her 50s, the actor was a constant presence on stage and screen. Then the offers disappeared. Now, as her renaissance continues, she is taking on Mrs Malaprop in The Rivals

After six decades as an actor, Patricia Hodge says she still gets nervous before a play opens. “I think nerves are always the fear of the unknown,” she says. “Particularly with comedy, where there is no knowing how the audience will react: you’ve got to surf that.”

We meet on a sunny winter morning at the Orange Tree theatre in Richmond, south-west London, where Hodge is about to appear in The Rivals, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Richard B Sheridan play, in which she plays the ironic – sorry, iconic – Mrs Malaprop. “You’re sort of in a tunnel, your entire being is focused on this,” she says. She was here in rehearsals until 11pm the night before. Today, she is sitting at a table with a large coffee. Does she enjoy this bit, the putting together of a play? “I think it’s love-hate actually. The process is really why I do theatre.” She says she finds it energising, “but it’s also very trying, and you just don’t want to be left with your own limitations”.

Photographer Jill Mead joined the Traveller community’s London Christmas drive on Saturday – a 14-mile trip by 200 or so horse-drawn carts and carriages through the capital, stopping at Buckingham Palace, Soho and Borough Market

‘I handed a guy a starting pistol for a stick-up scene. But instead he reached into his car and took out the sawn-off shotgun you see in the movie’

I was part of the New York graffiti artists the Fabulous 5, who were primarily known for painting whole subway cars on the Lexington Avenue line. Lee Quiñones was the group’s Michelangelo. I’d been running with Jean-Michel Basquiat and wanted to take graffiti art into art spaces. I thought that an underground independent film could tell our story in the way we wanted.

Inside Presence, the Icelandic-Danish artist’s epic new show in Brisbane, what you see changes based on where you stand or how you look – crucial when it comes to tackling the climate crisis

I gasp as it comes into view: an enormous sun looming above, its surface roiling with what looks like thousands of tiny atomic explosions. It seems to notice me as well: when I stop, it stops too. It’s both awe-inspiring and unnerving.

In the mirrors around the glowing orb, I spot Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson – globally renowned for large-scale installations that challenge your sense of perception – posing for selfies with the crowd.

Our experts reveal what becomes of all those mattress toppers – plus Gok Wan’s shopping secrets and a gift guide to take your present-giving up a gear

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We do a lot of testing here at the Filter, and that means our experts can end up with a lot of products, from air coolers to suitcases, mattresses to sunrise alarm clocks. We are particularly proud of our commitment to donating them to charity if they don’t need to be returned, so as Christmas approaches, we asked three of our writers where their unwanted items ended up – and who they helped.

“The best part of reviewing mattresses isn’t the naps or the lie-ins – it’s the part where someone comes to take them away,” writes Jane Hoskyn. “Donating them to my local hardship charity Scratch is a win-win: families get to sleep in comfort, and my house gets its floor space back.

Forget heels, flats are back – with a glam new look. From velvet mary janes to sequined ballerinas, here are our top picks for a blister-free festive season

Mariah is on loop in the supermarket and your local cafe is doing gingerbread lattes. It’s officially the silly season. High street windows are filled with ideas for party dressing. There are sequin dresses and strokable velvet suiting, but look down and you’ll spot something a little more unusual. Gone are the customary towering heels. In their place? Sensible flats.

Now, if you are someone who genuinely loves wearing high heels, fine, no judgement, you keep doing you. But if you are someone who feels they should wear heels, rather than actually likes to, then good news – that way of thinking is very much over.

’Tis the season for novelty crisps – from the delicious to the downright deranged. Crisp-addict Ravinder Bhogal crunched through the lot to find the festive flavours worth snacking on

• The best Christmas sandwiches in 2025

Christmas is a time to concentrate on what really matters – snacks – and in my house, it’s crisps that get top billing. They are a party in a bag, ideal paired with a glass of something sparkling or a cocktail, and wonderful swiped through a dip or topped with something bougie, such as caviar.

As a self-confessed crisp addict, and as someone who would sometimes swerve a gourmet dinner for the company of a bowl filled with fried potato pleasure, I jumped at the chance to taste-test festive flavours for the Filter, examining an ever-growing market in which crisp tycoons try to outdo each other with nostalgic flavours.

