Do you keep your headphones on at the checkout? Or chat people up then never follow through? You need our expert guide to the new social faux pas – and how to avoid them

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Nigel Farage has billed his byelection as a clash with the powers that be. To wit: Laurence Fox, a naked celebrity and a man with a bin on his head

Quick look at the Clacton byelection field as it stands: Nigel Farage, Count Binface, Piers Corbyn, Laurence Fox, some bloke who’s been on Married at First Sight and Dating Naked ... anyway, there’s more, but you get the picture. It’s going to be a long hot summer. By the end of this contest Clacton will be begging to be left behind again.

To recap, Reform leader Farage this week delivered an address to the nation on his political future, which can effectively be summarised as “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the messiest bitch of all?” Under fire over his recently exposed penchant for taking mental amounts of money and benefits from Thailand-based cryptophiliacs/convicted fraudsters and their mums, Nigel has decided to seek validation by asking the voters of Clacton to rule on him. So yes, Farage has triggered a byelection – but he’s also triggered anyone who’s ever been in a toxic relationship where their partner forces them into public declarations of loyalty. It’s all very “I always choose you over everyone, Nigel, and I hate that my family are trying to destroy us”.

Marina Hyde’s new book, What a Time to be Alive!, is out in September (Guardian Faber Publishing, £20). To support the Guardian, order your signed copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

His superpower has always been speaking his mind – and his majestic new BBC show aims to shatter our ideas about life itself. The presenter talks mass extinction, spiders who dream and why people get sick of him holding up rocks

It’s impossible to meet Chris Packham without getting into a good mood. This is largely down to his contagious enthusiasm for the natural world, but on this occasion may also be his canary yellow polo shirt and stand-up-as-if-electrocuted hair. His new five-parter, Evolution, tells the story of the single cell that is all living things’ first common ancestor. Known as Luca, it is the indivisible connection between you and your cat, me and an elephant. (That’s an acronym, not poetry, by the way – Last Universal Common Ancestor, the single-celled organism from 4.2bn years ago that branched into everything that now lives.) “There is still a physical connection between me and you, and a cell that existed billions of years ago,” he says. “I find that absolutely brilliant.”

The show seeks to shake up all our preconceptions: “We tend to stop at GCSE and are left with a legacy of thinking that evolution is laboriously slow, we are its be all and end all, and its story is over.” I mean, these aren’t all misconceptions – it is pretty slow, no? “There would have been billions of years when we just had cells floating in a broth in the sea,” he concedes. “We looked at it more as the turning points in evolution’s life, the periods when it moved very rapidly.” Evolution tells the story of different processes via specific animals. It explains breathing through the elephant, reproducing through the ostrich, eating through the bat, thinking through the dolphin, and running through the horse. “I don’t like to use the C word,” Packham says in the opener, watching a tree hyrax that is the improbably close genetic relative of the elephant, “but they are incredibly cute.”

Norwegian striker’s following keeps growing, more for the content he creates off the pitch than his scoring record

He is in the running for the Golden Boot, the trophy awarded to the World Cup’s top goalscorer. But Norway’s Erling Haaland has already earned one prize: the most viral player of the competition.

The striker went into the tournament with legions of fans in Norway and in Manchester – or at least in the blue half of the British city.

From welfare and defence spending to cost of living and geopolitics, we look at the key issues left over from Starmer

• UK politics live – latest updates

Andy Burnham is expected to become prime minister in less than two weeks and has promised to significantly change Labour’s agenda and deliver improvements for all parts of the UK.

But he will arrive with a bulging in-tray of challenges and issues left over from Keir Starmer – from geopolitics to the cost of living. Here is what Burnham can expect to find behind the Downing Street black door.

The island was a shining light for Africa at this year’s tournament, but its modern relationship with continental solidarity and oneness is far more complex

After World Cup debutants Cabo Verde became the smallest country to reach the tournament’s knockout stages, coach Bubista was understandably emotional about his squad’s historic trajectory.

Before the round-of-32 match against the defending champions Argentina, with whom they went toe-to-toe until a goal deep into extra time consigned them to defeat, he spoke about inspiration and a sense of duty.

Body of former MP, 78, found with serious injuries at her Dartmoor home on Thursday morning

A man is being held on suspicion of the murder of the former MP Ann Widdecombe as political leaders across the spectrum express shock and horror at her alleged killing.

Widdecombe’s body was found with “serious injuries” by the ambulance service at her home in Haytor, Devon, at 11.40am on Thursday, Devon and Cornwall police said.

Interviews of Farage aide and his mother believed to be part of investigation into donations to Reform UK before 2024 election

Nigel Farage’s aide George Cottrell and his mother, Fiona Cottrell, have been interviewed under criminal caution by Scotland Yard detectives, the Guardian understands.

The interviews are understood to form part of an ongoing investigation into donations to Reform UK before the general election in July 2024.

• Defending champion triumphs 6-4, 6-4, 6-4

• Sinner will face Alexander Zverev in Sunday’s final

Novak Djokovic returned to Centre Court, one of the venues that has most defined his legendary career, desperately hoping that he had enough left in the tank to conjure up another miracle. His run to another grand slam semi-final at 39 years old was an immense achievement, but he wanted more. He always wants more. The question was whether his ageing legs would allow it against the best player in the world.

The answer to that question came swiftly and decisively. Jannik Sinner ensured that there would be no repeat of his defeat to Djokovic in their Australian Open semi-final at the beginning of the year, avenging that loss with a ruthless, efficient performance that moved him back into the Wimbledon final with a 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 victory. Sinner, the top seed, will face the second seed and recent French Open champion Alexander Zverev in the final after the German defeated Arthur Fery 7-6 (0), 6-2, 6-4.

⚽ Kick-off time: 12pm local/3pm EDT/8pm BST/5am AEST
⚽ Player guide | Bracketology | Golden Boot | Email Billy

“I did my year abroad in Belgium and Germany in 2015/16, and my university in Germany had a big screen outside the canteen showing the Euros games,” writes Harry Desmond. “I have a vivid memory of being vastly outnumbered by Italy supporters during Belgium’s opening match. Since then, Les Diables Rouges have always been my favourites for tournaments after the UK teams.

“Other memories from that tournament included having to walk 3 miles home after Germany’s semi-final because the trams were too full, and cheering on Portugal in the final along with my Portuguese friends. It will probably always be my favourite football tournament, the communal/international experience is really something else.”

Exclusive: Prospective PM wants to give the country a hopeful message, in contrast with Starmer’s early missteps

• UK politics live – latest updates

Andy Burnham will undertake a summer tour as prime minister to Labour “danger zones” across the country where the party has been losing support, particularly areas hit by controversial government policies.

Burnham is planning the tour for the second half of the summer recess, with the aim of resetting Labour’s relationship with some of the UK’s most sceptical voters.

Thames Valley police believed to want to talk to brother and sister-in-law about her allegations of sexual assault

Detectives investigating Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor may travel to the US to speak with the family of his accuser Virginia Giuffre, it is understood.

Thames Valley police are believed to want to talk to Giuffre’s brother and sister-in-law, Sky and Amanda Roberts, about their sister’s allegations of sexual assault by the former Duke of York. He has denied the claims of Giuffre, who took her own life in April last year, aged 41.

Twenty-three people missing and four Britons thought to be among those who died trying to flee Almería blaze

• ‘I had an incredible escape’: British woman tells of close encounter with wildfire

At least 12 people have been killed and 23 are unaccounted for after one of Spain’s deadliest wildfires broke out in the south-eastern province of Almería as the country endures its second heatwave of the summer.

The regional government of Andalucía said the victims, four of whom are believed to be British, had died while trying to escape the flames near the village of Bédar in the municipality of Los Gallardos.

Serbian man reportedly saved by wife hanging on to his legs after window shattered on journey from Greece

A passenger on a Ryanair flight was reportedly almost sucked out of a window after it shattered in mid-air during a journey from Greece.

The man was said to have been lifted out of his seat into the plane’s slipstream and hung headfirst out of the window after an engine failure resulted in parts smashing the acrylic window, according to local reports.

Direct oversight of ‘critical third parties’ such as Oracle and Microsoft given to ensure resilient cyber-defences and help safeguard UK economy

The Bank of England has been handed powers to regulate important tech firms including Amazon and Google from next week, amid fears that system failures could threaten financial stability and harm consumers.

From Monday, the Bank and fellow City regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will be in charge of ensuring that four large-scale providers of cloud and tech services to banks are resilient and actively reducing the risk of cyber-attacks and major outages that could disrupt services for millions of people and businesses across the UK.

There is just one week to go until the winner of the World Cup is crowned, and it has been a memorable tournament, not least due to the extraordinary intervention by Donald Trump this week that shocked the football world. Lucy Hough speaks to global sports business correspondent Matt Hughes

Mega-donors are coming under scrutiny with growing calls for donations cap beyond those from overseas investors

The question of who funds politicians and political parties – and why they want to give money to get people elected – is an extremely heated one. In principle, UK voters can support their chosen politicians through donations or benefits, as long as those candidates and their parties keep within spending limits during an election period, which is designed to stop powerful interests from influencing the result.

However, recent years have seen the rise of mega-donors giving vast sums to political parties, leading to calls for a new cap on the amount one individual or company can donate in a year. There has also been pressure for greater transparency around financial interests after the furore over Nigel Farage’s £5m gift from Thailand-based crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, shortly before the Reform UK leader became an MP. The rules state that gifts only have to be declared if they are political, and Farage has said it was “personal” and freely given with no demands attached. Parliament’s standards commissioner is investigating the case. So, what are the rules on political donations and gifts?

Medieval artwork safely delivered to British Museum before going on display from September in tightly controlled conditions

• Bayeux tapestry crosses Channel in dead of night

The Bayeux tapestry has survived myriad perils, from cathedral fires to its potential destruction for use as wagon covers. Now, with the embroidery about to be displayed in a blockbuster London exhibition, experts must contend with a host of more insidious dangers.

The arrival of the tapestry at the British Museum in the small hours of Friday morning was a historic moment – albeit less dramatic than the landing of William the Conqueror it portrays.

The US’s 250th anniversary, the funeral of Ali Khamenei, another brutal heatwave in Europe and the World Cup – the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

With a standout role in The Odyssey, the Twilight idol turned leading man for arthouse auteurs has become one of the most charismatic and unpredictable actors of his generation

Today, former teen idols can no longer disown those projects, no matter how tacky, that turned them into stars. In an age in which even harrowing dramas are promoted by social media reels of actors competitively guzzling chicken wings or cuddling puppies, any mention of a cheesy breakout role must be gamely embraced, before thanks are again offered to the fans, and for the opportunity.

