Former Wimbledon champion on how taking accountability for his crimes allowed for rehabilitation, watching Novak Djokovic from his cell and the new era of brotherhood in the sport

“I heard the screaming and I didn’t know what it was,” Boris Becker says as he remembers staring into the dark in Wandsworth prison, just over two miles from Wimbledon’s Centre Court where he won the first of his three men’s singles titles at the age of 17 in 1985. “Were people trying to kill themselves or harm themselves? Or couldn’t they deal with their loneliness? Or are they just making crazy noises because they have lost their minds already?”

Becker had been sentenced to a two-and-a-half-year jail term. Amid his insolvency, he was found guilty of not declaring all his assets so that additional funds could be distributed to his creditors. The judge confirmed that his money was used, instead, to meet his “commitments to his children and other dependents, medical and professional fees, and other expenses”.

There are 27% fewer art teachers in England today than there were in 2011, and the proportion of students taking arts subjects has plummeted. Here’s what it’s like to work in a job that is essential and often perilously undervalued

When 64-year-old Sue Cabourn began her career in the late 90s, the next generation of artists including Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and Gillian Wearing were dominating the cultural agenda. All of them were state-educated but, had they attended school now, things might have panned out differently.

There has been an exodus of art teachers (a 27% drop in the number working in English state-secondary schools from 2011 to 2024), lower uptake (48% fewer students have taken on arts subjects at GCSE since 2010), and a reformed system that critics say has stifled creativity and prioritised Stem (science and technology) subjects over arts and humanities.

Could you keep the markets calm and your MPs happy as you pull the economic levers to deliver a budget?

On 26 November, Rachel Reeves will deliver this year’s budget to parliament. As in all years, the chancellor has to strike a balance between:

Raising the money needed to fund the services that voters demand.

Keeping taxes at levels that are acceptable to voters.

Persuading the government’s creditors in the bond markets that it will continue to be able to pay its debts.

We’re supposed to be used to this by now, but getting used to it is dangerous. Her colleagues should have spoken up

Catherine Lucey, who covers the White House for Bloomberg News, was doing what reporters are supposed to do: asking germane questions.

Her query to Donald Trump a few days ago during a “gaggle” aboard Air Force 1 was reasonable as it had to do with the release of the Epstein files, certainly a subject of great public interest. Why had the Trump been stonewalling, she asked, “if there’s nothing incriminating in the files”.

Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture

The author has been explaining Sichuan cuisine to westerners for decades. But ‘Fu Xia’, as she’s known, has had a profound effect on food lovers in China, too

Every autumn in the mid-00s, when I lived in China, my friend Scarlett Li would invite me to Shanghai to eat hairy crab. Named for the spiky fur on their legs and claws, the crabs are said to have the best flavour during the ninth month of the lunar calendar. They’re steamed and served whole, with a dip of rice vinegar spiked with ginger. The most prized specimens come from Yangcheng Lake near Suzhou, which is not far from Scarlett’s home town of Wuxi. She had moved to Hong Kong as a child, attended high school and college in Australia, and returned to China to pursue a career as an entrepreneur. Despite her years abroad, she remained Chinese through and through – and eating hairy crab with her, I became Chinese, too.

Beginning in the Tang dynasty in the seventh century, crabs were harvested from the lakes and estuaries of the Yangtze delta and sent as tribute to the imperial court. Twelfth-century Hangzhou had specialised crab markets and dedicated crab restaurants. “I have lusted after crabs all my life,” wrote the 17th-century playwright Li Yu. “From the first day of the crab season until the last day they are sold, I … do not let a single evening pass without eating them …. Dear crab, dear crab, you and I, are we to be lifelong companions?”

Max Rushden and Geoff Lemon are joined by Ali Martin and Andy Bull to look ahead to the hotly-anticipated first Ashes Test in Perth

Exclusive: Courts minister says change needed to stop criminals opting for juries to delay cases, sometimes by years, and clear huge backlog

• UK politics live – latest updates

Criminals will be stopped from “gaming the system” by choosing trial by jury in order to increase the chances of proceedings collapsing, the courts minister has said, promising to enact radical changes to limit jury trials by the next election.

Drug dealers and career criminals were “laughing in the dock” knowing cases can take years to come to trial, Sarah Sackman said, while warning that inaction would be a road to “chaos and ruin”.

The draft plan, reportedly developed by Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and Kremlin adviser Kirill Dmitriev, would force draconian measures on Ukraine

In the last hour, Ukraine said it had received from Russia the remains of 1,000 people that Moscow said were killed Ukrainian soldiers, in the latest repatriation – a rare area of cooperation between the warring sides, AFP reported.

“Today, repatriation measures took place. 1000 bodies, claimed by the Russian side to belong to Ukrainian servicemen, were returned to Ukraine,” Kyiv’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said on social media.

Shabana Mahmood says scheme could increase the £3,000 cap currently in place and that payments are ‘good value for money’

In an interview with ITV, Keir Starmer also defended the decision to delay the publication of the government’s review of educational provision for pupils with special educational needs and disabilties (Send) in England until next year. He said the government needed to take time to get this right. He said:

We do need to attend to Send provision. I think uniformly there’s a sense that the system at the moment isn’t working and needs reform.

My strong view is we need to get that reform right and therefore we need to take the time to consult with parents and others.

These breakfast clubs are a real gamechanger.

They’re free and you saw this morning how much the children enjoy them. They’re getting a decent meal, and they’re getting activity, and that sets them up for the day.

Staffordshire students say signs material was AI-generated included suspicious file names and rogue voiceover accent

Students at the University of Staffordshire have said they feel “robbed of knowledge and enjoyment” after a course they hoped would launch their digital careers turned out to be taught in large part by AI.

James and Owen were among 41 students who took a coding module at Staffordshire last year, hoping to change careers through a government-funded apprenticeship programme designed to help them become cybersecurity experts or software engineers.

President attacks Democrats in post on Truth Social after US lawmakers swiftly move bill through Congress

Donald Trump signed a bill Wednesday directing the justice department to release files from the investigation into the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, surrendering in the face of joint pressure from Democratic opponents and the president’s conservative base.

The signature marked a sharp reversal for Trump, who had the authority as president to release the documents himself, but chose not to.

Keir Starmer ramps up pressure on Reform leader, who has dismissed claims as ‘one person’s word against another’

• ‘He used to say things like “Hitler was right”’: Farage faces more allegations of racist behaviour at school

Keir Starmer has called on Nigel Farage to urgently address multiple and detailed allegations of racist behaviour during his teenage years, as the Reform leader attempted to dismiss the claims as “one person’s word against another”.

Pressure was put on Farage by the prime minister over what Downing Street said were “disturbing allegations” after the Guardian reported the testimony of more than a dozen school contemporaries, including an award-winning director who claimed to have been targeted with antisemitic abuse.

Brazilian president underlines need to reduce emissions as Turkey set to host next year’s summit

Adelaide has lost out to Antalya to host next year’s Cop. My colleague Adam Morton, the Guardian Australia’s environment editor, has the account from Belém of what went down.

Ouch. From one perspective, Australia’s long-running bid to host the Cop31 UN climate conference next year has ended in clear failure.

Convicted serial offender given a 37th life sentence for crimes against 12-year-old girl in 1980s and former partner

The former police officer and convicted sex offender David Carrick has been handed a 37th life sentence at the Old Bailey with a minimum of 30 years for molesting a 12-year-old girl and raping a former partner.

Carrick, 50, who served as an armed officer in the Metropolitan police, sexually assaulted the 12-year-old child when he was a teenager in the late 1980s, his trial heard. More than 20 years later, he repeatedly raped a woman and subjected her to “degrading and humiliating” abuse during the course of a toxic relationship.

Actor praises co-star in abominably reviewed Ryan Murphy legal drama, and claims show deserved more appreciation

Glenn Close has hit back at the critical mauling for her recent series All’s Fair. The actor stars in Ryan Murphy’s legal drama, which has received a string of zero-star reviews. In her appraisal, the Guardian’s Lucy Mangan described it as: “Fascinatingly, incomprehensibly, existentially terrible.” The series currently holds a 3% rating on reviews site Rotten Tomatoes.

According to Close, the main issue was the choice to air the worst three episodes first. “I personally think that the first three episodes were the weakest,” she told Variety. “That was a tough way to start. I’ve seen all nine episodes, and I think it actually adds up to something.”

At a youth detention centre in north-east England, the paedophile Neville Husband raped and assaulted countless boys. Why was his reign of terror allowed to go on – and why hasn’t there been a public inquiry?

When I met Kevin Young in 2012 he was in his early 50s, handsome, charismatic, smart – and utterly broken. The moment he started talking about Medomsley detention centre he was in tears.

Young was born in Newcastle, in 1959. At two, he was taken into care, and his parents were convicted of wilful neglect. At eight, at a school in Devon, he was sexually abused by the gardener. At 14, at St Camillus, a Catholic residential school in Yorkshire, he was sexually assaulted by the headteacher, James Bernard Littlewood. But none of this compared with his experience at Medomsley, a youth detention centre in north-east England.

Special report: A leading agent and two Olympians fell out when their talent agency was sold, leading to ‘three years of torture’ which came to a sudden end after the emergence of text messages sent to a phone registered to Barnett

A high-court claim that had pitted the leading sports agent Jonathan Barnett against his former business partners, the Olympic medallists John Regis and Jennifer Stoute, was withdrawn after an extraordinary three-year legal battle.

A partnership of which Barnett was a member, the sports agency Stellar Athletics LLP, pursued a claim against Regis and Stoute for £1.2m after they left the partnership in 2021. It was settled by the parent company, CAA Stellar, in April 2024, shortly after Barnett himself resigned from the company.

Exclusive: André Corrêa do Lago says rise of clean energy must be acknowledged and rich countries need to do more

• Cop30: click here for full Guardian coverage of climate talks in Brazil

Oil-producing countries need to acknowledge the rise of clean energy, and rich countries will have to provide more assurances on finance if the chasm between negotiating nations at Cop30 is to be bridged, the president of the summit has said.

André Corrêa do Lago, the veteran Brazilian climate diplomat in charge of the talks, said: “Developing countries are looking at developed countries as countries that could be much more generous in supporting them to be more sustainable. They could offer more finance, and technology.”

In today’s newsletter: Despite valid criticisms, the summits are filled with smart, passionate people dedicating their lives to fighting the climate crisis

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It is easy to criticise the UN climate conferences. But unless you’ve been, there’s one wonderful, almost miraculous, thing that you may not be aware of: it is a beautiful gathering of humanity, people from virtually every country on Earth, all thrown together in common cause.

What’s more, many are incredibly smart, passionate and dedicating their lives to fighting the climate crisis. The more of them you meet, the more your hope grows that global heating can be defeated.

