This is the day when politicians and amateur commentators talk more doggybollox than on any other day of the year

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Neither actually. It’s a bizarre hybrid, an altered hallucinogenic universe. Where up is down and down is up. Everything always slightly out of reach.

A world otherwise known as “the day after the budget”. A day when politicians and amateur commentators are guaranteed to talk more doggybollox than on any other day of the year. A day when everyone gets their 15 minutes of shame.

As L’Atalante is re-released, we count down the best movies set largely on ships, boats, barges, yachts, steamers and trimarans. Submarines banned, as they’re under water

Stephen Sommers’ sci-fi horror pulp follows a bunch of scene-stealing character actors playing mercenaries hired to destroy the cruise ship Argonautica for insurance purposes. But a giant mutant octopus has got there first! Among the potential cephalopod fodder are Treat Williams, Kevin J O’Connor, and Famke Janssen as a jewel thief.

Arsenal rout Bayern to stake a claim as Europe’s best, Liverpool spiral again, Benfica revive under Mourinho, and Estevão dazzles on a crowded week of stars

• Bayern Munich’s unbeaten run and claim to be the best team in European football were both punctured at the Emirates. Arsenal were rampant against an opponent who have handed them so much pain in the past. The Gunners opened the scoring through their habitual set-piece goal, Jurriën Timber fulfilling the role of the absent Gabriel Magalhães. Lennart Karl, the 17-year-old, showed off his chops with a fine goal; from within Bayern have found the player they desired when they were thwarted in moving for Florian Wirtz. After that, Declan Rice and Eberechi Eze took control in midfield, Noni Madueke and Gabriel Martinelli scoring the goals, the latter a humiliation of Manuel Neuer’s sweeper-keeper stylings. Amid the fug of the extended Champions League group-stage format, where matches between elite clubs are routine rather than novelty, this was still a statement victory. “I think they had an incredible match against, in my opinion, the best team in Europe,” Mikel Arteta said of his players. That status surely now lies with his team: Arsenal top the group-stage table with a 100% record.

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the two years since the system was launched, beverage-packaging collection and recycling has risen to 94%

In the Transylvanian village of Pianu de Jos, 51-year-old Dana Chitucescu gathers a sack of empty polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles, aluminium cans and glass every week and takes it to her local shop.

Like millions of Romanians across cities and rural areas, Chitucescu has woven the country’s two-year-old deposit return system (DRS) into her routine.

Flagship Labour plan to be replaced with six-month threshold after Peter Kyle vows to not let businesses ‘lose’ under new law

A flagship policy that would have given workers the right to claim unfair dismissal after their first day on the job is to be ditched by the government in favour of a six month-threshold.

In a U-turn constituting a direct breach of Labour’s manifesto, the government said it had brokered a deal between six of the country’s biggest business groups and trade union leaders to shake up its plan for the biggest upgrade in employment rights for a generation.

Labour MPs welcome scrapping of two-child benefit cap but worry about hefty future tax increases on constituents

Rachel Reeves has been warned that her plans for tax rises and spending restraint in the run-up to the next general election resemble a work of “fiscal fiction”, as MPs expressed concern about the impact of her budget on their constituents.

A day after the chancellor’s statement, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said Reeves had chosen a high-risk strategy by backloading the squeeze to just before voters go to the polls in 2029.

Health secretary responds to speech given by GP committee leader accusing Labour of ‘gaslighting’ behaviour

Wes Streeting has accused the British Medical Association (BMA) of being “impossible” and issuing “misleading” information in an escalation of tensions with the doctors union.

In an unusual move, the health secretary wrote on Thursday to England’s 50,000 GPs to convey his frustration with the BMA over recent changes that from last month made it easier for patients to contact them online between 8am and 6.30pm Monday to Friday.

Mia Lucas, who died in Sheffield after being sectioned, had undiagnosed condition causing ‘acute psychosis’

A 12-year-old girl who took her own life after being sectioned was failed by medical staff who did not spot her underlying brain disorder, an inquest has found.

Mia Lucas was found unresponsive in her room at the Becton centre, which is part of Sheffield children’s hospital, on 29 January last year.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

Three construction employees arrested as firefighters battle to reach trapped people, with many still missing

• How the fire unfolded – visual guide

Hong Kong police have alleged unsafe scaffolding and foam materials used during maintenance work may have been behind the rapid spread of a devastating fire at a group of residential tower blocks that has killed at least 94 people and left scores missing.

Firefighters were still battling to reach people who could be trapped on the upper floors of the Wang Fuk Court housing complex on Thursday due to the intense heat and thick smoke generated by the fire. Late in the day, a survivor was rescued from a stairway on the 16th floor of one of the towers, the South China Morning Post reported.

Immigration director says green cards for people from certain countries will also be re-examined

Trump administration officials say they are undertaking a broad re-examination of asylum cases and green cards issued to citizens of certain countries, after the shooting of two national guard members near the White House in Washington DC on Wednesday.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) named the suspect in the shooting as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national who entered the US under a policy set up under Joe Biden after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and continued under Donald Trump.

Russian president says latest draft peace plan ‘can be basis for future agreements’ if Kyiv gives up unspecified areas

Vladimir Putin has said that the outline of a draft peace plan discussed by the US and Ukraine could serve as a basis for future negotiations to end the war – but insisted Ukraine would have to surrender territory for any deal to be possible.

“In general, we agree that this can be the basis for future agreements,” Putin said, noting that the version of the plan discussed by Washington and Kyiv in Geneva had been shared with Moscow.

Study finds that a week of political content can bring about a shift in views that previously would have taken three years

Small changes to the tone of posts fed to users of X can increase feelings of political polarisation as much in a week as would have historically taken at least three years, research has found.

A groundbreaking experiment to gauge the potency of Elon Musk’s social platform to increase political division found that when posts expressing anti-democratic attitudes and partisan animosity were boosted, even barely perceptibly, in the feeds of Democrat and Republican supporters there was a large change in their unfavourable feelings towards the other side.

Irish actor, who had first amputation after football injury, reveals new wheelchair in TikTok video

The actor and The Celebrity Traitors star Ruth Codd has announced that she is recovering after a second leg amputation operation.

The 29-year-old Irish performer had her first amputation six years ago after injuring her foot playing football as a teenager, which led to years of surgeries and chronic pain.

Reuters news agency says it obtained document after visiting URL it predicted file would be uploaded to

• How Rachel Reeves’s budget was leaked 40 minutes early

The chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility has said he felt mortified by the early release of its budget forecasts as the watchdog launched a rapid inquiry into how it had “inadvertently made it possible” to see the documents.

Richard Hughes said he had written to the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and the chair of the Treasury select committee, Meg Hillier, to apologise.

Research group More in Common spoke to former ‘blue wall’ constituents unimpressed by ‘chaotic’ U-turns

“It’s all sort of stacked against you … The people that are working hard and earning a decent wage, trying to get childcare costs under control … you sort of question why you’re doing what you’re doing,” was how Hayley, an assistant headteacher in our focus group in Aldershot, described the economy, shortly after the budget was announced.

Hayley’s not alone: a record 57% of Britons now say they are unsure that the cost of living crisis will ever end. But what was so revealing about Wednesday’s focus group was that they were all in what we would normally see as relatively high-paid jobs, they owned their own homes – not the type of voter you’d normally think of as struggling. As Martin, a product manager in the automotive industry, put it: “On paper, we should be feeling really well off.”

How Rachel Reeves’s measures on tax, NI and benefits affect single people, couples, families and those receiving pensions in England, Wales and Northern Ireland

Luke can’t get a graduate role and works 35 hours a week in a cafe. He is paid the national living wage (NLW) of £12.21 for workers aged 21 and over. He pays £1,930 in income tax and £772 in national insurance (NI) contributions. This results in a monthly take-home pay of £1,627 after tax, or £19,520 a year. On 1 April 2026 the NLW rate will increase 50p – 4.1% – to £12.71 an hour. His annual income tax bill will rise to £2,112 and NI to £845, leaving him with £1,681 a month, an increase of £54.

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

• How does freezing tax thresholds affect your tax bill?

• Budget 2025: key points at a glance

As apartment complex still blazes more than 24 hours after fire began, police suspect cause is owing to ‘grossly negligent’ action

• How the Hong Kong fire unfolded – visual guide

More than 24 hours after the first tower caught fire, the Hong Kong residential complex was still burning. Fire crews blasted water from cherrypickers at the mid-level floors, but above that, the fires were roaring out of reach.

Wang Fuk Court, in the northern Hong Kong district of Tai Po, was home to about 4,800 people. The eight-tower complex had been under renovation for years, clad in bamboo scaffolding and mesh.

Administration said ‘awareness is not a strategy’, but here is a short list of orders the president has signed to do just that

For the first time since 1988 the US government said it will no longer commemorate World Aids Day, which honors those who have lost their lives to the disease, celebrates efforts to combat the epidemic and raises awareness.

“An awareness day is not a strategy,” a state department spokesperson, Tommy Pigott, told the New York Times.

The 99th annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, one of the largest in the world, dazzled crowds in Manhattan, New York, on Thursday. Thirty-two balloons, three giant balloons, 27 floats, four special units, 33 clown groups, 11 marching bands, performance groups, and music stars parade to welcome ‘Santa Claus and the holiday season’

Fashion designer whose idiosyncratic mix of glam and DIY couture was worn by Björk, Siouxsie Sioux and Taylor Swift

The designer Pam Hogg stayed faithful for life to the principles, practices, provocations and politics of the art school, music and club scene of her youth around 1980. The fashion industry metamorphosed over the decades since, but she went on believing in individuality and drama, painstakingly achieved. Debbie Harry, Siouxsie Sioux, Rihanna, Björk, Lady Gaga, Lily Allen, Kylie Minogue and Taylor Swift, among others, bought her garments, which were auditorium-dominating mixes of sex, eccentricity and intellect. Hogg’s catsuits in Latex and PVC became the glam workwear of the rock and pop stage. They never dated. When a star strides on stage in one, the audience knows the action is about to kick off.