What A-listers angling for awards do not do, however, is actively raise such skeletons. Leonardo DiCaprio did not secure his Oscar for The Revenant through allusions to his late-80s sitcom Growing Pains. Likewise, Joaquin Phoenix rarely brings up Spaceballs, and Jacob Elordi keeps pretty tight-lipped on The Kissing Booth 3.

After beating Leonard Cohen to Canada’s biggest music prize and splicing dembow with classical, the cross-cultural artist is now confronting Colombia’s new president

When I speak to the Colombian Canadian musician Lido Pimienta, it’s in the run-up to Colombia’s presidential election, and she is worried. One of the two remaining candidates, Abelardo de la Espriella, “is so rightwing he wants to open up our beautiful country to fracking and the influence of the US,” she says – and at one point in his campaign, De la Espriella said he wanted to “disembowel” the left. He later waved that away as a mere figure of speech, but Pimienta fears that leftwing artists like her “would be target number one” for a De la Espriella presidency. He ended up winning in a narrow victory that brought praise from Donald Trump and a promise of “a new era, a change of order”.

Despite the potential risks, the singer-songwriter has never shied away from speaking her mind. Since the release of her breakthrough second album, 2016’s La Papessa – which beat Leonard Cohen’s You Want It Darker, the last album released during his lifetime, to win Canada’s prestigious Polaris prize – 39-year-old Pimienta has made ebullient, genre-defying records that hiss with indignation at racism, colonialism, misogyny and music industry expectations.

The discomfort is no reason to give up sun protection, and is not uncommon – not everyone tolerates every formula well

No good deed goes unpunished, as they say. For instance, when you responsibly apply sunscreen to your exposed skin, it sometimes stings.

“Complaints of sunscreen stinging are not uncommon,” says Dr Aditi Senthilnathan, board certified dermatologist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. “We also hear about sunscreen causing burning or stinging around the eyes after sweating.”

As construction costs rise, soulless white-cube housing is becoming the norm in many cities. Here, new-build residents share how they’ve added character to their homes

You’ll recognise the hallmarks. Banners with renders of utopian urban dwellings – a marriage of contemporary lines, streamlined surfaces, open-plan living spaces and floor-to-ceiling glass, alongside manicured green spaces and lifestyle imagery of young professionals and families. Not necessarily the vision of a quarter-acre block with a white picket fence but in urban centres the Australian dream of home ownership is being recast in the form of white-cube, new-build apartments.

In the US, “5-over-1” buildings are fast becoming ubiquitous, while in Europe, where apartments have always been smaller, there’s a rise in shared-space models with communal kitchens and amenities. Shanaka Herath, a senior lecturer at the school of built environment at the University of Technology Sydney, says: “We know that land costs have been rising, construction costs have been rising, so what the builders do is that they build smaller and more affordable units.”

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

• FA would pay out half its £38m Fifa prize money

• Players could net £15m, Thomas Tuchel £3m

England’s players and coaching staff will receive around half of the FA’s £38m Fifa prize money in bonuses if they win the World Cup.

The Guardian has learned that as part of a bonus scheme agreed with the players’ leadership group before the tournament, the FA will pay bonuses of around £15m to the squad, £3m to Tuchel and approximately £1m to his backroom team should Harry Kane lift the trophy in New York next weekend.

England need to be wary of a united Ståle Solbakken side who know their strengths before the World Cup quarter-final

England fans are going to have to be really patient on Saturday night because this World Cup quarter-final against Norway will feel like a grind and I would not be surprised if the match goes the full distance and we see 120 close-fought minutes. Let me be clear: this will not be an easy game and do not expect it to be played at a fast pace.

With a weapon like Erling Haaland, Norway are a dangerous team to face. The crucial thing England have to do, tactically, is try to starve Haaland of service, because if that ball arrives in his proximity and he is given half a chance, you know it is going into the back of the net. He doesn’t need many chances because he’s so clinical. England have to work so hard to deny him service.

Imposing head coach is a details man who has got the balance of squad spirit right at the World Cup, and is even proving a hit on Mumsnet

Let’s set the world on fire. There’s a section in Bill Buford’s classic football hooligan study, Among the Thugs, where he describes being part of a phalanx of England “faces” steaming through the centre of mid-1980s Rotterdam towards some kind of meet, while their leader – the Top Boy, General or similar – runs up and down the column whispering to his men, saying the “energy is high”, “the energy is high”, “feel it”, “the energy is high”.

As it is currently for this England team, and quite clearly the players can feel it. You will probably have seen the dressing-room video, which has more than 40m views. Declan Rice and John Stones are shown playing a prank on Thomas Tuchel after the electrical storm masquerading as a football match at the Estadio Azteca last on Sunday. Rice pretends Stones has injured his shoulder. Stones plays along with it, delivering a minimalist acting masterclass so contained there is almost no acting at all, before raising his fist as the beat drops (song: Talk To You, by ANOTR) and the room falls about in generalised hysteria.

Didier Deschamps’ decision to give the inspirational forward the captaincy has paid off with no complacency on their run to the semi-finals

The driving force behind France’s semi-final win over Morocco in 2022, Antoine Griezmann, was watching on from the stands this time as Les Bleus powered past the Atlas Lions to reach a third consecutive World Cup semi-final.

The 35-year-old, who recently completed a move to Orlando City, had not attended a France match since his international retirement in 2024 following a brief stint as vice-captain.

Close calls against Cape Verde and Egypt show Scaloni’s side are vulnerable, despite all the brilliance of Lionel Messi

It is among the defining moments of this World Cup: Lionel Messi wandering the pitch in Atlanta with tears rolling down his face. Minutes earlier, Argentina had been down two goals to Egypt and on the brink of elimination in the last 16. Messi had missed a penalty and was set to bear blame for the result. Instead, the Argentina legend created the same magic he always seems to, spearheading a miraculous, three-goal swing in just over 10 minutes and pushing the Albiceleste into the quarter-finals.

And now he was crying. And so were his teammates. And so was his head coach, Lionel Scaloni, who could not contain his emotion in a post-game interview. His own players, the coach says, have taken to calling him el llorón. The crybaby. “I can’t even look at you,” Scaloni told a touchline reporter, in tears. “I’m sorry. I’m obviously very emotional. What a group of players, brother. I’m sorry. That’s it, I have to go.”

The new PM will need a superb foreign secretary and the ability to get like-minded countries on board. Early signs suggest he may have the right skills

It’s all starting to feel very real now. Or so Andy Burnham said on the day he in effect became Britain’s official prime minister-in-waiting; a moment both heady and sobering.

The papers are signed, the die cast. Keir Starmer has yet to leave the building, but his party is already talking about him as if he somehow couldn’t hear. On Friday, Burnham made his first brutal break with his predecessor, apologising over Starmer’s head for Labour’s handling of the war in Gaza. The government should, he said, have called for a ceasefire earlier, and should now be increasing pressure on Israel.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

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.

Britain’s PM-in-waiting is right that the country has been failed by 40 years of neoliberalism. There will be obstacles, but he must embrace radicalism

Of all the many prime ministers who have walked through the doors of 10 Downing Street in the past decade, the one Andy Burnham resembles most is Liz Truss. Both had a view of what was going wrong with the economy. Both wanted to break with the politics of managed decline. Both had ambitious ideas for what needed to be done.

Truss, of course, came to grief within weeks of becoming prime minister, after her tax-cutting mini-budget was brutally rejected by the financial markets. The big question for Burnham is whether he can deliver on his agenda without suffering the same fate. He can, but it won’t be easy.

Larry Elliott is a Guardian columnist

Plus, bad form from Tay-Tay, Arthurian gladness and the conundrums of getting back on a bike

Another heatwave. Unbearable. And this one is going to push me over the edge. I’m going to have to take the young folk to task over how they dress. It’s not the amount of flesh on show – dear God, while you’re young and lovely and depilation is still worth the investment because it doesn’t all grow back by the end of the day, enjoy it! It’s the man-made fibres. I’m afraid that I’m going to have to pass an emergency Crone Law, requiring everyone to wear cotton once the mercury hits 30C.

Once again a mispriced share price created opening for US raiders to rush in

• US private equity firm Apollo enters easyJet bidding war

Will any remaining bidders for easyJet please make their way to the boarding gate? In reality, we’ve probably seen the whole cast at this point because the arrival of US private equity firm Apollo, trumping Castlelake’s offer, is a surprise. But the outbreak of a competitive auction will come as a relief to easyJet’s board.

For all the fake drama of Castlelake’s five offers, it was an act of timidity on the part of the easyJet chair, Sir Stephen Hester, to surrender at 690p, as argued here earlier this week. Apollo’s 715p, or £5.7bn, is only 3.6% more but at least the first digit is less embarrassing and there is always a chance Castlelake comes back for another go.

The High Pay Centre revealed the excesses of CEO wages. But then anti-diversity winds blew in from across the Atlantic

Shock ricocheted around the world of social research this week with the sudden news of the imminent closure of the High Pay Centre (HPC). Founded in 2011 by the former Guardian business editor Deborah Hargreaves to focus on analysis of extreme pay at the top and the widening pay gap between CEOs and their average employees, its closure feels like the death of an idea.

Others campaign on tax and redistribution but the HPC was concerned with “predistribution”. It was unique in looking at the origins of inequality in pay and control over pay rates. Its annual report is always covered, even by rightwing media, because each year it reawakens a sense of disbelief at the way we live now. Why would the median FTSE 100 CEO need £4.4m this year to do his (yes, mostly still his) gratifyingly high-status job? Why?

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

Amid the allegations about dark money and funding, I have a solution: limit all single donations in a year – from any individual – to £100,000

It is sobering that Count Binface’s potential victory in the Clacton byelection seems be one of the few ways we can restore any confidence in the integrity of British political decision-making. Faced with questions about the millions he has raked in before and since being elected, Nigel Farage chose to face a byelection rather than face the standards procedures in parliament. Yet we cannot continue to rely on a man with a bin on his head to stop the toxic rot in our politics feeding off the public’s concern that donations drive our decision-making. With the next election on the horizon, the eye-watering sums involved compel us to tackle the capacity of the largest wallets to be the loudest voices, or risk them overwhelming our democracy altogether.

The allegation that money buys you a mouthpiece is not new, or without precedent. Controversies over donors across the political spectrum – whether Bernie Ecclestone, Mohamed Amersi, Paul Marshall or Lubov Chernukhin – have dogged Westminster for decades. Campaigns such as Clean up Westminster have long pushed for stronger safeguards. Yet it is also true the scale of funds now pouring into our politics is fundamentally different. Research by Transparency International shows the share of private political donations coming from individuals and companies giving £1m or more has surged from just 1% in 2015 to 35% in 2024.