Whether it’s hair rollers, giant ice cubes or beer mats, your festive favourites make one thing clear: it’s party time

• The best Christmas gifts for 2025

Ever wish you could read people’s minds when giving them their Christmas presents?

Working for the Filter is like having that wish granted, only without the emotional fallout. You see, we get to find out which of our gift guide recommendations you’ve really loved – as opposed to the ones that make you say, “Oh, you really shouldn’t have.”

Sandwich messiah Max Halley sorts the merry from the meh in our taste test of supermarket and high-street festive butties

• The best Christmas drinks, from gingerbread rum to mulled rose

As the owner of a sandwich shop, I was delighted when the Filter asked me to taste and rate the best high-street Christmas sandwiches. I’ve been making sandwiches professionally for 11 years and (of course) at home for much longer. In my shop – Max’s Sandwich Shop in north London – we have a sandwich mantra: hot v cold, sweet v sour, crunchy v soft. The presence of these three core contrasts is, I believe, the key to a great sandwich. Also, I have a liberal attitude to mayonnaise.

To test Christmas sandwiches, I got stuck in – trying each one thoroughly rather than taking just one bite. It would be a tall order to expect a factory-made supermarket sandwich to perfect the contrasts laid out in my sandwich mantra, but I did look for them to be created with contrasts in mind.

After a lifetime of working for others, Rich Baker threw caution to the wind. The result was a national award for his pizza and a surprising surge in confidence

When his kimchi fiorentina pizza won a national award, Rich Baker knew he was turning a corner. It was 2023. Baker was 60. He and his wife, Sarah, had made the kimchi themselves and their win put Flat Earth Pizzas, the east London restaurant they had launched the previous year, on the map.

“My life has changed so much,” Baker says. “A lightbulb has lit up inside and given me energy, and that energy has given me something that is quite amazing: a sense of confidence and a sense of fulfilment.”

A cultural initiative in Piedmont is unlocking a trove of priceless medieval frescoes in rural churches

The Santa Maria di Missione chapel in Villafranca Piemonte, northern Italy, stands at the end of a long cornfield. Behind it, the mountains rise gently, their outlines caressed by the sun. The colours of autumn frame the 15th-century frescoes that embellish the structure’s interior, painted by Italian artist Aimone Duce, of the Lombard school. The chapel is the municipality’s oldest religious building, serving about 4,000 inhabitants, and stands on the site of a pre-existing building dating back to 1037.

Inside the small chapel, my footsteps echo softly against the walls, breaking the stillness of the surrounding countryside. The sharp scent of plaster mingles with the earthy smell of the fields outside, carried in on the wind along with the sweetness of wheat. Light filters through the narrow windows, catching the vivid hues of a fresco that depicts the seven deadly sins – a theme often revisited in medieval iconography.

A rich, buttery crumb, a hint of bittersweet coffee, a spot of icing and a cherry on top … better gift them before you scoff them

These festive cookies are inspired by The Nutcracker’s Land of Sweets sequence, in which coffee and sugar plums are two of the flavours used to conjure a fanciful world of decadent diversion. Anything from a hard candy to a candied fruit can qualify as a “sugar plum” and, in the case of these cookies, the sugar plum is represented by the amarena cherry. Coffee’s bitterness balances the sweetness of the fruit and the rich butteriness of the dough, while the oat flour adds a dash of shortbread-like delicateness.

Brian Levy is the author of the Formal Assignment newsletter and Good & Sweet, published by Avery at £35.99. To order a copy, visit guardianbookshop.com

The pistachio-crammed craze makes a superb gift. Our in-house perfectionist tries all the fiddly bits for you …

If you’re asking what on earth chocolate has to do with a city with an average annual temperature of 28C, then you must have been stuck in the desert for the past three years. Because, since its creation in the UAE in 2022, apparently to satisfy chocolatier Sarah Hamouda’s pregnancy cravings for pistachio and pastry, this bar has taken over the world. Though food (among those with the luxury of choice, at least) has never been immune to the absurdities of fashion, the internet has supercharged and globalised the process, so much so that pistachios, which back in January were dubbed “the new pumpkin spice” by this very newspaper, are now everywhere, from Starbucks lattes to Aldi mince pies.