Trump’s anti-climate agenda could result in 1.3m more deaths globally, analysis finds

Tropical cyclone Fina intensifies to category two and could hit NT coast on Friday

England’s Beth Mead: ‘If we don’t adapt to climate change, football becomes a privilege, not a right‘

She was sure that there would be warnings if there was any danger. But then the floods came. This is Toñi García’s story

Location Valencia, Spain

Disaster Floods, 2024

Toñi García lives in Valencia. On 29 October 2024, devastating storms hit the Iberian peninsula, bringing the heaviest rain so far this century. The national alert system sounded at around 8.30pm local time; by then, however, flood waters had already broken through the city. Scientists say the explosive downpours were linked to climate change.

Swamped by lobbyists and hobbled by a lack of urgency, there are fears Cop could become a sprawling spectacle that betrays those who depend on it most

Thousands of diplomats, activists, journalists and lobbyists are gathering in the sweltering, tropical heat of Belém, at the mouth of the Amazon, for the Cop30 climate talks.

Since Brazil was awarded the hosting duties three years ago, hopes have been high that the Amazonian Cop – taking place in the country that hosted the Earth summit where the global fight for the climate first began – could be a turning point in the fight against climate breakdown.

As she launches her first children’s book, the actor answers your questions on Alan Partridge, her iconic green dress and thrilling 10-year-olds with a bullseye

Have you read or listened to the delightful chapter in Alan Partridge’s Big Beacon where he demands: “We came for Knightley, we want to see Knightley, where’s Knightley?” dcieron
No! Do I want to see it? Or is it something that will make me cringe and want to hide under the sofa? I do like Alan Partridge. He’s kind of terrifying but amazing, so now that I know I’ve been a part of Alan Partridge, I should check it out.

When you first wore the green dress in Atonement, did you realise how iconic it would be? Murdomania
I thought it was a bloody good dress. It never actually lasted. It was so fragile that, any time you touched the front, it would completely break, so they had to make a load of different fronts. By the end, I was thoroughly sick with having the dress remade on me. But it’s a beautiful dress and I had no idea that it would have the life that it did.

(Warp)
Made using a cache of Y2K sample CDs that Daniel Lopatin salvaged from the internet’s fringes, the kaleidoscopic result speaks to contemporary information overload

It should come as no surprise that the new album by Oneohtrix Point Never comes with a concept attached. They usually do. When not composing film soundtracks, or producing an eclectic range of other artists – the Weeknd, Anohni, Charli xcx, Soccer Mommy – Daniel Lopatin has released a string of acclaimed works, each with their own overarching idea.

The “hyperreal world music” of 2010’s Returnal was inspired by the fact that people now see more of the world than ever without actually leaving their homes. In 2015, Garden of Delete had an accompanying origin story about an adolescent humanoid alien called Ezra; 2018’s Age Of imagined artificial intelligence attempting to recreate human culture after humans themselves had been rendered extinct. Lopatin also has an all-consuming obsession with nostalgia and forgotten pop cultural artefacts: he’s made albums based around warped loops of 80s pop hits, preset sounds on obsolete synthesisers and recordings of US radio stations changing formats, discarding the musical genres in which they previously specialised in favour of the current vogue.

Scientists discover thousands of sea creatures have made their homes amid the detritus of abandoned second world war munitions off the coast of Germany

In the brackish waters off the German coast lies a wasteland of Nazi bombs, torpedo heads and mines. Thrown off barges at the end of the second world war and forgotten about, thousands of munitions have become matted together over the years. They form a rusting carpet on the shallow, muddy seafloor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western tip of the Baltic Sea.

Over the decades, the Nazi arsenal was ignored and forgotten about. A growing number of tourists flocked to the sandy beaches and calm waters for jetskiing, kite surfing and amusement parks. Beneath the surface, the weapons decayed.

It can cause physiological and emotional problems, but none of us can avoid it entirely. Here are some of the best ways to react when stress hormones start coursing through your body ...

Most people contend with stress in some element of their lives. What can you do when you are overwhelmed by it and your coping mechanisms no longer seem to work? Here, psychotherapists share their techniques for managing in the moment, seeking help, and minimising everyday stress.

Only our current tech hellscape could create a comedy so insidiously inoffensive. Prepare to be pummelled into submission as your time is siphoned off by OK entertainment

This is a cosy, lighthearted whodunnit about a retired professor who gets a second wind as a private eye. It’s also a bingo card for just about everything that makes streamer-era TV so patronising, uninspiring and mind-numbingly dull.

On the surface, A Man on the Inside’s crimes might seem negligible: it’s a little schmaltzy, a little too pleased with itself in that wisecrack-stuffed American comedy way. Yet it’s exactly that inoffensiveness that makes this strain of television so insidious. When the New York Times critic James Poniewozik coined the term “mid TV” to describe the current “profusion of well-cast, sleekly produced competence” that has come to dominate our screens, it wasn’t so much a vicious takedown as a shrug at the blah-ness of it all. The tech giants have pummelled us into submission by siphoning off our time via OK entertainment.

JMW Turner left behind some 37,000 sketches when he died, many of which have rarely been seen. Do they – including a huge collection of explicit sketches – reveal truths about the elusive man?

The hook for Turner: the Secret Sketchbooks is meant to be that many of the 37,000 sketches left behind by the great British painter JMW Turner have rarely been seen and never been filmed; therein may be hints at the nuances of his elusive character that his main oeuvre kept hidden. Equally remarkable, though, is the documentary’s bold choice of contributors. As well as the art historians and present-day British artists who would dominate a standard art film, there are famous laymen, from the obviously somewhat qualified – Timothy Spall played the artist in Mike Leigh’s biographical film Mr Turner; Chris Packham is well placed to comment on Turner’s reverence for the natural world – to the more surprising hire of Ronnie Wood from the Rolling Stones.

Neither the sketchbooks nor the celebs turn the documentary format upside down, but they add something to a distillation of Turner’s life and legacy that balances accessibility with analytical muscle. Will a previously uninitiated viewer now be more likely to attend a Turner exhibition? Yes. Can existing Turner experts finesse their knowledge? Yes. Job done.

Imposing a 1% levy on the super-rich isn’t a policy, it’s pantomime. Tackling inequality in Britain will require much more far-reaching changes

By this time next week you will be digesting the budget, you lucky thing. Yet even before Rachel Reeves has commended a single damn thing to the house, her efforts have been written off as a “shambles”, from a “chaotic” government that is Labour in name alone. Which prompts the question: what is the leftwing alternative?

Because there is one, on which agreement stretches from Labour backbenchers to many of their opponent MPs and far beyond. Whether you listen to Zack Polanski or Zarah Sultana, the TUC or the YouTubers, they all call for a wealth tax – stinging the rich to pay for schools and hospitals. Who could be against such a thing?

Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist

In trying to woo hard-right voters, Les Républicains risk destroying France’s Gaullist legacy and putting Paris on a collision course with the EU

‘Not one vote for the left!” That call from Bruno Retailleau, chair of the mainstream conservative party Les Républicains (LR), helped a candidate allied with Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) to sweep to victory in a byelection run-off against a socialist in southwest France last month after the centre-right candidate was eliminated in the first round.

It was a clear sign that, despite frequent denials, the much-diminished heirs to Charles de Gaulle’s conservative movement are inching towards a controversial “union of the right” that could put Le Pen or her protege, Jordan Bardella, in the Élysée Palace in 2027.

Paul Taylor is a senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre

It’s a radical but simple notion: ditch the dead weight of your worldly goods and get out there and live your best life

I spend a lot of time worrying about stuff, as in physical, you know, stuff. Things I use, things I no longer use, things I’ve never used and never will, things I’d happily give away if anyone wanted them, things which will surely end up in landfill, dumped there by me or my children, or my children’s children. To misquote Larkin: Man hands on stuff to man, or in my case women. They’ll not thank me for it.

Deborah has an interesting take on this, almost as an aside in a radio interview – she’d featured in the Guardian the week before – about how, at the age of 65, she’s renting a room in a house she’s sharing with three people whose ages, she says, barely add up to more than hers. She does so by choice, having no appetite for the upkeep of a house big enough to accommodate visiting grandchildren. Renting, she at least knows how much money is going out, and her children aren’t expecting to inherit much. She says they’re agreed that “money isn’t something you collect, it’s something that allows you to do things”. And what she’s got, after she’s paid the rent, she intends to spend on enjoying life.

Who knows where this government’s credibility will be after next week’s exceptionally difficult budget

By instinct and conviction, Rachel Reeves is a traditionally social democratic, centre-left Labour chancellor. When she delivers her budget next week, though, those qualities will be hard to discern. The reason for that is simple but powerful. She has become hemmed in on every side by avoidably tight commitments on taxation, spending and borrowing. Above all, however, she is hemmed in by Labour politics.

It did not have to be this way. Reeves would have had a freer fiscal hand if she and Labour had not ruled out increasing all the three main personal taxes at the 2024 election – a choice the former Conservative minister David Willetts described this week as “catastrophic”. Reeves might also have won herself more elbow room, albeit at some political cost, if the new government had moved very decisively to say that, having studied the figures, the triple-tax pledge was in fact unsustainable.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

My aunt was chastising me for not carrying on my mother’s legacy of pineapple tarts and butter cakes. Why had I been so resistant?

‘Aiyah, why don’t you bake?” my Aunt Julie scolded, her voice shrill with disbelief. “You should learn how to bake for the sake of your child! Your mother was such a good baker!” Her comment stung. I had always adored my mother’s youngest sister. As the only member of my family who also lived in Germany, we had a special bond.

But here she was, chastising me for failing to be a good mother before I had even given birth. I contemplated the question from her immaculate kitchen, where I stood round, hormonal, in my second trimester of pregnancy and on the precipice of new motherhood. But I didn’t have an answer.

Ying Reinhardt is Malaysian writer living in Germany

After Republicans were trounced in this month’s votes, the administration has launched a slapdash, ill-conceived campaign

When running for president last year, Donald Trump wooed and wowed voters by vowing to reduce prices “starting on day one”. But once he was inaugurated, he seemed to pay precious little attention to prices and affordability.

All that changed, however, when inflation-weary voters thrashed Trump and the GOP on election day this month – within days, the Trump administration launched a slapdash effort to focus on affordability. Unfortunately, the campaign is a hot mess: a pile of absurdity, contradictions, magical thinking, scapegoating and good ol’ Trumpian dishonesty, with Trump repeatedly blaring that “prices are down.”

Autocrats like Prince Mohammed are eager to benefit from Trump’s brazen effort to use the presidency to enrich himself and his family

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, visited the US this week for the first time in seven years – and Donald Trump rolled out the red carpet for his favorite Arab autocrat. On Tuesday, Trump hosted the prince for lunch and talks at the White House, followed by a black-tie dinner that included members of Congress, business leaders and top administration officials. The next day, Trump and the prince appeared together at a US-Saudi investment summit at the Kennedy Center.