They’ve got a chance in hell

• See more of Fiona Katauskas’s cartoons here

Stronger European welfare states expose a Tory myth. Benefits can enable independence, work and growth

Sir Stephen Timms, Labour’s minister for social security and disability, is widely acknowledged to be a parliamentary expert on welfare. He has seen the system from almost every angle: as a pensions and Treasury minister under New Labour, a shadow welfare spokesperson, a select committee chair, and now as a government minister. After Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves’s ham-fisted attempt to balance the books on the backs of disabled people sparked a backbench revolt, the pair retreated behind Sir Stephen.

His interim review into personal independence payment (Pip), the main non-means-tested disability benefit for working-age adults, is an attempt to clean up the mess. The deeper problem was Labour’s fiscal rule: that the current budget should be on course to be in balance or surplus. That rule disadvantages spending on the “current” side of the ledger, including welfare, because it is treated as expenditure to be “paid for”.

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.

The universal themes addressed by one of humanity’s greatest storytellers more than merit Hollywood box-office treatment

The Magasphere’s endless appetite for culture wars is wearily familiar. But who could have foreseen that Greek literature would become the new casus belli? Ahead of its much-anticipated general release next week, Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey has triggered Elon Musk and other supposed defenders of western civilisation. Directorial decisions such as the casting of the Kenyan-Mexican actor Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy, Mr Musk ranted incoherently, amounted to “pissing on Homer’s grave”.

The absurd insistence on the white skin of a mythological figure reveals nothing we didn’t already know about the owner of X. The rest of us can move on and look forward to a lavish cinematic take on a story that has inspired artists for almost 3,000 years. Homer’s account of Odysseus’s 10-year struggle to return home from the Trojan wars has been reworked by Virgil in the Aeneid, relocated to Dublin in James Joyce’s Ulysses, and given a feminist treatment by Margaret Atwood in her Penelopiad. Now for the 21st-century Hollywood treatment.

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

Readers respond to an article about a woman who was hit by a child on a Lime bike

The case of Jane Ouartsi is horrific, but not surprising to many disabled people who move around central London and know how quickly careless riding can become dangerous (‘I felt my spine and body split’: the woman who was hit by a child on a Lime bike – and denied compensation, 7 July).

I am a powered wheelchair user in Westminster. I support cleaner streets and fewer car journeys, so I am not opposed to ebikes in principle. But the present dockless system too often transfers risk on to pedestrians, disabled people and older people.

Readers relive some live performances that made history – and the ones they missed

No legendary gig list is complete without the one by the rock band Free at Middlesbrough Town Hall on 19 February 1972 (‘I was there!’ Writers remember legendary gigs by Beyoncé, Brian Wilson, Britney, Oasis, Daft Punk and more, 6 July). Free were led by local lad and now legendary vocalist Paul Rodgers, and it was rumoured to be, and was, their farewell tour, leading to massive anticipation.

The gig was a 50p a ticket sellout, but due to the seven-week miners’ strike there was a power cut scheduled for 9pm, so the starting time was moved to 5pm. Coincidentally, the miners settled their pay dispute on the same day, but the power cuts continued until the following week.

Katherine Arnott on the health and community benefits of lidos

I am heartened to read of the drive to increase access to lido swimming for the benefit of public health, especially as the planet heats up (Labour MPs call on water firms to save Britain’s lost lidos, 4 July).

Having recently published a peer-reviewed study on the meaning of lido swimming as part of my MSc in occupational therapy, I propose that their health and wellbeing benefits reach far beyond their cooling properties during heatwaves.

Readers tell us about hearing their musically inclined avian neighbours

How I envy Jane Horne and her resident blackbird with a taste for musicals (Letters, July). Some years ago, I used to push my husband in his wheelchair along the road early each morning, and one of his great joys was to listen to our local blackbird whistling the last movement of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Sadly, my husband died a few years later, the blackbird has long gone, and the tree where it sang has been chopped down, but I remember them all whenever I hear the Beethoven concerto.
Frances Holloway
Harlesden, London

• Many years ago in our Yorkshire back yard, a blackbird used to visit each day and sing the first four notes of a major scale. The following year it returned and sang the next three notes, and the year after it completed the scale. Was this just a random choice, or could it be connected to the fact that my husband was a musician, working from home?
Anna Crabtree
Lewes, East Sussex

• Wildcard beaten in straight sets by Alexander Zverev

• ‘I’m mentally, physically tired of the tournament’

An exhausted Arthur Fery said he was looking forward to a belated holiday after his fairytale run at ­Wimbledon came to an end on Friday at the hands of ­Alexander Zverev.

The 23-year-old lost 7-6 (0), 6-2, 6-4 to the No 2 seed, having put his holiday plans on hold due to his unlikely run to the semi-finals, the best performance by a wildcard since Goran Ivanisevic won the title in 2001.

• Only Test, day one: India 285; England 21-1

• Ecclestone becomes England’s leading women’s wicket-taker

The opening day of the first women’s Test match at Lord’s started with a nod to the historical injustice of the long, slow journey to reach this moment – a group of former women players, denied the chance themselves to play a Test at the home of cricket, given the chance to ring a ceremonial bell on the outfield marking five minutes before the start of play. There were more than a few tears shed in the Long Room before play even started.

The day ended with India bowled out for 285, England 21 for one, and this match poised for an intriguing second day.

• Tim Merlier powers to win on stage seven in sprint

• Pogacar keeps overall advantage over Vingegaard

Tim Merlier of the Soudal-Quick Step team won the seventh stage of the Tour de France in a classic sprinter’s finish on the banks of the Garonne in Bordeaux.

As the Tour headed away from the Pyrenees, through Gascony towards the Atlantic coast, a lull settled over a shell-shocked peloton as it came to terms with the demonstration of domination from Tadej Pogacar in Thursday’s mountain stage to Gavarnie-Gèdre.

• Edwards’ move linked to multi-club plan being shelved

• Sporting director Hughes may also leave in September

Michael Edwards has quit as chief executive of football for Liverpool’s owner, Fenway Sports Group. The hugely influential Edwards informed FSG in autumn 2025 of his intention to step down once he felt plans for Liverpool’s future were in place. FSG confirmed his exit on Friday, having wanted him to stay.

Edwards’ decision is linked to FSG abandoning plans to add a second club to its football portfolio. He was enticed back to Liverpool in March 2024 to oversee the transition from the Jürgen Klopp era, having been given a much broader remit than he had as the club’s first sporting director, a position in which he flourished from 2016 to 2022.

• Andrew Balding’s star remains unbeaten for season

• Satono Reve can strike for Japan in July Cup

The Group One Falmouth Stakes has proved a tough assignment for favourites in recent years and Precise, at 4-5, was the fifth of the last seven odds-on shots to let the punters down, as she could finish only a two-length second behind Andrew Balding’s year-older Blue Bolt here on Friday.

Precise arrived at Newmarket with two Group One wins to her name already this season, while Blue Bolt had finished second in last October’s Sun Chariot Stakes on her only previous start at the highest level. The pair were among four runners in a line across the track inside the final two furlongs, but Blue Bolt found the sharpest burst of acceleration to pull clear of her field.

Team head to Everton’s Hill Dickinson Stadium to face Fiji needing to avoid a sixth straight defeat, with eyes on debutants Van Rensburg and Caluori

England’s men venture north to play international rugby union so infrequently that their Nations Championship fixture against Fiji is a newsflash in itself. It is more than a decade since the north-west last staged a union Test and approaching 30 years since the England coaches Steve Borthwick and Richard Wigglesworth, among others, had their youthful sporting ambitions sparked by watching England at Old Trafford and Huddersfield respectively in the late 1990s.

So even in the dog days of July, with temperatures nudging 30 degrees celsius and Merseyside feeling more akin to the Med, this particular game is significant even before England’s recent five-game losing streak is layered on. Get it right and Borthwick can head to Argentina for the final leg of this summer’s magic mystery tour with some pressure relieved. Get it wrong at Hill Dickinson Stadium and a hard day’s night looms.

Five years after his last fight, the Irishman returns to the octagon. His comeback says as much about the UFC’s appetite for its fallen star as it does about McGregor himself

These days Conor McGregor resembles an ace fighter the way a movie set depicts real life. Passing similarities are obvious but anything more than a quick, squinty glance reveals they are not the same.

For the 37-year-old Irishman, the line between genius athlete and performance artist was already blurred by the time he found himself destroyed in front of Dustin Poirier five years ago, yelping foul-mouthed barbs in the painful aftermath of his fourth stoppage loss in seven fights.

President’s dismemberment of Election Assistance Commission called a ‘brazen attempt’ to control elections

• US politics live – latest updates

Donald Trump has been accused of trying to “rig” the upcoming US midterm elections after he fired the last three members of an independent federal commission.

Trump’s extraordinary move to paralyze the US Election Assistance Commission (EAC) wipes out the only federal agency devoted solely to election administration months before the US midterm elections.

Exclusive: Move comes as allies of Andy Burnham work on proposals to take water companies into public control

Ministers are drawing up plans to set legally binding debt targets for England’s water companies as they look for ways to avoid another corporate failure such as Thames Water.

Sources say Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, is working on proposals that would force companies to keep their debt below certain levels for the first time or face legal punishment.

Kai Wegner admits poor communication in handling of power blackout overshadowed his other political work

Berlin’s embattled mayor has abandoned his campaign to stand for reelection after failing to recover from a row over his decision to play tennis while large parts of the German capital were hit by a power blackout in January.

Kai Wegner announced on Friday afternoon that he would not run in Berlin’s 20 September election after coming under huge pressure to step down from his party, the Christian Democrats (CDU). Some members wrote an open letter to Wegner this week in which they appealed to him to withdraw his candidacy.

Sian Astley doubles down on stance that ‘people who vote for open borders should house criminals and rapists who enter UK’

• UK politics live – latest updates

The Reform UK candidate in the Greater Manchester mayoral race has been criticised by her rivals after doubling down on comments that voters for other parties should have to house criminals and rapists.

Sian Astley, a property businesswoman, initially made the comments in a Facebook post in which she shared her party’s pledge that a Reform government would prioritise placing migrant detention centres in areas where the Green party had an MP or controlled the local council.

Cloak-and-dagger operation delivers 70-metre medieval artwork to British Museum, as gathered diplomats applaud

Like the man whose conquest of England almost a millennium ago it recounts, the Bayeux tapestry crossed the Channel in the dead of night, in as much secrecy as possible, landing on the country’s south coast early the following day.