The thing is, however, that whatever your thoughts on green, sugary, coffee-adjacent beverages, Hamouda’s Dubai chocolate developed for Fix Dessert Chocolatier has triumphed, because it really does taste as good as it looks: crunchy pastry, sweet chocolate and rich, slightly savoury nut butter are an incredibly satisfying combination, so a big bar of it is guaranteed to impress under the Christmas tree. Experience demands that I suggest you wrap it in a pet-proof box, however – emergency vet bills are no one’s idea of a great present.

After several attempts at eating ‘out’, I’m still on the fence

Christmas dinner? At home or in a restaurant? It’s at this juncture of the year, with Christmas dinner hurtling towards us, that you may well find yourself muttering: “Well, we could always go out!” Who could blame any home cook for wanting to shove this great burden on to someone else’s back, especially since every culinary TV show, magazine article and advertising break since mid-November has hammered home what a colossal faff Christmas dinner actually is. No, it’s not just a slightly posh Sunday roast with a few more guests.

Christmas dinner in the UK these days is more like a cross between dinner at Balmoral and 4 July at Mar-a-Lago. The table has to be heaving with holly-embossed crockery, the carrots must be bejewelled in star anise and Himalayan pink pepper, the turkey has to be brined in aromatic salt water and your roasties shaken in polenta and smothered in duck fat. If you’re the designated martyr organising proceedings, field-marshalling everything and cooking this tinsel-strewn palaver, it is common to try instead to divert it all to the local pub, where they’re doing “turkey and all the trimmings” for £79 a head (and including a cracker and a pre-dinner “glass of something sparkly”).

After several attempts at spending Christmas “out”, however, I’m still on the fence as to whether or not it’s really worth it. Chances are, if you’re the designated cook, as I often am, you’ll also find yourself equally burdened as the designated table-finder, taxi-booker and exasperated berk trying to get Aunt Agnes up to the Queen’s Head by 3pm, mainly because she won’t on any account miss the king’s speech, won’t eat turkey without bread sauce and would ideally like her Jim Reeves cassette played over the pub’s sound system.

Over the last 50 years, cabbage consumption in Britain has declined 80%. But it’s versatile, full of vitamins, and perfect on a winter night. Here’s how to make the most of it

It’s not good news: despite a lot of messaging about healthy eating, Britons consume 12% less vegetables per week than they did in 1974, when the government’s Family Food survey began. And while the consumption of some specific vegetables – courgettes, say – has risen over the past 50 years, others have experienced a sharp decline. Among the biggest losers is cabbage. Cabbage consumption in the UK dropped by 80%, beaten only by brussels sprouts (87%) which are, after all, a kind of cabbage.

This is a tragedy, not just because cabbage is an unsung superfood containing essential vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, as well as protein and dietary fibre, but because it’s a flexible, abundant and potentially delicious culinary ingredient. It even comes in different colours.

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts

What are the biggest life lessons? Things like how to navigate uncertainty, or what clothes never to wash together? What are the best life-enhancing secrets – big or small – that took years to discover and now need to be shared? Campbell Norris, by email

Send new questions to nq@theguardian.com.

Growing up gay in the 90s, Verity and Darya lacked the confidence to talk about their desires. Verity’s attraction to a colleague changed all that

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

I never felt that stomach-churning excitement and uncertainty we associate with desire

They had different opinions on social media, asylum seekers and ‘woke’ politics, but which Stewart Lee sketch got them both laughing?

Samuel, 34, London

Occupation Communications professional

It’s one thing facing a major diagnosis; it’s quite another dealing with your partner pulling away. But does the stereotype match the reality?

Jess never dreamed that she was going to get sick, nor did she consider what it would mean for her love life if she did. When she first started dating her boyfriend, they were both in their late 20s, living busy, active lives. “Sport was something we did a lot of and we did it together: we worked hard, played hard, we went for bike rides and went running and played golf together.”

But around a year into their relationship, all that stopped abruptly when Jess was diagnosed with long Covid, the poorly understood syndrome that in some people follows a Covid infection. For her, it meant “a general shutdown of my body: lungs, heart, stomach, really bad brain fog”. She went from being a sporty, independent 29-year-old with a successful career to sleeping all day and relying on her boyfriend for everything.