It’s all part of a rehabilitation tour for Prince Mohammed, years after US intelligence agencies concluded that he had ordered the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and Saudi dissident. In October 2018, Khashoggi was ambushed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by a 15-member hit team, who dismembered his body with a bone saw. For a time, the killing turned Prince Mohammed into an international pariah. But Trump never wavered in his support of the Saudi leader, and during his first term protected the prince from US sanctions and pressure from Congress.

Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor, at New York University

Whether by leveraging Russia’s frozen assets, or other means, the EU must deliver the cash necessary to withstand Putin’s war of attrition

In the early part of this year, as the US vice-president, JD Vance, berated European leaders in Munich, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy was subjected to a televised mauling in the White House, it became starkly apparent that the bonds of solidarity between the European Union and Ukraine would need to be strengthened to cope with a new geopolitical reality. As 2025 draws to a close, a moment of reckoning has arrived.

According to EU estimates, Ukraine will need more than €70bn in extra financial assistance next year to keep defending itself against Vladimir Putin. That money won’t be coming from Washington, where Donald Trump has refused to seek new funding for military aid from Congress. Yet Kyiv’s ability to negotiate an acceptable peace depends on its capacity to withstand Mr Putin’s relentless war of attrition, which is designed to drain Ukraine of the resources necessary to resist, and to weaken the resolve of its European allies.

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

A fixation on reducing numbers leaves no room for rational discussion of what that means for the economy and society

British political debate has long been dominated by public anxiety about rising levels of immigration. How might that change if the population tide were to turn? Not at all, would appear to be the answer. Net migration has in fact been falling since before Labour came to power last July, and yet there has been no end of demand for ever tighter controls and no end of government acquiescence.

New figures published this week by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), adjusting historical data for methodological changes, show that net migration was 944,000 for the year ending March 2023 – about 40,000 higher than had previously been thought. The drop since then has also been steeper. The number for the year ending December 2024 is now thought to be 345,000 – lower than the earlier count by 86,000.

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

Private appointments, tests and operations are a grave threat to the future of the health service, writes Margaret Greenwood

Gaby Hinsliff is right to ask if the government’s reorganisation of the National Health Service will be the final nail in its coffin (Wes Streeting’s gamble with the NHS is greater than any play for Downing Street, 14 November). Such large‑scale redundancies are bound to create problems.

There are other threats to the delivery of NHS services too. The privatisation of the NHS is happening in plain sight. Last month, the government proudly announced that “A total of 6.15 million appointments, tests and operations were delivered by independent providers for NHS patients this year”, an almost 500,000 increase on last year, which it says is “helping to cut waiting times [and] free up NHS capacity”.

Elizabeth Taylor fully backs industrial action and feels that doctors have been taken advantage of for decades; Dr Natasha de Vere would not consider striking

I totally support the resident doctors’ strike (Why the NHS doctors’ strikes look set to continue, 14 October). I am a retired consultant anaesthetist who worked in the NHS for 40 years. Throughout my career, I felt that I was totally underpaid for my work.

As a junior doctor in the 1970s and up until my consultant appointment in 1991, I was paid a pittance for working excessive, unsafe hours – often 80 to 100 hours a week. Accommodation and catering were minimal. Overtime was paid at a much lower rate.

Thorough reform of how flooding is managed is necessary to reconnect people to their watery environments, says Dr Ed Rollason. Plus a letter from Moira Robinson

John Harris correctly identifies that the UK is hopelessly unprepared for flooding, but is wrong to suggest that the public is not told about the threat (Flooded and forgotten: the UK’s waters are rising and we’re being kept in the dark, 16 November). In fact, the UK has some of the most detailed and accurate flood-risk information in the world. The Environment Agency publishes comprehensive flood-risk maps and impact information that is searchable by address, and regularly undertakes public-information campaigns.

The north-east of England has also pioneered community flood-resilience officers, whose sole purpose is to engage with at-risk communities and to encourage the development of “community resilience”, a model increasingly being mirrored in other regions.

Canvassing opinion | From A Lane to the bus lane | GWR wifi | Suits in the White House | Blancmange rabbit | Narcissism

The Guardian may get a better idea of why some young people support Reform UK by asking actual Reform voters who work in shops, offices and factories in “red wall” towns and cities such as Mansfield, Grimsby and Derby what they think, rather than three students, an environmental activist and a youth equality organiser (How should we tackle Reform and the rise of the far right? Our gen Z panel has some ideas, 13 November).
Nigel Scollin
Breaston, Derbyshire

• Back in 1984, my driving test examiner in Lampeter, Wales, was called Mr A Lane (‘You get more attention than you would choose’: how an unusual name can shape your life – for better or worse, 13 November). I passed the test first time and never drove again. Do I get brownie points for using the buses all these years?
Nicholas Q Gough
Swindon, Wiltshire

• Live updates as the draw is made in Switzerland

• Who has qualified | European tables | Mail Luke

Here is some reading on how Republic of Ireland, Wales and Northern Ireland made it into the playoffs. Plus a bonus Scotland match report after they sealed the place at the World Cup in dramatic style.

“As an ROI supporter, I hope we get a home match against a theoretically weaker side,” writes Martin. “I dream of beating Spain in the final. I fear it’s all going to end in tears, starting about an hour from now.”

Australia and England could win or lose in a number of critical areas including Joe Root’s ability to fend off Pat Cummins and which No 5 will shine brightest

Before Bazball, there was Travis Head. He was the one playing on fast-forward during the 2021-22 Ashes, sprinting to 152 at the Gabba in a career-shifting innings. The southpaw has since slashed tons in two finals against India, excelled in challenging Australian conditions, and can break out of a lean patch with a chainsaw-wielding knock. Never mind his three consecutive single-figure scores during Australia’s 3-1 win over India a year ago. He’d already hit consecutive hundreds to turn the direction of the series.

When you work in the game it is easy to get cynical but this week I’ve been consuming all the #limbs I can find

For the second time in a week, I’m welling up. This time in a cafe on Northcote High Street in Melbourne at 9am. I punched the air when Kieran Tierney curled that one in. But Kenny McLean. From the halfway line. As the ball sails over Peter Schmeichel my hands involuntarily shoot to the sky. What a moment. The commentary is amazing. Before long I’m watching it on a loop. The unwritten rule of not talking over each other goes out of the window. In fact it’s better. You want the comms to feel like you feel.

On BBC Scotland, Liam McLeod, Steven Thompson and James McFadden absolutely nail it. McLeod: “They’ve given it away.” Thompson: “SHOOT SHOOT.” McLeod: “He’s gonna shoot.” (McFadden is grinning wildly.) Thompson: “OH HE’S DONE HIM, HE’S DONE HIM, HE’S DONE HIM.” McLeod: “HAS THAT GONE IN? OOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOO THAT’S UNBELIEVABLE …” The fixed camera set on Thompson and McFadden is wonderous. Two grown men jumping up and down in unison like 10-year-old boys. They are just so happy.

• Coach Steve Tandy hails Ospreys flanker’s ‘amazing story’

• Five changes to side that edged out Japan 24-23

Harri Deaves began his working life as a roofer but on Saturday the Ospreys flanker will run out in the scarlet shirt of Wales against the All Blacks to complete “an amazing story” from club rugby player to international.

The 24-year-old will win his first cap in a Wales side showing five changes from the one that edged out Japan 24-23 with a last-gasp penalty.

Samira Asghari, the International Olympic Committee’s youngest member, says negotiation with Taliban is only way to help Afghan girls access sport

“My message for all Afghan women who play is that if there is any small opportunity, do it,” Samira Asghari says. “My solid message is never, ever give up. Afghanistan was always a war-torn country, unfortunately. We have grown up in a war country. And we believe in a future Afghanistan, and the future of Afghanistan is the people.”

Asghari is 31, the youngest member of the International Olympic Committee and an exile from her home. Resident in Europe, her role requires her to try to bring an end to current restrictions which prevent Afghan women and girls from taking part in sport. In this, the people she must negotiate with are the Taliban.

Some say the Border-Gavaskar Trophy is now pre-eminent, but there is nothing more intense than Australia v England

If it feels like the buildup to this Ashes series has lasted 842 days that is because it pretty much has. Test cricket’s oldest rivalry resumes on Friday inside Perth’s 60,000-seat thunderdome and with it, mercifully, comes fresh fuel for the ever-raging fire.

Because on one level the Ashes never really starts or stops. Since Stuart Broad nicked off Alex Carey at the Oval on 31 July 2023 – the final act of a dramatic 2-2 draw – the sides have been tracking each other, all while their supporters chip away from afar.

FA crackdown has led to the suspension of 149 match officials and more than 1,000 players in push to restore public faith in the game

Everything in Turkish football, it seemed, was going too well. Galatasaray have been flying in the Champions League, powered by Victor Osimhen. Arda Güler is soaring at Real Madrid with goals and assists. Even the men’s national team, under Vincenzo Montella, have looked their most promising in years.

But it would not be Turkish football without drama and drama is what the hardline president of the Turkish Football Federation (TFF), İbrahim Hacıosmanoğlu, has delivered.

• Team president Elkann had revealed his frustrations

• Hamilton says car problems will take time to fix

Lewis Hamilton has insisted he does not believe he can work any harder to help improve Ferrari’s performance.

The 40-year-old driver was reacting to a rebuke from the Ferrari president John Elkann, who had stated he should: “Focus on driving and talk less.” Hamilton however maintained pointedly that the issues at Ferrari would not be fixed with “the click of a finger”.

• Forward makes claim about dressing room incident at Montpellier

• ‘It was hard to see it as merely a simple error,’ says Matildas star

Matildas star Mary Fowler has claimed she experienced racism while at Montpellier in 2022, when she was given bananas while others in the squad received flowers at the end of her final season with the French club.

The explosive revelations are contained in her memoir Bloom, which was released this week and details the extensive challenges she has faced in her young career, including a pattern of self-harm she has worked hard to overcome.

Investors cheer forecast-beating results from chipmaker, as attention turns to delayed US employment report

The Chinese ministry of commerce has said the dispute over the supply of chips from Nexperia, the Dutch-based Chinese-owed company, is still not fully resolved.

“There is still a gap to completely solve the problem,” the Chinese ministry of commerce (MOFCOM) said on Thursday.

“Minister Karremans justified his actions by accusing Nexperia’s CEO of various acts of alleged mismanagement. Wingtech strongly rejects these accusations and points out that, to date, no proof has been provided,”

The minimum is no additional cost for business. Every time costs go up, you’re making the case against investing in the UK.

In the UK cost of energy is too high versus almost anywhere in the world.

X chatbot suggested gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau were ‘designed for disinfection’ not mass executions

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French public prosecutors are investigating allegations by government ministers and human rights groups that Grok, Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, made statements denying the Holocaust.

The Paris public prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday night it was expanding an existing inquiry into Musk’s social media platform, X, to include the “Holocaust-denying comments”, which remained online for three days.