The artefact’s arrival on Friday marked the first time it has returned to England in nearly 1,000 years, and British Museum staff will begin to prepare it for exhibition during its year-long loan.

In Iceland, people commemorated its first glacier formally declared lost to climate change. Western culture needs more of these rituals

I remember interviewing a North Atlantic right whale expert years ago. He was a practical, science-minded man. But as we discussed a female whale that had lost her calf, he became visibly emotional. She had lost the previous one, too, struck by a ship. He seemed almost embarrassed by the depth of his feeling.

I wasn’t surprised. I found his grief honorable.

The desert rain frog, native to a narrow coastal strip of south-west Africa, has been classified as vulnerable on the IUCN red list, as its habitat is threatened by mining

The desert rain frog is one of the most unusual amphibians on the planet. With a rotund body and stumpy legs that dig rather than jump, it has evolved to survive not in wetlands or rainforests, but in the unforgiving dunes of the southern African desert.

This week the species was declared to be threatened with extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’s red list, which classified it as vulnerable. Without conservation efforts, its population is expected to decline by 20% in the next decade, the IUCN warns.

People in Thornton-Cleveleys want answers on the impact of widespread contamination around the chemical plant

“Everything I wanted was finally coming to fruition. A house, a change of job and getting married,” says Liz Hurst, looking out to sea on a hot evening in Blackpool.

“But then all of a sudden, everything was put on hold.” Fifteen years ago, Hurst was diagnosed with kidney cancer aged 32.

As UK swelters in another heatwave, 50-minute Chris Packham film outlines threats to security, economy and health

MPs are calling on the UK government to host a televised national climate emergency briefing in response to what has been described as the most “insidious threat to our society”.

In November, in the “first-of-its-kind, national emergency briefing”, nine experts gave stark assessments in Westminster Hall of the scale of the changes needed to adapt the country to the rapidly changing climate and ecological landscape.

Chloe Moffat, 26, killed herself day after meeting about anonymous complaint in which she was not allowed to bring a colleague

The mother of a young woman who took her own life after facing disciplinary proceedings at the Treasury has called on the government department to change its practices.

Chloe Moffat, 26, had worked at the Treasury as a personal assistant for almost three years. She “loved her job” and had an “exemplary employment record”, the coroner at her inquest heard this week.

Asylum seekers win ruling against home secretary’s reduction of safeguards for potential victims of trafficking

• UK politics live – latest updates

The home secretary’s decision to reduce protections for potential trafficking victims being considered for removal under the “one in, one out” asylum deal was unlawful, a high court judge has ruled.

The legal challenge was brought by five small-boat asylum seekers selected for being returned to France – four from Eritrea and one from Sudan. It related to a change in guidance on the one in, one out scheme, which meant that those denied trafficking protections no longer had the right to ask for it to be reconsidered.

It remains unclear how much of substance will change – and whether it will be enough to rebuild electoral coalition

On the final day of Labour’s party conference in 2023, when the public was still reeling from the brutal Hamas attack on Israel just days before, Keir Starmer took to the airwaves for the traditional broadcast round – but gave one interview that would have particularly damaging fallout.

Sitting down with LBC’s Nick Ferrari, the then opposition leader asserted Israel’s right to defend itself, a stance that was in line with the broad political consensus at the time. But then he also appeared to suggest it had “the right” to withhold power and water from Palestinian civilians.

Officers say disturbances in city orchestrated by people from outside and urge people to factcheck online claims

Scottish police have told people to factcheck online claims before going to protests, after crowds gathered outside two homes in Glasgow this week, in one case as a result of mistaken identity.

Police Scotland said that several nights of disorder in Scotland’s biggest city had “clearly been orchestrated by individuals who are not from Glasgow”.

Military intelligence officer admits witnessing killing of woman believed to have left explosive device outside oligarch’s home

The case of a suspected bomber accused of targeting a Ukrainian oligarch has taken another murky turn, after details of her subsequent murder were revealed in court with evidence suggesting the involvement of Kyiv’s intelligence agencies.

French police last week named Anastasiia Berezovska as the person captured on CCTV leaving a rucksack outside a Monaco apartment block. It blew up, injuring the Ukrainian businessman Vadym Iermolaiev as he emerged from the building with his partner and their 13-year-old child.

‘Organizations that have kept women and girls alive through the world’s worst crises risk becoming another casualty of war’ a UN Women chief says

At least one million women and girls have lost access to humanitarian and other critical support over the past 18 months, according to a United Nations agency, after “the steepest annual decline” in foreign aid on record.

The report by UN Women, which focuses on advancing women’s rights, gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, found 84% of women’s organizations reported increased demand for their services since January 2025. That month, Donald Trump re-entered the White House and implemented sweeping cuts to US foreign aid.

Innocent man lynched by mob in West Bengal as police killing of suspect further escalates tensions

Protests have engulfed the Indian state of West Bengal after the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl, the subsequent lynching of an innocent man and the police killing of one of the accused.

Outrage erupted on Sunday after the body of a missing girl was recovered from a pond in a town just outside the state capital, Kolkata.

Civil liberties groups say Facewatch system in stores such as Sainsbury’s and B&M is ‘dangerous escalation’

Facial recognition technology in shops will soon alert police in real time to the presence of serious offenders, with civil liberties groups warning of a “dangerous escalation” towards surveillance and criminalisation in the retail sector.

Facewatch, a facial recognition system used by more than 100 businesses including Sainsbury’s, B&M and Spar to monitor thieves, said it was launching a UK-first feature to “alert police instantly when the most serious offenders trigger a live facial recognition match”.

Exclusive: Plan to improve skills of thousands of financial sector workers to keep pace with tech revolution

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is to announce a new City “skills compact” that will commit firms such as Barclays and Lloyds to retraining thousands of financial sector workers for the AI revolution.

The financial services skills compact will be launched on Tuesday, during what is likely to be Reeves’s final Mansion House speech to City bosses before Andy Burnham’s expected takeover of No 10. The government-backed initiative will commit employers to improving workers’ skills and helping them “keep pace” with significant technological changes that have prompted fears of mass redundancies.

Xavier Niel buys 16% through investment vehicle Vega after Emirati telecoms group sells shareholding

The French telecoms billionaire Xavier Niel has become Vodafone’s largest shareholder after buying a 16% stake for £4.4bn.

On Friday, the Emirati telecoms group e&, which first took a stake worth £3.3bn in Vodafone in 2022, announced the sale of its entire shareholding for 112.5p a share.

As Netflix’s quietly radical coming-of-age drama wraps up with a feature-length film, its stars discuss queer escapism, awkward love scenes and letting go of the characters that made them

In a house near Maidenhead in Berkshire, a group of sweaty teenagers are throwing a party. Vodka bottles line the staircase, snogs are shared on lumpy sofas and gossip is exchanged. The windows are covered with multicoloured fabrics to ward off prying eyes. Suddenly, as the vibes start to flag, the music cuts out and a voice bellows: “You’re having the time of your lives, remember!”

The voice belongs to the director Wash Westmoreland; the very real house – situated next to the noisy A308 – stands on the grounds of Bray Studios in Berkshire. As for the partygoers, well … they’re some of the most famous young faces on the planet.

Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich
While Britain boils in a heatwave, a new exhibition built around the much-reproduced canvas reminds us of the beauty of the natural world – and what we could lose

I first saw John Constable’s 1821 painting The Hay Wain as a postcard with cruise missiles brutally stacked in the wooden cart and pointing at the sky. Peter Kennard’s anti-nuke photomontage is just one of the many parodies and travesties this image of a seemingly eternal rustic Britain keeps provoking. A few months ago, a newspaper cartoon depicted a ballistic missile from Iran speeding through Constable’s painting. But when I visited Ipswich to see its Hay Wain exhibition at the start of the latest heatwave it was the climate making a scorching, ironic comment on this temperate scene.

Inside this Tudor house, grey, blue and brown masses of rain-promising cloud hung above Constable’s painted Suffolk fields, dappling them with shade. But outside the grass was straw yellow and the landscape around Dedham Vale and the River Stour, where Constable was born and in which The Hay Wain and many more of his works lovingly linger, appeared to have been blowtorched into oblivion.

As the classic courtroom comedy drama turns 25 meet the associates and attorneys who took Elle Woods’ pioneering spirit and ran with it

Angela McCarthy, senior associate at Lawrence Stephens, London

Alice Oseman’s LGBTQ+ romantic teen drama concludes with an intimate look at long-distance relationships, while Daniel Day-Lewis and Sean Bean are two brothers surrounded by fear and generational pain

Submerge yourself, for the last time, in the warm bath of inclusivity that is Alice Oseman’s world-conquering LGBTQ+ romantic teen drama. Despite returning as a feature film, it’s intimate, suburban business as usual for Joe Locke’s Charlie, Kit Connor’s Nick and their tight-knit circle of queer friends. The principal conflict this time revolves round Nick’s looming departure for university and the pair’s worries about how – and if – a long-distance relationship could work. It’s also about navigating everyday coupledom, with Anna Maxwell Martin (replacing Olivia Colman) as Nick’s single mum and Derek Jacobi as an older gay man giving the boys pause for thought.
Friday 17 July, Netflix

Love on the Spectrum’s Michael Theo also stars in Austin. Plus: Monty Don at the first ever RHS Badminton flower show. Here’s what to watch this evening

11.10pm, BBC One
The British-Australian sitcom about a grumpy children’s author who meets a neurodivergent man claiming to be his estranged son returns for series two. Julian (Ben Miller) receives the DNA test results and tells Austin (Michael Theo) that it isn’t a match. So they go in search of Austin’s real father … But it is Sally Phillips as Julian’s fed-up wife Ingrid who really steals the show. Hollie Richardson

On the back of our editors’ choices of the year’s finest, we asked you to share your magical movie moments from the first half of 2026

The film that had me gripped right from its ridiculous and bizarre first scene at a Brazilian country road petrol station was The Secret Agent by Kleber Mendonça Filho. The gorgeous Armando is on the run from a corrupt private company official, who wants to steal his academic expertise for his own financial gain. It’s a deal that Armando knows will sully his academic reputation but by refusing to do so, he ends up with a target on his back from the resentful Ghirotti, who sent chills up my spine. This is a stunning movie. Liz, London

Housesharing brought the south London trio’s sounds – classical vocals, violin, clubby production – together as they bled through the walls, to shapeshifting effect

From South London
Recommended if you like FKA twigs, James K, Anysia Kim
Up next Debut album Underlight out now

There are many ways to deconstruct club music. On Bristol label Illegal Data, releases might take explosive approaches to scary (Ship Sket) and whimsical (Mun Sing) extremes. More recently, the same label finds Stolen Velour, Floco and Aria SL filling the club chest-high with liquid: you hear elements sink, dissolve, or float past serenely on the surface.

