A review of Trump’s bold promises about immigration, the economy, the US’s standing in the world and much more

There was no debate about record crowd sizes this time. With the temperature plunging to 27F (-3C) and a wind chill making it feel far colder, Donald Trump’s second inauguration was held in the rotunda at the US Capitol in Washington on 20 January 2025.

The great and the good of the political elite were there, including former presidents Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama and outgoing president Joe Biden. So were tech oligarchs such as Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. At 12.10pm, they listened intently as Trump began a half-hour-long inaugural address.

Sir David and Victoria cornered the market in selling their family’s privacy for money – but there was a price to pay, and Brooklyn Peltz Beckham has just sent them the bill

The way 2026 has started, none of us wants to see the word “nuclear” in a headline, so on some level you have to feel glad that last night’s news alerts announcing in real time that someone “goes nuclear” and “launches nuclear attack” related to Brooklyn Peltz Beckham. At time of writing, the story about his Instagram broadside against his parents, David and Victoria Beckham, accusing them of treating him as a commercial prop all his life was by far, far and away the best read on the Guardian site, as well as the most deeply read. Again, I’m glad this blow-up wasn’t used as geopolitical cover, because if there was a time for Trump to invade Greenland largely unnoticed, maybe this was it.

Whoever wrote Brooklyn’s intercontinental ballistic Instagram – and it wasn’t the childlike authorial voice behind regular “I always choose you baby … me and you forever baby” posts to his wife – the sentiments will be his. Here’s a sample: “My family values public promotion and endorsements above all else. Brand Beckham comes first. Family ‘love’ is decided by how much you post on social media, or how quickly you drop everything to show up and pose for a family photo opp …”

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

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In China, marriage and birth rates have hit record lows and many people are living in isolation. Is the Are You Dead? app just a practical response to this – or something more troubling?

A few days before Christmas, after a short battle with illness, a woman in Shanghai called Jiang Ting died. For years, the 46-year-old had lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Hongkou, a residential neighbourhood that sits along the Huangpu River. Neighbours described her as quiet. “She rarely chats with people. We only see her when she goes to and from work, and occasionally when she comes out to pick up takeout,” said a local resident interviewed by a Chinese reporter. Her parents long deceased, Jiang had no partner or children to inherit her estate. Her lonely death sparked a debate in Chinese media about how society should handle the increasing number of people dying with no next of kin.

For Xiong Sisi, also a professional in her 40s living alone in Shanghai, the news triggered uncomfortable feelings. “I truly worry that, after I die, no one will collect my body. I don’t care how I’m buried, but if I rot there, it’s bad for the house,” she says.

The Number of the Beast lights up an unforgettable scene in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple thanks to director Nia DaCosta expertly blending ‘craziness and romance’

There were laughs of surprise around me in screen three of the Everyman in Muswell Hill, north London, as 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple drew to its conclusion. Without giving too much away for those who haven’t seen it, Ralph Fiennes dancing semi-naked among piles of human bones to Iron Maiden’s The Number of the Beast is not how you expect one of our greatest thespians to deport himself on screen.

“Alex Garland chose that song,” says the film’s director, Nia DaCosta. “He wrote it into the script. And you can’t get better than that in a film about satanists.”

Pricey deworming remedies are being touted as cure-alls. Supermodel Heidi Klum gave it a go – experts roll their eyes

Last August, supermodel Heidi Klum revealed that she and her husband, Tom Kaulitz, were planning a worm and parasite cleanse.

“Everything on my Instagram feed at the moment is about worms and parasites,” she told the Wall Street Journal, ominously adding: “I don’t know what the heck is going to come out.”

Years of civil war have turned whole areas of the city into rows of empty husks. But after the fall of Assad, Syrians have returned to their old homes determined to rebuild

The kebab stall stood in the shadow of a building whose three upper floors had been sheared in half, leaving behind concrete slabs that seemed to hang in mid-air. Under a tarpaulin, its edges weighted with cinder blocks, stood a thin man with a thick white beard. Smiling, he stoked the fire in a narrow grill. Walking back and forth to a table set atop a wheelbarrow, he tenderly inspected a dish laid out with tomatoes, greens and a few skewers of meat. A torn mat covered the floor, while a plastic ice box and a few more cinder blocks provided seating for the customers who were yet to appear.

The streets were largely deserted here in Amiriya, a dilapidated suburb of Aleppo that once formed the frontline between the rebel-held enclave and government-controlled areas. But there were a few signs of life: children hopping on and off a rusty motorcycle, a woman selling cigarettes and water from a shack, a young man digging through the rubble with his hands, pulling out pieces of limestone and stacking them in a neat pile to use later in rebuilding his own house. “They are much better than the new ones,” he told me.

‘The package of mitigations deals acceptably with a wide range of sensitive national security issues, including cabling,’ they said in a joint letter

• UK government approves Chinese ‘mega embassy’ in London

Jack Straw, a former Labour foreign secretary, has praised Keir Starmer for the way he is handling Donald Trump. While some opposition parties want Starmer to be more confrontational, Straw told Times Radio that would be a mistake. He said:

The best approach [to handling Trump] that I know of is the one that’s being adopted by our prime minister, Keir Starmer. It’s very hard. It’s very frustrating. I’m sure there have been occasions where Sir Keir has said things to himself in the shaving mirror about Mr Trump that he would not wish to be repeated. But he is an example of how to handle Donald Trump. It is infinitely better than challenging Trump’s ego, to which there is no limit, trying to work around him.

And up to now, the Starmer approach to Trump has succeeded, not least in the fact that, until this latest outburst on Greenland, we did have a much better deal on tariffs than, say, the European Union has had.

The treaty has been signed with the Mauritian government. So I can’t reverse the clock on that. The treaty has been signed. Parliament has a kind of enabling function on treaties. It’s not like a traditional piece of legislation. So it can’t unwind the treaty having been signed.

French president says ‘we prefer respect over bullies’ after leak of his text exchange with Trump

And Davos looks like the place to be this week, with Trump now declaring that after his call with Nato’s Rutte he will have “a meeting of the various parties” on Greenland – whatever that means and whoever is going to be involved.

Separately, it’s not clear if Macron’s offer of setting up a G7 meeting on the sidelines was accepted (although looking at timings it would risk clashing with the emergency EU summit on Thursday night), but his separate invitation to a dinner at the Élysée Palace might be gone after Trump’s very pointed and personal criticism of the French president.

Attacked the UK, mockingly calling it a “brilliant” ally, for “shocking” plan to hand over sovereignity of the Chagos islands to Mauritius (despite previous US support), saying it’s among a “long line” of reasons why Greenland “has to be acquired”

Leaked private text messages from France’s Emmanuel Macron and Nato’s Mark Rutte discussing his latest policy moves

Threatened France with 200% tariffs on French wine and champagne over Macron’s refusal to join the Gaza “board of peace”, said of Macron that “nobody wants him because he’s going to be out of office very soon”

Reiterated his intention of taking over Greenland as “imperative for national and world security,” saying “there can be no going back”

Posted an AI generated visual of himself planting the US flag on Greenland, saying it’s “US territory, est. 2026,” days after the US delegation agreed with Danish foreign minister for talks to be conducted behind closed doors, and not through threatening messages on social media.

US president says on social media that Britain’s decision to cede islands to Mauritius is ‘act of total weakness’

Donald Trump has suggested Britain’s decision to cede the Chagos Islands to Mauritius is among the reasons he wants to take over Greenland.

The US president, who is travelling to Davos in Switzerland for the World Economic Forum, made the claim as he ramped up his rhetoric on acquiring the Arctic territory.

Research comparing UK and US finds people with fewer qualifications more likely to support rightwing movements

Rightwing movements are struggling to gain support among graduates as education emerges as the most important dividing line in British attitudes towards politics, diversity and immigration, research has found.

A study from the independent National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) found people with qualifications below A-level were more than twice as likely to support rightwing parties compared with those with qualifications above.

Trial involving 4,000 children will explore impact on mental health, sleep and time spent with friends and family

A pioneering investigation into the impact of restricting social media access for children in the UK has been announced as politicians around the world consider action on the issue.

In December, Australia became the first country to ban under-16s from social media, with governments in other countries – including the UK – under pressure to do the same.

Ex-deputy PM says government must stick to plans to cap charges for leaseholders in England and Wales

• Is this Labour party for rich investors or hard-working leaseholders? We must make that clear today

Angela Rayner has urged Keir Starmer to stick to his campaign pledge to cap ground rents for leaseholders in England and Wales, as cabinet divisions over the government’s plans to rip up the leasehold system come to a head.

The former deputy prime minister has intervened in a tense standoff between Steve Reed, the housing secretary, and Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, over whether to stand by Labour’s promise to limit annual charges for existing leaseholders.

Son of David and Victoria Beckham takes to Instagram to open up about feud with parents

A very public spat on social media captured global attention and filled the front pages on Tuesday with its grave consequences for a once close relationship.

No, not the US president Donald Trump slamming the UK for its “extreme stupidity” but this was Brooklyn Peltz Beckham, son of David and Victoria Beckham, apparently permanently cutting ties with his family.

North Korean leader reportedly blames Yang Sung-ho for ‘confusion’ at factory project as major congress looms

The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has dismissed a vice-premier over troubles in a factory modernisation project, in an apparent move to tighten discipline among officials and push them to deliver greater results before a major political conference.

The upcoming ruling Workers’ party congress, the first of its kind in five years, is one of North Korea’s biggest propaganda spectacles and is intended to review past projects, establish new political and economic priorities and reshuffle officials.

British Museum hails record-breaking year for archaeological discoveries – thanks largely to metal detectorists

A hoard of pennies linked to Harold II and most likely buried on the eve of battle in 1066, a rare Roman vehicle fitting, and a group of early medieval objects are among the archaeological finds and treasure discovered in Britain in 2024.

It was a record-breaking year for archaeological and treasure finds in Britain, with the highest number recorded in a single year – thanks in large part to metal detectorists.

The Andaman coast was one of very few places in the world with a viable population but then dead dugongs began washing up. Now half have gone

A solitary figure stands on the shore of Thailand’s Tang Khen Bay. The tide is slowly rising over the expanse of sandy beach, but the man does not seem to notice. His eyes are not fixed on the sea, but on the small screen clutched between his hands.

About 600 metres offshore, past the shadowy fringe of coral reef, his drone hovers over the murky sea, focused on a whirling grey shape: Miracle, the local dugong, is back.

Gonzalo Sánchez, armed with tools and a quad bike, ferried rescuers and victims after collision near Córdoba

A lottery ticket seller in southern Spain has been hailed as a hero after he spent about six hours ferrying rescuers and victims around on his quad bike after the train collision that killed at least 41 people and injured dozens of others.

Gonzalo Sánchez, 43, was at home in the small town of Adamuz when the town’s WhatsApp group alerted to reports of a train that had derailed nearby.

For three weeks, I wore stickers on my skin supposed to address all sorts of conditions. Are they a panacea, problem or performance?

This morning, I woke up feeling a little groggy. My go-to remedy is usually a coffee and cold-water face plunge, followed by a compulsive phone scroll. But today called for something more, so I unpeeled a small, yellow “energy” patch the size of a walnut, popped it on to my upper arm and hoped for the best.