Palestinians living in tent cities on shore of southern Gaza fear disease, cold and hunger following first storm of season

Everyone knew what was coming. But there was little the inhabitants of the tent cities that crowd the shore of southern Gaza could do as the storm approached. Sabah al-Breem, 62, was sitting with one of her daughters and several grandchildren in their current home – a makeshift construction of tarpaulins and salvaged wood – when the wind and the driving rain broke across Gaza last week.

“Everything collapsed … We repaired our shelter but in the night it fell down again under the heavy rain. All our belongings were soaked. The day the winds blew was a black day for us,” said Breem, originally from Khan Younis but displaced multiple times since the start of the war in October 2023.

Snow hits UK coasts with Met Office warning worst-affected regions could face travel disruption and power cuts

Blizzard conditions are possible in parts of north-east England where an amber warning for snow has come into force, the Met Office has said.

Sleet and snow showers continued to hit UK coasts overnight into Thursday, with the worst-affected areas facing disruption to travel and potential power cuts, the forecaster said.

The former president’s far-right supporters have discovered a new interest in prison conditions as incarceration looms

He fought the law and the law won.

Two months after receiving a 27-year sentence for trying to “annihilate” Brazil’s democratic institutions, former president Jair Bolsonaro finally looks jail-bound.

Exclusive: union leaders say proposed changes are immoral and could threaten patient safety if there is staff exodus

Up to 50,000 nurses could quit the UK over the government’s immigration proposals, plunging the NHS into its biggest ever workforce crisis, research suggests.

Keir Starmer has vowed to curb net migration, with plans to force migrants to wait as long as 10 years to apply to settle in the UK instead of automatically gaining settled status after five years.

Study finds new party divide as backing for Labour and Conservatives plunges from 84% in 2020 to 58% in 2025

A new party divide is emerging among British Jews, research has found, with support rising fast for the Greens – buoyed up by younger and “anti-Zionist” Jews – while older Orthodox men turn to Reform UK as trust in the two main parties “collapses”.

Support for Labour and the Conservatives among British Jews had fallen to 58% by July 2025 from nearly 84% in 2020, according to a report from the Institute of Jewish Policy Research (JPR), which said it was “the lowest level we’ve ever recorded by some distance”.

Exclusive: Trade agreement means UK is subject to some food labelling rules, with vote on vegetarian food terms this week

Calling plant-based food veggie “burgers” or “sausages” may be banned in the UK under the new trade agreement with the EU, the Guardian understands.

The Labour government secured a new sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement with the EU earlier this year, which allows British businesses to sell products including some burgers and sausages in the EU for the first time since Brexit.

Alert says Beijing trying to recruit British sources in parliament, even if potential gains may be unclear

An unexpected connection on LinkedIn. An offer of work from a headhunter, most likely a young woman, based in China. The chance to earn perhaps £20,000 part-time writing a handful of geopolitical reports for a Chinese company peppered with “non-public” or “insider” insights. Payment in cryptocurrency or cash preferred.

It may seem obvious, on this telling, that something about this approach would be amiss. Nevertheless, China’s powerful ministry of state security (MSS) still considers it worthwhile to deploy recruitment consultants to try it – leading MI5 to warn repeatedly about their activity online.

It’s a climate-vulnerable nation, while also being the world’s sixth-largest greenhouse-gas emitter. Global investment in climate action is vital

A lack of clean water and medicines in the aftermath of the storm has led to a sharp rise in viruses such as chikungunya and dengue

Maidel Jorge, a 36-year-old farmer, sweats as he chops down a tree to collect wood for cooking: the early November weather in eastern Cuba is still as hot as summer. The tree was young, so the wood is green, which means it will take longer to burn and their meal will take longer to prepare.

Jorge, his pregnant wife and their six-year-old son are among 300 people staying in a school turned into an evacuation centre in Grito de Yara, Granma province, some of the 3 million Cubans exposed to Hurricane Melissa, which barrelled into the country last month.

Researchers in British Columbia catch sea wolves in the act after placing camera to solve mystery of damaged traps

The clues read like something from mystery novel: crab traps, suspiciously hauled ashore by unseen hands, had been damaged by baffling teeth marks. The bait inside was missing.

The question for researchers in the remote corner of British Columbia was: whodunnit? As with many crimes of opportunity in the modern era, the culprit was unmasked by a remote camera.

Motown star denies allegations, in addition to four existing sets of allegations against him

Two more former employees of the soul music star Smokey Robinson, both male and female, have alleged he sexually assaulted them, which he denies.

Robinson is already facing similar allegations from four other former employees, who filed a joint lawsuit in May. This week, lawyers for the accusers filed a motion to have two further accusers added to the lawsuit, both anonymously.

Lisa Brankin says new levies could discourage switch to EVs amid reports chancellor mulling pay-per-mile charge

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The boss of Ford UK has warned Rachel Reeves against increasing taxes on electric vehicles in next week’s budget, saying it could discourage drivers from making the switch away from petrol and diesel cars.

Lisa Brankin, the managing director of Ford UK, said it was “certainly not the right time” to introduce new levies on EVs, amid reports that the chancellor could implement a new pay-per-mile charge on electric vehicles (EVs) from 2028.

Government has officially announced ban on reselling for profit, described by minister as ‘no-brainer’

Last May, in a dimly lit basement beneath London’s South Bank, the UK’s most prolific ticket touts gathered to discuss Labour’s plan to effectively put them out of business.

One seasoned ticket “trader” pleaded with colleagues to help fund a war chest to lobby against the party’s election manifesto pledge to ban reselling tickets for profit.

Drop in October’s annual rate raises hopes of interest rate cut after Rachel Reeves’s tax and spending statement

• Fall looks like turning point that heralds interest rate cut

• Business live – latest updates

UK inflation fell to 3.6% in October, easing the path for the Bank of England to cut interest rates after the chancellor Rachel Reeves’s make-or-break budget next week.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said annual inflation as measured by the consumer prices index cooled for the first time in five months, falling back from a peak of 3.8% over July, August and September.

Proposed legal case understood to allege that app has breached data protection law varying driver pay rates

Uber has been hit with legal demands to stop using its artificial intelligence driven pay systems, which have been blamed for significantly reducing the incomes of the ride hailing app’s drivers.

A letter before action – sent to the US company by the non-profit foundation, Worker Info Exchange (WIE), on Wednesday – is understood to allege that the ride hailing app has breached European data protection law by varying driver pay rates through its controversial algorithm.

Architect Farshid Moussavi is behind a tranquil and timeless new building where Houston’s 40,000-strong Ismaili Muslim community can come together. But how has she created something that looks so delicate out of stone?

On a hot autumn day in southern Texas, monarch butterflies flit around the gardens of Houston’s new Ismaili Centre. Fragile and gaudy, they are on their way south to overwinter in Mexico, travelling up to 3,000 miles in a typical migration cycle, an epic feat of insectile endurance.

Their combination of delicacy and stamina is an apt metaphor for the Ismaili Centre, a building that has taken seven years to realise and is designed to last for a century or more. It’s a place where Houston’s 40,000-strong Ismaili Muslim community, one of the largest in the US, can practise their faith but it’s also a venue for shared activities.

Magnum photographer Lúa Ribeira worked intensely with young people – shooting them in dystopian landscapes on city limits to reflect their feelings of disconnection

Benedict Cumberbatch gives an honest performance, but this is too self-conscious to challenge or work through loss with same power as the book

This is a painful movie in both the right and the wrong ways; I found something fundamentally unpersuasive and unhelpful in its contrived, high-concept depiction of grief. Adapted by writer-director Dylan Southern from Max Porter’s novella Grief Is the Thing With Feathers, it stars Benedict Cumberbatch who gives an honest and well-intentioned performance as a children’s author and graphic novelist. Living a middle-class existence in London, he is suddenly widowed; one of the movie’s off-target qualities is its refusal to specify the cause of death or even show us clearly what his wife looked like, which in real life would be unbearably vivid facts. Sam Spruell has a quietly sympathetic role as Cumberbatch’s brother.

Left to look after their two young boys, he succumbs to a kind of breakdown, and hallucinates a giant nightmarish crow, which after a while the boys can sense too. The crow is derisively voiced by David Thewlis, and resembles the Ted-Hughes-ish illustrations Cumberbatch was working on. It sneeringly, ruthlessly mocks and jeers at his “sad dad” anguish; while everyone else is walking on eggshells around him, perhaps making things worse, the brutal crow jabs its beak into his psychic wound.

The Death of Bunny Munro is based on a Brighton-set novel about a sex-addict salesman. Plus: Celebrity Race Across the World hits El Salvador. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, Sky Atlantic
Matt Smith is at his most grotesque in an unsettling drama based on Nick Cave’s scandalous novel of the same name (Cave also executive produces). It’s set in Brighton in 2003, with Smith playing Bunny Munro – a hedonistic sex-addict salesman who manages to charm many around him while enraging others. After the death of his wife, Libby (Sarah Greene), he takes in his sweet, curious nine-year-old kid Bunny Jr (Rafael Mathé). But when social services call in to a flat littered with drugs, booze and cigarettes – plus a naked woman in the hallway – Bunny legs it with his son and together they embark on a wild road trip across southern England. Hollie Richardson

The pianist played with the Beatles, the Stones, the Who and more, but remains little known beyond insider circles. This loving doc asks why – but leaves some questions unanswered

This documentary is probably, as they say, one for the heads – for connoisseurs who appreciate a great musician who was never a star. But the flaw of this film, admirably detailed and celebratory though it is, lies for me in the fact that it never pauses to wonder why exactly he was never a star, and what that precisely means. Does star quality consist, in some mysterious way, in a lack of formal musicianship?

Nicky Hopkins was a superbly accomplished pianist who played on records by the Who, the Kinks, Jefferson Airplane, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles (plus solo albums by all four ex-Beatles) and many more. His brilliant work meant he was admired and even hero-worshipped by musicians and producers on both sides of the Atlantic. He was a classically trained Englishman (like Elton John at about the same time, he studied at the Royal Academy of Music) yet sounded as if he learned piano in the Mississippi Delta. And all this was while Hopkins was dealing with serious ill-health; he had Crohn’s disease and later issues with drink and drugs. The latter were at least partly due to a need to dull the pain, in order to keep up with tough recording and touring schedules; it all contributed to his heartbreakingly early death at the age of just 50.

The streamer continues its annual onslaught of forgettable festive films with a mostly charmless romance set in France

At the risk of sounding like the Grinch, I must once again bemoan the release of Christmas movies before Thanksgiving; the temperatures may be dropping at long last, but it’s still too close to the gloominess of daylight savings and too far from the belt-loosening of the actual holidays to fully indulge in Netflix’s now-annual buffet of cheap Christmas confections. Nevertheless, their content conveyor belt rolls on, offering treats about as substantial and enduring as cotton candy beginning in mid-November.