(Wren Cathedral)
Inspired by communal Hebridean Gaelic song and ceremonial music, these reels and ballads reveal the fascinating proximity of post-rock and folk rock

A thick, distant rumble, the metallic sheen of an accordion drone and a woman singing a traditional Gaelic lament for the dead: these open Keening, the first track on the most fascinating folk-adjacent set of the summer. Wild Gods is a new project from Argyll’s Jamie Livingstone, a regular collaborator with the Scottish electronic producer Barry Can’t Swim. This release is inspired by the waulking songs of the Hebrides: communal songs traditionally sung by women as they beat and softened tweed before mechanisation transformed the industry’s rhythms.

With Gaelic archival recordings and melodies rooted in Celtic ceremonial music also being stirred into this bubbling brew, these eight tracks reveal the occasional, fascinating proximity between post-rock and folk-rock. After Keening, 10-minute Carlene’s Pin marries Susannah Stark’s gorgeous Gaelic vocals to clanging Bad Seeds guitars, folk fiddle, and a bassline recalling Godspeed You! Black Emperor at their most defiantly uncheery. Rest and Be Thankful, named after both a classic Scottish reel and a famous A83 viewpoint where couples are known to meet to have sex, is deliberately built up as a tender ballad, before moments of joyous folk dance strut and erupt; a shimmering interlude follows. Ortha, named after a Celtic incantation, reflects another of Livingstone’s inspirations: a transformative ayahuasca experience.

Rennert/Konradi/Peter/Keenlyside/Middleton
(Signum)
This collection of songs that the composer wrote as a young man is full of interest and emotion. Pianist Joseph Middleton brings sensitive support and an array of illustrative colours

The second volume in Signum’s survey of Mahler song focuses on the three books of Lieder und Gesänge that the composer worked on in his 20s, rounding off the album with his first vocal masterpiece, the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen.

These early ditties are highly individual, often quirky and invariably full of interest. Joseph Middleton, whose instinctual pacing and sensitive support of the vocal line is matched by an array of illustrative colours drawn from the piano, has assembled a fine cast of singers. Sophie Rennert opens with Frühlingsmorgen, her full-bodied mezzo and expressive diction mining this lilting Viennese gem for textual nuance. She’s equally persuasive in Ich ging mit Lust durch einen grünen Wald, one of Mahler’s most luminous songs. Ablösung im Sommer, a bizarre celebration of a cuckoo that has fallen off its perch, is given a deliciously theatrical workout by Katharina Konradi.

After hopping between country, disco and soft rock, Tyler found her groove with Jim Steinman-penned epics, shining through even the most overblown backing tracks

• News: Bonnie Tyler, 80s pop legend known for Total Eclipse of the Heart and more, dies aged 75
• From Swansea clubs to worldwide fame: Bonnie Tyler – a life in pictures

Bonnie Tyler had a peculiar career: two bursts of global success that seemed to have almost nothing to do with each other beyond the name that appeared on the records. Her first big British hits, 1976’s Lost in France and 1977’s It’s a Heartache, were superior examples of what writer Pete Paphides subsequently dubbed “medium wave pop”, the largely forgotten stuff that actually filled the charts and Radio One’s playlists at a time when reductive rock histories would have you believe the entire nation was gripped by punk. They were a little bit soft rock, a little bit country, a little reminiscent of reliable mid-70s hitmakers Smokie, and so catchy that no one seemed to notice that somewhere between their respective releases, Tyler’s voice had changed dramatically: possessed of a rather sweet tone on Lost in France, an operation to remove nodules on her vocal cords had caused her to develop a striking Rod Stewart-like huskiness by the time of It’s a Heartache.

It looked like It’s a Heartache would turn Tyler into a huge star: it sold 6m copies, and the accompanying album made the Top 3 on the US country chart. But said success proved difficult to sustain, compounded by the fact that her record label seemed bizarrely unsure what to do with her. Get her to cover Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, as on Louisiana Rain? Aim her squarely at the easy listening market via a version of Sometimes When We Touch? Encourage her to go disco, as on the fabulously camp (The World is Full of) Married Men?

The actor and activist tells the story of her brutal childhood in the deep south with eloquence and defiance

When Laverne Cox was eight years old and growing up in Mobile, Alabama, she saved up her pocket money and bought herself a fan decorated with Japanese geishas. The fan became her favourite plaything, a prop to be used while dancing in imaginary music videos or recreating scenes from Gone With the Wind in which she cast herself as Scarlett O’Hara. “I lit up, animated, whenever that fan was in my hand,” she recalls in her memoir.

But when Cox, who was raised as a boy, began fanning herself with it at school, her teacher, Mrs Ridgeway, yanked her furiously out of the classroom, paraded her and her new accessory in front of the other teachers, and then phoned her mother, Gloria. When Gloria came home that evening, she exploded with fury. She said Mrs Ridgeway had told her she too had a son who had been an effeminate child who was now living on the streets of New Orleans and wearing a dress. “You want to be in a dress on the streets in New Orleans?” shouted Gloria, who would habitually call Cox a “sissy” and other homophobic slurs. She then signed her up for conversion therapy, which duly failed. It did, however, reinforce the message that there was something deeply wrong with Cox and that she was ultimately unlovable. Three years later, she tried to kill herself.

Sublimation by Isabel J Kim; Last Day of a Prior Life by Andrés Barba; Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep by Paul Tremblay; The Carrier by Ruth Newton; Time to Burn by Ellery Lloyd

Sublimation by Isabel J Kim (Picador, £18.99)
This debut novel from an award-winning Korean-American short fiction writer is a fantastical reimagining of the immigrant experience. Here, anyone who crosses a border not intending to return creates an “instance”: a duplicate self who continues life at home. Reintegration into one body is possible, but after years of separate experiences, Soyoung wonders if it might be the psychological equivalent of murder. This idea shocks her friend Yujin, who speaks with his instance in New York every day, waiting for him to be granted the dual citizenship that will allow them to share a privileged life between two countries. The story of these two pairs is told in the second person, a destabilising choice that gradually immerses the reader in a world of doppelgangers. As in our reality, travel is hedged around with bureaucratic systems designed to codify identity and control immigration. A brilliantly realised, imaginative and compelling work of literary speculative fiction.

Last Day of a Prior Life byAndrés Barba, translated by Lisa Dillman (Scribe, £10.99)
The latest novel by the Spanish author of Such Small Hands is a gentler, more unusual approach to the ghost story. An estate agent encounters a child in the empty house she’s trying to sell, and realises she’s met a ghost. The experience causes her to think about her closest relationships and to act in ways she never has before. Knowing it could be dangerous, she goes back to the house, determined to try to help the child from another time who is trapped there. A short, subtle, eerie tale that hides depths beneath a surface simplicity.

The Scottish author on loving The Hobbit, fairytales, Frankenstein and the shock of A Clockwork Orange

My earliest reading memory
Fairytales. I was obsessed. I took fairytales very seriously as moral lessons. I soon knew that I’d always help any old lady cross the road, it really is always best to do so.

My favourite book growing up
The Hobbit was my favourite book while growing up. It expanded my understanding of what could be achieved in fiction. I found JRR Tolkien’s world transformative. I felt as if I knew the hobbits, and I so wanted to see the elves. I could hear the crack of fireworks as they turned into dragons that flew overhead.

Riwoe’s commanding new book traces a Chinese Australian family across four generations – all connected by one old longan tree

It’s the year 2049 and Daniel Connelly is 75 years old. Eccentric and lonely after decades of self-imposed isolation, his existence is “spartan”, a “relentless searching, a yearning for pieces that fit together to make a new whole”. He spends his days making sculptures from broken pottery; the shards of his life.

During a warm winter’s day, Daniel steps outside to find that the longan tree in his garden has fallen during a storm. The tree was an heirloom of sorts – a family emblem of home and belonging for generations before him.

Introducing a new sadistic psychopath and a corrupt secret society of Gotham grandees would mean Harvey Dent takes a backseat to Victor Zsasz and the Court of Owls

Matt Reeves’ The Batman was a strange beast from the beginning. Perhaps not comic-book weird in the usual sense – no cosmic portals or rubber nipples here – but strange all the same. This was a Gotham where Bruce Wayne seemed to have been styled by the ghost of Kurt Cobain, the Riddler appeared to have escaped from a David Fincher evidence locker, and the whole city looked as if it had been left to soak overnight in rainwater and civic corruption. The expectation was that Reeves would begin rolling back the bizarre in part two, perhaps leaving us with a more orthodox Batverse populated with mobsters and corrupt lawyers. Sebastian Stan seemed central to this, with rumours suggesting he would portray Harvey Dent/Two-Face, perhaps alongside Scarlett Johansson as his wife, Gilda.

In the last week, however, there have been suggestions that the sequel might just be priming itself for something a fair bit freakier. Hollywood industry veteran Jeff Sneider is reporting that the main antagonist this time around could be the Court of Owls, a sinister secret society of Gotham grandees who look at first glance like a murder-bird upgrade on the League of Shadows, but are really something nastier: the city’s masked, devious ruling class, living out of secret rooms and exploiting a property portfolio that probably goes back to the Pilgrims.

PS5, PC, Xbox Series X/S; Ubisoft Singapore/Ubisoft
Ubisoft has removed all the boring parts of pirate life from its fantasy RPG, creating something more focused and fun

Edward Kenway isn’t your dad’s Assassin’s Creed protagonist. Neither sworn to ancient oaths nor given a noble destiny, he’s just a guy who likes coin, dislikes rules, and whose gold-chasing, rule-dodging lifestyle sees him embroiled in an ancient war between Templars and assassins quite by accident. After he’s shipwrecked with a man named Walpole who turns out to be a Templar, Edward assumes Walpole’s identity in the hopes of securing the bounty he mentioned.

Edward wears life lightly. The world around him is violent and chaotic, and those in his vicinity are more obsessed with double-crossings than a Mission:Impossible movie writers’ room. Ed just smiles, undeterred by it all, and gets on with plundering. It’s all just fun and games to him, and he is set on conquering the Caribbean on his own terms. He is a brilliant extension of the player, in that way, and that’s what this remake of the 2013 pirate-themed Assassin’s Creed does so well: the sense of freedom.

Sony’s announcement spells the end of a whole ecosystem built by superfan collectors – and signals a troubling shift in the industry

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Sony’s decision last week to quietly announce the end of physical games production for the PlayStation in 2028 is one of the most perfect PR disasters in recent gaming history – and considering what has been happening with Xbox, that’s saying something.