The patch (£12 for 30) contains – so the packaging says – vitamins B5, B3 and a “microdose” of caffeine. It is made by Kind Patches, which is one brand in an increasingly crowded market of wellness stickers that claim to treat everything from lack of sleep to period pains to pimples. They are coin-sized, and often come in TikTok-friendly shades of sunflower yellow and peachy orange: you may have seen a teenager sporting a star-shaped one on their face to treat spots, or influencers patting blue magnesium ones on their wrists before bed.

‘The Woody’ was crammed and chaotic, and nobody could be rushed. There was always time for another pint and conversation

I felt eyes on me the second I stepped into the pub. It was as though we were interlopers in a sacred space – everyone turned to look. Self-consciously, I walked to a door labelled “BAR” and pushed it open, and was met by further stares at me and my female companion. Only once we had got our pints and sat down did we notice the “GENTS ONLY” sign on the wall.

Our cartoonist on the latest manager in north London to take the good ship Tottenham in the wrong direction

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As a study says a pet death can hurt as much as that of a relative, three people describe their emotions

Grief over the death of a pet could be as chronic as that for a human family member, according to research. The study, published in the academic journal PLOS One, suggests grieving pet owners can suffer from prolonged grief disorder (PGD).

PGD is a mental health condition that can last months or even years, and often involves intense longing and despair, and problems socialising and going about daily tasks. Currently, only those grieving the loss of a person can be diagnosed.

Looking to cut heating bills or warm just one room without firing up the boiler? We cosied up to 12 electric heaters to find the best

• The best hot-water bottles

Are you in need of a stopgap stand-in for your central heating? Or perhaps you’re looking for an efficient appliance to heat a small space. If so, investing in one of the best electric heaters will rid the cold from your home.

Electric heaters range from compact, fast-acting fan-powered models to oil-filled radiators and wall-mounted panels. Some also have smart functionality, so you can ask Alexa to turn up the heat, and other advanced features such as air purification and adaptive heating. But which are best?

Best electric heater overall:
Beldray 2,000W smart ceramic core radiator

Best budget electric heater:
Russell Hobbs oscillating ceramic 2kW heater

From charity workers to synchronised swimmers via a young lad having tea with his nan, these people all inspired award-winning photographs

The idea that the liberal rules-based order can survive his presidency now seems complacent. This is a historic moment – and a time to act

A European-wide chorus of resistance, led this morning by Keir Starmer, has greeted Donald Trump’s plan to take over Greenland, by force if necessary, and to start a tariff war if any country stands in his way. Have no doubt, this is a moment: if pursued as a non-negotiable demand, Trump’s plan ends any lingering hope that the liberal rules-based order can stumble on through his remaining time in office. The real question now is whether the 2020s will be defined by the complete collapse of the order’s already crumbling pillars and the atrocities accompanying it, or whether an international coalition of the willing can come together to build a new global framework in its place.

For, in quick succession, the US has abandoned its longstanding championing of the rule of law, human rights, democracy and the territorial integrity of nation states. Gone is its erstwhile support for humanitarian aid and environmental stewardship. Gone, too, is the founding principle of the postwar settlement: that countries choose diplomacy and multilateral cooperation over aggression and unilateral action. We cannot doubt any longer that the president meant it when he said he doesn’t “need international law”, and that the only constraint on his exercise of power would be “my own morality, my own mind”.

Gordon Brown is the UN’s special envoy for global education and was UK prime minister from 2007 to 2010

A titanic battle is raging to prevent us capping crippling ground rents that families have to pay, often to faceless companies. We must fight and win it

• Rayner urges Starmer to keep promise on leasehold reform

At cabinet last Tuesday the prime minister reportedly made a powerful case for a government that serves the interests of those struggling to get by. He is right. The cost of living emergency is the issue of our time.

It is a crisis not months, but years in the making. For more than two decades, living standards have been crushed and there is an increasing sense of a country where people cannot get on, of a system stacked against them.

Angela Rayner is the Labour MP for Ashton-under-Lyne and a former deputy prime minister

Kemi Badenoch may look like a stronger leader now, but Jenrick is a dangerous rival – he knows where the Conservatives have been going wrong

Any assessment of the long-term impact of Robert Jenrick’s defection on the Conservative party must start with what you think he represents – not merely the what of his views, and his popularity with the party grassroots, but the why of them.

Is he merely a talented opportunist, a snake in the Tory Eden who was leading it astray? Or was he trying to answer the challenge of the moment, which many of his former colleagues simply preferred to ignore?

Henry Hill is deputy editor of ConservativeHome

People are serious about wanting to see each other without getting drunk – and they could be on to something

Obviously I’m familiar with the concept of the sauna, because I’ve been to Iceland, where most socialising seems to entail either being unbearably cold or way too hot, but never until 2026 have I been required to engage with it at the coal face, which is to say, go to one. I thought that if anyone went, it was because they had a medical condition. This turns out not to be true, and suddenly saunas are huge. One friend has a sauna club. Another friend has opened a sauna. Even though I’m still nowhere near understanding the point, I went along because what else could I do? I’m a joiner.

These are the rules: even though you’re sitting really close to people, motionless, with nothing to look at or read or do, nothing standing between you and your own thoughts, you are still not allowed to interrogate others about why they’re there or even the basics – how they know each other, if they’re in love, whether they had a nice day.

I wish I were wrong, but all I see is a paranoid state digging in

Iran is caught in yet another round of widespread civil unrest. These lines are written amid an internet blackout and I didn’t know if I’d be able to send them out. Ever since the 2009 post-election uprising, sporadic outbursts of public anger have become somewhat the order of the day, mostly silenced – brutally for a while – only to fester and uncork again on another occasion.

The street protest is not the sole medium through which opposition has tried to convey its dissent. Iranians have tried everything – be it the very narrow and funnelled channel of elections between the limited choices offered by the state, or on social media, in universities and at public events. The demand for meaningful change is repeated through different means, again and again, yet to no avail. Ever since the 2000s, the Iranian state heeds little in the way of democratic demands. And when there has been a narrow crack in the state bulwark, the likes of Donald Trump – by the reimposition of sanctions and violating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – sabotaged and derailed civil attempts at reforming the Islamic republic.

The writer lives in Iran

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For all the golden moments, rewatching coverage from 40 years ago was a lesson in how much things have improved

Forty years ago this month, the Pet Shop Boys track West End Girls topped the charts. Manchester United, Liverpool, Everton and Chelsea were locked in a four-way battle for the title. And Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared on Wogan. Terry: “This new film you’ve made, Commando: it’s very violent isn’t it?” Arnie: “Actually, it’s low-key. I only kill around 100 people.”

How do I know this? Because Facebook’s algorithm serves it to me daily. Terrifyingly, it understands me better than I understand myself. A half-forgotten goal, race or innings? That is my sugar-salt-fat magic. An old Top 40 chart or TV listing? My double‑strength nicotine patch.

In a country plagued by underdog status and a sport fraught with a history of racism, misogyny and homophobia, this adaptation has reimagined what’s possible

I grew up in a hockey town where there was no escaping Canada’s beloved sport. Our suburban streets doubled as rinks; the choppy slap of tennis balls reverberating against hockey sticks a constant sound. As pre-teens, my friends and I would put on lip gloss and tight jeans to hang out at the Friday night junior hockey games. I still find comfort in the sound of skate blades slicing across ice and that sweaty, chemical odour of public arenas.

My experiences are not unique in a country with a 95-year-old broadcast institution called Hockey Night in Canada. Rachel Reid, the Nova Scotian author of the queer hockey romance Heated Rivalry, grew up a hockey fanatic, more interested in playing the game than ogling boys. Jacob Tierney, who wrote and directed the TV adaptation of Reid’s 2019 bestseller, was raised in Montreal, where the Canadiens (or the Habs, as the team is affectionately known) are considered sacred.

Sue Carter is a Toronto-based freelance writer and arts worker

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Rising violence in hospitals is part of a disturbing pattern that must be addressed with actions as well as words

Prof Nicola Ranger, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), is right to describe the rising level of violence directed at NHS staff in England as an emergency. Freedom of information requests by the Guardian have uncovered a sharp increase in the number of reported attacks in hospitals, with an average of 285 each day in 2024-25. Some of the details shared with our reporters were horrifying. One A&E nurse said that she sees weapons brandished on a monthly basis, and described two incidents in which male patients deliberately ejaculated on nurses while waiting for treatment. A consultant – now retired – said that he had been violently assaulted twice within a period of weeks.

The increase in racist incidents is also gravely concerning. Because the UK’s health workforce is so diverse, and interacts constantly with the public, its members are highly exposed to rising anti-migrant sentiment. In November the health secretary, Wes Streeting, expressed shock at the impact on the NHS of resurgent “1970s-, 1980s-style racism”.

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This simple idea has travelled around the world, bringing hope and inspiration to millions

Who, when travelling on the London Underground, hasn’t gone up the escalators with a spring in their step after reading Adrian Mitchell’s Celia Celia (“When I walk along High Holborn / I think of you with nothing on”) or been soothed by Carol Ann Duffy’s Prayer? This month Poems on the Underground celebrates its 40th anniversary.

Inspired by a reading of As You Like It, Judith Chernaik, an American writer living in London, conceived a plan to scatter poetry across the underground as the love-sick Orlando hangs sonnets through the Forest of Arden. Her simple idea took root below the sewers and spread to cities across the world. Poetry in Motion launched in New York in 1992, and today poems can be found on public transport in Dublin, Paris, Beijing, Shanghai, Warsaw and Moscow.

It is horrifying that victims and survivors of abuse can be traced by someone with no licence or training who is willing to take a perpetrator’s money, writes Noor Da Silva

I was grateful to read the Guardian investigation revealing how perpetrators of abuse are using private investigators to further harm by proxy, exposing the unseen threat faced by victims and their supporters (You feel violated’: how stalkers outsource abuse to private investigators, 11 January).

As the manager of a sexual and domestic abuse service, I see the impact of stalking on a monthly basis, not as an adjacent concern but as one of the clearest predictors of intimate partner homicide we have. Victim-survivors who disclose stalking and associated behaviours are rarely paranoid; they are often correctly identifying imminent danger.

Adrian Chiles’s column about dog poo left readers thinking about other types of animal excrement and etiquette

Adrian Chiles traces the recent history of dog owners picking up their dog’s poo, starting from New York (I’ve been thinking a lot about dog poo, 14 January). Certainly in this country it is now possible to go for a walk in the countryside or in towns without having to watch your step.

However, quite often a footpath or bridleway is made impassable due to large dumps of horse manure. Dog owners have taken on their duty to clear up after their pets, always armed with dog-poo bags. Why are horse owners and riders allowed to make much larger, smellier and long-lasting heaps of horse excrement? I can imagine that it would be inconvenient for a horse rider to dismount so as to clear up the poo, but I don’t see why the riding stables should not have this duty. I look forward to the day when walkers can enjoy the environment free of dog and horse-made hazards.
Ros Ward
Durham

Of course one doll cannot show the breadth, richness and even pain of the autistic experience, says Dr Erin Beeston

As the parent/carer of autistic children, I’m pleased that my kids have more visibility in mainstream culture with the launch of the “autistic Barbie” doll (Mattel launches its first autistic Barbie, 12 January). For the kids, they’re interested, but, given my youngest’s penchant for graffiti, “autistic Barbie” will be drawn all over and resemble “weird Barbie” in no time.