Like American chocolates that no longer, in fact, contain real chocolate but sell like gangbusters on Halloween anyway, the Netflix Christmas movie, like rival holiday movie master Hallmark, is relied upon, even beloved, for its brand of badness, for its rote familiarity (nostalgic casting, basement-bargain budgets, Styrofoam snow, knowingly absurd premise) and uncanny artificial filler, for its ability to deliver hits of sugary pleasure while still somehow under-delivering on expectations. At worst, these films are forgettable train wrecks (last week’s A Merry Little Ex-Mas); at best, they are forgettable fun, such as the Lindsay Lohan comeback vehicle Falling For Christmas, of which I remember nothing other than cackling with my friend on her couch. (Actually, at best they are memorably ludicrous, such as last year’s impressively unserious Hot Frosty.)

A skilled interpreter and social justice champion, Gaughan is a hero to the likes of Richard Hawley and Billy Bragg. Yet much of his work has been stuck in limbo for decades – until a determined fan stepped in

‘It felt to me as if the world had forgotten about the Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley of folk, or a singular figure in the mould of Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash or Richard Thompson.” So says Colin Harper, curator of a slew of new releases celebrating the stunning music of Scottish musician Dick Gaughan. Harper had recently reconnected with his music after several decades, “and I couldn’t believe the quality of it. His singing and guitar playing were astonishing – he performed traditional songs and championed social justice so powerfully.”

But if you haven’t heard of the 77-year-old Gaughan, it’s not surprising: much of his work has been unavailable for years, the rights to it having been claimed by the label Celtic Music, who have not made it available digitally. Gaughan doesn’t recall receiving a royalty statement from the company in 40 years. He is battling for ownership and, in turn, hopes to help other veteran folk artists regain control of their catalogues. “To find that the music I made, that I put a lot of work into, is just not available – it’s like your life isn’t available,” he says.

Whether it’s vibe-setting dance and rap for house parties or soothing dream-pop for when you’re contemplating the clear-up, reach for these ready-made playlists

Let’s face it: when everyone’s two improvised cocktails deep, they’ll be hollering for Pink Pony Club, and after two more, they’ll be doing Fairytale of New York in a male-female karaoke face-off. But for the early part of the party, here’s some 2025 pop, dance and rap to keep the mood buoyant.

Choreographers hear, somehow, a larger heartbeat; it’s fascinating and revelatory to have them reinterpret your compositions, writes the US musician, ahead of a triple bill featuring his music coming to Sadler’s Wells.

When I’m writing music, one of the primary challenges is figuring out how to notate rhythm in a way that is clear to the interpreters. When I hear a phrase in my head it is free of the confines of bar lines, but, in practical application, eventually it needs to get squeezed into recognisable shapes and containers. Every composer has their own strategy (some eschew bar lines entirely, or use alternative notational strategies outside the traditional western systems), but it’s always a negotiation: does the way the composer notates the rhythm correspond to how it should best appear on the flute player’s music stand?

I have distinct memories of being 13, hearing a piece (specifically, Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements), basically memorising it from the recording, and then being absolutely shocked when I finally saw the score. “That’s where the downbeat is?!” Stravinsky’s sense of time and my understanding of the same were at variance in a way I still find exciting: the idea that there are infinite superimpositions of a practical system (notation) over a medium (sound) most often experienced by an audience without the score. Understanding that notating rhythm is artificial yet crucial requires both personal precision and empathy with future interpreters.

Its 1981 New York premiere was a disaster but this told-in-reverse musical became a Tony award-winning hit with Daniel Radcliffe. The film version is a tear-jerking joy

I have made enough mistakes as a critic to feel mildly chuffed when a verdict is vindicated. In 1981 I wrote excitedly about a new Stephen Sondheim musical, Merrily We Roll Along, that I had seen in preview in New York; reviled by reviewers and shunned by the public, it then closed two weeks after opening. In 2023-24 the very same musical ran for a year on Broadway, won four Tony awards and was hailed by the critics. Fortunately a live performance of that Maria Friedman production was filmed and I would urge you to catch it when it’s released in cinemas next month.

I say “the very same musical” but that is not strictly accurate. Based on a 1934 play by George S Kaufman and Moss Hart, it is still the same story, told in reverse chronological order, of dissolving relationships: a success-worshipping composer and movie producer, Franklin Shepard, looks back over his life and sees how time has eroded both his creative partnership with a dramatist, Charley, and their mutual friendship with a novelist, Mary.

This collection of new short stories about Bertie and his valet pays homage to the genius of PG Wodehouse – just in time for Christmas

As with most of the giants of late 19th- and early 20th-century English literature, the vast majority of PG Wodehouse’s readers today are non-white. Perhaps it was brutal colonial indoctrination that ensured the modern descendants of the aspirant imperial middle classes from Barbados to Burma, with their tea caddies, gin-stuffed drinks cabinets and yellowing Penguin paperbacks, still devour Maugham, Shaw and Kipling. Perhaps they just have good taste.

Wodehouse’s detractors are many – Stephen Sondheim (“archness … tweeness … flimsiness”), Winston Churchill (“He can live secluded in some place or go to hell as soon as there is a vacant passage”), the Inland Revenue – but for millions around the world he remains the greatest comic writer Britain has ever produced. And he clearly still sells here, as this collection of a dozen new officially sanctioned stories by writers, comedians and celebrity admirers, out in time to be a stocking filler, attests.

Award-winning author whose novels, including her debut, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, united comic skills with serious themes

Marina Lewycka, who has died aged 79 from a degenerative brain condition, appeared to achieve a kind of fairy-tale transformation when, in her late 50s, her comic debut novel became a million-copy bestseller.

However, behind the literary stardust that settled on the British Ukrainian novelist after A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian lay not just “a long career as an unpublished author”. That book grew from intimate involvement with the sorrow and pity of war-torn Europe: a “measureless ocean of tears and blood”.

The author of Palestine turns his attention to the legacies of Indian partition in this brilliant portrait of the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots

Joe Sacco is one of a very small number of graphic novelists who have smashed through into the mainstream. His masterwork is Palestine, a collected volume of single-issue comic books he created in the 1990s, documenting the violence in Gaza. His technique is to embed as a journalist in a war zone and interview people on the street, telling their stories with pictures. Lessons on global politics emerge from ultra-local conflict and depictions of day-to-day life.

Palestine propelled Sacco to fame, drawing comparisons with Maus, Art Spiegelman’s two-volume saga about Polish Jews during the Holocaust with Nazis portrayed as cats, and Jews as mice. These works are sold prominently in bookshops, not in musty basements packed with racks of polyethylene-sheathed superhero comics. Alongside a couple of others, Maus and Palestine signalled that graphic novels, as they became known, could be serious works of fiction, nonfiction and journalism. Palestine itself is as depressingly relevant today as it was in the 1990s. In December 2023, it was reprinted for the first time in a decade, after selling out following the 7 October attacks.

An intimate soiree builds to a horrific climax in this visceral novel about a young woman tasked with hosting a meal for her fiance

Literature loves a dinner party. From Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway to more recent offerings such as Sarah Gilmartin’s The Dinner Party and Teresa Präauer’s Cooking in the Wrong Century, an intimate soiree provides the perfect recipe of claustrophobia and choreography into which a novelist can sink their teeth. The preparations are usually unduly stressful, the guest list dynamic unpredictable, the quantity of alcohol borderline obscene – in short, as a device it has all the ingredients for total, delicious carnage.

The latest entrant to this literary Come Dine With Me is Viola van de Sandt, whose debut The Dinner Party centres on Franca, a shy young woman from the Netherlands tasked with hosting a meal for her English fiance Andrew and his two male colleagues. To make matters more challenging, it is the hottest day of the year, the menu is rabbit (despite Franca’s vegetarianism) and her sous chef is their often violent pet cat.

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

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

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

Forty years ago, the Nintendo Entertainment System dominated the markets in Japan and the US. But in Europe, a technologically superior rival was making it look like an ancient relic

There’s an old maxim that history is written by the victors, and that’s as true in video games as it is anywhere else. Nowadays you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Nintendo Entertainment System was the only console available in the mid-to-late 1980s. If you were brought up in Nintendo’s target markets of Japan and North America, this chunky contraption essentially was the only game in town – the company had Mario after all, and its vice-like hold on third-party developers created a monopoly for major titles of the era. But in Europe, where home computers ruled the era, the NES was beaten by a technologically superior rival.

The Sega Master System was originally released in Japan in the autumn of 1985 as the Sega Mark III. Based around the famed Z80 CPU (used in home computers such as the Spectrum, Amstrad and TRS-80) and a powerful Sega-designed video display processor, it boasted 8kb of RAM, a 64-colour palette and the ability to generate 32 sprites on screen at one time – making the NES (based on the older 6502 processor) look like an ancient relic.

From Demon Souls to Baby Steps, challenging games keep a certain type of player coming back for more. I wonder why we are such suckers for punishment

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Most people who really love video games have the capacity to be obsessive. Losing weeks of your life to Civilization, World of Warcraft or Football Manager is something so many of us have experienced. Sometimes, it’s the numbers-go-up dopamine hit that hooks people: playing something such as Diablo or Destiny and gradually improving your character while picking up shiny loot at perfectly timed intervals can send some people into an obsessional trance. Notoriously compulsive games such as Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley, meanwhile, suck up hours with peaceful, comforting repetition of rewarding tasks.

What triggers obsession in me, though, is a challenge. If a game tells me I can’t do something, I become determined to do it, sometimes to my own detriment. Grinding repetition bores me, but challenges hijack my brain.

Guitar Hero’s controllers let anyone become a star in their own living room – and made the bands featured in the game household names again

It is 20 years since Guitar Hero was launched in North America, and with it, the tools for the everyday gamer to become a rock star. Not literally of course, but try telling that to someone who has nailed Free Bird’s four-minute guitar solo in front of a packed living-room audience.

Developed by Harmonix, published by RedOctane and inspired by Konami’s GuitarFreaks, Guitar Hero gave players a guitar-shaped controller with which to match coloured notes scrolling down the screen in time with a song. Each riff or sequence corresponded to specific notes, creating the feel of a genuine performance.

Royal Court theatre, Liverpool
Paul Duckworth’s sweary Scrooge has romantic history with Marley’s widow in a pun-heavy festive show

Whether it’s Paul Hilton at London’s Old Vic this winter or Marti Pellow in Glasgow next year, you’re never far from a Scrooge during the festive season. Only one of them, however, will strip down to his long johns as he sings I’m Too Sexy by Right Said Fred.

At Liverpool’s Royal Court they do things differently. With his brushed back mane of silvery hair, Paul Duckworth’s Scrooge is not just miserly, he is also libidinous and foul-mouthed, not to mention being a hot shot on the harmonica.

At Royal Court theatre, Liverpool, until 24 January

National Gallery, London
Abbey’s studies for the vast murals in the Pennsylvania state capitol – early 20th-century Trump-style symbols of power – leave you wanting to see the finished works

Oh say can you see, by the dawn’s early light, how a huge painting covered in writhing nudes and gold leaf could be a symbol of US power? Not a huge leap is it? And here it is, in the National Gallery, Edwin Austin Abbey’s study for The Hours, a huge circular painting which adorns the ceiling of the Pennsylvania state capitol – a bold, blue and gold testament to the US’s glory.