First, there was the timing. Sony posted the news of its decision on the PlayStation blog, less than a week after admitting that it would be deleting 550 movies from the digital libraries of PlayStation owners due to the end of a licensing deal – thereby perfectly illustrating the dangers of purchasing digital products. (Surprise! You never actually owned them!) The move is in stark contrast with the company’s stance on this very issue back in 2013. When Microsoft was attempting to push Xbox One as a digital-first console with strict controls on the sharing and reselling of its games, Sony brilliantly mocked its rival with a short video on how easy it was to lend physical games to pals on the PS4. Oh dear.

The massively multiplayer online role-playing game has grown into a virtual social space and part of daily life for thousands of players

In a small stone chapel, on the edgelands of a medieval wilderness, two women are getting married. The attenders are draped in rainbow capes, glowing armour and top hats. A scantily clad, muscular man with angel wings officiates the ceremony. Over the heads of the two brides hover the words “I do” in bright yellow text. This is RuneScape, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (or MMO) set in the Tolkienesque realm of Gielinor. Turning 25 this year, it has, over its lifetime, become a crucial virtual social space and part of daily life for thousands of players.

Lancashire-born Amelia, one of the pixelated newlyweds, met her wife on a dating app but first bonded through their love of the game. “Our first and second date was pretty much exclusively talking about RuneScape,” she recalls. Four years later they were married, shortly followed by their in-game ceremony. Morgan – a 26-year-old from the Midlands – is one of Amelia’s closest friends. They met through the game and run UWU Girls together, a RuneScape clan that Morgan founded in a bid to cater to players across the gender spectrum. “We do IRL meetups, and for a lot of these women, it’s been their first meetings with strangers online – and that’s the same for me.”

The playwright has long been considered one of the country’s most famous exports, but not an ‘Irish writer’. An ambitious new season of plays explores his complex relationship with his homeland – and tickets are already on sale for 2036

In 2036, the actor Samuel West will take to the stage to perform Krapp’s Last Tape – Samuel Beckett’s pensive monologue in which an old man, hunched over a reel-to-reel recorder, listens back to the voice of his younger self. West will be 69, the age of Krapp in the play. And remarkably, the tape he plays will feature the sound of himself as a younger man, recorded in 2006, when he was 39 – the age Krapp was on the night he made the recording. Two years later another actor, Richard Dormer, will do the same, using a similar recording that’s currently locked away in a BBC vault.

These are the most improbable commissions of the Samuel Beckett Biennale, which promises to deliver experimental “performed readings” of the playwright’s works in pockets of Ireland and Britain over the next 12 years. It is organised by Seán Doran and run through his cross-border organisation Arts Over Borders. Events will unfold at locations of significance to Beckett’s life and legacy – from Enniskillen, Belfast and Dublin to Folkestone, Reading and Snodland – tracing his footsteps across Britain and Ireland.

It’s the world’s most prestigious photography show, but Les Rencontres de la Photographie really flies thanks to the jaw-dropping work of eccentrics, amateurs and complete unknowns
• The best of Arles 2026 – in pictures

On 16 June 1963, a mechanic from Albuquerque named Paul Villa was allegedly invited – via telepathic messages from an alien crew – to photograph their spaceship. The result was an image of the flying object in the sky. Villa’s account is similar to that of a Swiss man, Billy Meier, who saw his first flying saucer aged five, and has taken more than 1,400 photographs of them since. One of Meier’s flying saucer photographs features in the famous poster that hangs in Fox Mulder’s office in the X-Files. Added to Meier’s image are the words: I Want to Believe.

We Are Not Alone: Alien Images is one of the standout shows of Les Rencontres de la Photographie in Arles this year, the world’s most prestigious photography festival. The show draws on dozens of examples from private and public archives that present visual “documents” of UFOs, unexplained phenomena and close encounters with aliens. Most of the photographs were made between the 1960s and 1980s, when reports of UFO sightings were at a peak – and in the US, the place that boasted the highest number of UFO sightings in the last century. Of course, all of the pictures turn out to be the result of rudimentary tricks (dangling a dish on a string in front of the camera), cases of misidentification or uncanny accidents of the analogue film. They might be amateur and faked, but they still pull you in thanks to their fascinating, idiosyncratic storytelling.

Bluecoat, Liverpool
Banerjee’s blend of British suburbia and ancient Bengali traditions is an imaginative portrayal of the artist’s dual heritage – and questions how we preserve culture today

The stories we are told shape the world in which we live. If your father had insisted you watch all 94 episodes of a television adaptation of the Mahabharatawhen it was screened on the BBC, as Debjani Banerjee’s did, it’s easy to imagine that your family’s Henry hoover might come to resemble Ganesha, the elephant-headed Hindu deity with a similarly long trunk. My own Irish mother meant that I was always hearing banshees at my bedroom window, as if she had brought them over to England with her. In a sense, she had. And so, Banerjee’s charming sculpture of a vacuum cleaner as the god of new beginnings, situated at the heart of this witty and moving exhibition, reflects an imagination shaped by 1980s British suburbia and an ancient Bengali literary tradition.

Sitting on a strip of garishly patterned carpet, Henry-Ganesha captures the double consciousness of anyone who grows up with more than one cultural inheritance. But the work also encapsulates a more general principle: that every generation must adapt the cultures they inherit to their own circumstances if those traditions are to survive. Banerjee’s collaborative art takes her Bengali heritage as a means through which to ask questions that will resonate with anyone living in Britain today: how do we preserve the cultures that bind us together when things are falling apart? How do we pass on knowledge to our children? What should we carry into a rapidly changing future, and what must we leave behind?

Pitlochry Festival theatre
Maureen Beattie leads a modern-dress version, which focuses on family dynamics rather than the decline of Shakespeare’s mighty ruler

You know when you walk into a room then forget why you came in? Maureen Beattie does that at the start of this gender-swapped version of Shakespeare’s tragedy. She strides on, catches herself, half wanders back, turns on her heels and goes out another way altogether. A little later, she needs a moment to remember the name of Goneril, her daughter. In the depths of the second half, she is slumped in a wheelchair, talking with painful deliberation and we know where it all started.

Yet this Queen Lear can be sharp, too. Dividing her kingdom between Goneril (Jenny Hulse), Regan (Lindsey Campbell) and Cordelia (Ailsa Davidson), she is an articulate woman who expects respect.

Sony Pictures and Paramount are said to also be among potential buyers for the film-focused social platform

Letterboxd is reportedly in talks with potential buyers.

The owners of the popular social platform for movies are discussing a sale with companies including Netflix, Sony Pictures and Paramount, according to the industry newsletter Puck.

Duetting pair spend 16th week at No 1, a record for a British artist – but they’ll need 19 weeks to beat Frankie Laine’s all-time record from 1953

Sam Fender and Olivia Dean have broken Wet Wet Wet’s 32-year record for a British act’s run at No 1 in the UK singles chart.

Fender and Dean’s duet Rein Me In has racked up its 16th week at No 1, beating Wet Wet Wet’s Love is All Around, which spent 15 weeks at No 1 in the summer of 1994 after it appeared on the Four Weddings and a Funeral soundtrack. Unlike Wet Wet Wet’s consecutive run, though, Fender and Dean’s song has dropped in and out of the top spot since February.

In this week’s newsletter: After a slow burn for many years, the football shirt has crossed over into the world of music fandom in a big way

Something sartorially strange is happening at gigs across the country. Where once there might have been a sea of (often black) cotton T-shirts across the audience, now a note of heavy polyester has been added to the mix. Last month at Outbreak, the UK’s biggest hardcore punk festival, a sizeable minority of attendees were wearing football shirts – though often not in support of any particular team. Instead, in place of club crests and sponsor logos were names of bands at the festival – Fiddlehead, Alexisonfire, Love is Noise – or for the festival itself.

This isn’t a phenomenon restricted to the hardcore scene. On the tube in London, a day after returning from Outbreak, I saw a gaggle of Harry Styles fans returning from one of his Wembley shows, all sporting bright pink football kits with the One Direction man’s name in place of the shirt number. Practically every band or musical subgenre going is represented with a football shirt. Dua Lipa has one. Deftones have one. Gorillaz have one. OutKast, despite not being a going concern for at least a decade, have one, in collaboration with football mag Mundial. Future Islands have two, including an absolutely gorgeous Napoli-inspired number. Oasis – naturally – have one. (And that’s not to forget the host of bands, from Kneecap to Bring Me the Horizon, with their logos emblazoned on actual football kits, a trend that stretches back to the 90s when Wet Wet Wet were sponsoring Clydebank and the Super Furry Animals were lending their name to Cardiff City’s fetching Welsh cup kit.)

Six-part series will explore the band’s years in Hamburg, including the overlooked influence of Harold Phillips

In 1960, the Beatles arrived in the German port city of Hamburg. Inexperienced, keen and – in the case of George Harrison – underage, they were at the start of a two-year spell that would become a key part of Beatles lore, a time when the band honed their skills while entertaining rowdy sailors.

The Hamburg stint, during which the band played more than 250 gigs between 1960 and 1962, is the focus of a new BBC drama, Hamburg Days, which will tell the story of how the band were beaten into shape by performing near the notorious Reeperbahn.

Maxxing trends – going all in on a particular trait, habit, quality or pastime – tend to burn brightly and briefly. But how many of the following are real?

It started more than a decade ago with looksmaxxing, a disturbing manosphere-based strategy for optimising personal appearance through diet, exercise, surgery or smashing your jawbone. Back then, “maxxing” carried with it an unwholesome sense of overkill for its own sake. Even that extra X – maxing out the word in a way that served no orthographic purpose – seemed to be a symptom.

Over time the -maxxing suffix has come to mean going all in on a particular trait, habit, quality or pastime, generally in a manner that misses the point. Booksmaxxing, for example, seems to be less about reading, and more about coming across as optimally bookish in your dating profile. Sleepmaxxing is about getting as much sleep as you can, rather than as much as you need.

The five of us were supposed to leave for Cornwall at 9am. But it was noon before we set off and past midnight when we arrived. No wonder two of the family left the next morning

It was a last-minute May half-term break. We knew the cottage, lent to us by a relative, would be a squeeze for my husband, three teenage daughters and me. “But hey,” I told my unconvinced gang, “it’s near the beach – we’ll hardly be inside anyway.”

One daughter had a party the night before; she promised to be home by midnight, and we agreed we would begin the six-hour drive at 9am. Said daughter arrived back as I was making my morning tea. She was still drunk, and she had lost her phone.