Yet to the end of her life, Hogg, who has died, aged perhaps 66 (she refused to reveal her age publicly), remained a struggling artist. She hoped to arrive at the same safe destination as her long-term friend Vivienne Westwood, with an atelier equipped with pattern cutter and couture seamstresses, plus financial backing for a ready-to-wear line that would not betray her nonconforming philosophy of dress.

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

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

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

(London)
The delicate experimentation of the band’s debut may not have chimed with the post-punk 1980s, but its durability makes this deluxe reissue thoroughly deserved

The Durutti Column’s debut album does not have an auspicious origin story. The band whose name it bore had split acrimoniously just before they were supposed to record it. Their guitarist Vini Reilly was so poleaxed by depression that he was virtually unable to leave his house: 12 different attempts were made to section him over the course of 1979. Believing that Reilly was “going to die”, Factory Records boss Tony Wilson intervened, buying him a new guitar, then suggested he visit a studio with the label’s troubled but visionary producer Martin Hannett as “an experiment”. The sessions were a disaster. Hannett ignored Reilly in favour of tinkering with a vast amount of cutting-edge electronic equipment he had brought with him. Reilly fitfully played something on the guitar, but eventually stormed out with the words: “I’m fucking sick of this.” He did not return.

Unaware that he was making an album, Reilly was “mortified” when Hannett handed over a finished product, and “absolutely hated” what he heard. The solitary upside, as he saw it, was his sense that it would never find a wider audience. The music on 1980’s The Return of the Durutti Column bore no relation to the workmanlike post-punk that the original band had contributed to the label’s compilation EP A Factory Sample, put together the previous year. (Although Reilly thought they were “complete and total rubbish”, too.) Grasping for comparisons, the music press likened it to the atmospheric jazz of the German label ECM and Reilly’s guitar playing to that of Mike Oldfield and the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia – neither of them having much musical cachet in the post-punk world of 1980. Even a positive review in the NME suggested listeners would consider The Return of the Durutti Column “hippy noodling”.

We’ve cut through the noise to find genuinely good Black Friday discounts on Filter tried-and-tested products across home, tech, beauty and toys

• How to shop smart this Black Friday
• The best Black Friday beauty deals

Like Christmas Day, Black Friday has long since ceased to be a mere “day”. Yuletide now seems to start roughly whezn Strictly does, and Black Friday seemed to kick off around Halloween. But now, at last, we’ve reached the day that puts the “Friday” into Black Friday.

Black Friday is a devil worth dancing with if you want to save money on products you’ve had your eye on. Some of the Filter’s favourite items spent most of November floating around at prices clearly designed to make them sell out fast. Other deals have been kept back until now, and some won’t even land until the daftly named Cyber Monday (1 December).

The leftist party exploded out of Spain’s anti-austerity protests in 2011 and upended Spain’s entrenched two-party system. I was instantly captivated – and for the next decade, I worked for the party. But I ended up quitting politics in disappointment. What happened?

• This article originally appeared in Equator, a new magazine of politics, culture and art

I never expected to retire in my 30s, but I suppose politics is the art of the impossible: what it promises, what it extracts. A decade at the heart of Spain’s boldest modern political experiment aged me in ways I’ve only just begun to fathom.

In May 2014, just four months after it was founded, the leftwing Spanish party Podemos (“We Can”) won five seats in the European parliament. As a recent university graduate who had been part of a local Podemos group (or círculo, as they were known) in Paris, I was hired to work for these MEPs. We arrived in Brussels as complete tyros and had to learn everything on the job. But we were motivated by the promise of doing what we used to call “real politics” – that is to say, not the internal power struggles and ideological weather patterns of the movement (which were always abundant), but the actual issues, such as gender discrimination and unemployment.

The two-child benefit cap was a totem of 14 years of failed ideology. Now it is gone

• Lucy Powell is deputy leader of the Labour party

Yesterday the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, delivered a Labour budget. People have been asking for Labour’s purpose and values to be more clearly expressed. Through the choices made – a shift to a fairer tax system, targeting wealth to pay for tackling child poverty, good public services and the cost of living – we have clearly set out what we stand for.

That’s why Labour MPs cheered in the Commons, and it’s why we are up for the fights to come. And it’s why the cries from the right began immediately.

Lucy Powell is MP for Manchester Central and deputy leader of the Labour party

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.

Amazon Web Services owns the basic infrastructure for other businesses to operate online, turning even governments into its serfs. But now some people are fighting back

For the past six years, every Black Friday – that made-up carnival of consumption – Amazon workers and their allies have mobilised across the world in coordinated strikes and protests. At first glance, these disputes look like the standard struggle between a giant capitalist employer and the people who keep it running. But Amazon is no ordinary corporation. It is the clearest expression of what I call technofeudalism: a new economic order in which platforms behave like lords owning the fiefs that have replaced markets.

To appreciate Amazon’s extraordinary power, we must recall the system it is helping to bury. Capitalism relied on markets and profit. Firms invested in productive capital, hired workers, produced commodities and lived or died by profit and loss. But the emerging order is one in which the most powerful capitalist firms have exited that market altogether. They own the digital infrastructure that everyone else must use to trade, work, communicate and live.

Yanis Varoufakis is the leader of MeRA25 and the author of Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism

The right is already in a frenzy about the migrant groups it thinks will benefit – and the budget contained other trade-offs

And just like that, the two-child benefit limit was finally abolished.

“I don’t intend to preside over a status quo that punishes children for the circumstances of their birth,” the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, told the Commons, as she used the budget to scrap, from April 2026, one of Britain’s most controversial policies.

Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist

The chancellor’s statement will be remembered for the many taxes it raised, rather than the big one – income tax – it did not

Rachel Reeves’s chancellorship was already balanced on a knife-edge, even before the 2025 budget. After she delivered her second budget statement, it still is. Even more than usual, Wednesday’s speech was full of significant fiscal changes, altered spending commitments and adjusted economic forecasts, most of them accidentally (and, for journalists, conveniently) released a short while in advance by the obviously misnamed Office for Budget Responsibility. Politically, however, almost nothing has changed at all.

Reeves arrived in the Treasury last year offering what she, like Keir Starmer, had promised as the Conservative years ebbed: competence, stability and, above all, a focus on economic growth. Her problem, despite her upbeat assessments, is that she has delivered none of them. Nothing about the 2025 budget guarantees any early change in that, however defiantly Reeves spoke about reversing the OBR’s reduced new growth and productivity forecasts.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

It’s hard to disagree with Ian Wright when he suggests the midfielder has been subjected to a timeworn double standard

Sir Alex Ferguson was there. Bryan Robson was there. Eric Cantona was there. The manager Ole Gunnar Solskjær was there, and yet even as these four club legends sold the dream of Manchester United to a 17-year-old from the Midlands, they could sense the elusiveness, the coldness, the drop of the shoulder. The nagging suspicion that, like so many defenders Jude Bellingham would later encounter, they too were grasping at pure air.

“He had it planned out,” Solskjær would later remember. “He knew what he wanted. X amount of minutes in the first team. The most mature 17‑year‑old I’ve ever met in my life.” Though five years have passed since Bellingham turned down United for Borussia Dortmund, for me this is still the story that explains him best of all. The origin myth. This is what you all think I’m going to do. So I’m going to step that way instead.

The chancellor has given Labour breathing space with modest giveaways, but can only hope for an upturn in the government’s fortunes before tax increases kick in

Some budgets are important but quickly forgotten. Some budgets are trivial but linger long in the memory. The package of measures Rachel Reeves has delivered is a rarity: a budget that matters and will go down in the history books. And perhaps not for the right reasons.

Make no mistake, the buildup was shambolic, and real damage has been caused by the leaks and counter-leaks coming out of the Treasury. The early release by the Office for Budget Responsibility of the contents of what the chancellor had in store was a final, chaotic twist marring what was supposed to be Reeves’s big day.

The mantra of ‘build, build, build’ misses something crucial: that few can afford these new homes

• Report: European progressives must tackle housing crisis to beat far right, say researchers

Housing costs across Europe have become a growing burden for many households, both for those trying to buy and those trying to rent. Over the past decade, property prices have surged faster than incomes in many European countries. The same is true for rents, which have increased exponentially in large cities but have also increased substantially in suburban areas and smaller university towns.

Given how much housing costs affect Europeans’ quality of life, it is comparatively absent from the agenda of progressive political parties. When politicians do emphasise housing, the focus is usually solely on building more houses. Former German chancellor Olaf Scholz, for example, promised to build 400,000 new homes in Germany every year – a goal his government failed to reach by some distance. At the same time, far-right parties such as the Freedom party (PVV) in the Netherlands or Chega in Portugal have made the housing affordability crisis into a campaign issue. Their equation is simple: housing should be available and affordable only for nationals.

Tarik Abou-Chadi is a professor of European Politics at the University of Oxford; Björn Bremer is an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science at Central European University in Vienna; Silja Häusermann is a professor at the Department of Political Science at the University of Zurich

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 criminal cases backlog requires radical action, but the problem has been caused by government cuts, not by an ancient and fundamental liberty

Abolition of trial by jury in England and Wales in all but the most serious cases is not the official policy of Sir Keir Starmer’s government – yet. All the signs, however, are that it soon will be. The leak of a Ministry of Justice (MoJ) briefing this week suggests that the lord chancellor, David Lammy, has signed off a plan restricting jury trial to a narrow band of serious offences – murder, manslaughter, rape and cases passing a public interest test. An announcement could come soon, with legislation in the new year.

If Mr Lammy has his way, a new lower tier of juryless crown courts would hear most cases now heard by juries. Those involving criminal charges carrying a maximum sentence of up to five years would be heard by judges in the planned crown court “bench division”. Juries would no longer hear fraud and financial crime cases either. This would mean a large majority of the more than 30,000 jury trials each year in England and Wales being heard instead by judges alone, at an estimated saving of 20% of trial time.

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.

UN figures show that four-fifths of the global population now live in major settlements. We’re still figuring out how to cope

Cities have existed for millennia, but their triumph is remarkably recent. As recently as 1950, only 30% of the world’s population were urban dwellers. This week, a United Nations report suggested that more than 80% of people are now urbanites, with most of those living in cities. London became the first city to reach a million inhabitants in the early 19th century. Now, almost 500 have done so.