It’s hard to believe – with museums everywhere begging for money from arms dealers and drug barons, and the arts becoming increasingly defunded – that back in turn-of-the-century America, the arts had value. And Abbey reaped the benefits. He was born in the US in 1852 but made his name in the UK. And when the big kahunas from the newly megarich Pennsylvania came knocking, he answered the call of the motherland.

Design Museum, London
The Fantastic Mr Fox’s snappy outfits, an intricate model of the Grand Budapest Hotel and dozens of stop-motion puppets are all among the 700 objects in this sugarcoated quirkfest

Terrible things happen in Wes Anderson films. In his latest, The Phoenician Scheme, a man is casually split in half in an aircraft crash. In The Royal Tenenbaums, the patriarchal protagonist feigns a terminal illness in order to weasel his way back into his estranged and dysfunctional family. In The Grand Budapest Hotel the “heroic” concierge Monsieur Gustave is essentially a killer and the fictional Republic of Zubrowka is in the tightening grip of a fascist regime.

All this is played for knowing comedic effect (the splatted bisection resembles a Tom and Jerry cartoon; Zubrowka is a brand of Polish bison grass vodka), while lavishly sugarcoated in a set dressing of eccentric curios, outlandish costumes and saturated colour. Anderson aficionados will be familiar with the drill, a bit like finding a gnat in a cupcake, delivered in a series of perfectly composed vignettes.

Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge
Offeh’s show blares and jostles with life as he mimics Mammy, listens to self-help advice and gets naked for Grace Jones’s anatomically impossible Island Life pose

Mmmm ... Mm-mm. Mmmmmwwwwwmmm. MMM. Sometimes sexy and sometimes sleepy, sometimes like a kid making airplane noises or doing an impression of a creaking door or maybe a whale, the sound of Harold Offeh humming and ummming fills the lobby of Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge. Mmm, he goes, mmm-mm-mm. He up-speaks and mumbles and wrings a whole world of feeling out of this disembodied overture. The title of Offeh’s show, including that Mmm, is a quote, from a song on Portishead’s 1994 album Dummy. “Gotta try a little harder / It could be sweet,” runs the lyric, which is also printed in big gloopy lettering on the gallery walls, behind Offeh’s video screens, his photographs and other graphic interventions. The show blares and jostles with life, with song and dance, with skits and routines, with public moments and private performances on the loo and in the bathroom.

For more than two decades Offeh has been a moving target. Here’s the Ghanaian-born Offeh as Haroldinho, in Rio de Janeiro in 2003, shuffling samba steps and wearing typical, Brazilian blue worker’s overalls, his adopted name appliqued on the back. Dancing in the streets and on the beach, he sways and smiles, an object of mild curiosity to passersby. In Rio, people often assumed he was Brazilian. Here he is again, now on the streets and shopping centres of Walsall, Oxford, Liverpool and Chester, in Stockholm and Banff, in the shadow of the Canadian Rockies, wearing a Victorian-era magnifying lens in front of his face, which distorts and exaggerates his features. Given the suspicious looks he gets on the British streets, you worry for his safety.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What will be your way of feeling Slovenia?

French government withdraws funding after claims of toxic management and dismissal of staff member who lodged rape complaint

One of the world’s most prestigious comic book festivals is under threat of cancellation after leading graphic novelists and publishers announced they would boycott the event and the French government withdrew a tranche of its funding.

In the biggest crisis in its illustrious history, the Angoulême festival of la bande dessinée (comic strip) may not take place in 2026 after claims of toxic management and the dismissal of a member of staff who had lodged a rape complaint.

The former 70s-loving PE teacher has found cult acclaim with his sitcom Mammoth, about a time-travelling 70s PE teacher. The parallels don’t end there, he says, but some things from that era are best left in the past

Think growing some fuzz on your top lip for Movember is impressive? Mike Bubbins hasn’t shaved his moustache for 15 years. “Growing up, all the people I admired like Burt Reynolds and Tom Selleck had a moustache,” explains the Welsh actor, writer and comedian. “My stag night had a Welsh 1970s rugby theme; there were some great taches in that era so I grew a moustache just for the occasion. Afterwards, I told a friend that I missed the moustache. He said: ‘Grow it back then.’ I said: ‘I’m not gonna get TV work if I’ve got a moustache.’ He said: ‘But you might get work because you’ve got a moustache.’ It was like Samson’s hair, and I haven’t looked back since …”

Bubbins’s love of all things 70s and moustachioed helps explain the idea behind his BBC sitcom, Mammoth. In it, Bubbins plays Tony Mammoth, a 70s Welsh PE teacher who is cryogenically frozen in an avalanche in 1979. When he awakes in 2024, he goes back to a teaching job he technically never left, and in the process is forced to navigate the changes to the modern world since he last lived in it, from same-sex relationships to traffic pollution (“Always keep the engine running” is his outdated advice).

Roles as EM Forster and a young, gay American dying of Aids in the 2018 play allowed an opportunity for deep personal and social reflection

In 2018 I had recently lost my mother, so I was looking for connections with the spirit. The Inheritance allowed me to talk about matters of the heart.

It was the world premiere at the Young Vic in London, so we were making something brand new, which is always thrilling. They’d already done a week’s rehearsal with another actor who had pulled out of what became my role. I stayed up all night reading Matthew López’s script before my audition. It was so gripping. I was nervous of Stephen Daldry going into the audition, as he has an enormous status and he’s very front-footed in the rehearsal room. I like to be in the background and find my way, so his working methods frightened me a little bit. But I put all of that aside to serve this story.

A new study by the University of Cambridge found many authors’ work has already been used – without their permission – to train large language models

More than half of published novelists in the UK believe artificial intelligence could eventually replace their work entirely, according to a new report from the University of Cambridge.

The study, conducted for the university’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, suggests widespread unease about the speed and scale of AI’s advance into the literary world.

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

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

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

These old-school presents, from Polaroid cameras to poetry diaries, are the ultimate antidote to digital overload

• The best 90s Christmas gifts: 15 nostalgic picks

All I want for Christmas is … to reclaim my attention span. Granted, it’s not the sexiest-sounding new year resolution, but for those who are addicted to scrolling, it’s basically the equivalent of 75 Hard.

The daily average for watching all types of screen is now almost 7.5 hours in the UK; almost 70% of young people have said social media makes them feel worse about themselves; and since I sat down to write this, I’ve checked my phone upwards of five times. So what to do?

That ‘once-a-year’ deal might not be as rare as it looks – here’s how to spot the real bargains hiding in the Black Friday chaos (and avoid the scams)

• Do you really need a new TV? Seven simple ways to upgrade your setup

It’s a difficult time for people who dislike Americana influencing British culture. Even if you’re able to ignore the culture war sailing across the Atlantic, we now have the double whammy of Thanksgiving and Black Friday being celebrated in the UK.

While the former may only have a small footprint in the UK, the latter is big business. In 2024, Britons spent £3.6bn between Black Friday and the retro-futuristically named Cyber Monday – a 5.2% increase on the previous year, despite (or perhaps because of) the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.

From activity trackers and a massage gun to fitness kit and soothing post-workout soaks, it won’t be too much of a stretch to find a present that suits

• The best Christmas gifts for 2025

What does a fitness fanatic want for Christmas (other than rock-solid abs)? Whether you’re buying for a gym bunny who loves a gruelling Hiit session or a yoga fanatic who hits the mat to unwind, we asked a selection of top trainers and fitness devotees for their gift picks.

We’ve made the job of getting them something they’ll love that little bit easier by tracking down the best gifts for the chronically active. From kit that makes you want to workout to tools that help tired muscles afterwards, read on for all the present inspiration you need.

Whether it’s a jacket to stay cosy in the cold or a clever multitool, our expert-selected gear means there’s something for everyone who loves life on their bike

• The best gifts for runners

As the proud daughter of the president of St Austell Wheelers cycle club in Cornwall, I know better than to wing it when it comes to giving gifts to a bike rider. That’s why we’ve asked so many people, from coaches to athletes, club riders to young cyclists, what they would like to receive.

Speaking of Dad, this year he has moved from his road bike to the world of gravel riding (check out Fairlight Cycles) and is loving it. He treated himself to a Cornish downpour-proof jacket and a set of panniers for a cycling trip to France – and highly recommends them (see below for details). Less so the bike bell someone told him “everyone” uses in France, only to get there and find not a single cyclist he saw had one.

The environmental costs of flying are much higher, and the government subsidises rail travel, so what explains the baffling price difference when travelling domestically?

Years ago, airline travel was the preserve of the wealthy, and this may be why it can still come as a surprise when getting on a plane looks like the money-saving choice compared with taking the train.

When the personal finance comparison site Finder did some research this summer, it found flying within the UK was the cheapest option more often than taking the train. It then asked people what they thought of its findings. Louise Bastock, a money expert at the website, says respondents all said “trains should be cheaper as it is public transport and more accessible”, with some saying “it feels all wrong” when plane travel cost less.

Where better to source what you need for the season than the places with a reputation for making it? From fizz and food to fine art, here’s our festive shopping guide

Stock up on festive fizz with a trip to the heart of Kent’s flourishing wine region. Start the tastings at Simpsons’ wine estate, 10 minutes’ drive from Canterbury, then head to Domaine Evremond, Taittinger’s UK vineyard, where its first release, Classic Cuvée Edition I, is available at the Cellar Door shop. Nearby, the medieval village of Chilham makes an ideal stop for lunch at the Woolpack Inn. Back in Canterbury, Corkk is a specialist English wine shop with more than 100 labels to try, and cheese and charcuterie platters to nibble on while you decide what to buy. Stay at the Millers Arms, in the heart of town, with B&B doubles from £93.50.

Slivers of garlicky red pepper on a creamy Balkan white bean dip known as papula

This week, I’ve been putting the finishing touches on an interview I recorded with legendary Australian cheesemaker Richard Thomas, the inventor of an ingredient you may not even realise is Australian: marinated feta, AKA “Persian fetta”. An unexpected stop on a trip to Iran in the 1970s gifted Thomas a chance meeting with a Persian doctor and his breakfast: fresh labneh with soft, still-warm lavash. It was a revelation. On his return, Thomas got to work creating a fresh cheese from goat’s milk (similar to chèvre) and from cow’s milk, marinated and preserved in oil, with an extra “t” to avert confusion with the Greek-style feta, that’s still being utilised by cooks and chefs right across the world.

Persian fetta is a shapeshifter, capable of remaining both firm and steadfast when crumbled across the top of a platter or salad, and of yielding to a soft, velvety cream, enhancing all manner of dishes from pasta to pesto to whipped dips and schmears – and, of course, as a topping for that Aussie cafe staple, avocado toast.