Electric models are selling out fast, so keep cool like the fashion crowd with an old-school concertina hand fan

• How to sleep in a heatwave

You must have noticed that portable fans are everywhere right now: on sweaty commutes, in stuffy meetings, and at shadeless sporting events. As the hot weather continues, neck fans, handheld electronic fans, and fans that spritz water are selling out fast.

But even if you can get your hands on one, they come with drawbacks: electric designs consume energy; they can run out of battery. And most are made from plastic, with concerns over how many poor-quality models will end up in landfill once the summer’s over.

They promise smoother skin with less regrowth – but which of these tools are worth the money?

• The best epilators – tested

Tired of waxing, bored by shaving and fed up with ingrown hairs? In the past few years, a quiet revolution has been taking place in the hair removal market, promising to banish stubbly regrowth and take away the pain of waxing and epilation. I’m speaking of the growing number of IPL (intense pulsed light) and laser devices suitable for home use.

Put simply, IPL uses pulses of light to make the hair go into its resting phase (stop growing) and fall out. IPL isn’t a permanent hair-removal solution such as electrolysis, but you should see a significant reduction in hair regrowth over time. With the right device, it’s also simple to do at home, fairly quick and almost completely painless.

Best IPL device overall for face and body:
Philips Lumea 9900

Best budget IPL device:
Bondi Body v2 laser @home

From thermal blinds to putting your knickers in the fridge, here are the clever – and surprising – ways Filter readers are keeping cool as the UK swelters

• How to sleep in a heatwave

After record-breaking June temperatures, parts of the UK are in the throes of another heatwave. So with more uncomfortably hot days and sweaty, sleepless nights in store, we asked how you keep cool when the temperatures soar.

Some of you shared tips for keeping your homes cool, others on avoiding overheating on the go, and some on ways to exercise safely. From thermal blinds and fans to sunscreens and UV-protective hats, here are your, and our, favourite hacks to beat the heat – and some of them are free. (And no, none of you has any commercial links to these companies or products – we always check.)

The hot weather is back. Beat the heat while on the move with our tried and tested portable neck and handheld fans

• The best fans for your home, tested
• Shark ChillPill 3-in-1 fan review

Another month, another heatwave. The climate crisis means things are heating up year on year, and while we can hide in air-conditioned shops and offices, our homes can get uncomfortably – sometimes dangerously – hot.

We also have to go outside – or worse, pack ourselves like sweaty sardines on sweltering public transport. On those occasions, a portable fan can make all the difference between manageable discomfort and indulging in an inadvisable quantity of ice-cream. Their recent popularity has led to manufacturers churning out cheap-but-not-especially cheerful products that ultimately end up as clutter in your house – or worse, landfill, where an estimated 4.3m will end up this year alone.

Best handheld fan overall:
John Lewis handheld and foldable fan – currently out of stock

Best budget handheld fan:
Fine Elements folding rechargeable mini travel fan – click and collect only

This spicy gin and citrus combo has a kick that belies its modest size

Gimlets may be on the small side, but they tend to make up for that by packing a pretty decent punch. This gently spiced, citrus-forward example is no exception, and makes for a gloriously summery aperitif.

Harneet Baweja, owner, Empire Empire, London W11

A touch of spice balances the sweet meringue and draws out the flavour of this fragrant and fruity dessert

British strawberry season barely needs embellishment, so I haven’t done anything wild here. This is essentially a classic rolled pavlova: crisp at the edges, marshmallow-soft within and filled with clouds of cream and strawberries. The small flourish here is sumac, which has a gentle tartness that somehow amplifies the berry flavour while balancing the sweetness of the meringue. Add a little lime zest, too, and the whole thing tastes bright, fragrant and unmistakably of summer.

As sales of sparkling wine continue to soar, one aromatic French fizz is worthy of particular appreciation

It was in the middle of the pandemic that I ceased stashing sparkling wine. There were no special occasions, or occasions at all, really, save for daily episodes of the BBC’s Baby Club with two cabin-fevered infants and the weekly thrill of a veg box. I might have been stockpiling chickpeas, but I was cracking bubbles open willy-nilly because, well, why not?

And I never stopped. The unrelentingly grim news agenda seems as good a reason as any to pop a cork these days, because sparkling wine invariably lifts my spirits. And I’m not alone in drinking more of it: according to a study by the International Organisation of Vine and Wine, sparkling wine sales have grown faster than any other style in recent years, rising in value from €2.3bn to €8.5bn over the past quarter-century. (That said, I might be an outlier on the timing front, because 2020 figures also point to a dip in sales)

You don’t need any complicated kit to eat well while sleeping under the stars. Just take a stove, a spork – and these recipes

Sign up here for our weekly food newsletter, Feast

Much as I love camping, I understand why so many recoil at the idea of spending their holidays sleeping in a field and sharing bathroom facilities with several hundred other people, plus the local spider population. But, having just enjoyed a week in Devon in a one-person tent, with an elderly terrier, I have to come out in praise of campsite cookery. Though we ate in some superb pubs, the meals that brought the most joy were the ones we threw together from the small village shops we passed. (Shout out to the Holne Community Shop and Tearoom for being so well stocked – and to the kind fellow shopper who gave me and the dog a lift back to the campsite with our loot.) It gave me pause for thought about the kind of meals you actually cook when camping … and by camping, I don’t mean sleeping in a van kitted out with a fridge and a cooker, nice as that looked while struggling with guy ropes. I mean when your only equipment is what you can carry on your back: ie a small gas stove or a disposable barbecue, a knife and a spork.

Joe Woodhouse has some lovely ideas here, and there’s plenty of advice in this collection of recipes from the likes of Ben Tish and Melissa Hemsley. But, for me, the trick is always to focus on one key ingredient that doesn’t need to be kept too cool (this will, of course, vary depending on where you’re camping), and base all your meals around it until it runs out, at which point you’ll need to track down a new one. Ours, on this trip, were chorizo – the cured, rather than the cooking kind – and feta. With those two flavour bombs, and the olive oil, chilli sauce and salt that should be on everyone’s packing list anyway, you can make a feast from almost anything you find en route. Claudia Roden’s spicy potatoes from Rioja would have been ideal, as would Thomasina Miers’ piperade with baked eggs and crispy chorizo, though we might have had to lose a couple of the spices in favour of Tabasco.

Gary got a free festival ticket and agreed to go halves on a full-price one for Rita, but now he won’t stop going on about it. He says calling it a favour is simply a fact. You decide who the party pooper is

• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

The way he presents it makes me feel as though I’m being a burden or that I now owe him something

You might hurt him terribly in the short term, Eleanor Gordon-Smith writes. But sometimes sparing people pain isn’t what’s good for them

• Read more Leading questions

I am deeply conflicted about whether to separate from my husband of 20 years, yet I am deeply burnt out from supporting him. He arrived as a refugee, spoke little English at the time, is from a very different culture to mine and has, as yet, untreated ADHD and PTSD. After much coaxing he agreed to couples counselling but we have now exhausted two therapists to no avail.

If I decide to separate I know that I will be far more supported by friends and family than he will be.

As a child, enduring break after break, I thought of myself as simply unlucky. Truth was, I needed to tune in to my aches, pains and well-founded fears

It was the first day of spring this year. I was topless, face-down on a foldaway travel table, as the masseuse uttered six words that brought my attempt at relaxation to an abrupt end: “I think your arm is haunted.”

I have broken my right arm seven times: seven breaks on seven separate occasions. Some years, my arm was in a sling more than it was out of one. The novelty of getting your mates to cover your cast in that 00s graffiti “S” and the relief of missing the bleep test at school quickly wore off.

My daughter’s scruffy little pet would fall asleep with me on the sofa, stilling my racing mind. And then he changed my life in an even more significant way …

I never wanted a hamster. My eight-year-old daughter, Lily, on the other hand, had folders. Habitat drawings and wheel specifications – a case for ownership of such rigour it bowled me over. As a boy I’d had a hamster, Jerry, and remembered him as fine – but nothing more than that. So I went to a Cardiff pet shop on a cold January morning in 2021 with no plan whatsoever to fall in love.

At the back of the enclosure was a scruffy one nobody else wanted. Skinny. A bit unkempt. When the staff member lifted him out, he yawned and looked at Lily as if he’d been expecting her. She named him Popcorn Sushi and took him home in a pink carrier.

Nearly a quarter of market traders now hold master’s degree, PhD or medical doctorate, research shows

One in five young market traders now holds a master’s degree, PhD or medical doctorate, according to exclusive figures shared with the Guardian, in a sign of how Britain’s markets are attracting an unexpected new generation of highly educated entrepreneurs.

Separate data from Kerb, the street food collective behind some of London’s best-known food markets, points in the same direction. Almost three-quarters of its founders have university degrees, including one in four with postgraduate qualifications. About 95% work in their businesses full-time rather than treating them as weekend side hustles.

You can keep temperatures down without the cost – or environmental price – of air conditioning. Here’s some tips and tricks

• The best fans to keep you cool in 2026 – tried and tested

In the UK we are used to worrying about our homes being warm enough, but after struggling to cope with high temperatures in May and June the race is on to cool them down before the next heatwave hits.

And while it might be tempting to swap your desktop fan for a portable air conditioner, there are lots of low-cost, more sustainable ways to stop rooms overheating.

My elderly parents’ home was left uninhabitable, and they are owed £3,300 for repairs they had to fund themselves

My elderly parents spent much of last year dealing with what should have been a straightforward insurance claim after a dishwasher installation by John Lewis caused a leak.

Instead, it became a year-long ordeal, marked by repeated failures and an almost total absence of accountability.

‘Home fee’ qualification ends in 2028, leaving those hoping to study in UK not now eligible for British loans

British teenagers living in the EU could be priced out of UK universities in two years’ time as a Brexit rule change means they face the double whammy of paying costlier international fees, while losing access to student finance.

British passport holders living in the EU still qualify for “home fee” status at UK universities. But this will no longer be the case when the grace period ends in 2028, meaning the first wave to be affected are starting their A-levels, or equivalent, this autumn.

Ministers consider bringing e-cigarette laws in line with tobacco as data shows 20% of teenagers have tried vaping

Vapes could be sold in plain packaging as part of a range of proposals to stop them being marketed to children.

The UK-wide plans also include limiting device colours to white, black or grey, and keeping vapes out of sight in shops, according to the Department of Health and Social Care.

Not everyone experiences heat the same way, and studies show aggression, violence and road rage increase on hotter days

Recently, my husband and I embarked on what should have been a pleasant spring errand: a stroll to the local farmer’s market. But a passing heatwave had made it unseasonably hot outside. I cut him off on the sidewalk and he snapped at me, so I snapped at him for snapping at me. We spent the rest of the excursion in sweaty, stony silence. When we were almost home, he said, miserably: “I’m sorry! It’s just so hot.”