I’ve found it hard to share this pleasure, having seen my academic and activist colleagues slam the doll. I completely understand their reasoning. Of course it lacks nuance to use visible accessories to represent a hidden disability. Of course one doll cannot show the breadth, richness and even pain of the autistic experience.

Alien lifeforms | Power of prayer | Corned beef | Remembering birthdays | Celebrity old-age home

Your article (Nasa moon rocket creeps to its launchpad in preparation for astronaut flight, 18 January) quotes the crew commander of Artemis II, Reid Wiseman: “They are so fired up that we are headed back to the moon. They just want to see humans as far away from Earth as possible.” I imagine that most of Earth’s lifeforms would agree.
Pete Stockwell
St Buryan, Cornwall

• Ravi Holy’s thought-provoking article on the power and purpose of prayer (19 January) reminded me of a favourite cartoon. Two monks are sitting on either side of a chess board and about to start a new game, with one of them saying: “Right, this time praying’s cheating.”
Matthew Newman
Leeds

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• Bencic wins 6-0, 7-5 after Briton rallies in second set

• Sonay Kartal dispatched 7-6(3), 6-1 by Kalinskaya

Before her meeting with one of the most in-form tennis players in the world, Katie Boulter reassured herself in all the right ways. All the pressure, she reasoned, would be on her opponent’s shoulders and nobody expected her to win, meaning this was the perfect opportunity to swing freely.

Even when playing with total freedom, toppling a confident top 10 player is an immense challenge. As the sun set over Margaret Court Arena, and Boulter attempted to impose her weapons in her first round match against the 10th seed Belinda Bencic, the former British No 1 was outclassed by a sensational Bencic, who confidently closed out a comfortable 6-0, 7-5 win.

The football and tennis writer, who has died aged 84, was a major force in changing the Guardian’s sports coverage, alongside long stints at the Daily Express and Independent

In my mind’s eye I remember it all. John Roberts, the Guardian’s northern-based football writer, had come down on a rare visit to the sports desk in London. I was a new boy on the subeditors’ desk. Everyone was pleased to see John: he was that kind of bloke.

While he was there, the chief sub wondered, could he perhaps look at a news agency story from his beat that had just come in. It could have been anything: the latest signing by Bob Paisley or Malcolm Allison or the latest misadventure of George Best. Instead of giving it the once-over or adding a sentence or two, he walked over to a quiet corner, picked up an office phone and started a long call. By the end he had the full story. There was an air of amazement in the room.

• Crystal Palace and West Ham also keen on midfielder

• Oleksandr Zinchenko close to permanent Ajax move

Ethan Nwaneri is poised to join Marseille on loan until the end of the season, with Arsenal keen to allow the England Under-21 midfielder to depart given he has barely featured this season.

Nwaneri has played 165 minutes in the Premier League, having excelled in his breakthrough campaign, when he scored nine goals in all competitions. He has not appeared in the league since the end of November, when he came on in the north London derby.

• Midfielder in talks to extend deal beyond summer 2028

• He denies error against Barnsley was show of disrepesct

Dominik Szoboszlai has confirmed talks are progressing over a new contract at Liverpool but “no decision” has been reached over his future.

The Hungary captain has been Liverpool’s standout performer this season and is under contract at the club until the summer of 2028. The Premier League champions are keen to reward the midfielder’s progress since he arrived in a £60m deal from RB Leipzig in July 2023 and consider him a potential future captain. The 25-year-old insists he would be happy to stay at Anfield with the caveat that there is always uncertainty in football.

While the famous penalty technique is the ultimate act of showmanship, the cost of failure is too high to justify

Being too smart for your own good is usually drummed out of children before they leave school but sometimes people cannot help themselves. The Panenka penalty, successfully executed, offers the limited benefit of making a goalkeeper look silly and the taker a genius but Brahim Díaz is the latest to learn the cost of what happens when it goes wrong.

Díaz was given 15 minutes to consider what to do with his spot-kick after the ludicrous levels of drama in the Africa Cup of Nations final. Maybe this was his undoing: being able to ponder every option, from the rudimentary to the artistic, until deciding to replicate Antonin Panenka’s creation with what could, and should, have been the last kick of the tournament.

• Donald in Dubai and to discuss Adare Manor in 2027

• Potential captain Justin Rose expected still to play

Luke Donald will hold talks with senior officials at the European Tour Group this week in Dubai, as the Englishman edges closer to a third stint as Europe’s Ryder Cup captain. While no announcement is imminent, there is a rising sense Donald will seek to make history by leading Europe to three Ryder Cup successes in a row.

Donald, who is in the field for this weekend’s Dubai Desert Classic, has taken time to consider his position since Europe retained the trophy at Bethpage in September. The former world No 1 had already been the captain when Europe prevailed in Rome two years earlier. “I think it’s Luke’s if he wants it,” said Shane Lowry, a key member of the European team. The next Ryder Cup takes place at Adare Manor next year.

The Six Nations is a key staging post on the road to next year’s World Cup and with injuries biting, Wales offer the only real chance to experiment

On the face of it the Champions Cup has been helpful for the majority of Six Nations head coaches before this year’s championship. Gregor Townsend, for example, would dearly love Scotland to play with the purpose and passion currently oozing from Glasgow and will doubtless wish to ensure his national side exhibit similar characteristics.

Ditto France. If Fabien Galthié overlooks the electric form of Matthieu Jalibert, particularly with Romain Ntamack out injured for the next few weeks, his trademark thick-rimmed glasses must have misted up. There can be no rational reason not to bury la hachette with the Bordeaux fly-half and invite him to combine as brilliantly with Louis Bielle-Biarrey and Damian Penaud as the trio do at club level.

The benefit of national team players honing skills abroad is balanced by concerns over a weakened NWSL

The dust has yet to settle on Trinity Rodman’s club status, but the star USA forward’s near future has ignited an emphatic revival of an old debate on this side of the Atlantic.

How does the National Women’s Soccer League stack up against its top competitor leagues? At what point should the league be worried, if top USWNT talent trickles across the Atlantic? And what, if anything, can be done to stop the flow?

• Manager has ‘been feeling the trust’ from club hierarchy

• Spurs hampered by injury crisis before visit of Dortmund

Thomas Frank has insisted the Tottenham hierarchy are standing with him in the face of the storm gripping the club.

The manager’s job is in the balance, his situation precarious after the home defeat against West Ham on Saturday. The Spurs support were so incensed by the result and the continuation of the team’s terrible Premier League form – they have won twice in their past 13 league matches – that they demanded Frank be “sacked in the morning”.

Exclusive: Green party leader advocates leaving Nato and says Britain should wean itself off its reliance on the US

The UK should consider expelling the US from British military bases, the leader of the Green party has said, as he advocated leaving Nato and spending less on American weapons as part of a wider dismantling of the two countries’ defence alliance.

Zack Polanski told the Guardian he believed Britain should wean itself off its reliance on American military cooperation, though would not say whether he supported spending more money to replace that capability.

Streaming company says proposal speeds up completion and allows WBD investors to vote as soon as April

Netflix has sweetened its $82.7bn (£61.5bn) offer for the studios and streaming businesses of Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) by making it an all-cash deal, streamlining its potential completion in the face of a hostile bid from Paramount Skydance.

The streaming company had originally secured the unanimous backing of the WBD board last month with a cash-and-shares proposal that valued the business at $27.75 a share.

Shops, restaurants and hotels particularly hit by slowdown in hiring, as unemployment remains at 5.1%

• Business live – latest updates

The number of employed people in the UK has fallen, particularly in shops, restaurants, bars and hotels, reflecting weak hiring, while private sector wages grew at the slowest rate in five years, official figures show.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed the number of employees on payrolls fell by 43,000 in December from the previous month, to 30.2 million – the biggest monthly drop since November 2020.

Full VAT on meat products could cost EU households as little as €26 a year but cut impact by 3-6%, says paper

The environmental impacts of meat consumption could be rapidly and cheaply reduced if governments applied full VAT on products such as beef, pork, lamb and chicken, a study has shown.

Depending on how the additional tax revenues were redistributed, such a change could cost households as little as €26 (£23) a year, while cutting ecological destruction by between 3% and 6%, the paper found.

Salvatore Mancuso given 40-year sentence, which could be reduced after truth and reparation activities

A Colombian court has sentenced a former paramilitary leader to 40 years in prison for crimes committed against Indigenous communities in the province of La Guajira, including homicides, forced disappearances and the displacement of people from 2002 to 2006.

The special tribunal that hears cases from the country’s armed conflict said in its ruling that Salvatore Mancuso was responsible for 117 crimes committed by fighters under his command in La Guajira. However, it added that Mancuso’s time in prison could be reduced to eight years, if he collaborated with truth and reparation activities that benefited victims of his former paramilitary group.

Even 25% increase in meat and dairy consumption would require 100m more acres of agricultural land, analysis says

The Trump administration’s new dietary guidelines urging Americans to eat far more meat and dairy products will, if followed, come at a major cost to the planet via huge swathes of habitat razed for farmland and millions of tons of extra planet-heating emissions.

A new inverted food pyramid recently released by Donald Trump’s health department emphasizes pictures of steak, poultry, ground beef and whole milk, alongside fruits and vegetables, as the most important foods to eat.

Changing temperatures may be behind change in behaviour, which experts fear threatens three species’ survival

Penguins in Antarctica have radically shifted their breeding season, apparently as a response to climate change, research has found.

Dramatic shifts in behaviour were revealed by a decade-long study led by Penguin Watch at the University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University, with some penguins’ breeding period moving forward by more than three weeks.

Trust had $254m invested in companies such as Chevron, BP and Shell in 2024, a nine-year record, analysis shows

The Gates Foundation Trust holds hundreds of millions of dollars in fossil fuel extractors despite Bill Gates’ claims of divestment made in 2019.

End-of-year filings reveal that in 2024 the trust invested $254m in companies that extract fossil fuels such as Chevron, BP and Shell. This was a nine-year record and up 21% from 2016, Guardian analysis found. Adjusting for inflation, it was the highest amount since 2019.

Study links rapid growth of ocean macroalgae to global heating and nutrient pollution

Scientists have warned of a potential “regime shift” in the oceans, as the rapid growth of huge mats of seaweed appears to be driven by global heating and excessive enrichment of waters from farming runoff and other pollutants.

Over the past two decades, seaweed blooms have expanded by a staggering 13.4% a year in the tropical Atlantic and western Pacific, with the most dramatic increases occurring after 2008, according to researchers at the University of South Florida.

Exclusive: Campaigners claim changes will let companies ‘off the hook’, as government prepares to unveil new white paper for water industry

Water companies could be let off fines for polluting the environment under changes announced in the government’s new white paper.

The environment secretary, Emma Reynolds, hailed the changes as “once-in-a-generation reforms” featuring “tough oversight, real accountability and no more excuses”.