Alice Zaslavsky is a Guardian Australia food columnist

A luscious torte is a great way to use up that big bag of nuts in the cupboard and to make use of the season’s pears

Each recipe in my cookbook Eating for Pleasure, People & Planet includes optional whole food ingredients such as rapadura sugar, emmer wheat and flaxseeds to boost nutrients and flavour, while also keeping things adaptable so you can use up what you already have in the cupboards. Writing a plant-based cookbook taught me new ways to save waste, and confirmed my belief that zero-waste cooking is whole food cooking. Aquafaba (the liquid from a tin of chickpeas or other beans), for example, is a powerful emulsifier that can replace eggs, especially when whisked with ground flaxseeds or chia. It’s a brilliant way of turning what we’d usually pour down the sink into cakes with remarkable lift and texture.

Fish pie gets a tropical reboot, or try a cold-busting filo chicken pie or a wholesome supergreens and cheese pie

When the temperature takes a nosedive, few things compete with a just-baked pie. Don’t be daunted by social media images of perfect, artistic ones; a pie will taste just as good whether it’s rustically homespun or exactingly decorated and carved. Ultimately, what is more important is the integrity of the ingredients (both the casing and the filling). As pastry or potatoes are such a large part of the equation, invest in the best, and make sure puff pastry is all butter and filo is generously lubricated with melted butter. And, if you’re serving your pie with mash, you want it lump-free, properly seasoned and enriched with butter and cream.

Mushrooms again come to the rescue for that meaty mouthfeel, but our panel also recommends the savoury flavours of Asia to sate those umami cravings

I’m a lifelong vegetarian, but my boyfriend is a dedicated carnivore. How can I cook to please us both?
Victoria, by email
“I have three words for you, Victoria,” says Anna Ansari, author of Silk Roads, who grew up in a predominantly vegetarian household: “Di si xian.” Typical of northern China, this stir-fry of aubergine, potato and peppers (otherwise known as the “three treasures”) is laced with soy, Shoaxing wine, white pepper, sugar, cornflour and, in Ansari’s case, doubanjiang. She also adds tofu (the fourth treasure, if you will) for “a rounded, one-pot/wok dinner” to eat with steamed rice. “It reminds me of being a teenager in Beijing, far from home and in need of warmth and comfort,” she says, and we could all do with some of that right now. “It’s also cheap as proverbial chips, not to mention quick to make, and it will knock both your socks off. Promise.”

Mushrooms could also pave the way to harmonious dining. “Surely they’re the closest thing to a natural meat substitute,” says Zak Hitchman, chef/owner of Other in Bristol. He’d be inclined to layer them up in a lasagne: “Slice a load of mixed mushrooms [chestnut, shiitake, oyster], then saute them in oil and butter with some seasoning.” Next, fry onion, garlic, celery, diced carrot, maybe some rosemary or thyme, until softened, then return the cooked mushrooms to the pot with some tinned tomatoes and tomato puree. “You could bulk it out with tinned lentils,” he says, but either way be sure to include a splash of soy and some miso for “that meaty flavour”, plus any vinegar you have knocking around “for balance”. Cook slowly until reduced, then layer between dried lasagne sheets. “Top that with bechamel [or simply dollop on some mascarpone] and lots of grated parmesan [a vegetarian one, if need be]. Drizzle with olive oil and bake until the pasta is soft, the sauce bubbling and the top golden.”

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

They both liked the Greens’ Zack Polanski and disliked the tech oligarchs. But could they find common cause over the power of the unions?

Andrew, 70, near Nottingham

Occupation Retired acupuncturist and herbalist

Maya worried about entering into an open relationship with Ollie, but being honest with each other has deepened their relationship

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

If I know that Ollie’s on a date, I find it difficult sitting around, not knowing what to do with myself

I was sleep deprived and completely overwhelmed when she stepped in and took charge

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

As a twin mum the work is constant. It is double the love and double the laughs, but also double the illness. Of course, my twins would never get sick at the same time. As one recovered, the other would start showing symptoms.

One day, when my girls were three, one had a vomiting bug. She hadn’t thrown up for 24 hours so I took my chance to do a quick run to the chemist to stock up on supplies. My husband worked away during the week, so I had to manage on my own. I was exhausted, carrying the sick kid in my arms, while walking the healthy one along next to me as quickly as I could.

A face-to-face conversation telling her how her behaviour affects you would give you peace, even if she ignores you

I have been friends with a woman for more than 20 years, who has overcome many challenges, which I admire. However, she’s constantly blindsided by people. Her husband left her, and it was a huge shock. A lot of her friends disappeared at that point as they were only interested in her husband. This surprised her. She made more effort to be my friend, and must have realised more clearly what friendship was.

Over the years since, quite a few of her friends have disappeared and she isn’t sure why. Her last employer turned on her, even though she was an excellent employee, and she left without knowing what had changed.

From turning down thermostats to make savings to installing reflectors to push warmth back into your home

“When it comes to staying warm and saving energy, small changes can make a big difference,” says Sarah Pennells, a consumer finance specialist at the investment company Royal London.

The offensive listing seemed more than a mistake – it was a failure of corporate responsibility, says reader

I found a baby outfit (sizes from newborn to five years) on Amazon bearing the phrase “Santa’s favourite ho”.

This isn’t just a tasteless mistake – it’s a failure of corporate responsibility and consumer protection. A corporation this large should have systems that prevent sexualised or exploitative language being associated with items for children.

A new generation of younger workers are being derided as delusional and unreliable, just as millennials were

Gen Z is undisciplined, apparently; entitled, some critics claim; and purportedly hates work. One viral column in the Wall Street Journal went so far as to suggest this entire generation was potentially “unemployable”.

As younger employees establishing themselves at work continue to face relentless criticism from the higher rungs of corporate America, those old enough to remember the arrival of the last generation could be forgiven for experiencing a sense of deja vu.

My van was hurtled into motorway barriers by a driver who did not stop and the vehicle is still being held in a compound along with the tools of my trade

My van was hit from behind on a motorway by a speeding driver who failed to stop.

It spun across the carriageway, hitting the barriers on either side, and went up in flames. I thankfully got off with a small head injury. I reported the collision to my insurance company, Autonet, and was told it would be in touch.

Since I was a teenager I had struggled in winter, experiencing excessive tiredness and low mood. A specific instruction lifted the gloom

I’m pretty sure I must be half human, half plant – how else to explain why I need the light to thrive? During the brighter seasons I feel fine, but when winter comes and the light begins to fade, I start drooping.

I have struggled with seasonal affective disorder (Sad) since I was a teenager. The symptoms of Sad are similar to regular depression, with low moods and lethargy, and can be equally debilitating. Over the years I’ve experienced the full Sad spectrum, from moments of excessive tiredness and carb cravings (yes, those are official Sad symptoms), to a low point of breaking down crying on the kitchen floor after school because it was so cold, dark and bleak.

More and more people are turning to egg freezing to increase their chances of becoming a parent. Here’s what you need to know if you’re considering it – from the hidden costs to the chances of success

When I first told my mother I was freezing my eggs, she asked: “So my grandchildren are going to be stored next to some Häagen-Dazs?” (Very funny, Mum.) I’m one of an increasing number of women in the UK who have chosen to put their eggs on ice in order to preserve their fertility, although this does – as discussed later – have clear limitations.

According to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the UK’s regulator for the fertility industry, there was a 170% increase in the number of egg freezing cycles between 2019 and 2023. The technology has been around since the 80s, but became more accessible in the 00s with vitrification, a flash-freezing technique. Now, celebrities such as Florence Pugh and Michaela Coel openly discuss their experiences of it, and companies such as Meta, Spotify and Goldman Sachs subsidise the procedure for employees.

There are modest benefits to exercising on an empty stomach, but it’s more important to burn more energy than you’re consuming

‘There’s an element of truth to that,” says Javier Gonzalez, a professor of nutrition and metabolism at the University of Bath. “When we exercise, we’re always burning a mix of fuels – mainly carbohydrates and fat. If you’ve fasted overnight, you’ll generally burn a bit more fat and less carbohydrate than if you’d eaten breakfast, especially one high in carbs.” But that doesn’t mean fasted workouts are better for weight loss.

“We can only store a small amount of carbohydrate as glycogen in our muscles and liver. Any extra energy – from carbs, fat or protein – eventually gets stored as body fat. So to lose fat, you need to be in an energy deficit: burning more energy than you consume. If you’re not, it doesn’t matter whether you’re fasted or fed – your body balances things out over time,” says Gonzalez.

Meaningful therapy offers a path past our worst impulses. We should be fighting for it to be available for everyone

When I picture what a good life means to me, I feel a tension in my chest. I see my daughter and my husband and I feel the profound fulfilment of being exactly where I need to be, tightened by the terror that life is so fragile and I cannot protect them from that reality. Then a memory: lying on my analyst’s couch and describing a feeling of hollowness inside that I felt deeply ashamed of, and her listening and thinking and understanding – and my noticing that while I felt horror and repulsion, she didn’t seem to. Next: different walks around different parks with different friends, each with the same feeling of being warmed from the inside out; also, bumping into neighbours at the playground and feeling a part of my community. I remember powerful moments with my patients, who have felt understood, by me and within themselves. And I think of the moving messages from readers who have got in touch, sharing precious stories from their lives.

People often think that psychoanalysis and its NHS-friendly grandchild, psychodynamic psychotherapy, are all about looking inwards. And it’s true – good therapy should give us the time and space, the frame and the containment, to look inside and listen to ourselves.

If you’re an urban creature like me, you can go country-coded while staying aware you’re essentially playacting. The trick is not going OTT

Once a decade or so, the urban-centric fashion world discovers this delightful concept called The Countryside. With the vanishingly scant levels of self-awareness that are fashion’s default setting, it then proceeds to immediately and loudly tell the world about it. There are so many trees! Don’t you just love trees? Especially at this time of year when the leaves are lovely tasteful colours, great for selfies, very flattering to the complexion. The pubs are absolutely charming. Sometimes they even have sourdough.

Here we go again. It began with hiking boots, a couple of years ago. Last winter, the barn jacket was suddenly, inexplicably everywhere, and this season is wall-to-wall Fair Isle jumpers. Dressing like you are on a cosy mini-break is to autumn what dressing for a festival field is to summer: a version of countryside dressing conceived by someone who leaves the city for no more than 48 hours at a time. It is possibly not even a million miles from cultural appropriation. And at this point I need to hold my hands up and say: I’m as bad as any of them. I love the countryside but I, in my cold hard heart, am an urban creature, really.

It’s been a bumper year but these are my top picks, including my most used lipstick and an eyeshadow palette that has finally stolen my heart

This has been an excellent year for new makeup, starting with Givenchy’s comeback. Having infuriated the beauty community by (badly) reformulating its classic loose powder, it won back detractors with the exceptionally good Prisme Libre Pressed Powder, which blurs, smoothes and near-perfects a face of makeup, and now lives full time in my handbag. This was followed by a Bronzer Powder version, also £45, which succeeded in moving me away from creams to achieve a filtered, sun-kissed finish. Full marks with distinction for both.