Jakarta, with 42 million residents, has just overtaken Tokyo as the most populous of the lot; nine of the 10 largest megacities are in Asia. The UN report revealed the scale of the recent population shift to towns and cities thanks to a new, standardised measure in place of the widely varying national criteria previously used. The urbanisation rate in its 2018 report was just 55%.

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.

We need a fundamental reset of who this economy serves, says Cassie Groos

Yes, the budget’s gestures are welcome (Rachel Reeves targets UK’s wealthiest in £26bn tax-raising budget, 26 November). Abolishing the two-child cap is the right call, but it is solving a failure that should not exist. No advanced economy should have child poverty baked so deeply into its design. Freezing train fares, taxing wealth a little harder – fine. Good. Necessary. But still just sticking plasters on wounds that have been haemorrhaging for years. And once again, it is the middle classes footing the bill while the ultra-wealthy and the corporate giants look on, essentially untouched.

Meanwhile, the core problem remains unaddressed: an economic model built to maximise shareholder returns while hollowing out wages, public services and social resilience. Until we shift that model towards high wages, broad-based prosperity and an economy where labour, not capital, holds the centre of gravity, every budget, red, blue, green or technocratic beige, will remain cosmetic. What is needed is a full package of structural reforms: corporate governance that shares power with workers, taxation that shifts the burden upward instead of protecting vast concentrations of private wealth, and incentives rewired so that companies cannot keep extracting while offloading the consequences on to the public.

Taxing EVs on the amount of electricity they use is fairer than the per-mile system outlined in the budget, writes Edward Leigh, while David Abrams reckons EV owners are being penalised for trying to do the right thing

The announcement in the budget of the introduction of a per-mile tax on electric vehicles is an important start to reforming vehicle taxation to be fairer (Report, 26 November). But it is only the first step towards making it an effective tool to reduce traffic congestion and carbon emissions.

I provided written and oral evidence to the 2021 Commons transport committee’s inquiry into road pricing and have led a focus group on how it could be made acceptable to the public. Although a per-mile charge is relatively simple to administer, taxes on fuel are fairer because they vary with the weight and efficiency of the vehicle. These are relevant because they determine external costs, such as the rate of road wear, severity of harm caused in collisions, and carbon emissions. A tax on energy usage captures these external costs better than a tax on mileage.

Linda Marriott and Oane Jansen give Labour the benefit of the doubt. Plus a letter from John Thorn

Reading Aditya Chakrabortty’s article (A budget to save Britain’s finances? More like Operation Save Our Skins, 26 November) and then the one by Martin Kettle (Rachel Reeves’s budget has inflamed, not calmed, Britain’s febrile mood, 27 November), which both seem to comprehensively trash Rachel Reeves’s budget, I thought – and not for the first time lately – with friends like these who needs enemies?

You might find that many people out here could see that whoever took over from the Tories’ latest dog’s breakfast of mismanagement and downright sleaze would have a right mess to contend with. I, for one, as someone who is not a habitual Labour voter, welcome some evidence of the desire for more long-term thinking. I wish them success.
Linda Marriott
North Hykeham, Lincolnshire

Threshold freeze | Two-child limit | Badenoch’s vitriol | Cost-cutting at Christmas | Office for Budget Irresponsibility?

I am absolutely disgusted and so disheartened that a Labour government is freezing personal tax allowances for a further three years. We’re all well aware that books have to be balanced, but we all know that freezing tax allowances disproportionately affects lower earners. Add to this the inflation increase over the last few years and it’s surely careless at best and heartless at worst. I’d like to say “unbelievable”, but it’s not, is it?
Su Hardman
Woodbridge, Suffolk

• Is it mansplaining to point out that Rachel Reeves could have scrapped the two-child limit and the benefit cap – “rape clause” and all – in her first budget as the UK’s first-ever female chancellor? It’s not a matter of gender; more one of having the political will to get rid of a deliberately cruel Tory policy at the earliest opportunity.
Derrick Cameron
Stoke-on-Trent

“Champions of Europe, you’ll never sing that,” came the chant as Nottingham Forest supporters, not for the first time, enjoyed getting one over on Malmö. A lot has happened since Trevor Francis’s stooping header to clinch the European Cup in Munich in 1979 but Forest still cherish those days. A lot has also changed in the five weeks since Sean Dyche took the reins, Forest reinvigorated and a comfortable win thanks to goals by Arnaud Kalimuendo, Ryan Yates and Nikola Milenkovic enhanced their hope of qualifying for the Europa League knockout phase.

For Forest, this victory – against a Malmö side that had not played for almost three weeks after finishing sixth in their domestic league – represented a third straight win in all competitions and further built on the momentum gained from last weekend’s success at Liverpool. This was a re-run of Forest’s European Cup triumph in name but the game itself was free of any jeopardy or jitters.

• Week 13: Detroit 24-31 Green Bay; Love throws 4 TDs

• Dallas v Kansas City starts at 9.30pm GMT, 3.30pm local

• Email Graham: Graham.Searles@theguardian.com

Lions 0-3 Packers 4:01, 1st quarter

That sack Goff didn’t take on 3rd down in the previous drive, he just took it on this one. Green Bay’s defensive line is dominating so far. Micah Parsons and Kingsley Enagbare share the QB takedown. Punt.

• Masters champion in 1979 and US Open winner in 1984

• Post-career reputation marred by remarks about Woods

• Trump pays tribute to ‘remarkable person and player’

Fuzzy Zoeller, the two-time major champion whose genial public persona was overshadowed by a racially insensitive joke about Tiger Woods that came to define the latter part of his career, has died aged 74.

No cause of death was immediately available. Brian Naugle, tournament director of the Insperity Invitational in Houston and a longtime colleague, said Zoeller’s daughter notified him of the death on Thursday.

• Head coach insists he has support of the club’s hierarchy

• Admits to ‘very difficult’ 10 minutes in PSV defeat

Arne Slot has vowed to “fight on” at Liverpool and insisted support from the club’s hierarchy has not wavered following the alarming Anfield defeats by Nottingham Forest and PSV Eindhoven.

The Liverpool head coach met the club’s sporting director, Richard Hughes, on Thursday to dissect the Champions League defeat by PSV that extended his team’s dire run to nine losses in 12 games. It is Liverpool’s worst sequence of results since an identical run in 1953-54 and has heightened the pressure on Slot before Sunday’s Premier League trip to West Ham.

The parallels are imperfect but, as with Michael Vaughan’s Ashes winners, hyper-aggressive cricket with a tweaked approach in the second Test is the 2025 cohort’s only chance of winning

Twenty years on, a montage of the 2005 Ashes still tingles the spine. Close your eyes and you can probably make your own, with an Embrace soundtrack if you want to be right on the nose. Chances are you’ll see Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff belting sixes with lusty abandon; Geraint Jones wheeling away after winning the epic Edgbaston Test; Ashley Giles calmly patting the winning runs at Trent Bridge; Flintoff’s messianic dismissal of Ricky Ponting at Edgbaston; Simon Jones detonating Michael Clarke’s off stump at Old Trafford.

All those moments came in England victories or winning draws. But no 2005 montage is complete without images of Ponting being cut below the eye or Justin Langer’s right elbow ballooning in real time. Both wounds were inflicted by Steve Harmison on the first morning at Lord’s, a game that Australia won emphatically by 239 runs. When the story of the series was written, those blows – and the way England duffed Australia up in the first innings – were an essential chapter.

Liverpool have dropped to 12th in the table – matching the lowest finish by reigning Premier League champions

By WhoScored

Six defeats in 12 top-flight games is not just a wobble. It’s one of the worst starts ever made by defending Premier League champions. The last team to begin their title defence this badly was Leicester City in 2016-17. They finished 12th that season – where Liverpool are now – with Claudio Ranieri sacked midway through the campaign. The same fate befell José Mourinho at Chelsea in the 2015-16 season. They started with seven defeats in 12 games, a collapse so severe that Mourinho was shown the door a week before Christmas. For Liverpool and Arne Slot, the warning signs could not be clearer.

The transformation from champions to chaos has been stark. Just six months ago, Slot was heralded as a record breaker, the man who had taken on the unenviable task of replacing club legend Jürgen Klopp and done it with apparent ease. Under his guidance, Liverpool clinched the title with four games to spare, an achievement only three other teams have managed. Slot became the third-youngest manager to win the Premier League, the fifth to win it in his first season in England and, most importantly, he brought the title to Anfield for just the second time in 35 years.

• Leader lost valuable points after disqualification

• McLaren insist they did not take ‘excessive risk’

Lando Norris has insisted nothing has changed in terms of his focus on sealing his first Formula One world championship after both he and his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri were disqualified from the Las Vegas Grand Prix, a result that catapulted Red Bull’s Max Verstappen back into contention for the title. McLaren’s team principal, Andrea Stella, has denied the team took “excessive risks” with their car in Las Vegas.

The race in Nevada last weekend was won by Verstappen but Norris took a strong second and Piastri fourth. However, four hours afterwards, following an investigation by the FIA, both were disqualified after the skid blocks on the floor of their cars were found to have been worn down below the 9mm limit defined in the rules.

• Retired rider to work closely with head of sport Brailsford

• ‘This team has been my home since day one,’ says Thomas

Geraint Thomas has been appointed as the new director of racing at Ineos Grenadiers, a few weeks after retiring from competition at this year’s Tour of Britain. “This team has been my home since day one, and stepping into this role feels like a natural next step,” Thomas said.

The move by Thomas, who won the Tour de France in 2018, has been long-expected and comes after a major management reshuffle at Ineos Grenadiers, under which the sports directors Zak Dempster and Oli Cookson moved to the revamped Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team.

The NGO’s chief says last month’s ceasefire ‘risks creating a dangerous illusion that life in Gaza is returning to normal’

Amnesty International has said Israel is “still committing genocide” against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, despite the ceasefire agreed last month.

The fragile, US-brokered truce between Israel and Hamas came into effect on 10 October, after two years of war.

Most of money earmarked to fix ‘systemic’ problems expected to pay for officials needed to reassess overpayments

Ministers have set aside £75m to fix systemic failures that caused hundreds of thousands of unpaid carers to be hit with huge bills after unwittingly breaching complex and confusing benefit rules.