Exclusive: Guardian investigation finds fake agencies using the social media platform to dupe Kenyans into paying for nonexistent jobs in Europe

Lilian, a 35-year-old Kenyan living in Qatar, was scrolling on TikTok in April when she saw posts from a recruitment agency offering jobs overseas. The Kenya-based WorldPath House of Travel, with more than 20,000 followers on the social media platform, promised hassle-free work visas for jobs across Europe.

“They were showing work permits they’d received, envelopes, like: ‘We have Europe visas already,’” Lilian recalls.

Parcels worth £666.5m have been stolen in the UK this year, though some pranksters have found ways to give culprits their comeuppance. With Christmas deliveries arriving thick and fast, here are practical steps to take

A couple of years ago, 31-year-old charity worker Nicki Wedgwood had ordered Christmas presents online for friends and family. When the packages were delivered to her in Hackney, east London, the driver left them in the lobby of her building rather than taking them directly to her flat. She spotted them as she popped out to a nearby shop and decided to pick them up when she came back. When she returned 10 minutes later, the boxes had been ripped open and their contents were gone.

Wedgwood thinks she passed the thief in the hallway as she was leaving for the shop. “There was some random dude just inside the doorway, who had a Boris bike with him,” she says. She had assumed he was a guest of one of her neighbours. “I said hello to him … I think he even said Merry Christmas.”

Millions of real trees are sold each year, and costs vary widely – we ask experts how to find good deals

For many Britons, putting up their tree is the ritual that marks the official start of Christmas, with the second week of December a popular time to deck the halls.

While surveys suggest that about two-thirds of the population will opt for an artificial tree, millions of real ones will be sold this month. As usual, the competition is fierce on the high street, with some supermarkets selling the most popular tree – the Nordmann fir – for under £15.

Easy-to-guess words and figures still dominate, alarming cysbersecurity experts and delighting hackers

It is a hacker’s dream. Even in the face of repeated warnings to protect online accounts, a new study reveals that “admin” is the most commonly used password in the UK.

The second most popular, “123456”, is also unlikely to keep hackers at bay.

The vitamin has many benefits, but research shows that people who take it are just as likely to get the sniffles as those who don’t

‘Vitamin C is important for your health in lots of ways,” says Daniel M Davis, the head of life sciences at Imperial College London. It is a strong antioxidant, helping protect cells from harmful unstable compounds that arise from toxins and pollution. It helps the body absorb iron, and is also used in the production of collagen. “But the idea that taking high doses of vitamin C – or drinking lots of orange juice – will stop you catching a cold, or help you recover faster, is a myth.”

Davis, the author of Self Defence: A Myth-Busting Guide to Immune Health, explains that the popular belief in vitamin C’s cold-fighting powers has persisted for more than 50 years, “pretty much solely because of the evangelical view of one man: Linus Pauling”.

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!

With a return to thinness in the fashion industry, catwalks spanning size, age and race may be the secret of the Kors appeal

The sale of Versace to Prada this week in a $1.4bn deal marked a new chapter for two storied Italian fashion houses.

It also left Versace’s former parent company, Capri Holdings, with an even greater focus on Michael Kors, the 44-year-old brand know as America’s Armani that made up about 70% of sales in its last financial year.

Our style guru’s gift picks are in – from a cult lip oil and fashion-desk-approved earrings to the T-shirt brand every cool kid wants

• The best self-care gifts for Christmas

Angelina Jolie once bought Brad Pitt a California waterfall for Christmas. Another time, she got him a 200-year-old olive tree for their estate in Provence as a Valentine’s gift. I guess she set the bar pretty high when she bought him Ernest Hemingway’s actual typewriter as a wedding gift.

Anecdotally, this does not suggest that gift-giving is a guarantee of a happy marriage, so maybe don’t sweat your beloved’s pressie too much. However, I do love the treasure hunt of Christmas shopping, and a wrapping session with a good podcast or two. Here’s what I’ve got my sights on this year …

Want to look elegant despite the cold? All you need is lace, a cocktail coat and jewellery that glimmers in the candlelight

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.