I won’t dwell on Nars The Multiple (£33), because I so recently have, but the reboot of this classic cheek, eye and lip cream improved on the legend with nuanced, muted shades and a soft, lasting, flattering finish.

They can be garish and ostentatious, or a sign you are softer than you might first appear. From the catwalk to the high street to the big screen to the rugby pitch, you just can’t miss them right now

Wuthering Heights is a story about pain, revenge and the Yorkshire moors as a metaphor for bad life choices. But if Emerald Fennell’s forthcoming adaptation is anything to go by, it’s also about bows.

In the two-minute trailer for the film, Cathy wears red bows and black bows, navy bows and pink bows. There are bows around garden pots, and bows around “baddy” Edgar Linton’s throat. Some bows flutter in the fell wind, others are unlaced at speed. In one memorable shot straight from the Jilly Cooper precoital playbook, a pretty white bow is cut from Cathy’s bodice using a labourer’s knife, which would be unforgivable hamminess were it not incredibly hot. Never mind that Emily Brontë rarely mentions bows in the book; that one is an entire plot device.

A look at the editor-in-chief’s Vogue covers from her first radical combination in 1988 to her final ‘weird’ shoot

During her 37-year tenure as editor-in-chief of American Vogue, Anna Wintour has presided over more than 400 covers. December 2025’s, on newsstands this week, will prove her last before she steps away to focus on roles as Vogue’s global editorial director and chief content officer at Condé Nast.

The cover is certainly memorable: an image of the actor Timothée Chalamet photographed by Wintour’s long-term collaborator Annie Leibovitz in a Celine white polo neck, long cream coat and embroidered jeans, standing on a “planet” with a backdrop of a star-filled nebula provided by Nasa.

With a new exhibition of his work at the National Gallery in London, a visit to the artist’s home town reveals the landscapes and industry that inspired him

The river rushes white around each of the large, flattish rocks as I tread tentatively over the stepping stones that Dovedale is famous for. This limestone valley on the border between Derbyshire and Staffordshire is a popular spot for day trips and hiking. Thankfully, it’s quiet on this brisk November morning, and I’m able to soak in the scene: the River Dove flowing fast, the autumn trees turning russet and gold, the green fold of hills rising around me.

On days like this, it’s clear why Dovedale has inspired creatives. One of those was the 18th-century artist Joseph Wright of Derby, whose work is being celebrated in a new exhibition at the National Gallery.

The cosy cabins, bike rides and serenity of De Alde Feanen national park make it the perfect place to switch off and unwind in winter

If there are times when the sights, smells and sounds of a new destination are best downed in a single, heady, flaming sambuca of a weekend, there are others when a more slow-drip pace is called for. Such is the case with De Alde Feanen, in Friesland. One of the most peaceful national parks in the Netherlands, this 4,000-hectare wetland slows down naturally after the summer season. Its waterways shrug off their summer flocks of kayakers, paddleboarders, boat trippers and terrace diners. Museums and galleries close. The local tourist office winds down. Even the park’s population of nesting storks fly south.

A 20-minute drive south-east of Leeuwarden, in the country’s north-east, the lakes, ponds, ditches and canals of “The Old Fens” are the remains of the peat-cutting that began there in the middle ages. Now awash with reeds, rushes and sedges, its watery habitats are richly biodiverse, home to more than 100 bird species as well as otters, pine martens, roe deer and dragonflies. Hay meadows and wetland forest add marsh thistle, reed orchids, alders and willows to the list. Ribboned with well-marked hiking and cycling trails, the proximity to nature draws spring and summer tourists but treasures can be found there in autumn and winter too; among them thousands of ducks and geese, and some of the starriest skies in the Netherlands.

Crooked buildings, welcoming inns, ancient woodlands … it’s easy to see why the location scouts chose this idyllic corner of England

The door creaks as I push it back and move forward into the gloom. The ceiling is vaulted and dark, but light falls in shafts of gold from the upper windows, revealing ancient stone carvings and tombs. It’s the right atmosphere for a ghost-hunt. I take a few steps and the door clicks, making me jump. Must be the wind.

Exploring old English churches is always a pleasure. There is no one to disturb you, and in the dim quiet will be a historical jaw-dropper: a centuries-old face carved in oak, a grisly tomb, an inscription to the dead hero of a forgotten battle. Each site is a mini detective puzzle, waiting to be unravelled, often with a helpful booklet available near the door. The spirits of those who have shuffled off this mortal coil hang in the dust motes, but here, in Weobley, Herefordshire, I am looking for someone specific.

From a Tudor manor in Wales to a swinging 60s hotel in Prague, these hotels and guesthouses are steeped in history

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

Last week in the comments, someone dared raise the ancient philosophical conundrum: when we say “the first line of a play”, do we mean the first words spoken by a character, or do the stage directions count? The Thursday quiz condemns such quibbling, hair splitting and dramaturgical pedantry – unless of course it’s the quiz making a fuss. Still, the show must go on regardless, so limber up for another 15 questions of topical nonsense and dubious – though entirely correct – general knowledge. Let us know how you get on in the comments. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 224

The rollout of reporter Olivia Nuzzi’s memoir has led to Ryan Lizza airing out her alleged affairs – and is fueling a dangerous stereotype about journalists

This week, Olivia Nuzzi – the US star political reporter known for her cozy access to top Republican figures – dropped an excerpt of her memoir, American Canto. In it, she detailed what she describes as an emotional affair with Robert F Kennedy Jr, who she calls “the politician”.

Not to be outdone, Nuzzi’s ex-fiance and former Politico correspondent Ryan Lizza self-published an essay dishing on the day he found out Nuzzi was cheating on him, he claims – not with RFK Jr, as one might have expected, but with another former presidential candidate, Mark Sanford.

Two of the world’s leading cult interventionists live (with their parrot) in Philadelphia. They explain the art of coaxing people out of the most pernicious groups in the world

When the phone rings at Patrick Ryan and Joseph Kelly’s home in Philadelphia, chances are the caller is desperate. One couple rang because their son was about to abandon his medical practice to follow a new-age guru in Spain. Another call came from a husband whose wife was emptying their life savings for a self-proclaimed prophet in Australia. Yet another family phoned about their niece, who was in a relationship with a man stealing from her, maybe drugging her, probably sexually assaulting her.

These families had tried everything else. When nothing worked, they heard there were two men in Philadelphia who might still be able to bring their loved one home.

I once even thought I had seen my late grandmother. Can science explain my overfamiliarity with strange faces?

When I was in my mid-20s, I spotted my grandma through the window of a coffee shop. I was dumbstruck – she had passed away the year before. I stared for a moment, then reminded myself it couldn’t be her.

I’d had similar experiences all my life. Every now and then, I “recognized” someone I didn’t know. Sometimes I could quickly pinpoint who the stranger reminded me of – like my grandma. Other times, a face simply had a vague familiarity I couldn’t place.

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

The clip of the US president on Air Force One last Friday has taken off without much help from the media itself

It’s one outrage in days full of outrageous material.

“Quiet, piggy,” Donald Trump told a female reporter in a press gaggle, pointing his finger at her angrily.

After 14 years of Tory rule, the Guardian’s parliamentary sketch writer thought he had seen it all. Westminster would surely tick along nicely once Keir Starmer’s party took over. How wrong he was ...

I feel I should probably start with an apology. A few days after the 2024 general election, I wrote that it felt as if the grownups were back in charge. It wasn’t as if I was carried away by the vision of Keir Starmer or the charisma of Rachel Reeves. More that I felt we had regained a basic level of competence. That politics would become business as usual rather than the breathless psychodrama of the past 10 years. You could go to bed at night relatively confident that the country would be more or less recognisable when you woke up. There would be no more mad people doing mad things as we raced through five or six news cycles in the course of a couple of hours.

And part of me was a little concerned. Because what is good for economic stability and social justice isn’t necessarily good for a sketch writer. Dull, well-intentioned politicians putting in place dull, well-intentioned policies, and a government that is ticking over more or less OK, do not necessarily make for great entertainment. So what would I write about?

When a prankster meets a puncher it’s not about sport but an elaborate viral hoax that keeps us wanting more

“If it’s all straight up and proper, you would worry that he takes this kid’s head off,” reckons Barry McGuigan. “Could get his jaw broke, his head smashed in, side of his head caved in, God forbid he could get a brain bleed,” says Carl Froch on his YouTube channel. “It could be the end of him. It could be his last day on Earth,” David Haye tells Sky News, with the sort of apocalyptic glare I try to give my children when they want to jump in a muddy puddle.

Yes, this week everyone appears to be deeply concerned for the wellbeing of 28-year-old YouTube celebrity Jake Paul. The announcement of his fight against Anthony Joshua next month has generated a flood of foreboding prognoses, and fair enough. Stepping into the ring with a two-time world heavyweight champion when a) you’re not even a heavyweight, b) your record consists almost entirely of novices and geriatrics and c) you still fight like a marmoset trapped in an empty crisp packet: on some level, we all know how this might go.

We’d like to hear all about your Secret Santa disasters

It’s that time of year again… Whether it’s with family, colleagues or friends, many of us will be asked to take part in a Secret Santa as the festive period approaches. You know the drill: a fixed budget, a random name draw, and a high risk of ending up with something a bit naff. But hey, that’s Christmas, right?

Maybe you’ve been lucky, and have done well out of Secret Santas over the years. But we’re looking for stories of when it’s gone really, really wrong. Have you received a gift that had clearly been bought that morning from the office’s nearest corner shop? Or have you given a gift that was intended as a joke, but which didn’t land with the recipient? We want to hear from you!

Escaped wallabies in Britain appears to be a widespread phenomenon. We would like to hear about any sightings

Sightings of escaped wallabies in Britain are increasing, and don’t appear to be limited to a particular region.

The most recent verified data indicates clusters in the Chiltern Hills, Cornwall and Wiltshire. There have also been reports from Cumbria, Yorkshire, Northumberland, Lancashire, north Wales, Kent, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, the Thames Valley, the Isle of Wight and the Isle of Man.

As Line of duty and Doctor Foster are both returning for new series, we would like to hear what shows you’d like to see revived next

As Line of duty and Doctor Foster are both returning for new series, we would like to hear what shows you’d like to see return next. What programmes people would love to be revived, and why?

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We’d like to hear about the simple ways you beat stress – perhaps a song that always calms you or a book you like to read

Life can often feel stressful – and it is easy to become overwhelmed. To combat stress, experts often suggest techniques such as breathwork and mindfulness – but many people find other activities can help too.

With this in mind, we want to know the one, specific thing that always leaves you feeling calm and positive. Perhaps there’s a song that never fails to put you in a good mood? Or a book you pick up in order to chill out? If you’ve found a simple way to beat stress, then tell us about it below.

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