A damning independent review, published on Tuesday, found that outdated technology, unclear guidance and a failure of leadership by ministers and senior welfare officials had led to punitive sanctions on vulnerable families.

Judge warns he will not permit case ‘to descend into a wide-ranging public inquiry’

The former editor of the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre, is to be called as a witness in the legal action brought by the Duke of Sussex and six other household names against the newspaper’s publishers over allegations of unlawful information gathering, the high court was told.

Antony White KC, for Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), said Dacre, 77, now the editor-in-chief of ANL’s DMG Media company, and Peter Wright, a former editor of the Mail on Sunday, could be called as early defence witnesses in the trial, scheduled to begin on 19 January.

Stern, credited with designing 15 Central Park West, sought to design buildings that invoked pre-war splendor

Robert AM Stern, an architect who fashioned the New York City skyline with buildings that sought to invoke pre-war splendor but with modern luxury fit for billionaires and movie stars, has died at the age of 86.

Dubbed “The King of Central Park West” by Vanity Fair, Stern was credited with designing 15 Central Park West that, in 2008, was credited as being the highest-priced new apartment building in the history of New York.

Prime minister says deal ‘sets the state for an industrial transformation’, but project is likely to face wide opposition

Mark Carney has agreed an energy deal with Alberta centred on plans for a new heavy oil pipeline reaching from the province’s oil sands to the Pacific coast, a politically volatile project that is expected to face stiff opposition.

“It’s a great day for Alberta and a great day for Canada,” the prime minister said on Thursday as he met the Alberta premier, Danielle Smith. He said the agreement “sets the state for an industrial transformation” and involved not just a pipeline, but nuclear power and datacentres. “This is Canada working,” he said.

Exclusive: Unknown culprit suspected of spraying glyphosate on protected trees hoped to stop peat erosion and flooding

Trees planted as part of a nature restoration project on Prince William’s land in Dartmoor national park have been deliberately poisoned with herbicide, sparking outrage and a hunt for the culprit.

The willow trees, on Duchy of Cornwall land, were planted as part of a project to stop peat erosion, store carbon and reduce the risk of flooding.

Experts lay out scale of changes needed in ‘first-of-its-kind national emergency briefing’ in Westminster

A host of eminent scientists have warned politicians, business and community leaders that the UK risks severe climate-related risks to its economy, public health, food systems and national security.

According to its organisers more than 1,000 corporate bosses, senior civil servants and civic leaders were set to assemble in the Methodist central hall in Westminster for the “first-of-its-kind national emergency briefing” on Thursday morning.

A boom in places offering petting sessions is linked to a rise in the illegal movement of exotic and endangered species, say experts

The second floor of an unassuming office building in central Bangkok is a strange place to encounter the world’s largest rodent. Yet here, inside a small enclosure with a shallow pool, three capybaras are at the disposal of dozens of paying customers – all clamouring for a selfie. As people eagerly thrust leafy snacks toward the nonchalant-looking animals, few seem to consider the underlying peculiarity: how, exactly, did this South American rodent end up more than 10,000 miles from home, in a bustling Asian metropolis?

Capybara cafes have been cropping up across the continent in recent years, driven by the animal’s growing internet fame. The semi-aquatic animals feature in more than 600,000 TikTok posts. In Bangkok, cafe customers pay 400 baht (£9.40) for a 30-minute petting session with them, along with a few meerkats and Chinese bamboo rats. Doors are open 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

‘Tiebacks’ will permit small amount of new fossil fuel extraction, but campaigners want bolder strategy

The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, has returned from the Cop30 climate conference in Brazil, where he championed the UK’s world-leading promise to ban all new oil and gas licences and backed the call for a blueprint to “transition away from fossil fuels”.

Back at home, the government says it is sticking to its manifesto pledge by becoming the first major economy to have a 1.5C- and climate science-aligned no new licences position, but it plans to allow some new drilling in oil and gas fields that have existing licenses.

Global Counsel signed $3m contract with WuXi AppTec in Europe months after it was named in US national security drive

Global Counsel, the lobbying firm co-founded by Peter Mandelson, was brought in to advise the Chinese pharmaceutical company WuXi AppTec in Europe months after it was targeted in a US national security crackdown.

WuXi AppTec signed a $3m contract with Global Counsel last year to deal with the international fallout from claims that it had links with the Chinese military and was implicated in human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

Amber Milnes, five, who had cyclical vomiting syndrome, was not kept in hospital overnight after tonsil operation

A five-year-old girl with a rare syndrome that caused her to vomit repeatedly should have been immediately readmitted to hospital following a tonsil operation when she suffered a bout of sickness, a coroner has said.

The family of Amber Milnes, who had cyclical vomiting syndrome (CVS), have expressed concern that she was not kept in hospital overnight after the procedure because of her condition and say she ought to have been readmitted next morning when she began vomiting.

Man held on suspicion of plotting terror attack after arriving on inbound flight to Manchester airport

A man has been arrested on suspicion of plotting a terror attack in relation to the Manchester synagogue assault.

The 31-year-old was arrested after arriving on an inbound flight to Manchester airport on Thursday, police said. He remains in custody for questioning.

Shellfish exports to the EU from the Menai Strait have all but collapsed, but fishers are looking to the future

Rising out of the water, nets bulge with thousands of blue mussels. Pulled back to the dredging boat, they are emptied into a hopper and rinsed with water.

They have just been harvested fresh from the bottom of the Menai Strait, the channel that separates the north Wales mainland from the island of Anglesey.

State department has told employees and grant recipients to not publicly promote or make event on 1 December

For the first time since 1988, the US government will no longer commemorate World Aids Day, according to reports.

The state department has directed its employees and grant recipients not to use US government funds to mark the event – which falls annually on 1 December – and not to promote the day publicly. The news was first reported by the journalist Emily Bass and confirmed in an email viewed by the New York Times.

Carriers accused of joining ‘actions of state terrorism promoted by US’ after they suspended flights to Venezuela

Venezuela has banned six international airlines, accusing them of “state terrorism” after the carriers suspended flights to the country following a warning from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Venezuela’s civil aviation authority announced late on Wednesday that Spain’s Iberia, Portugal’s Tap, Colombia’s Avianca, Chile and Brazil’s Latam, Brazil’s Gol and Turkish Airlines would have their operational permits revoked for “joining the actions of state terrorism promoted by the United States government and unilaterally suspending air commercial operations”.

Macron says plan to introduce 10 months’ service among 18- and 19-year-olds will help France respond to ‘accelerating threats’

France is to introduce voluntary military service of 10 months aimed mainly at young people aged 18 and 19, as concern grows in Europe about the threat from Russia.

In a speech to troops in Varces-Allières-et-Risset in the French Alps, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said the service would begin by mid-2026 and help France respond to “accelerating threats” on the global stage.

Report by Queensland’s Crime and Corruption Commission says Thompson leaked confidential council documents to an unnamed ‘adviser’

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The former Townsville mayor Troy Thompson misled the electorate about a cancer diagnosis, his military history and university qualifications, according to a report by the Crime and Corruption Commission.

The CCC also found that, as mayor, Thompson leaked numerous confidential documents to an unnamed “adviser”, sending them 8,741 encrypted WhatsApp messages in a five-month period.

Primark, Currys and Boohoo criticise government for waiting until 2029 to phase out exemption on customs duty

British retailers including Primark, Currys and Boohoo have criticised the government for waiting until 2029 to end a tax break on low-value imported goods that has allowed them to be undercut by the likes of Shein and Temu.

The British Retail Consortium, which represents all the major retailers, said there were 1.6m parcels arriving in the UK every day, double the number from last year, and “businesses cannot afford any delay on scrapping the existing rules”.

S&P Global Ratings warns Lord Rothermere’s RCHL could face credit downgrade as it seeks funding for £500m deal

The Daily Mail’s parent company has been warned it could face a credit downgrade if it loads up with debt to fund its £500m takeover of the Telegraph titles.

The US credit ratings agency S&P Global Ratings said Rothermere Continuation Holdings Ltd (RCHL) – the Jersey-based parent company of Lord Rothermere’s assets including the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Metro and the i Paper – had been put on “credit watch” as it seeks to put a funding package in place to table a formal deal in the coming weeks.

Incentive scheme for CEO of fashion group, which also includes Boohoo, comes as sales slump 23%

The boss of Boohoo and Debenhams could collect almost £150m in shares if he significantly boosts the value of the struggling fashion group, which is battling to turnaround sliding sales.

Debenhams Group said on Thursday that Dan Finley, the chief executive, is in line to receive £148.1m in stock in five years’ time, as part of an incentive scheme for top bosses worth more than £200m.

Official advisers urge government to address situation that could mean homes and businesses going without on coldest days

The UK energy minister has said the country must “do whatever it takes” to avoid a gas supply crisis after advisers warned of the risk of a shortage hitting homes and businesses by the end of the decade.

Michael Shanks promised the government would “redouble our efforts to decarbonise” the economy and make sure the UK had enough gas storage and import capacity, saying the previous government had failed to plan for shortages.

She’s the emerging star of this year’s dance show, wowing judges with her pasodoble. The pundit and former footballer talks about gentleness, bullying, her love of the Lionesses and why she’s never been so happy

The qualities that made Karen Carney an unstoppable winger on the football pitch – her speed and attack, and the sheer relentlessness of both – are more of a hindrance in the ballroom, for some of the dances at least. As the emerging star of this year’s Strictly Come Dancing, she has had to learn to slow down, stand up straighter, to be softer, and it’s taken a lot of hard work. On week eight, she had just performed the American Smooth, and her pro partner Carlos Gu was tearfully describing Carney’s work ethic. Who could watch her trying to hold back her own tears, chewing on emotion like a particularly tough bit of gristle, and fail to see a woman who was giving it everything?

It was Carney’s dream to be on Strictly. The former England footballer, now TV pundit and podcaster, has just made it through week nine, performing an astonishing pasodoble at the all-important Blackpool week, and something will have gone very wrong if she doesn’t reach the final. The show has been struggling this year – a man described as a Strictly “star” was reportedly arrested in October on suspicion of rape last year, and the announcement from its longtime hosts Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman that this will be their final series has been destabilising. But Carney says that for her, it has been an overwhelmingly positive time. “There’s a team spirit within the cast. Behind [the scenes], the team can’t do enough for you to have the best experience.”