Plans to speed up airspace changes for Heathrow expansion could mean industry influences decisions on noise and routes

Aviation campaigners have warned that communities risk being locked out of decisions about new flight paths as the government accelerates reforms that will allow a third runway at Heathrow to go ahead.

Airspace around the UK will be reconfigured as part of a long-running modernisation process to allow planes to fly more efficiently and minimise delays, and the London airport has said progress in this area is essential for its expansion.

Cancer charity highlights apparent ‘postcode lottery’ of testing and diagnoses across different regions seen in study

Prostate cancer is now the most commonly diagnosed form of cancer across the UK, surpassing breast cancer, according to a leading charity.

There were 64,425 diagnoses of prostate cancer in 2022, an analysis of NHS figures by Prostate Cancer UK found, and 61,640 new cases of breast cancer.

Guidance for GPs and nurses says other factors should be taken into account, such as changes in behaviour

A child’s body mass index should not be the key factor when deciding which under-18s get help for an eating disorder, the NHS has told health professionals.

The new guidance from NHS England to GPs and nurses follows criticism that over-reliance on BMI has led to children who have an illness such as anorexia or bulimia being misdiagnosed and missing out on care.

Unclear if court will publish much-anticipated ruling on the legality of Trump’s tariffs as US president doubles down on Greenland threats

A second man being held at a US immigration detention facility in Texas has died in two weeks, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said on Monday.

Victor Manuel Diaz, 36, originally from Nicaragua, was found “unconscious and unresponsive in his room” on 14 January at the Camp East Montana detention facility in El Paso, ICE said in a press release.

Red caps are becoming a symbol of protest in Denmark as Donald Trump ratchets up the pressure on Greenland

Red baseball caps spoofing Donald Trump’s Maga hats have become a symbol of Danish and Greenlandic defiance against the US president’s threat to seize the frozen territory.

The caps reading “Make America Go Away” – parodying Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan – have gained popularity, along with several variants on social media and at public protests, including a weekend demonstration held in freezing weather in Copenhagen.

Unions, faith groups and local leaders urge residents not to work, shop or go to school after killing of Renee Good

Labor unions, community leaders and faith groups are calling for an economic blackout in Minnesota on Friday to protest the surge of federal immigration agents in the state and mourn Renee Good.

Organizers are urging Minnesotans not to work, shop or go to school. The Trump administration has dispatched some 3,000 federal agents to the state, in what it claims amounts to its largest enforcement operation thus far, amid a broader crackdown on immigration.

Driver said he could barely see the cars in front of him and heard ‘bangs and booms’ behind him

More than 100 vehicles smashed into each other or slid off the interstate in Michigan on Monday as snow fueled by the Great Lakes blanketed the state.

The massive pileup prompted the Michigan state police to close both directions of Interstate 196 just south-west of Grand Rapids on Monday morning while officials worked to remove all the vehicles, including more than 30 semitrailer trucks. The state police said there were numerous injuries, but no deaths had been reported.

Total pay of the qualification body’s top six executives has risen by 240% to £6.2m since charity sold it

The new owners of the vocational training body City & Guilds appear to have more than tripled the pay of its top six executives right at the moment the company is cutting £22m of costs and shrinking its UK workforce.

The large increases to salary and bonuses have emerged during a scandal over the sale of the qualification awards business by its former owner, the UK charity City & Guilds London Institute (CGLI), to the international certification company PeopleCert.

Maryam Eslamdoust, the leader of the TSSA transport union, says GMB officials tried to push her out of her job

The GMB union is facing fresh claims of bullying behaviour, after the female leader of a rival Labour-linked union accused its officials of trying to push her out of her job in a way that affected her health.

Maryam Eslamdoust, the first ever female leader of the TSSA transport union and a former mayor of Camden council, said the actions of GMB officials caused her significant stress and suggested that a male leader would not have been treated in the same way.

Despite much soul-searching over UK’s inability to build infrastructure, two sections of HS2 under Chilterns are being hailed for their engineering

Seventy metres down, in deep incognito beneath a disguised ventilation shaft in the Chilterns countryside, lies HS2’s buried treasure: two 10-mile tunnels, built to avoid an area of outstanding natural beauty, eerily spectacular in gleaming concrete.

They are, laments a staffer on the high-speed railway scheme, what all of the route should look like by now: pristine, fully constructed, and just waiting for a railway to run through them.

Fund warns rising geopolitical tensions could have ‘material impact’ on global growth and investment

• Gold and silver hit record highs as markets reel

Donald Trump’s tariff threats over Greenland risk triggering a “spiral of escalation” that would damage the world economy and lead to a sharp sell-off in financial markets, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said.

In an update as Trump threatened to impose tariffs on Nato allies opposed to his ambition to take over the Arctic territory from Denmark, the Washington-based fund said a renewed eruption in trade tensions was among the biggest risks to global growth in 2026.

Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London
Despite never being a huge pop force after her years as Disney star Lizzie McGuire, fans come from Brazil and Saudi Arabia for Duff’s charming, self-deprecating return

It’s fair to say that US actor-singer-writer-entrepreneur Hilary Duff has never been a force to be reckoned with in pop music. Her songs and albums have neither been particularly critically acclaimed nor commercially dominant; many people would know her only as Lizzie McGuire, hero of the Disney Channel sitcom from the early 00s. But for the 38-year-old Duff’s first live performance in 18 years, she’s met with a sold-out crowd screaming back every word of her music like they are all universally adored hits. Duff seems overwhelmed by the rapturous reception. Fans have come from Brazil, Saudi Arabia and all over Europe, and they are often so loud you can’t hear the woman on stage.

But after the shock wears off, Duff shows no signs of rust and her fierce sincerity combined with girl next door charm infuses the night with euphoria and escapism. When she jumps up and down on the stage’s sofa singing Why Not, you get the sense that this is how everyone in the crowd once sang the song in their adolescence. She’s also not afraid to poke fun at herself and her past: she brings three fans on stage to recreate the low-energy dance choreography of her 2007 single With Love that went viral on TikTok in 2021.

The 17-song set expertly sprinkles five new numbers from forthcoming album Luck … Or Something in between fan favourites such as 2015’s criminally underrated Sparks and 2003’s So Yesterday to keep the mood elevated. Time has made Duff’s voice more textured and refined, adding new depth to songs like Fly and Come Clean, though the twee Someone’s Watching Over Me, a ballad about self-acceptance, is cloying.

The biggest noise of the night comes with the one-two encore of her new single Mature and the Lizzie McGuire classic What Dreams Are Made Of. A wild singalong ensues complete with pink butterfly confetti as a giddy Duff jumps for joy on stage. It’s an emotional conclusion that takes this devoted crowd to new levels of noisy rapture and proves that Duff could easily put music at the centre of her portfolio career.

Chi is back with her to-do list in Things You Should Have Done. Plus, a predatory coach targets Portia in Waterloo Road. Here’s what to watch this evening

10pm, BBC Three
Lucia Keskin returns with her deadpan brand of comedy in the award-winning sitcom. Working through a list of things to do with her life, left by her dead parents, aimless Chi is feeling good – until the police are back on her doorstep with news of her aunt’s death. It’s a good time to tick therapy off the list with questionable grief counsellor Ruth, played by the always very welcome Bridget Christie. Hollie Richardson

Emojis explode all over the screen in this hyperactive adaptation of a Japanese folk tale about a princess who has run away from the moon

Never has a film been more deserving of an exclamation mark at the end of the title than this animation from Japan. Cosmic Princess Kaguya! is an adaptation of a Japanese folk tale, the story of a princess from the moon discovered inside a bamboo stalk in a poor rural village. A decade ago, Studio Ghibli adapted the tale into a gorgeously animated movie with a traditional, lovingly hand-painted feel. This film could not be more different, a trippy, high-energy, techno anime set in the near future, half of it in a virtual reality world – and TikTok-ifed with emojis and stickers exploding all over the screen.

It begins when a 17-year-old high school student called Iroha finds a baby girl inside a glowing lamppost (rather than the bamboo stalk of the original). Iroha (voiced by Dawn M Bennett in the English dub) is a sensible kid, a talented musician and grade-A student who has already moved out of the family home and is living alone, working all hours to pay the rent of her tiny studio flat. In any free time she does have, Iroha follows her idol, AI musical megastar Yachiyo, in a crazy, chaotic virtual reality world called Tsukuyomi.

The real world is way worse than Westeros – so why not let this heartwarming underdog tale of a simple soul and his ethereal squire be your safe space

‘Bless their little cotton socks!” is not a response one expects to have to any of the inhabitants of Westeros, the land of the bloody, violent, incestuous and often depraved series of Game of Thrones. But the endearing protagonists of the latest spin-off of the franchise, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, invite it.

Their names, as in the George RR Martin novellas on which the series is based, are Dunk – short for Ser Duncan the Tall – and Egg. Dunk (Peter Claffey, a suitably tall former Irish rugby union player, last seen in Bad Sisters) was squire to a hedge – non-noble – knight, Ser Arlan of Pennytree (Danny Webb), who took the boy under his wing but never quite got round to knighting the man before dying. We first meet Dunk burying his mentor under an old elm tree and taking up his arms against the sea of troubles that are about to engulf him. Dunk is a simple soul (very simple, some might say – he may look like a medieval Jack Reacher, but inside he is more of an eager but baffled labrador) and sets out to find a lord he can himself serve as a hedge knight.

Ivan Sautkin films efforts to help residents abandon their frontline homes, as well as a pensioner acting as a spy for the Ukrainian army from the Russian border

There is a scene in this Ukrainian documentary in which a woman gruffly shrugs off the offer of evacuation from her property on the frontline. Her son has put in the request to the volunteer humanitarian team ferrying civilians to safety in the east of the country. But she is caring for her brother, who is paralysed, the woman protests – and what about her German shepherd? As explosions boom terrifyingly close, a volunteer patiently explains that his team will carry her brother to the minivan – and don’t worry, bring the dog. Eventually, the woman agrees to leave, brusquely wiping away a tear.

Director Ivan Sautkin is a film-maker by trade and served as a volunteer on the evacuation team. A Poem for Little People is his one-man film; Sautkin is behind the camera, recording everything. These are no interviews, explainers or voiceovers (which admittedly makes it hard to follow at times). The leader of the volunteers is Anton, a cool head under the heaviest fire. The trauma is raw, the situations desperate – in one, volunteers drive an elderly woman out of harm’s way, but as they bump along cracked, potholed roads, they question if they are doing the right thing putting her through the agonising journey.

We are in 1942 Stuttgart – though the sight of modern wheelie bins says otherwise – as a woman at a facility dedicated to breeding Aryan babies tries to smuggle two Jewish children to safety

This second world war-set drama should not be confused with a famous unrealised film project of similar name. That one is the Holocaust-themed feature based on the novel Wartime Lies by Louis Begley that Stanley Kubrick tinkered with for years before finally abandoning; Suspiria director Luca Guadagnino is now rumoured to be trying to get it off the ground. Like the Kubrick/Guadagnino, this Aryan Papers, written and directed by ultra-low-budget film-maker Danny Patrick (The Film Festival, The Irish Connection), takes its name from the Nazi-issued certificate, also known as the Ariernachweis, which people were compelled to carry during those dark times to prove they weren’t Jews, Roma or from another persecuted minority.