Italian sweets, Irish smoked fish, honey cakes in Belgium … travel writers choose the stores and local delicacies they make a beeline for when travelling

I fell in love with Belgian snacks when cycling the amateur version of the Tour of Flanders some years ago. The feed stations along the route were crammed with packets of Meli honey waffles and Meli honey cake. I ate so many that I suffered withdrawal symptoms after finishing the last of them at the end of the 167-mile route.

In the snowy mountains of Grövelsjön, visitors can get a rare glimpse into a little-known traditional way of life – and sleep in a tipi under the stars

On the summit of a snow-covered hill, two men sit on a patch of lichen, their backs against their snowmobiles. They are wearing thick padded clothing and hats with ear covers. One is scanning the valley with binoculars, the other is checking their drone. “We’ve got a speaker on it to play various calls. Thermal imaging helps. The dogs do the rest.” The younger of the two men, Elvjin, pours out tots of strong coffee for everyone. “The main job at this time of year is to keep the herd up here where we can see them,” he says. “When they start calving, the danger from bears, wolverines and eagles increases. We need to see them.”

If I had a mental picture of reindeer herding before arriving here in the mountains of western Sweden, it certainly did not involve drones and thermal imaging. But that is the aim of this trip: to see an authentic and little-known European way of life, which for centuries suffered repression and abuse, only to be swiftly cannibalised into tourist-trap Santa experiences – all sleigh bells and traditional embroidery.

Wonderful art, amazing design and beautiful locations have drawn our tipsters to chapels, churches and cathedrals from Norway to Bulgaria

• Tell us about a great charity challenge you’ve taken part in – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

The Tromsøysund parish church, commonly called the Arctic Cathedral, in Tromsø is a modernist delight. The simple, elegant exterior that reflects the surrounding scenery and evokes traditional Sami dwellings is matched by an interior that has the most comfortable pews I have ever sat on. The stunning glass mosaic titled the Return of Christ at one end may not be to everyone’s taste, but to me had power and majesty. Exiting this magnificent building after an organ recital to be met by the northern lights flickering overhead was awe-inspiring.
Bruce Horton

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.

The answer to today’s engineering challenge

Earlier today I asked you to reinvent a component of the sixteenth century Dutch sawmill, which – according to a new book – was the world’s first industrial machine. You can read that post here, along with some great BTL discussion about the world’s greatest inventions. (Spoon or spear? Plough or spectacles? Transistor or trousers?)

Round and up

In retrospect, I can appreciate what a big chance she took. I hope the universe has repaid her many times over

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

Back in 2006, I went to Canberra for a medical school interview. I figured I would book accommodation when I arrived but when I arrived, there was a big convention in town and all the backpacker hostels and budget accommodation were fully booked.

Coming from Singapore, I thought perhaps I could just sleep at the airport – but quickly found Canberra airport, unlike Singapore’s, was not open 24 hours. Not knowing quite what to do and getting a bit desperate, I caught a bus into town, then started wandering towards the casino, thinking I might spend the night in a place that was open all night. That wouldn’t put me in the ideal condition for nailing an interview the next morning, but as a broke student, I couldn’t afford a pricey hotel.

This year’s most-wanted ornaments include weight-loss syringes and favourite foodstuffs. When and why did Christmas trees become so commercialised?

it was the second Tuesday in November but Christmas was already in crisis. Sarah Gibbons had just received a shipment of baubles at her Glasgow homeware shop, Modern Love Store, and some crucial ornaments were missing. She hopped on a long-distance phone call to her suppliers in the US – she needed to sort this out. After all, her customers were clamouring for them. “People aren’t just buying one,” the 39-year-old shopkeeper told me after discovering the missing decorations, “they’re buying three or four at a time.” Three what? Turtle doves? Nutcrackers? Or perhaps some classic candy canes? Of course not. This year’s must-have bauble is in the shape of a lightly glittered syringe of Ozempic.

Growing up, my favourite Christmas ornament was a little pink plastic baby Jesus resting in a manger. He was bought by my great-aunt in Oberammergau, Germany, in 1990 – and although his battery hasn’t been changed since, you can still press his belly to hear Silent Night play. Today, decorations are a little different. Ozempic isn’t the only needle hanging from our needles: Britons can also purchase Christmas tree ornaments shaped like syringes of Botox and filler. Meanwhile, Selfridges is selling a dirty martini bauble, M&S is peddling a hanging prawn cocktail and Aldi is offering an ornament shaped like an air fryer. Move over, baby Jesus; glass has now been blown into the likeness of Harry Styles, Taylor Swift and The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White.