The kids growing up might have changed this show’s appeal, but they manage to go out in a flame-throwing, bullet-dodging blaze of glory – while still being more moving than ever before

Time’s up for Stranger Things. The fifth and last season arrives almost three-and-a-half years after a fourth run that felt like a finale, not least because it seemed the kids had grown up. Having originally aped beloved 1980s films where stubbornly brave children avert apocalypse, the franchise now starred young adults and had adjusted plotlines and dialogue accordingly. Life lessons had been learned. Selves had been found. Adolescent anxieties – as personified by Vecna, the narky telekinetic tree-man who rules a parallel dimension adjacent to the humdrum town of Hawkins, Indiana – had been put aside.

But Stranger Things now belatedly returns, with the cast all visibly in their 20s. This is a problem. The whole point is that it’s fun to watch kids outrun monsters by pedalling faster on their BMX bikes, or ignoring their mum calling them to dinner because they’re in the basement with their school pals, drawing up plans to bamboozle the US military using pencils, bubblegum and Dungeons & Dragons figurines. If everyone looks old enough to have a studio apartment and a stocks portfolio, none of the above really flies.

When north Cornwall residents’ water turned black and gelatinous in 1988, they were urged to mix it with orange squash when drinking. This powerful film lays out the effects of the toxic H2O – and their long struggle for justice

It is becoming a cliche to liken issues-based TV dramas and documentaries to Mr Bates vs the Post Office. Nevertheless, you get the sense that Poison Water is hoping to do for communities affected by the shocking inaction of the water industry what ITV’s hit did for the subpostmasters wrongly criminalised because of a software glitch. A damning one-off, it tells the story of Britain’s biggest mass poisoning and the apparent greed and incompetence that has meant it has loomed large in victims’ lives ever since. There are also parallels with the recent drama Toxic Town, and the continued fight for those affected by poisonous waste in Corby in Northamptonshire.

We open in the summer of 1988, when residents in several towns and villages in north Cornwall noticed something strange about the water coming out of their taps. It was blue in some cases, black in others, and could be gelatinous or sticky. It was also accompanied by a rapid outbreak of ill health, from vomiting and diarrhoea to rashes, blisters and severe headaches. For some, the effects were temporary, but many people went on to have long-term health problems, and there were even premature deaths that families are convinced were caused by the water they drank and bathed in that summer. Water that – because of an error at a treatment facility – had been laced with toxic amounts of aluminium sulphate. It would take more than two weeks for those in power to admit there was a problem. In the meantime, residents were told the water was perfectly safe, and to mix it with orange squash to improve the taste.

Carole Wyatt, a resident of the sleepy village of St Minver, says she didn’t want to speak about the poisoning again. Thank goodness she changed her mind, as she quickly becomes one of the programme’s most outspoken interviewees. There’s blooper-ish humour as Wyatt urges the programme-makers not to edit her down like they did on an episode of the BBC’s Horizon at the time, and to keep in the “good bits”. Things quickly become less droll, as she explains what she wants them to preserve. “Miscarriage of justice, I want that in … before I die I want this truth to come out.” As we learn, justice has indeed been scant – bar a government apology – with calls for a public inquiry unanswered in the intervening years.

Poison Water relies heavily on that Horizon episode and other archive material, and there is a risk that the final product could feel more like a repackaging than an original piece. Naturally, though, taking a four-decade step back from events casts them in a different light. And there are enough new interviews here – with residents, experts and politicians – to bring the whole thing startlingly, discomfitingly into the present. Among those interviewed is Michael Howard, then minister for water and planning under Margaret Thatcher. He is shown a letter obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, in which an employee of the water inspectorate had urged the government to go easy on the whole thing, lest prosecutions “render the whole of the water industry unattractive to the City” (this was at a time when the government was preparing for the privatisation of the water industry). Howard says he isn’t sure he ever saw the letter. “I hope you’ll emphasise that it was a long time ago and I can’t remember,” he adds. He strongly denies any suggestion of a cover-up or collusion, describing it as “a terrible mistake which should never have happened”.

Idiotic US war secretary Pete Hegseth launches an attack on a turkey-based festivity in frustration at his inability to outsmart a buffoonish police detective. A wild season finale looms

Tonight’s South Park is something of a breather in what has been their most story-driven season (or seasons, as it turned out) ever. There is some advancement to the overriding plot of Donald Trump attempting to kill the unborn baby he’s expecting with his lover, Satan, before it can unleash the prophesied apocalypse – a plot that involves master manipulator (and new Trump sex partner) JD Vance and billionaire/self-proclaimed antichrist expert Peter Thiel (recently incarcerated by South Park’s finest for kidnapping Eric Cartman). But tonight’s instalment, Turkey Trot, focuses more on the goings-on in the titular town than in Washington DC.

As Thanksgiving approaches, South Park finds its annual holiday marathon in jeopardy. None of its regular sponsors – Stan Marsh’s Tegridy Weed Farms, recently shuttered, and City Asian Popup Store, beset by high tariffs – can afford to pay for it. Desperate for a solution, the town reaches out to the one entity that has plenty of money to spend in America: the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The quirky early 90s drama ran for 110 episodes, had fans in Joni Mitchell and Bon Iver, and showed one of TV’s first gay weddings. Now, having been forgotten for years, its warm-hearted charms are being discovered by a new generation

A blond waitress called Shelly is giving a long, strange monologue about an egg sandwich called One Eyed Jack. She works in a diner in the woods in the Pacific north-west, in a town populated by a host of quirky characters: sensitive young men in leather jackets; strong-and-silent types with hearts of gold; and wise, aphoristic members of the local Indigenous community. An intellectual big-city outsider is transplanted into the scene, resulting in various fish-out-of-water encounters and misunderstandings; a will-they-won’t-they flirtation with a glamorous local brunette ensues.

Two separate TV shows, both wildly successful in their own ways, fit the above description. Both debuted in 1990, and both were shot about the same time in the mountainous area near Seattle, Washington. One, of course, was Twin Peaks, David Lynch’s era-defining cult series that ran for two series, followed by a 1992 feature film and 2017’s magisterial Twin Peaks: The Return. The other show was Northern Exposure, which ran for six seasons until 1995, making stars of its two leads, Rob Morrow, who starred as sardonic Brooklyn doctor Joel Fleischman, furious at having been stationed in rural Alaska, and Janine Turner, the feisty, independent small-plane pilot Maggie O’Connell, whose boyfriends keep dying in tragic accidents.

The TV equivalent of raiding a bare cupboard, the supposed extra hour here is cobbled together from previous DVD extras – but you can’t miss the tension between Harrison and McCartney

There’s no doubt that the arrival of The Beatles Anthology in 1995 was a big deal. The TV series was broadcast at prime time on both sides of the Atlantic, and ABC in the US even changed its name to ABeatlesC in its honour. The three accompanying albums (the first time the Beatles had allowed outtakes from their recording sessions to be officially released) sold in their millions. Its success helped kickstart the latterday Beatles industry, a steady stream of officially sanctioned documentaries, reissues, remixes, compilations and expanded editions, predicated on two ideas: that the Beatles’ archive contains fathomless bounty; and that the band’s story is so rich there’s no limit to the number of times it can fruitfully be retold in fresh light.

For a while, those ideas seemed to hold true, but recently, it’s been hard not to think the Beatles’ Apple Corps might be trying to feed an insatiable appetite for content from an increasingly bare cupboard. You can marvel at the highlights of Peter Jackson’s TV series Get Back and still wonder whether the director wasn’t stretching his material a little thin; whether nearly eight hours of it – plus a separate Imax film of the Beatles’ final live performance on the roof of Apple’s London HQ, and a reissue of the original 1970 Let It Be documentary – might have been rather too much of a good thing.

Tognetti/Australian Chamber Orchestra
(ABC Classic)
Under Richard Tognetti the ACO has established itself as world-class and this 50th anniversary live recording of these two great concertos are a wonderful souvenir of a remarkable group

Over the past quarter of a century the Australian Chamber Orchestra has become a regular visitor to Europe, establishing itself as one of the world’s foremost chamber bands. The group was founded in 1975, and this pairing of perhaps the two greatest violin concertos in the repertory is being released to mark the ACO’s 50th birthday. The soloist and conductor in both works is Richard Tognetti, who has been the orchestra’s leader and artistic director for the past 35 years.

Both recordings are taken from concerts given in Sydney’s City Recital Hall, the Beethoven concerto in 2018, the Brahms last February. The close recorded sound very faithfully reproduces the intensely involving approach of the ACO when heard in the flesh, with its amalgam of modern playing techniques with the use of historical instruments (gut strings, period wind). For both concertos the orchestra’s permanent core of 20 players was more than doubled with guest instrumentalists from other Australian orchestras, but the suppleness and coherence of its textures are as persuasive as ever.

One Mancunian bassist remembers another: Hook pays tribute to the ‘wonderful soul’ Gary Mounfield, the Stone Roses and Primal Scream musician who has died aged 63

I first met Mani when the Stone Roses’ manager asked me to produce them. We did Elephant Stone and they were lovely. Then as Manchester turned into Madchester I got to know them really well. I went to the great gig they did in Blackpool; I went to Spike Island. It was a fantastic time to be together and the Haçienda was the glue. There was no VIP area in the club, so punters would walk around and think: “There’s Mani!”

I had the Roses in my Suite 16 studio doing demos for what was going to be the second album, until they scrapped it. I got to know Mani and his wife, Imelda. We had a wild period. Then after our various bands stopped playing live we started Freebass, with three bass players: myself, Mani and Andy Rourke, who’d been in the Smiths. The band was ill-fated – too many chefs – and eventually we fell out badly after a row over a gig. Mani slagged me off but God bless him, the very next day he phoned me up and apologised. That was Mani. Once we were no longer working together, we became friends and after that every day spent with him was a total pleasure.

Fans and historians have spent 60 years debating what the band means – and which member is greatest. Will the returning Anthology project and Sam Mendes’s planned biopics create new arguments?