Apparently, Kubrick abandoned his Aryan Papers in part because he feared it wouldn’t do as well at the box office if it came out after Schindler’s List – just as Full Metal Jacket appeared to have been eclipsed by Platoon. Fortunately for Guadagnino, no matter if and when his Aryan Papers comes out, he will have little to worry about with regards to Patrick’s film, a work that with any luck will be forgotten by next week. Like the embarrassingly bad comedy The Film Festival (AKA The Worst Film Festival Ever), this is a shockingly poor effort on just about every level, from the inept, back-of-a-beer-mat script, the lazy use of obviously not-German, non-period-proofed locations (a modern plastic wheelie bin is visible in several shots), to the frankly insultingly bad acting throughout.

Kings Place, London
At over four hours without a break, Morton Feldman’s work dedicated to his artist friend is challenging, but in a rare live performance, the concentration of its performers made it an unforgettable experience

Running to four and a half hours without a break, Morton Feldman’s late work For Philip Guston is long by any standards. Non-athletes can finish marathons in less time; even the apocalyptic final instalment of Wagner’s Ring cycle is shorter. Yet the most striking thing about the work is its economy. An opening sequence of four pitches played by three musicians provides the musical material that is transformed, transposed, stretched and compressed throughout. Notes and motifs are repeated and multiply, echoing across the ever-sparse texture. The tempo is consistently slow, the dynamic consistently quiet. Rhythms are complex, but subtly so, making the instances of absolute synchrony into passing miracles. Time is the only resource with which Feldman is profligate.

Challenged on the work’s scale, Feldman once quipped, “it’s a short four hours!” I’m not sure all attending this rare performance in Kings Place’s Memory Unwrapped series would have agreed. Seats creaked constantly as people wriggled, late arrivals crept in and others trickled out. Coughs were half stifled. Phones buzzed. Someone near me went through an inexplicable, maddening phase of humming along.

This unbelievable, Alice Levine-narrated true story sees governments fooled by a fake bomb detector. Plus, Peter Bradshaw’s darkly comic thriller about a charming nurse

Alice Levine narrates this scam story in customary wry fashion. We meet Steve, an ex-copper who helps his childhood best pal sell his cutting-edge bomb detector, only to end up with detectives arresting him. It’s a slickly produced tale of a con that fooled governments and militaries, with action flitting from questionable Hong Kong banks to the Iraqi airports in which it’s installed as a security measure – with potentially lethal consequences. Alexi Duggins
Widely available, episodes weekly

The former heptathlete throws shapes to Cameo and got gold-medal inspiration from Whitney, but which rapper helps get her out of bed?

The first song I fell in love with
I was at nursery school when Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen was the song of the moment. I remember seeing the video on Top of the Pops, which is chilling at first, but epic when it gets to the big guitar break.

The first single I bought
My mum had this little record player that used to keep me very entertained, so I got her to buy me Ring My Bell by Anita Ward for my birthday or Christmas, from a record shop in Wolverhampton.

(A$AP Rocky Recordings)
Now a father of three and burgeoning actor, Rocky finally comes back to music with his strongest album since his 2013 debut – though there’s plenty of flab

It has been eight years since A$AP Rocky, once and future king of New York rap, released an album. In the world of hip-hop, where even A-list stars such as Rocky’s friend and collaborator Tyler, the Creator are prone to releasing multiple albums a year, this is a lifetime. In the time since Rocky released his third album, 2018’s Testing, Kanye West has rebranded as a born-again Christian, swerved to the right and released five albums. Rocky hasn’t been sitting around: he’s been a press mainstay, thanks to his relationship with pop superstar Rihanna, with whom he now has three children, and last year was acquitted of firing a gun at a former friend, dodging up to 24 years in prison. He has also found acclaim as an actor, starring opposite Rose Byrne in the lauded dark comedy If I Had Legs I’d Kick You and Denzel Washington in Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest.

Aside from a few one-off singles, such as the Tame Impala collaboration Sundress, Rocky has released music in fits and starts in recent years. (In terms of mainstream stars, perhaps only Rocky’s romantic partner outpaces him when it comes to leaving fans waiting: it has been a decade since Rihanna’s last record.) Testing yielded the Skepta-featuring hit Praise the Lord (Da Shine), but otherwise fell flat with mainstream audiences and critics alike, lacking the dynamism and potent charisma of his breakout albums. That album seemed to leave Rocky at a crossroads. Would it serve him best to continue exploring its slipshod experimentalism, or to make an attempt at retrenchment, and return to the more straightforward music that made him famous?

In this larky autofiction, the ups and downs of creative life are cartoonishly dramatised as the writer becomes an action hero

Rob Doyle’s previous novel, Threshold, took the form of a blackly comic travelogue narrated by an Irish writer named Rob. In one episode before Rob becomes an author, we see him as a sexually pent-up teacher abroad, masturbating over an essay he’s marking. That the scene is an echo of one in Michel Houellebecq’s Atomised (once named by Doyle as the best book from the past 40 years) hardly lessens our discomfort, and it’s hard not to feel that our unease is precisely the point. “Frankly, a lot of my life has been disastrous,” he once told an interviewer – which might not be quite as self-deprecating as it sounds, given that Doyle has also argued that “great literature” is born of “abjection” not “glory”.

The autofictional game-playing continues in his new novel, Cameo, but instead of self-abasing display, we get a perky book-world send-up for the culture war era, cartoonishly dramatising the ups and downs of creative life. It takes the form of a vertiginous hall of mirrors centred on gazillion-selling Dublin novelist Ren Duka, renowned for a long novel cycle drawn on his own life, the summaries of which comprise the bulk of the book we’re reading. Duka’s work isn’t autofiction à la Knausgård: hardly deskbound, still less under the yoke of domesticity, he leads a jet-set life of peril, mixing with drug dealers, terrorists, spies, and eventually serving time for tax evasion before he develops a crack habit, a penchant for threesomes in Paris and – perhaps least likely of all – returns to his long-forsaken Catholicism.

An exploration of what constitutes the literary arts – plus all the ‘troubled hearts’ and demons that accompany it – through the lens of Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Now, Mother, What’s the Matter?

Only the monsters do not have troubled hearts.
Life is for troubled hearts. Art is for troubled
hearts. For my whole life, Hamlet has been
a bridge between. Hamlet’s ‘Now, mother,
what’s the matter?’ is life on earth. Something
is always the matter, and not just for mothers.
(As I write this, the Angelus rings.) Every
character in Hamlet is troubled, there are
no monsters in it. I render unto Caesar
the things that are Caesar’s — everything is
troubled there and, if I am lucky, Caesar
is troubled. I render unto God the things
that are God’s and feel — want to feel? Do feel —
that God is troubled. I also render unto art.
But I have no idea what art is. What
Edward Thomas’s ‘Adlestrop’ is. What
the luminous chaos of The Portrait of
a Lady is. What The Pilgrim’s Progress is.
My feet knew the way before I opened
the book: that just before the gate to heaven
is yet another hole to hell.

This contrived addition to a sub-genre popularised by H is for Hawk and Raising Hare falls to earth with a thud

In July 2020, Candida Meyrick, better known as the novelist Candida Clark, became the owner of Sophia Houdini White Wing, better known as Bird. Bird is a Harris hawk, a feathered killing machine who hunts the rich Dorset fields on the edge of the New Forest. She can take down a rabbit but much prefers cock pheasants. Recently she has been eyeing up the peacocks that the Meyricks keep on their estate.

Meyrick’s starting point in this puzzling book is that Bird has a rich interior life that we flightless clod-hoppers would do well to emulate. What follows are 20 brief “life lessons” inspired by the hawk’s assumed musings. So, for instance, the fact that Bird prefers to hunt her own dinner rather than accept substitute snacks from Meyrick is used to urge the reader to “stay true to your higher self”. Likewise, her ability to keep cool under threat from a pair of thuggish buzzards becomes an exhortation to “hold your ground, you’re stronger than you think”. Other maxims include “Stay humble. Keep working at it” and the truly head-scratching “Just show up; and when you can’t, don’t”.

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

Embark Studios’ multiplayer extraction shooter game has already sold 12m copies in just three months. Will it capture you too?

Released last October Arc Raiders has swiftly become one of the most successful online shooters in the world, shifting 12m copies in barely three months and attracting as many players as established mega hits such as Counter-Strike 2 and Apex Legends. So what is it about this sci-fi blaster that’s captured so many people – and how can you get involved?

So what is Arc Raiders?

The team behind Baby Steps discuss why they made a whiny, unprepared manbaby the protagonist – and how players have grown to love Nate as he struggles up a mountain

“I don’t know why he is in a onesie and has a big ass,” shrugs game developer Gabe Cuzzillo. “Bennett just came in with that at some point.”

“I thought it would be cute,” replies Bennett Foddy, who was formerly Cuzzillo’s professor at New York University’s Game Center and is now his collaborator. “Working on character design and animation brings you over to liking big butts. I could give you an enormous amount of evidence for this.”

Showing the value of great design over visual impact, this faithfully resurrected home computer seamlessly integrates modern tech with some wonderful additional touches

The emotional hit was something I didn’t expect, although perhaps I should have. The Commodore 64 Ultimate, a new version of the legendary 8-bit computer, comes in a box designed to resemble the original packaging – a photo of the machine itself on a background of deep blue fading into a series of white stripes. Then when you open it, you find an uncannily accurate replica of what fans lovingly referred to as the breadbox – the chunky, sloped Commodore 64, in hues of brown and beige, the red LED in one corner above the row of fawn-coloured function keys. It’s like 1982 all over again.

My dad bought us a C64 in late 1983. It was our second computer after the ZX81 and it felt like an enormous leap into the future with its detailed colour graphics, advanced sound chip and proper grown-up keyboard. We unpacked it on our dinner table, plugging it into a small portable TV and loading the one game we had, a very basic Donkey Kong clone named Crazy Kong. My life would never be the same again. This contraption was my obsession for the next four years – my friendships and free-time would revolve around games such as Bruce Lee, Paradroid and Hyper Sports. To this day, I treasure the memories of playing golf sim Leaderboard with my dad. The sound effects, speech samples and graphics conjured by that computer have lived rent free in my head for, god, almost 40 years.

When Hollow Knight: Silksong came out last summer I was in so much pain that I didn’t know if I’d be able to play it. Could a video game teach me anything new about suffering?

Last year I became uncomfortably well acquainted with suffering. In March I started experiencing excruciating pain in my right arm and shoulder – burning, zapping, energy-sapping pain that left me unable to think straight, emanating from a nexus of torment behind my shoulder blade and sometimes stretching all the way up to the base of my skull and all the way down into my fingers. Typing was agony, but everything was painful; even at rest it was horrible. I couldn’t play my guitar; I couldn’t play video games; I couldn’t sleep. I learned how quickly physical suffering lacerates your mental wellbeing.