The actor on being an introverted extrovert, performing as a pearly queen, and becoming a single mother when her husband died

Born in Beverley, East Yorkshire, in 1977, Anna Maxwell Martin studied at the University of Liverpool and trained at Lamda. She made her name with a Bafta-winning performance in the BBC’s Bleak House and has since starred in Line of Duty, Motherland and Midwinter of the Spirit, as well as numerous stage productions. She lives in London with her two daughters. Their father, the director Roger Michell, died of a heart attack in 2021. Maxwell Martin is an Action for Children ambassador and stars in their Christmas short film, Santaland. To donate, visit iamsanta.org.uk.

I am five and having my picture taken at school. On my eye is a medical patch. That’s what they did to you in the 1980s if you had a squint. My dad cut my hair using a bowl, which is why it is such a tragedy.

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

Experiences raise questions about how telecoms firm treated small business owners, whose commission it cut

When Adrian Howe drowned in August 2018, his family found some solace in the support of his longtime employer.

The bond between the 58-year-old and Vodafone – the multinational mobile phone group for which Howe had worked for 20 years – was so tight that his funeral featured a wreath shaped like the company’s speech mark brand.

AB InBev unveils its ‘de-alcoholisation’ annex at Magor site as demand for once ‘lousy’ low- or no-alcohol beer rises

A “de-alcoholisation facility” sounds like somewhere to check in after a boozy Christmas, but in the new annexe of a brewery in south Wales they are extracting hangovers from beer.

With demand for no-alcohol and low-alcohol (“nolo”) beer taking off in the UK, the hi-tech brewing apparatus enables the plant at Magor, which produces more than 1bn pints of Budweiser, Corona and Stella Artois a year, to make the increasingly popular teetotal versions too.

From digging trenches and building walls, to learning survival skills, Poland is increasingly aware of risks posed by its eastern neighbours

Cezary Pruszko still remembers the civil defence training of his Communist-era schooldays – map reading, survival skills, and a sense that the danger of war was real and ever present.

“My generation grew up with those threats. You didn’t have to explain why this mattered,” said the 60-year-old Pruszko, as he refreshed those skills at an army base outside Warsaw on a recent frosty Saturday morning. With dozens of other Polish civilians, he toured a bomb shelter, fitted gas masks and practised striking sparks from a flint to start a fire.

We’re particularly interested in hearing from parents in low- and middle-income countries where the rise in childhood obesity is steepest

This month, the Lancet published the world’s largest review on the health threats of ultra-processed foods (UPFs), showing that they are replacing fresh food on every continent and are exposing millions of people to long-term harm. Globally one in 10 children are considered obese, as junk food overwhelms childhood diets. Previous research has shown how susceptible children are to junk food advertising.

Parents and young people, are you concerned about the level of UPFs in your diet? Is it easy and affordable to find fresh food and eat healthily where you live? What changes do you think would help encourage healthy eating habits? We’re particularly interested in hearing from parents in low- and middle-income countries where the rise in childhood obesity is steepest.

We want to hear from UK parents with experience in temporary accommodation about the impact on their lives, family and schooling

More than 172,000 children were living in temporary accommodation in England at the end of June, according to the latest quarterly official figures from October.

That represented an 8.2% rise on the same period last year. There are now more than 130,000 households households living in temporary accommodation in England, the figures showed.

Perhaps you started Christmas earlier or are making extra special efforts to enjoy the festive season

Are you leaning in to Christmas this year, determined to make the most of the festive season?

Perhaps you put your Christmas tree up earlier than usual? Or, for the first time in years? Maybe you’re embracing Christmas jumper wearing with unusual zeal? Or perhaps you’re listening to Christmas songs earlier than usual? Maybe you’re making more effort to enjoy time with friends and loved ones in the run-up to 25 December.

If you had the chance to write just one last letter, to whom would you send it?

The Danish postal service will deliver its last letter at the end of this month to focus on packages, citing the “increasing digitalisation” of society.

While the public will still be able to send letters through the distributor DAO, it made us think about how we would use that last chance to send a letter.

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