The early notion of the Beatles as “four lads that shook the world” has been subject to many shifts in emphasis over the decades. They have been valorised, vilified, mythologised, misunderstood and even ignored. The release this month of the new Beatles Anthology – an expansion of the original mid-1990s compilation with CD, vinyl reissues and the documentary series streaming on Disney+ – is testament not just to their enduring appeal but also to how the constant reframing of their story reveals as much about our changing tastes. The 2025 edition arrives as a full-scale revisitation of the original project, bringing with it a remastered, expanded documentary series and a substantial reissue campaign.

What is more likely to reshape the way we see the band, though, is the addition of a brand-new ninth episode to the original TV series, built from recently excavated footage of Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr working together in 1994–95. Far more intimate and informal than the original broadcast, this material captures the three surviving Beatles rehearsing, reflecting and simply spending time as old friends rather than cultural monuments, albeit still with the “kid brother” tensions between Harrison and McCartney. They work on Free As a Bird and Now and Then, jokingly speculate on a stadium reunion tour and generally talk about their history, loss and their unfinished musical ideas. It’s a rare, humanising coda to the well-worn story. With new material like this, and with more than that axiomatic 50 years of distance since the Beatles dissolved in a blizzard of lawsuits and “funny paper”, are we finally approaching a unified theory of everything fab?

One of the greatest stars of Jamaican reggae known for his 1969 hit Many Rivers to Cross and the film The Harder They Come

The singer and songwriter Jimmy Cliff, who has died aged 81, was one of Jamaica’s most celebrated performers. An itinerant ambassador who introduced the music and culture of his island to audiences across the world at a time when reggae was largely unknown, he was a pioneer with a distinctive high tenor voice whose themes of civil and human rights resonated with many.

The stirring optimism of his orchestrated Wonderful World, Beautiful People spent 13 weeks in the British singles charts in 1969, peaking at No 6, and his caustic Vietnam, in the same year, was a favourite of Bob Dylan’s that inspired Paul Simon to later record Mother and Child Reunion in Jamaica with the same backing band, after Dylan made him aware of it.

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

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

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

This nebulous study of Luigi Mangione veers close to romanticising him as a latter-day Robin Hood

On 5 December 2024, the New York Times ran the headline “Insurance CEO Gunned Down In Manhattan”. The newspaper then noted that Brian Thompson was “shot in the back in Midtown Manhattan by a killer who then walked coolly away”. The murder in broad daylight was indeed both cold and shocking. But many Americans had a different response: for those who had been denied health insurance or faced exorbitant healthcase costs, the news felt cathartic. Social media blew up. One post read: “All jokes aside … no one here is the judge of who deserves to live or die. That’s the job of the AI algorithm the insurance company designed to maximize profits on your health.”

Five days later, Luigi Mangione, a good-looking, 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate with a master’s in computer science, was apprehended at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He awaits trial on federal and state charges of murder, with prosecutors seeking the death penalty. So who is Mangione? And what might have motivated the alleged crime? These are the questions John H Richardson attempts to answer in an investigation that explores broader themes, too.

The reader grapples with fascism and complicity through the eyes of a mute autistic girl being treated during the second world war

As I started reading Alice Jolly’s new novel, whose narrator is a mute autistic girl in wartime Vienna, I realised that I was resisting its very premise. I am generally sceptical about books that use child narrators to add poignancy to dark plots, or novels that use nazism as a means of introducing moral jeopardy to their characters’ journeys. And yet by the end Jolly had won me over. This is a book that walks a tightrope between sentimentality and honesty, between realism and imagination, and creates something spirited and memorable as it does so.

We meet our fierce narrator, Adelheid Brunner, when she is brought into a children’s hospital by her grandmother, who cannot cope with the little girl’s fixations. Adelheid is obsessed with the matchboxes of the title, which she is constantly studying, ordering and occasionally discarding. In the hospital, she finds that she and her fellow child inmates are the object of obsessive study in turn by their doctors – sometimes understood, sometimes valued, and then, tragically, sometimes discarded.

The anthropologist and father of New York’s mayor-elect offers a revisionist view of modern Ugandan history

Children of Ugandan Indians are having a bit of a moment. Electropop boasts Charlie XCX; statecraft, the Patels: Priti the shadow foreign secretary, Kash the FBI boss. And while the ones who go into politics have tended to be conservative, we now have a counterexample in Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who clinched the New York mayoralty at the beginning of this month.

The anomaly is best explained by the politics of his father, Mahmood Mamdani. The apple, it seems, did not roll especially far down the postcolonial hillside. Mahmood, professor of government and anthropology at Columbia University, has long styled himself as the left’s answer to VS Naipaul. Where the Nobel-winning curmudgeon surveyed postcolonial Africa with disdain, revelling in the wreckage of independence, Mamdani presents a more forgiving view: pathos instead of pity, paradox instead of despair. If independence didn’t live up to the promise, he argues, it was because the colonised had been dealt a losing hand.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The use of AI in the surprise game-of-the-year contender has sparked a heated cultural and ethical debate, and raised existential questions for artists, writers and voice actors

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Arc Raiders is, by all accounts, a late game-of-the-year contender. Dropped into a multiplayer world overrun with hostile drones and military robots, every human player is at the mercy of the machines – and each other. Can you trust the other raider you’ve spotted on your way back to humanity’s safe haven underground, or will they shoot you and take everything you’ve just scavenged? Perhaps surprisingly, humanity is (mostly) choosing to band together, according to most people I’ve talked to about this game.

In a review for Gamespot, Mark Delaney paints a beguiling picture of Arc Raiders’s potential for generating war stories, and highlights its surprisingly hopeful tone as the thing that elevates it above similar multiplayer extraction shooters: “We can all kill each other in Arc Raiders. The fact that most of us are choosing instead to lend a helping hand, if not a sign that humanity will be all right in the real world, at the very least makes for one of the best multiplayer games I’ve ever played.”

For children hardwired to love the natural world, Slovenia’s wild wonders make it an ideal destination – and it’s quick and easy to get to from the UK

Packed with outdoor activities, from kayaking to canyoning, and swimming to wildlife watching, Slovenia is a fantastic family adventure. Safe, affordable and accessible (just over two hours by air from London), it’s a place where kids will feel genuinely welcome. There are castles, caves and beaches, medieval fairs, zip lines and adventure parks, fabulous food and organic farms, and campsites set amid breathtaking natural scenery.

It’s impossible not to fall in love with Slovenia’s great outdoors. “To grow up in Slovenia with the Julian Alps as a back yard is an enormous gift,” says local mountain guide Rok Zalokar who did just that. “And the best part is, after all these years, now with my own family … our favourite place is still here.”

Whether you’re a skier, hiker or culture buff, there’s something for everyone in this vibrant, family-friendly country – and the food is pretty epic too

What will be your way of feeling Slovenia?

Its magical mountains, lakes and forests have made Slovenia a must-visit destination – but there’s so much more for travellers to discover in this country of rich contrasts

Boutique destinations offering authentic, off-the-beaten-track experiences are becoming the way to travel, as holidaymakers increasingly question the value of overtourism, nature-exploiting excursions and holiday cliches. Just over two hours away by plane, Slovenia fits the boutique bill – and then some. You’ll find gorgeous scenery, outdoor adventure and wellness, as well as vibrant cities, culture and superb gastronomy. Welcome to the green heart of Europe …

From Michelin Green Stars to a beekeeping museum – via a 60,000-year-old flute – Slovenia gives visitors the authentic, lesser-travelled experience

It is said that soul is the true spice of any dish – and Slovenian cuisine has soul writ large. This is, in part, down to the vast array of locally produced and sourced ingredients, from trout caught in the crystal, alpine waters of the Soča River, to goat’s cheese, farmed on the misty Polhov Gradec hills. This produce, created in harmony with nature, can be found in the recipes on the tables of some of the country’s best and most authentic restaurants.

One of these is Grič, located in a remote spot in the village of Šentjošt, about 40 minutes’ drive from the capital Ljubljana. There, chef Luka Košir creates dishes which are at turns wildly experimental and infused with the culinary knowhow of Japan and Scandinavia, but are wholly rooted in traditional local ingredients, and a sense of place.

At Grič, chef Luka Košir’s dishes are created from traditional local ingredients

The classic novel is given a new spin with this festive spectacular at Sadler’s Wells East following the fortunes of a fashion designer encountering ghosts of the past, present and future

All photographs by Tristram Kenton

Riverside Studios, London
The madcap sci-fi tale is retold on a lavish scale, complete with in-show merch, but it never really blasts off

Douglas Adams’s sci-fi comedy about Earth’s destruction and Arthur Dent’s intergalactic adventures has become a stratospheric enterprise since the original radio series in 1978. That spawned six books, a TV series, a film, comics, stage adaptations – and branded bath towels.

Booming business indeed yet it is odd to see the sale of merchandise as part of this immersive show (there is one booth selling branded goods within the production and a second in the foyer), as well as a bar at every turn. That commercial opportunism grates. Is this an attempt to take the audience into Adams’s imaginative universe in a new, interactive way – or merely a cash cow?

White Bear theatre, London
Writer Gary Owen stitches together glimpses of contemporary life with a spin on Arthur Schnitzler’s classic that doesn’t quite coalesce

Gary Owen’s gentle dance of linked fragments joins a long list of plays taking after Arthur Schnitzler’s La Ronde, an 1897 drama structured as a kind of musical chairs. With interlocking scenes between two actors at a time, they rotate every few minutes. It’s a useful device for packing variety into a single story, like tossing a big salad of ideas. Though neatly performed by its young cast, this new, modern-day mix by the writer of the incomparable Iphigenia in Splott struggles to add up to more than the sum of its parts.

La Ronde caused controversy, deemed immoral and too sexual for the stage. Ring Ring takes a far softer approach. Owen seeks to illuminate the modern anxieties that keep us awake at night: the things we fear to share, to pass on, to tackle by ourselves. We have nervous couples, anxious about whether to become parents. People working dead-end jobs who hope a shag will help them forget their existential dread. Individually, the scenes are quick and full of yearning, a beautiful bluntness to Owen’s dialogue. Collectively, we miss a sense of accumulation or forward momentum.