I’d had episodes of nagging pain from so-called repetitive strain injuries before, the product of long hours hunched over laptops and game controllers over the course of decades, but nothing like this. A few months later, after the initial unrelenting agony had subsided to a permanent hum of more moderate pain, it was diagnosed as brachial neuritis, inflammation of the nerve path that travels from the base of your neck down to your hand. (Nobody knows what causes it, but it sometimes happens after an infection or an injury.) The good news, I was told by a neurologist, was that it usually gets better in about one to three years, and I hadn’t lost any function in my right hand. The bad news was that there was nothing much to be done about the pain in the meantime.

A Giant on the Bridge, performed by a ‘Scottish indie folk supergroup’, draws on dozens of interviews about the confines former prisoners experience on the outside

When we talk about crime and punishment, the notion of homecoming is often absent but decarceration and re-entry are critical aspects of the justice system. These subjects are at the heart of A Giant on the Bridge, the singer-songwriter Jo Mango and the theatre-maker Liam Hurley’s urgent piece of gig-theatre, which premiered in 2024 and heads out on tour across Scotland next month.

It was born from a research project, Distant Voices: Coming Home, that revealed dire statistics for the number of people who come out of prison and then go back in again, says Mango. “Research showed that the process is often less about the individuals and more about societal and structural issues – whether they can get a job when they come out, whether they have any family left who are there to support them.” A Giant on the Bridge emerged as “a kind of way of writing an essay about what we learned”, Mango says, but using songs co-written by people who have lived experience of the prison system.

Linbury theatre, London
These gems, old and new, include an intense revival of Martha Graham’s Deep Song and a new piece by Christopher Bruce set to Leonard Cohen songs

Wow, the energy in a single big toe. That’s dancer Amy Thake’s toe, her sole thrust forth with implacable strength, that digit stretching away, bristling with intention. If you can get that much out of one foot, just wait till everything else starts moving. Thake’s solo is Deep Song by Martha Graham, from 1937, made in response to the Spanish civil war. It’s only six minutes long, but it is an intense six minutes: the exactitude of Graham’s stripped-to-the-core style, the weight and grace and power. Among other things it is a picture of a kind of exhaustion when one’s soft edges are shorn off by the load borne.

As well as reviving 20th-century gems – such as Bella Lewitzky’s Kinaesonata (1970), danced with racing speed and millimetric accuracy – Yorke Dance Project is trumpeting two premieres in this rich and really excellent programme. Troubadour is the first new work from choreographer Christopher Bruce (now 80) for more than a decade.

Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate
Munch, Bourgeois, Gormley and Baselitz go shoulder to shoulder with up-and-coming artists in an exhibition that revels in its stygian gloom

Tracey Emin catches me looking from her self-portrait to her as I try to assess the closeness of the resemblance. Not that close. This inky screenprint is bigger than she is, its face wider and taller. But it’s not a picture of the outer person but an inner vision. As we stand in front of it I seem to fall into radiating pools of blackness – to cross into darkness.

Emin has curated an exhibition for the depths of winter. It’s a generous, unexpected show with an eclectic yet profound openness to kinds of creativity many might think incompatible: paintings, installations, performance art all face the night here. She sets artists she nurtures at the Emin Studios alongside her heroes Edvard Munch, Louise Bourgeois and other luminaries of modern art – if luminary is the right word in this stygian setting. For, by a stroke of lighting genius, the Carl Freedman Gallery has been plunged into nocturnal shadow that still lets you see the art.

White Bear theatre, London
Mark Carey’s play asks why the former best-loved man on TV has been so thoroughly expunged from our comedy pantheon – but doesn’t have a great deal to add

TV has mined a rich seam of golden-age comedian biopics – but Benny Hill has yet to be afforded the posthumous privilege. That’s partly the point of this stab in that direction by Mark Carey, which asks why Hill has been so thoroughly expunged from our comedy pantheon. The reasons are widely known, of course, and rehearsed again here: the former best-loved man on television traded in a humour many modern viewers find sexist, racist and sad. One might hope for greater insight from a 100-minute play on the subject but, for all the pleasures along the way, it doesn’t have a great deal to add.

Carey’s play with songs flashes back through Hill’s life from his last days as a “mad recluse” talking to a visiting solicitor about his will. With all other roles played with spirit by Georgie Taylor, we meet Hill’s dad “the Captain”, who sold “rubber johnnies” for a living, and find Benny writing letters to his auntie from the cafes he frequented in France. Between scenes, a babble of online voices debates his vexed legacy. Taylor takes on an occasional narrator role as a Ben Elton-alike 80s comic, whose generation here stands accused of cruelly – and hypocritically – casting Hill beyond the entertainment pale.

My friend Michael Macintyre, who has died aged 85, was a television producer/director for the BBC. He worked with David Attenborough on The Tribal Eye in 1975 and Spirit of Asia in 1980, followed by a remarkable series of films, The Shogun Inheritance (1984) and The New Pacific (1985), both of which were accompanied by books featuring Michael’s striking photographs, taken on location. Many of his films captured cultures that have since disappeared, making them invaluable records of the past.

Born in Baildon, West Yorkshire, Michael was the son of Vera Brougham and David Gray. After David’s death, Vera married Maurice Macintyre and Michael was educated at Cheltenham grammar school, followed by Magdalen College, Oxford.

Worth a staggering $2.45bn, Suno is an AI music company that can create a track with just a few prompts. Why is its CEO happy to see it called ‘the Ozempic of the music industry’?

‘The format of the future,” says Mikey Shulman, “is music you play with, not just play.” As the CEO and co-founder of the generative AI music company Suno, Shulman currently finds himself in the exhilarating if perhaps unenviable position of being simultaneously regarded as the architect of music’s future – and its executioner.

Suno, which was founded just over two years ago, allows users to create entire songs with just a few text prompts. At the moment, you can’t prompt it with the name of a specific pop star, but asking for “stadium-level confessional pop-country” that “references past relationships” or “public rivalries” might get you a Taylor Swift-style song or thereabouts.

‘I wanted Kid ’n Play but the studio said, “Who are these guys?” I replied, “They’ve got platinum records.” I had no idea if they did’

Black music videos weren’t played on MTV in the late 80s. So while I was still at Harvard, I’d make music videos in my head. One day, while listening to Bad Boy/Having a Party by Luther Vandross, I thought: “This could be a great music video or movie.” And I sat down that night and wrote a script for a short film that ended up not only being made but shown at festivals and becoming a big hit in the world of student films. Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It had piqued interest in up-and-coming black film-makers. New Line Cinema saw my short and brought me in for a meeting. I pitched an expanded version of my idea and they said: “Let’s do it.”

New LGBTQ+ festival included McKellen in a fiery monologue and Norton in conversation, as well as a queer ceilidh and ‘kilted yoga’

Sir Ian McKellen is on stage blowing up a red balloon. For a man of 86, he has impressive lung capacity. He lets it go and watches it take a satisfyingly theatrical trajectory, rising to a height, then plummeting. “Free the spirit,” he says, in character as Ed, an elderly gay man searching for release.

There was a lot of spirit-freeing over the weekend at Pitlochry Festival theatre. In a bold pre-season move by new artistic director Alan Cumming, the UK’s most idyllic venue launched its first LGBTQ+ festival in an atmosphere of exuberance. Programmed by Lewis Hetherington, Out in the Hills was a three-day compendium of talks, scratch performances and workshops that turned a sedate theatre into a buzzy social hive.

The Glory was a haven for outlandish self-expression and the early stomping ground for many of the UK’s most infamous drag queens. It made me ready for life

In a packed pub, revellers chat, sip lager and look at their phones. Suddenly a side door crashes open, and in walks drag sensation John Sizzle, dressed as a hair-raisingly accurate Diana, Princess of Wales. She saunters demurely to a halo, fashioned from tinsel and coat hangers and stuck to the wall, stands under it, and starts lip-syncing to Beyoncé’s Halo. The crowd erupts.

A look at some of the Italian fashion designer’s greatest moments, after his death at the age of 93

Whether you want waterproof or leather, we put women’s walking boots to the test to find the best for every adventure

• The best women’s waterproof jackets, reviewed and rated

A great pair of walking boots will get you outdoors in any weather. While you can get away with wearing trainers for a stroll in the park, more exciting, hilly terrain (or just walking through mud or in rain) calls for a proper pair of walking boots.

They’ll keep you warm and dry, support your ankles, and give you a decent grip underfoot. It’s worth investing in a quality pair that fits well, and they’ll last for years if you look after them. Here are the best hiking boots, tested and rated.

Best walking boot overall:
Lowa Innovo GTX mid

Best budget walking boots:
Regatta Holcombe III

New year pick-me-ups; hand cream to soothe dry, chapped skin; and the best clothes to buy secondhand

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Damp weather, grey skies, days that don’t seem to be getting any longer and the return to normality after the new year motivation boost: it’s no wonder some of us feel a bit flat in January.

To lift our spirits, we asked you for your favourite pick-me-ups, and rounded up some from us at the Filter too. From umbrellas that give you a glow-up to microdosing nature, here are your tried-and-tested ways to beat the January blues.

Hunt, scroll, strike gold: the best clothes and accessories to buy secondhand – and where to find them

The best (non-greasy) hand creams to soften dry and chapped skin, tested

‘Big, firm, crunchy’: the best supermarket granola, tasted and rated

The best wake-up under the sun: Lumie Bodyclock Glow 150 sunrise alarm clock review

We tested 20 hot-water bottles – these are the best for comfort and cosiness

The best Apple Watches in 2026: what’s worth buying and what’s not, according to our expert

The best air fryers, tried and tested for crisp and crunch

Our reviewer loved this wake-up light more than any other he’s tested – it’s even knocked his previous best sunrise alarm off the top spot

• Read the full ranking in our sunrise alarm clock test

Since I first tested sunrise alarm clocks last winter, I’ve come to suspect that there’s no such thing as getting up on the wrong side of bed. What we ought to be worried about is waking up on the wrong side of dawn.

During summer (and other times of the year, for late risers), the sunrise begins to rouse us before we wake up. The brain kicks into gear and sends signals to initiate all sorts of bodily processes, from metabolism to hormone release, which helps us to feel ready for the day. It’s a fundament of our circadian rhythm – and we miss out on it whenever we wake before it gets light.

This week, we got crunching on a batch of widely available granolas, tasting for flavour, ingredient quality and provenance

• The best supermarket runny honey

Granola is similar to muesli, but baked with a sugar syrup (maple syrup, honey or golden syrup, say). It’s by definition sweet, and I find sugar addictive, so I enjoy it only rarely as a treat. The best ones come in golden clusters; sweet, but not too sweet (under 10% is low, over 15% high), with a touch of salt and a range of whole grains, dried fruit, nuts and seeds. I also love ones that include toasted coconut, because it adds complexity and flavour at not too much extra cost.

The quality of this test group was pretty high across the board, with nutty bargains, luxuriously indulgent, sugar-packed treats and, to my surprise, some really healthy, low-sugar wholefood options.