Our grouchiness was not simply a weakness of spirit. “Heat doesn’t just affect your body,” said Dr Susan Albers, clinical psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic. “It affects your mood too.”

For young people, flaunting eye bags and bed rotting has become a cheeky rebuttal of body optimization culture

Picture a typical hangover: a morning spent curled under a comforter, chugging Gatorade and shame spiraling about what you might have said at the bar the night before.

Not so for the young people who are “romanticizing” their hangovers on TikTok and Instagram. Instead, they are flaunting their dark eye circles and raging headaches as the aftereffects of a good time, broadcasting their bad decisions to the world with a glowy sheen.

There are more than 3,000 conditions in dermatology, experts warn – and chatbots’ recommendations can be flaky

• Read more in the Antiviral series

Who among us has not, in a moment of panic or curiosity, consulted the internet in search of solutions to a medical ailment?

Increasingly, people are turning to AI for health advice, and skincare is no exception. Purpose-built apps promise to identify that rash, while people are sending selfies to AI chatbots seeking “full skincare analysis” and personalised regimens of treatments. On Reddit forums, people post before and after shots of the results from their AI-recommended skin routines.

With the singer sporting an array of ties on stage, fans have been customising, repurposing and even creating whole garments from the office neckwear staple

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When Harry Styles kicked off his Together, Together tour in Amsterdam in May, he bounded on to the stage in navy pleated trousers and a blue shirt, topped off with a colourful floral printed tie from Celine.

Four days later, Styles paused mid-set at the same stadium to take in the crowd. “There’s a lot of ties in the audience tonight. I see you queens, I see you,” he said.

Maria Grazia Chiuri returns to city of birth with haute couture inspired by kimono shapes and draping the body

“This is a cultural problem, and a political problem,” said Maria Grazia Chiuri before her first haute couture catwalk show for Fendi.

The problem, as the designer sees it, is Italy’s unwillingness to acknowledge fashion’s role in culture by giving it space in museums. To challenge this, Chiuri has bookended her Rome catwalk event with two fashion exhibitions in the city.

Reputation for frumpiness is over as M&S wins over younger audience with shows at Silverstone, Ibiza and now LFW

This autumn’s London fashion week boasts plenty of familiar labels, from Burberry to Alexander McQueen, ready to show off their wares. But on Wednesday there was an unexpected addition: Marks & Spencer is joining the luxury lineup.

The British high-street retailer will celebrate its 100th anniversary in the fashion industry by staging a catwalk show in September highlighting its latest women’s and menswear collections.

It’s my job to unpack beauty culture – but I’m still not immune to it. Plus, it’s a particularly strange time to be a bride, beauty-wise

My 91-year-old grandmother had her 1954 wedding album out on her lap when I visited the other day. “I wanted to remember how beautiful I used to be,” she sighed.

Every time my mom comes across a photo of her own 1984 nuptials, she says the same thing: “Look at how skinny I was!” (Or, sometimes, “Can you believe Daddy wore a white tuxedo with tails?” Which I cannot.)

From the Fanad peninsula in Ireland to the forested beaches of Finland, these are your favourite escapes without the fear of getting frazzled
• Tell us about your favourite food festival – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

Saulkrasti’s long beaches and scented pine forests are an hour from Riga on the frequent local train. The forests come right down to the long, long sandy beach and the relaxing and well-marked trail takes you the 4km from Saulkrasti station through the trees to the big dune and blue river at Balta Kapa. We enjoyed a July picnic in the forest and occasional dips in the Mediterranean-warm Baltic, before returning happy to Riga.
Bruce

I didn’t see being a couple of years away from technically qualifying for an 18-30s jaunt to be a problem. But the booze, humiliation and a ‘mystery pooer’ made me rethink my entire life

‘First the bad news,” yelled our lairy Irish club rep as the coach drove us from Ibiza airport to our hotel. “All the great clubs: Amnesia, Space, Pacha … they’re CLOSED!”

A confused silence descended. “But the good news?” he yelled. “We’re gonna have a fucking amazing time anyway!!!”

Bishop Auckland is abuzz with culture and family fun, thanks to the vision of Auckland Palace’s owners – and the new Kynren show featuring birds of prey, Viking raids and mythical beasts, which opens next week

Booming Hans Zimmer-style cinematic music reaches a crescendo, shaking my bones. Two turquoise macaws swoop within an inch of my hair and join a sky filled with nearly 250 birds. Hawks, kites, pelicans, and an owl soar and swoop around a pagan-looking wooden circle. Peacocks fuss at the makeshift river below, coaxed by two actors telling the story of humans’ relationship with nature. Grey clouds roll in, dark with rain. After all, we are risking an open-air performance in north-east England. I’m at a preview of Kynren: the Storied Lands, the latest gloriously unrestrained project in the market town of Bishop Auckland, 12 miles south of Durham.

I grew up near Bishop Auckland, which was once an important coal-mining and railway town. Last time I was here, its centre was dominated by discount stores. If, in 2003, you’d told teenage me that the high street would become an ode to art, history and culture, I would have laughed. Well, I would have grunted and turned up the Nu metal on my MP3 player.

The owners of Teffont House are aiming for modern rural hospitality that puts guests at the heart of village life

Walking into the Orangery at Teffont House during the golden hour, the restaurant is glowing. Sunlight falls across cocktails the colour of spun sugar, spills on to a terrace trailing constellations of fleabane, and bounces off spoons sinking into raspberry trifles. What really gives the room its sparkle is none of these things, however, but the fact it’s packed with local people. On a warm June evening this new hotel, 10 minutes’ drive from the Wiltshire village of Tisbury, already feels embedded in village life.

It’s the latest venture of the Beckford Group, which runs a small clutch of West Country inns and restaurants, including the Talbot Inn in Mells and the Beckford Canteen in Bath. The company has carved a niche in modern rural hospitality, teaming unflashy furnishings (all chalky pink and moss green paintwork framed by antiques and contemporary art) with menus designed for greedy locavores and pricing that delivers an unstuffy demographic. Underpinning all of this is an ability to tap into local communities to create soul. With this, the Beckford Group’s first hotel, it is making that connection more explicit by labelling it as a village, rather than a country house, hotel.

From a warehouse conversion in London with views of the water, to a 17th-century barn with an annexe used as a yoga retreat

Langstone, Hampshire: Tree bumblebees are generally placid, but they’re not keen on someone prodding their home with the end of a bamboo cane

Last summer, one by one, all our visiting hedgehogs fell victim to the road. For the first time in years, the hedgehog house beneath a purple-leaved elder in a secluded corner of the garden sat empty over winter.

Then a few weeks ago I found fresh faeces on the patio, glistening with fragments of undigested insect exoskeleton – a sure sign that a prickly visitor was about. A few nights of camera trapping revealed a rotund adult with a distinctive arrowhead-shaped mark on its rump.

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

Brenda from Bristol entered the history books when she uttered the immortal words “You’re joking! Not another one” about the prospect of a general election. The Thursday quiz feels much the same when it looks at the calendar and notes that yet another week features a Thursday, and it needs to rouse itself to write something. Fifteen questions on topical news, general knowledge and popular culture await. There are no prizes, but let us know how you got on in the comments. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 255

Aiden is an unforgettable young caregiver in Walthamstow, east London, who has been looking after his mum for over half his life. Every few weeks, Aiden and other young carers get a rare night off thanks to tenacious council worker Satvinder, who fights to improve the recognition of young carers in her borough. This film joins them as they reclaim a few hours of their teenage lives back.

Is Mum OK? is released during Carers Week in the UK, a campaign that celebrates unpaid carers across the country and calls for better recognition and support for them. There are more than one million young carers in the UK – with an average age of 12 – which is the equivalent of two kids in every school class.

Six months on from the bloody crackdown on anti-regime protesters, families remembering loved ones at their graves at Behesht-e Zahra in Tehran tell their stories

Family members gather to mourn Sepehr, who was 25 when he was killed in the January protests

A woman at Behesht-e Zahra prays for those killed in January’s protests

The rapid spread of the virus has been intensified by misinformation and violence towards volunteers and treatment centres

Nearly two months after the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) confirmed an Ebola outbreak in one province, the virus is continuing to spread rapidly, reaching more parts of the country and infecting more people.

According to government data from 8 July, 1,759 cases and 600 deaths have been recorded. The virus has also spread to Uganda, where there have been 20 confirmed cases, including two deaths.

Two women who alleged they were raped by Tyrion Davis in Suffolk had to testify at an invasive court martial on a US base

Minutes after fleeing the home of an American airman, Rebecca called 999 in tears to report that he had raped her. She recalls vomiting at a police station in Suffolk as she described being repeatedly and violently attacked.

Officers took her to a sexual assault referral centre for an intimate examination. There, a nurse measured and photographed her injuries, including bruises and bite marks on her neck.

Prediction markets have grown rapidly in popularity in recent years, particularly in the US. We’d like to hear confidentially from people in the UK who have used them

We’d like to find out more about how people in the UK are using prediction markets and what has attracted them to these platforms.

Prediction markets allow people to buy and sell contracts based on the outcome of future events, such as sporting tournaments, elections and financial markets. They have become increasingly popular in recent years, particularly in the US.

Has the pill format prompted you to consider GLP-1 medication for the first time? Have you already started taking it? Or has weight loss medication changed your lifestyle in other ways?

A once-daily Wegovy weight-loss pill has gone on sale at high street and online pharmacies in the UK, offering an alternative to injectable GLP-1 medications.

We’d like to hear from people who are considering taking a weight-loss pill, have recently started one, or are planning to switch from injections.

We would like to hear from young people in the north of England about their experiences of looking for work

About 1 million 16- to 24-year-olds in the UK are not in employment, education or training (Neet), according to a report published in May, which warned that the figure could rise to 1.25 million by the early 2030s without urgent government action.

We are particularly keen to hear from young people living in northern England who are not currently in work or education, or who have been struggling to find a job.

How long did you have to wait? Perhaps you are in a queue now. Tell us your experience

The EU has rejected calls to suspend its biometric border checks despite warnings from airports, airlines and ports that the system could lead to long queues and delays during the peak summer holiday season. MPs in the UK have also warned of potential disruption at the Port of Dover as holiday traffic builds.

We would like to speak to people who have been affected by the new system. Tell us about your experience – has the new system worked well or have you experienced delays? How long did you have to wait? What did you do to pass the time? Or maybe you are in a queue now? Tell us your experience.

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