New Vic theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme
A fresh telling of Hans Christian Andersen’s story deploys circus skills and inventive design to create a memorable merworld

The Little Mermaid is big business this Christmas, with versions of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale at Hull Truck, Nottingham Playhouse and Newbury’s Watermill, all buoyed perhaps by Disney’s 2023 blockbuster. Adapter Theresa Heskins and her co-director, Vicki Dela Amedume, present theirs as an all-ages gig-theatre show. We’re even introduced to each member of a house band nestled among the audience before meeting the main characters.

Rhiannon Skerritt plays the title role, here named Coralie, in a production that accentuates how Andersen made her the littlest of several merfolk. The romance isn’t entirely extinguished but the power of siblinghood rises to the surface instead in this telling, which also stresses the suspicion and division between the inhabitants of land and water.

At New Vic theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme, until 24 January

The Canadian electroclash icon on No Lube So Rude, her first album in a decade, the state of global politics, the ‘punk energy’ of the older generation and her love of ping-pong

Why is your forthcoming album your first in over a decade and who is/are the “you” in comeback single Not in Your Mouth None of Your Business? k4ren123
I’ve been very busy – touring, working with dance troupes, performance art, sculptures, playing the lead role in a production of Bertolt Brecht’s The Seven Deadly Sins in Stuttgart, and on and on. Then, finally, I started on new music. The “you” in the single are people who feel they have the right to have autonomy over other people’s bodies and make it unsafe for people to be who they want to be. I’m especially talking about queer and mostly trans rights. The song’s like a mantra or chant, a way to empower people in only a few sentences.

As a fan of your concert costume design as much as your music, what can we expect from the upcoming tour? Kelechica
I was thinking about sustainability and went to a costume sale at the Berlin opera and bought a bunch of opera costumes. I’m working with Charlie Le Mindu, who is transforming them into weird new creations. In the video for Not in Your Mouth, I’m wearing my sister’s leather jacket. It’s just been the fifth anniversary of her passing, and I wanted to keep something of her, so I kept her leather jacket that she wore the crap out of since the 90s. So, in a way, she’ll be in the show.

My mother, Jill Freud, who has died aged 98, was a dynamic actor and producer, and the founder of one of the UK’s most cherished summer rep theatres.

On graduating from the Rada drama school in London in 1947, Jill, under the stage name Jill Raymond, was given a leading role in the film The Woman in the Hall, starring Jean Simmons. She also worked in radio and television, including on Torchy the Battery Boy for the BBC Light Service. On stage, a highlight was The Dame of Sark with Celia Johnson at the Wyndham theatre (1974).

Viewers unable to watch episodes of long-awaited final series on TV when the streaming service briefly froze

When Netflix crashed within minutes of releasing Stranger Things series five, it felt like a plot twist worthy of the sci-fi show itself.

Viewers were left unable to stream the opening episodes of the long-awaited final series, with many voicing their frustration on social media platforms.

Documentary series of Interview with the Vampire writer available to stream with potential for further releases

The worst heartbreak and most riveting triumph of Anne Rice’s life happened in relatively quick succession, each beginning when the US novelist’s daughter – Michele, then about three – told her she was too tired to play.

Rice had never heard such a comment from a child that age, and subsequent blood tests ordered by a doctor revealed that her beloved “Mouse” had acute granulocytic leukemia, considered untreatable for her.

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

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

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

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

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

• The best Christmas gifts, handpicked by the Filter

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

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

Our writer trialled the most powerful robot vacuums – some of which even mop your floors – and these are the ones he rates

• The best window vacs for clearing condensation: seven expert picks for streak-free shine

Robot vacuum cleaners take the drudge work out of cleaning your floors and carpets. No more tiresome weekly stints of vacuuming, and no more last-minute panic sessions when you have visitors on the way. Instead, your compact robot chum regularly trundles out from its dock, sucking up dust, hair and debris to leave your floors looking spick and span.

Over the past few years, robot vacuums have become much more affordable, with basic units starting at about £150. They’re also doing more than they used to, mopping areas of hard flooring and charging in sophisticated cleaning stations that empty their dust collectors and clean their mop pads for you.

Best robot vacuum cleaner overall:
Eufy X10 Pro Omni

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

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

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

Whether you want to bolster your home’s security or simply make sure you know who’s at the door, the latest generation of smart doorbells will help put your mind at ease

• The best robot vacuums to keep your home clean and dust free

Doorbells have evolved. Today, they watch us as we approach, let the people inside the home know we’re coming sooner than our finger can hit the button, and give them a good look at our faces before they open the door. They’re essentially security cameras with a chime function.

If you haven’t already installed one of these handy tools, there’s a huge array available. Choosing the best video doorbell can be a bewildering task, with various factors to consider, including how much of your doorstep you want to see or whether you’re prepared to pay for a subscription. To help make the decision a little bit easier, I tested eight popular video doorbells to find the best.

Best video doorbell overall:
Google Nest Doorbell (battery)

Best budget video doorbell:
Blink smart video doorbell with Sync Module 2

Here’s how to spot a genuinely good laptop deal, plus the best discounts we’ve seen so far on everything from MacBooks to gaming laptops

• Do you really need to buy a new laptop?
• How to shop smart this Black Friday

Black Friday deals have started, and if you’ve been on the lookout for a good price on a new laptop, then this could be your lucky day. But with so many websites being shouty about their Black Friday offers, the best buys aren’t always easy to spot. So before you splash the cash, it might pay to do some research – and look closely at the specification.

I know this may not be welcome advice. After all, the thought of drawing up a spreadsheet of memory configurations and pricing history might put a slight dampener on the excitement that builds as Black Friday approaches. But buy the right laptop today and you can look forward to many years of joyful productivity. Pick a duff one, and every time you open the lid you’ll be cursing your past self’s impulsive nature. So don’t get caught out; be prepared with our useful tips – and a roundup of the Filter’s favourite laptop deals.

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

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

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

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

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

Wrong!

Don’t panic if you’ve left it late to plan your gathering – follow these tips for whipping up an instant party atmosphere

At this time of year, when there’s enough going on to make the most vivacious person occasionally look forward to the financial and social drought of January, it’s all too easy to forget things. I cannot be the only person who’s ever been shocked back into consciousness at my desk by a message from a friend asking, “What time do you want us later?” Fear not; whether you’re absent minded, or just prone to last-minute invitations, I have your back.

Firstly, and I cannot stress this enough, whether you’ve been planning for a year or 15 minutes, the best parties are the simplest. All anyone is hoping for is a good chat, something to drink, and enough to eat that they don’t feel like gnawing an arm off on the bus home. Unless you’re Jay Gatsby, no one expects a full bar, Michelin-starred catering or a live band.

That said, a theme is helpful for disguising the fact you’ve just thrown this thing together on the way home from work … And by theme, I mean something like, for instance, Christmas. Getting slightly more specific (Scandinavian Christmas, say, with glögg, spiced punch, smoked fish and rye crackers, Nordic beats playlist; or Mexican Christmas, with ponche navideño, cold beers or margaritas, and heaps of tortilla chips, salsa and guacamole, and Luis Miguel on the stereo) will focus your options on the inevitable supermarket sweep.

Beyond Black Friday, there’s much to enjoy about the American holiday – think succulent smoked birds, sumptuous stuffings and perfect pumpkin pies

• Sign up here for our weekly food newsletter, Feast

It’s easy to be cynical about Thanksgiving. The origin story that we’re all told – of a friendly exchange of food between the pilgrims and the Native Americans – is, at best, a whitewashed oversimplification. And then there’s Black Friday, an event that has hijacked one of our few non-commercialised holidays and used it as the impetus for a stressful, shameless, consumerist frenzy.

Besides that, Thanksgiving is meant to be a celebration of American abundance and, boy, does that feel inappropriate at the moment. It sucks to be an American right now. It’s hard to feel gratitude for a country that’s an out-of-control dumpster fire stoked by an ogre of a man who treats the global economy like a game of Monopoly and orders his steaks well done (and with ketchup).

These iced Danish pastries stuffed with nuts and jam are a speciality of Tim’s hometown of Racine, Wisconsin

Kringles are a kind of pastry that’s synonymous with my home town of Racine, Wisconsin. Originally introduced by Danish immigrants in the late 19th century, they’re essentially a big ring of flaky Viennese pastry filled with fruit or nuts, then iced and served in little slices. Even bad kringles are pretty delicious, and when out-of-towners try them for the first time, their reaction is usually: ”Where has this been all my life?”

We eat kringles year-round, but I mainly associate them with fall, perhaps because of their common autumnal fillings such as apple or cranberry, or perhaps because of the sense of hygge they provide. I also associate kringles with Thanksgiving – and with uncles. And I don’t think it’s just me; Racine’s biggest kringle baker, O&H Danish Bakery, operates a cafe/shop called “Danish Uncle”. But I also think of Thanksgiving as the most uncle-y American holiday, geared towards watching football and snoozing on the couch.

Tim Anderson is the author of the 24 Hour Pancake People newsletter and Hokkaido: Recipes from the Seas, Fields and Farmlands of Northern Japan, published by Hardie Grant at £28. To order a copy for £25.20, go to guardianbookshop.com. Rachel Roddy is away.

Eke out that last stubborn scrape of Marmite and turn it into a dream glaze for crisp roast potatoes

I never peel a roastie, because boiling potatoes with their skins on, then cracking them open, gives you the best of both worlds: fluffy insides and golden, craggy edges. Especially when you finish roasting them in a glaze made with butter (or, even better, saved chicken, pork, beef or goose fat) and the last scrapings from a Marmite jar.

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

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

As I watched the news about Australia’s devastating bushfires in 2020 I felt compelled to help. It was the start of a new relationship with nature, and a reminder of my childhood joie de vivre

As hookup sites go, it was in another league. I was looking for a different kind of soulmate and I was spoilt for choice. Would it be Floyd, “a stylish poser and a winner of hearts”? Or Bobby, “who loves cuddling and is a bit of a showoff”? Or could it be the “beautiful and incredibly sweet Morris with a gentle nature”? One stood out. Not only was he “very affectionate” but he was also “a bit of a troublemaker – always exploring and often found sitting on the rocks”. Just what I was looking for; I swiped right. That’s how I met Jarrah. My koala.