Our preserving pundits dive into the bittersweet dilemmas surrounding baking paper circles, wax seals and the judicious application of heat

When my son makes marmalade, he never warms the jars or uses circles of baking paper and cellophane – he just puts the lids on. It never goes mouldy, so am I wasting my time doing it the “proper” way?
Dagna, Berkhamsted, Herts
You can’t get much sweeter than marmalade, and this is most likely the reason for both Dagna and her son’s success, despite their differing strategies. “The chance of mould developing is low because there’s so much sugar to balance the bitterness of the orange peel,” says Camilla Wynne, preserver and author of All That Crumbs Allow. “Mould needs water to do its thing, and sugar binds to water.” She recalls a former student who, like Dagna’s son, simply ladled her marmalade into jars and closed the lids. All was fine until one day the student’s latest batch of marmalade was covered in mould: “She’d been reducing the sugar in her recipe over the years, so her method no longer worked because there was available water for mould to grow.”

But back to the particulars of the family dispute. “He’s more right than she is,” says Pam Corbin, author of Pam the Jam: The Book of Preserves. “Nowadays, we have fantastic food-grade lids, which have a wax seal inside and keep preserves safer than a wax disc and cellophane would.” Some people put a wax disc under the twist-on lid, too, but for Corbin that’s a hard no: “As the marmalade cools, condensation forms on top of the paper, so you’re more likely to get mould.”

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

Jammy leeks, savoury sweet chawanmushi and toasted sesame seeds make this flaky pastry dish feel decadent and special

This savoury custard tart celebrates some of my favourite flavours (and dishes): jammy miso leeks, savoury-sweet chawanmushi (a Japanese steamed custard flavoured with dashi) and toasty sesame seeds, all enveloped in flaky pastry. It feels decadent, so it’s best served with a simple fennel salad, zingy with apple cider vinegar and mustard. It’s excellent eaten while still warm from the oven (be patient!), but even better as leftovers, because I have a soft spot for cold eggy tarts.

Ferment: Simple Ferments and Pickles, and How to Eat Them, by Kenji Morimoto, is published by Pan Macmillan at £22. To order a copy for £19.80, visit the guardianbookshop.com

Modern western diets are full of ultra-processed foods, but experts say we need to reduce our intake. Here they offer achievable alternatives

• My week avoiding ultra-processed foods

• Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email

“It’s not poor willpower,” says Mark Lawrence. The ecological nutrition professor from Deakin University is a global expert in ultra-processed foods, a beacon of knowledge in the proliferation of UPFs. “It’s really difficult to avoid them.”

Australia, alongside the US and UK, has one of the world’s highest consumption rates of ultra-processed foods which have been linked to “multiple diet-related chronic diseases”, according to a global report of which Lawrence was a co-author.

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

A store-cupboard saviour for weeknights and ends of the month that you can adapt at will

This is my favourite store-cupboard dinner when faced with the pre-shop complaints that “there’s nothing in the fridge”. The cherry tomatoes provide a welcome fresh note, but otherwise it’s a happy cupboard raid. An old Nigel Slater recipe first put me on to the idea of using yoghurt to finish a pasta dish, and it works brilliantly here to balance the harissa. Excellent for a work-from-home lunch, too.

He had youth, energy, a tiny purr and could jump 7ft in the air. I always knew when he was about to do it, because he would stare at me intensely before launching himself towards the ceiling

My animals play a big, crazy role in my life. I grew up with cats when I was a little kid but my love of black cats began when I moved from New York to LA in 1996 and found four feral black cats in my back yard. Almost immediately, two female cats got knocked up and had two litters at the same time. Suddenly, we had 13 black cats, the most I’d ever cared for at once.

I’ve been an artist all my life and during the early 2000s my career really started to take off. I began creating a lot of merchandise toys and had my own TV series called Teacher’s Pet, which won five Emmys and a Bafta. My cat Blackie was the inspiration behind all my artwork at the time; he was a scholarly cat with a giant purr – I often drew him as my alter ego. When Blackie died from illness in 2020, I felt as though I’d lost a part of myself – he had been my companion for 15 years. It took me a year to grieve before I could finally consider another cat. That’s when Bosko came into my life.

Beth’s liberated and open-minded attitude to sex has helped Alex reignite his passion after his former wife came out as a lesbian
• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

We’re always letting our hands wander under restaurant tables, or on the escalator in the Tube

Noticing how out of place we looked, she asked in English if she could help us

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

In 1996, I travelled around Indonesia with my then-boyfriend. We’d been exploring Surabaya when we heard about an island off the coast called Madura that could be reached via ferry. It didn’t turn up in any of the tourist guides, which appealed to us, being adventurous types. We knew Madura wouldn’t be touristy, but expected there’d be some streets to explore and somewhere to sit down and have a cup of tea.

As soon as Madura came into sight, we realised our visit may not have been a great idea. We were expecting to see houses and buildings dot the shore, as well as the hawkers who’d typically crowd around piers in Indonesia with food and wares to sell. There was none of that. It was just a pier next to a tiny village.

Couples not sharing religious beliefs or going to each other’s places of worship isn’t unusual, but perhaps there’s something else going on here

When I met my husband eight years ago, I knew he was churchy, but as a low-church Protestant, I thought this wouldn’t be a problem. Outside church, I am comfortable with our religious differences. I sort of believe in God, and find immense spirituality in nature, but think Christ was simply a good man, whereas my husband believes it. He respects my beliefs and has never imposed his on me.

The problem I have is with the church we attend. I often feel a fraud as I don’t share the beliefs of the rest of the congregation. I feel alienated by the emphasis on theology over Christ’s teachings, and the hymns and rituals. I resent having to sacrifice my Sundays mouthing words I do not believe.

The cinema chain didn’t warn me clearly when I went to see Avatar: Fire and Ash that I needed to register my number plate

I parked at Cineworld in Chichester to watch the new film Avatar: Fire and Ash.

It is more than three hours long and, when I returned to my car, I’d received a penalty charge notice (PCN) for overstaying. I’d watched the previous two Avatar films there without a problem.

A bereaved young customer was baffled by the wildly fluctuating balances the energy supplier claimed on a family’s account

When my mother died of cancer, my aunt adopted me. She, too, died of cancer in 2024. At 26, I am now alone and struggling to deal with enormous, nonsensical energy bills from E.ON Next.

In 2022, I discovered my aunt had been paying massively inflated bills for the flat I shared with her, so I had the account closed and a new one set up in my name. An E.ON agent took meter readings, a smart meter was installed, and a final bill sent showing the account was more than £6,000 in credit. E.ON wouldn’t let me have it in cash, so the credit was transferred to the new account and used to pay the bills for the next two years.

This is one of three key months when fraudsters ramp up the number of scams to trap travellers into paying for a ‘bargain holiday’ … that doesn’t exist

• Stress-free travel: plan now to avoid holiday scams and pitfalls

You are battling the January blues and see a cheap deal on one of your socials for a two-week break in Spain during August. Better still, the price is £200 cheaper than elsewhere, possibly because the holiday is almost sold out.

When you text to confirm the details after making the payment, you are talked through the booking by a convincing contact.

Top tips on holiday booking essentials, from how to pay to what insurance to buy and when

It’s chilly and the days are short, so, to beat the January blues, many people’s thoughts are turning to holidays.

Although the high cost of living is continuing to put a strain on household finances, for many the annual getaway to somewhere sunny is sacrosanct, with travel companies predicting a 5% rise in bookings this year.

As a boy, Tom Stoltman was diagnosed with autism and bullied at school. When he became depressed in his teens, his older brother, a bodybuilder, suggested a trip to the gym

• ‘I was told I wouldn’t walk again. I proved the doctors wrong’: the bike-obsessed pensioner who broke his neck and started afresh

Tom Stoltman was a skinny kid: 90kg, 6ft 8in, with glasses and sticking‑out teeth. Diagnosed with autism as a young child, he felt he didn’t fit in. “I was really shy,” he says. “I got bullied in school for being different.” Back then, the boy from Invergordon didn’t like what he saw in the mirror. He lived in baggy hoodies. “Hood up. That was my comfort.” He loved football but “I used to look at people on the pitch and think, ‘He’s tinier than me, but he’s pushing me off the ball.’”

By 16 he’d hit a “crashing point”. He went from football-obsessed to playing Xbox all day. He’d skip meals in favour of sweets. “Sometimes it was four or five, six bags.”

Studies detecting microplastics throughout human bodies have made for alarming reading in recent years. But last week, the Guardian’s environment editor, Damian Carrington, reported on major doubts among a group of scientists about how some of this research has been conducted.

Damian tells Ian Sample how he first heard about the concerns, why the scientists think the discoveries are probably the result of contamination and false positives, and where it leaves the field. He also reflects on how we should now think about our exposure to microplastics

Clips: Vox, Detroit Local 4

In 2021, Harold Price, now 82, broke a vertebra while on a motorbike, leaving him barely able to use his legs. Then a chance recommendation changed his life

• ‘It took time to love my soft, larger shape’: the body-positive writer who recovered from an eating disorder

Before the accident, Harold Price, 82, loved being on two wheels. A retired engineer from Griffithstown in Wales, he cycled about 95 miles a week on his road bike. “Not bad for 78,” he says. On other days he’d be out on one of his restored motorbikes, as he was in June 2021, with a friend. They were riding at 10 miles an hour on a narrow road when his friend pulled out in front of him. “I had nowhere to go,” Price says. He remembers his head snapping back into his helmet before he blacked out.

Price spent months in hospital. He had broken the fifth vertebra in his neck, resulting in compression of his spinal cord. He was told he wouldn’t walk again. “That was a bit of a downer, obviously,” he says. He was determined to prove the doctors wrong. “My mind told me I could get up and walk out. But when I tried, I collapsed.”

What if the thing we needed more of was to do less? What if this was the year we finally learned to rest?

Every new year – after the holiday glut of travel, parties, shopping and baked goods – there can be pressure to do and be more: more active, more productive, more creative, more thrifty. Maybe this will be the year I finally start meal planning or doing morning pages. New year, new me!

But what if the thing we needed more of was to do less? What if this was the year we finally learned to rest?

Physical rest: making sure you get enough sleep; taking naps.

Mental rest: journaling; meditating; doing tasks that are not mentally taxing, like puzzles.

Emotional rest: talking through feelings and experiences with a friend or therapist.

Social rest: setting aside time alone to recharge; making sure you’re spending time with people who don’t leave you feeling drained.

Sensory rest: spending time outdoors; taking breaks from screens.

Creative rest: engaging in creative hobbies like drawing, reading or dancing.

Spiritual rest: connecting to a cause or tradition that feels meaningful to you.

New menswear director Leo Dell’Orco appears to have ditched the ‘greige’ while embracing the brand’s history

What exactly Giorgio Armani looks like without its eponymous founder at the helm has been the burning question in the fashion industry since the designer’s death in September.

In Milan on Monday afternoon, it got its answer as the designer’s collaborator and right-hand man of four decades, Leo Dell’Orco, made his debut at the Italian fashion house where he will oversee menswear for the foreseeable future. It was the first Armani collection in which the late designer had no involvement.

Prada says its tailoring opposes US ‘corporate masculine power’, while D&G’s all-white cast causes controversy in Milan

Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons, the two designers behind Prada, are well aware that fashion is about more than clothes. However, backstage after their menswear show in Milan on Sunday, the duo said the volatile present moment was a difficult one to translate to a collection. “You talk about the world now,” said Prada “or you talk about fashion … The two things together, in this moment, are difficult.”