A month before, in 2020, I’d seen a newsflash about the bushfires in Australia. The effect on the continent’s wildlife was devastating. An estimated 61,000 koalas had been killed or injured among 143 million other native mammals. There were two things I felt I could do from the UK: one was to make koala mittens to protect their burnt paws (following a pattern I found online); and two, I could adopt a koala and send monthly donations to protect them in the wild. So I joined the Australian Koala Foundation, which is dedicated to the marsupials’ survival.

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

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

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

Andy, who is in a sexless marriage, has become besotted with Rita – and their sexual chemistry is incredible. But how long can they go on like this?

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

What makes the sex incredible is our chemistry, and the complete lack of judgment and pressure

Rachel Reeves is freezing tax thresholds in an attempt to plug the hole in the public accounts. Find out how it affects your tax bill

The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has announced that income tax thresholds will be frozen until the 2030-31 tax year.

Freezing tax thresholds results in “fiscal drag” – a phenomenon where people are dragged into higher tax bands when they get pay rises.

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

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

As a doctor I stepped in to tend to an elderly passenger … but it won’t waive £100 transfer fee to rebook

I was due to fly from London Stansted to Pescara, Italy. I was nearing the departure gate when an elderly woman fell down an escalator. I am a doctor and stopped to help. She had sustained a broken wrist, deep cuts and a worrying head injury and I had to stem the bleeding until staff and paramedics arrived.

I asked for gate crew to be made aware that I was delayed by a medical emergency, but when I reached the gate 15 minutes before my flight departed, it had closed.

Two out of five illegal streamers have fallen prey to fraud, likely via a ‘modded’ USB stick that exposes users to data theft and cybercrime

The big fight is on TV on Saturday night but you really don’t want to shell out to watch it on pay-per-view. Luckily, you bought a cheap Amazon Fire Stick online that gives you access to all the sports you want as well as TV streaming services.

While the quality of the picture is not brilliant, you are saving on monthly subscriptions and the one-off fees to watch big sporting events. The stick was a bargain – or so you think.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Experts unpack the common myth of menstruating people’s cycles synchronizing when they’re in close proximity for long enough

• Tell us: what are the best and worst gifts you’ve ever received?

To be someone who menstruates means continuously trying to untangle fact from fiction. Is it true that you can’t swim on your period? No. Does the scent of a person menstruating attract bears? Also no.

There is one period rumor I’ve always kind of enjoyed, though: when women are in close proximity for long enough, their menstrual cycles will eventually sync up, also known as “menstrual synchrony”. I’ve had several friends over the years claim that my period had yanked them on to my cycle.

Body composition: a high BMI is associated with irregular cycles, says Kling.

Age: “Menses can be irregular in adolescents and as people approach menopause,” says Jensen.

Psychological stress: depression can disrupt a person’s cycle.

Medication, such as birth control.

Medical conditions, such as thyroid disease, polycystic ovarian syndrome or menopause.

Lifestyle factors, such as smoking, alcohol and caffeine consumption, diet and physical activity.

Its popularity is as enduring as its fabrics – and it allows men to age stylishly without worrying about their waistlines. One collector delves into the reasons the ordinary clothes of workers past live on in men’s wardrobes today

We’ll never know who designed much of the workwear worn by the labouring classes of yesteryear. But they might well be bemused that the ordinary garments they cut generously, to allow movement while operating a machine or driving a train, are now highly collectible and sought after – worn by men who do little more than swivel on an office chair.

If you’ve not noticed the prevalence of the dull tan of the Carhartt barn jacket or the triple-patch pocket of the chore coat, then perhaps you’ve been living in a cave with no signal to receive Instagram ads. Marks & Spencer is abundant with chore jackets and, in this year’s John Lewis Christmas advert, the dad has his suitably saccharine emotional moment wearing one, too.

Shades of green, pink and glitter accompany sold out screenings as Wicked: For Good’s release prompts wave of themed dressing

Outside one of Leicester Square’s main cinemas, small crowds gathered in shades of green, pink and glitter, a loose palette of fairies and witches.

As Wicked: For Good lands in UK cinemas on Friday and this weekend, some fans have decided that simply watching the film isn’t enough. They want to wear it.

The haircut of the moment is ‘The Claudia’, but not everyone has the luscious locks of la Winkleman. Not a problem. Fake fringes are everywhere – and I tried one out

The 70s had “the Fawcett.” In the 90s it was all about “the Rachel.” But now there’s a new era-defining hair cut. “The Claudia.” Yes, the glossy inky-black block fringe that mostly shrouds the face of its owner, the presenter Claudia Winkleman, has become a seminal moment on and off TV screens.

It is a fringe that has spawned memes, online forums dedicated to debating its length and a fan account on X. “Thoughts and opinions from the highest paid fringe on the BBC” reads the bio. Alan Carr has described it, not Winkleman, as a national treasure.

The folding of the progressive youth-focused magazine into Vogue comes at turbulent time for journalism and the crumbling of feminist media

In late 2016, just a few weeks after Donald Trump won his first presidential election, Teen Vogue published a story that set the internet ablaze: “Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America.”

The story garnered more than 1.3m hits, making it the magazine’s most-read story of the year. Elaine Welteroth, then the editor-in-chief, told NPR that the day it published, Teen Vogue sold “in that month, more copies of the magazine than we had that entire year”. It was a transformative moment for the publication: proof that a magazine long associated with Disney child stars and headlines like “Prom Fever!” could shine light on the political dimensions of young people’s lives.

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

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

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

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

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

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

From stylish townhouses to characterful country piles, this selection of inns, B&Bs and hotels offer delicious food and a touch of luxury for £150 a night or less

Drakes, Brighton
Keep an eye out for deals at this glamorous Regency seafront hotel (a November 30% discount won’t be a one-off). A sea-view balcony room, of course, will cost a bit, but even the snuggest, city-facing bedrooms have air conditioning, a king-size bed, wet room, bathtub and Green & Spring toiletries. For somewhere so fun and stylish, Drakes offers real value, including the shorter tasting menus in Dilsk restaurant. Or just treat yourself to a sundowner in the bar, then head out to dine. This is Brighton; the world is your oyster.
Doubles from £143.50 B&B, drakeshotel.com

Poor weather couldn’t spoil my high-altitude walking trip amid these stunning peaks, especially with delicious, hearty Tyrolean cuisine to keep me going

When you come to the Dolomites for winter walking, it’s with the intention of having spellbinding snow-streaked peaks that are unlike anything else in the Alps as your constant companion. But with impenetrable cloud and heavy rain forecast, it was hard not to feel deflated.

Then again, this was Italy, where it’s easy to make the best of things whatever the weather. And the 3 Zinnen Dolomites ski resort and nature park – right on Italy’s border with Austria, about two-and-a-half hours north of Venice, is always charming, with the usual jumble of cultures you see in South Tyrol. Part Italian, it’s more Austrian thanks to the legacy of the Habsburgs, who ruled this part of Italy until 1918. Hence most places have an Austrian and an Italian name, 3 Zinnen or Tre Cime (meaning three peaks) being a case in point. It’s the home of Ladin, an ancient Romance language, too.

Hamad thinks his method enhances the flavour. Lucia says he’s breaking all the sacred rules. Who needs to wake up and smell the coffee?

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

Hamad’s method isn’t the way it’s supposed to be done. I’m Italian – I know all about good coffee

Pressing down the grounds improves the flavour. Lucia is just being a coffee snob

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

After the recent kerfuffle over what constitutes the first line of a play, the Thursday quiz has decided to avoid theatre altogether and focus instead on its core principles: sowing mischief, mayhem and mild confusion. Take your seats, silence your mobile phones and prepare for 15 questions of topical tomfoolery – and a couple of cute-looking dogs. There are no prizes, but we love it when you tell us how you got on in the comments. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz: No 225

The number of rental properties without a lounge is surging, and people are having to eat and socialise in kitchens, bedrooms and stairwells. How can you relax and build community without a communal area?

‘Without a living room, your world becomes quite small,” says Georgie, a 27-year-old climbing and outdoor instructor. When she moved into a house-share with four strangers in 2023, she wasn’t worried about the lack of a living room. “I kind of thought it would be fine – I didn’t have that many options, and the house was by far the cheapest.”

The property she rented was in Leeds, and what had once been a lounge had gradually been turned into an inaccessible storage space. To make things worse, the kitchen was tiny: “By the time you put a table against the wall, you couldn’t sit or stand without getting in the way of the sink or the oven.”

Why must every cafe, pub, restaurant or event insist on having its patrons cosplay as babies in highchairs? Bar stools are a bonafide torture device

• Read more petty gripes

Being short comes with sizeable challenges. My view at concerts is almost always blocked. I own more pinchy heels than comfy flats. Finding jeans that fit properly is a headache. But most importantly: bar stools. They are inescapable.

I was reminded of this deep-seated hatred during this year’s Melbourne fashion week. I arrived unfashionably late and had to sit behind the front row – which didn’t upset me, I was truly happy to just be there! But what did annoy me was the only chair choice available: a bar stool that came up to my waist.

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

Rachel Reeves’s new council tax surcharge on homes worth £2m or more earns mixed reception in well-heeled London borough

• Budget calculator: find out if you are better or worse off

In the leafy London borough of Richmond, on the south-western fringes of the capital, there was quiet resignation at the chancellor’s announcement of a “mansion tax” on England’s most expensive properties.

In an area where one-bed flats often sell for £300,000, and large, detached family homes regularly sell for upwards of £2m, “mansion” is seen as something of a misnomer.

In a case echoing the Pelicot trial, dozens of women allege they were given hot drinks mixed with a diuretic to make them urinate. Three of them speak out here

When Sylvie Delezenne, a marketing expert from Lille, was job-hunting in 2015, she was delighted to be contacted on LinkedIn by a human resources manager at the French culture ministry, inviting her to Paris for an interview.

“It was my dream to work at the culture ministry,” she said.

From the top lollipop person to the most dedicated convenience store managers, we celebrate the winners of the year’s most unusual accolades

Michael Leech, from Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire, has been named the UK bus driver of the year

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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