The collection was, therefore, “uncomfortable”. Rather than meaning the clothes were not pleasant to wear – this is luxury fashion, after all – there were disparate elements put together in the same outfit: the top of a red sou’wester over a trenchcoat, for example, or a yellow scoop-neck jumper with cuffs of a shirt falling out the sleeve. (There were also some useful unexpected styling tips, such as wallets stuffed in a back pocket, or brightly coloured shoe laces).

From Greenland’s prime minister to Timothée Chalamet, the anorak signals a shift from aspiration to realism

Power dressing usually comes in the form of a suit or a wide-shouldered wool coat. But right now, things look a little different. This week, Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, appeared at a joint press conference with Denmark’s leader to say that he had no intention of acquiescing to Donald Trump’s stated desire to “own” Greenland – all while wearing a glacial-blue windbreaker.

It is a garment Nielsen wears regularly but, in this shifting geopolitical moment, it took on a new, loaded and striking messaging.

Fashion elder compères his own celebration of designs revived from his archive by design director Sam Cotton

This January marks the first menswear fashion week in Milan without a familiar constant in Giorgio Armani, after the designer died aged 91 in September. But the brand will still show on Monday, and there are other elder statesmen on the schedule in the shape of Ralph Lauren, 86, and Paul Smith, who will be 80 this year.

Paul Smith showed his collection on Saturday evening at the brand’s Italian HQ. Its playful nature was evident from the format as Smith himself compèred, with descriptions of the designs and inspirations over a microphone. The clothes demonstrated all the hallmarks that fans have come to love – bold prints, great suiting (this time oversized) and bright colours on sweaters and shirts.

Forget draughty bunk rooms and awkward social encounters, hostels now provide home comforts and a sense of community private rentals will never match

‘Penguins? In Snowdonia?” I asked incredulously. “That’s right!” came the enthusiastic reply from our newest hostel companion. We were standing in the large kitchen of The Rocks hostel in Capel Curig, a village in the north-east of Eryri national park (Snowdonia), chatting amiably while waiting for our teas to brew.

“Head up Moel Siabod to the lake, and that’s where the penguins are. You’ll see a sign warning about feeding them,” he said. “But even if they’re hiding and you don’t see one, it’s one of the best walks in the area.”

Charente-Maritime is a more affordable, less manicured family destination than nearby Île de Ré

Dinner comes with a spectacle in La Tremblade. Before I sit down to a platter of oysters at La Cabane des Bons Vivants, one of the village’s canal-side restaurants, I stand and watch orange flames bellow up from a tangle of long, skinny pine needles inside a large, open oven. They are piled on top of a board of carefully arranged mussels and, by setting fire to the pine needles, the shellfish cook in their own juices.

This is the curious tradition of moules à l’éclade, a novel way of cooking mussels developed by Marennes-Oléron oyster farmers along the River Seudre in the Charente-Maritime, halfway down France’s west coast. The short-lived flaming spectacle is a prelude to sliding apart the charred shells and finding juicy orange molluscs inside – and just one highlight of our evening along La Grève. The avenue that cuts between the oyster beds, lined by colourful, ramshackle huts and rustic pontoons is an alluring venue for a sunset meal by the canal, the atmosphere all the more lively and fascinating for it being in a working oyster-farming village.

Kick back and dream of summer with our pick of seaside gems, including a stylish Andalucian bolthole and a villa with views of Stromboli

Wild, windswept and wonderfully unspoilt, the Costa de la Luz is the Spanish coastline time forgot; a great swathe of Atlantic drama, fringed with sandy beaches and small seaside villages and resorts. Hotel Madreselva, surrounded by the pine forest, wetlands, dunes and sea cliffs of the Breña y Marismas de Barbate nature reserve, makes a suitably tranquil base, with a palm-shaded courtyard, flame-walled pool area and 18 stylish rooms, all with a private patio. A minute’s walk from the beach at Los Caños de Meca, the hotel is perfect for watersports lovers, as well as exploring this unspoilt corner of Andalucia. The hilltop pueblo blanco of Vejer, a 20-minute drive away, has charm in spades, while Cape Trafalgar, a lighthouse with views over the Strait of Gibraltar, is 10 minutes’ walk along the beach.
Doubles from £83 B&B, hotelmadreselva.com

Thirty years after she first visited, our writer is relieved to discover that the town has managed to swerve the worst excesses of tourist development

My favourite memory of Akyaka? The second evening of our most recent visit: the beach floodlit by the last embers of a flaming sunset, the mountains that stand sentry around the town softening into deep purple hues. Before our eyes, all was transformed: sunloungers stacked away, waiters whisking back and forth with tables, menus and small rechargeable lamps. A little further along, in one of the bar areas on the beach, a trio of Turkish women, their hair in shades of pepper and smoke, sat with their toes in the sand, happily knitting. I recalled other beaches in Turkey, where oligarchs and influencers preen and pose, and thought – yes, this is exactly where I want to be.

Akyaka – a small town, huddled on the eastern end of blue-washed Gökova Bay – is an old friend of mine. Thirty years ago, working as a holiday rep, I visited on a weekly basis, popping in to see the handful of clients who were staying at simple pansiyons (small B&Bs) in the town. Back then … well, actually, back then it wasn’t that different from today, which is something that can’t be said about many of the Turkish villages and small resorts I knew in the mid-1990s.

Bananas contain nutrients, but rotting peel smells and attracts fruit flies

The problem
Do you ever finish your smoothie, look at the peel and think: “Surely this could feed something?” You are not alone: social media is full of claims that soaking banana skins in water makes a fertiliser that will give you bigger leaves and better blooms.

The hack
Put banana peels in a jar of water, leave them to sit, then pour the liquid on your plants. Bananas do contain potassium and small amounts of other nutrients. The snag is you have no idea how strong it is or what’s missing.

I was in a work-commute-collapse cycle and didn’t know what to do. Then I began sampling activities I’d previously dismissed – book clubs, line dancing, chess – and it became oddly addictive

For most of my life, I treated taste as fixed. There were things I liked and things I didn’t, and that was that. Hobbies, foods and even social situations were quietly written off with the certainty of personal preference. But sticking to that sentiment had left me in a bit of a rut.

When I moved to London, I threw myself into work: long hours, commuting and networking. In the process, I stopped making time for hobbies or trying anything new.

Social media is filling up with influencers telling us how to become much more intellectual. A great, enriching idea – or just another cue to show off?

Name: Disgustingly educated.

Age: About 18 months.

The answers to today’s puzzles

Earlier today, I set you these three geometrical puzzles. Here they are again with solutions.

1. Bonnie Tiler

Amateur conservationist and social media influencer Theerasak 'Pop' Saksritawee has a rare bond with Thailand’s critically endangered dugongs. With dugong fatalities increasing, Pop works alongside scientists at Phuket Marine Biological Centre to track the mammals with his drone and restore their disappearing seagrass habitat. Translating complex science for thousands online, Pop raises an urgent alarm about climate change, pollution and habitat loss — before Thailand’s dugongs vanish forever

His blunt, brash scepticism has made the podcaster and writer something of a cult figure. But as concern over large language models builds, he’s no longer the outsider he once was

If some time in an entirely possible future they come to make a movie about “how the AI bubble burst”, Ed Zitron will doubtless be a main character. He’s the perfect outsider figure: the eccentric loner who saw all this coming and screamed from the sidelines that the sky was falling, but nobody would listen. Just as Christian Bale portrayed Michael Burry, the investor who predicted the 2008 financial crash, in The Big Short, you can well imagine Robert Pattinson fighting Paul Mescal, say, to portray Zitron, the animated, colourfully obnoxious but doggedly detail-oriented Brit, who’s become one of big tech’s noisiest critics.

This is not to say the AI bubble will burst, necessarily, but against a tidal wave of AI boosterism, Zitron’s blunt, brash scepticism has made him something of a cult figure. His tech newsletter, Where’s Your Ed At, now has more than 80,000 subscribers; his weekly podcast, Better Offline, is well within the Top 20 on the tech charts; he’s a regular dissenting voice in the media; and his subreddit has become a safe space for AI sceptics, including those within the tech industry itself – one user describes him as “a lighthouse in a storm of insane hypercapitalist bullshit”.

Aid groups say rise of far-right rhetoric in politics has fed into intimidation, vandalism and hate graffiti around migrant camps

Not far from a camp in Dunkirk where hundreds of asylum seekers sleep, hoping to cross the Channel to the UK, are some chilling pieces of graffiti. There is a hangman’s noose with a figure dangling next to the word “migrant” and, close by, another daubing: a Jewish Star of David painted in black surrounded by red swastikas.

Utopia 56, a French group supporting migrants in northern France, posted the image on X on Christmas Day with the comment: “This is what comes from normalising the extreme right’s rhetoric, a visible, unapologetic, unabashed hatred.”

Royal will join a group of notable figures in his action against the tabloid and its stablemate, the Mail on Sunday, in a trial expected to last nine weeks

On Monday morning, Prince Harry’s legal war with the Daily Mail, one of the British media’s most formidable forces, will finally come to trial in court 76 of the high court in London.

The prince is joined in his action by some of the most recognisable figures in British life: the singer and songwriter Elton John and his husband, David Furnish; actors Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost; Doreen Lawrence, a Labour peer whose son Stephen was murdered in a racist attack; and former politician Simon Hughes, who once ran to lead the Liberal Democrats.

We would like to hear about what your pet meant to you and your family

Grief over the death of a pet could be as chronic as that for a human family member, according new research published in the academic journal PLOS One.

According to the study, grieving pet owners can suffer from prolonged grief disorder (PGD) – although currently only those grieving the loss of a person can be diagnosed.

We would like to hear about your much-loved locals. What was the pub that changed you – and how?

As part of a new series, writers are telling the stories of the pub that changed them, kicking off with Zoe Williams who was barred from the Spoons she adored most.

Now we would like to hear about your much-loved locals. Was there a bar of your past that left a lasting impression on you? What was the pub that changed you – and how? Let us know and we’ll publish a selection of your responses.

We’d like to hear from young people, parents and teachers about how Elon Musk’s controversial chatbot is affecting you

Degrading images of real women and children with their clothes digitally removed by Elon Musk’s Grok tool continue to be shared online, despite widespread alarm and a pledge by the platform to suspend users who generate them.

While some safeguards have been introduced, the ease with which the AI tool can be abused has raised urgent questions about consent, online safety and the ability of governments worldwide to regulate fast-moving AI technologies. Meanwhile, the misuse of AI to harass, humiliate and sexually exploit people – particularly women and girls – is rapidly escalating.

We are looking to tell the stories of pairings who developed friendships because a common life experience - either shared at the same time or lived apart - bonded them

Do you have a friend who was the right person at the right time? Did they become a great source of support because you met at a certain moment in your life or a particular shared set of circumstances brought you together?

We are looking to tell the stories of pairings who developed life-affirming friendships because a common life experience - either shared at the same time or lived apart - bonded them. From becoming parents at the same time to losing a relative or dealing with a new diagnosis, we want to hear how you helped each other. Whatever scenario brought you close – whether overcoming adversity or celebrating a new life stage – we’d love to hear about your friendship and how it helped you both.

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