Truly, I am the country’s biggest fan. But in the spirit of free speech its leaders apparently love, here’s a few things the rest of the world needs them to know

We in the rest of the world have had to hear a lot – such a lot – about what this US government and its hardcore fanbase thinks about us. So you know they’ll be super-relaxed and free-speechy about hearing some thoughts about how they look from the outside. Let’s use last Saturday as a single snapshot. In Minneapolis, they had the shooting by ICE agents of a protesting nurse who posed no threat – an event promptly, provably and blatantly lied about at the highest level by Donald Trump’s politburo. Then that evening in Washington, a lot of those same politburocrats turned out for the White House premiere of a ridiculous propaganda film about the president’s wife, also attended fawningly by bloodless Apple oligarch Tim Cook. And he’s not even the oligarch who paid an insane amount for the film. Top line, guys: all this makes you look like what your president likes to call a “shithole country”. Sorry! I assume it’s fine to use officially licensed vocabulary?

Obviously, it’s not a proper shithole country until the soft-skinned puppetmasters in the presidential palace cut some grizzled local warlord off at the knees for following orders, so it’s good to learn overnight that border patrol “commander at large” Gregory Bovino has been pulled out of Minneapolis, possibly locked out of his social media accounts, and may soon “retire”, presumably a fall guy for the likes of stage 4 homeland security tumour Stephen Miller. Bovino’s the guy who’s literally got the same haircut and outfit as the Sean Penn character in One Battle After Another. But hey, at least he wears a uniform. Again, what are international outsiders to make of the spectacle of ICE’s federal officers coming masked and frequently dressed in civilian clothes, while images from protests across the States show resisting civilians increasingly drawn to military-style clothing? Can Trump’s storm detachment not at least be issued with matching shirts? They don’t have to be brown, but Maga chic desperately needs to make even a first step to getting itself together. In the entire history of the movement, only one follower – the QAnon shaman – has ever had true style.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

English clubs stroll through Champions League group phase but fatigue tends to take its toll by the spring

Has there been a great game in the Champions League group stage this season? Probably not. Even if there had been, it almost certainly didn’t mean all that much. But that’s the way of the modern game: an extremely protracted clearing of the throat before the real business begins.

Uefa will proudly tell the world that only six teams have nothing to play for in the final round of games on Wednesday, but whether it was worth 126 games to get to the mild peril of Napoli or Club Brugge possibly going out, or the questionable thrill of finding out whether Tottenham or Atalanta will have to endure the playoff round, is debatable.

Always wondered what everyday stuff celebrities buy, where they shop for food and the basic they scrimp on? Ben Fogle talks to the Filter about vintage clothing, toothpaste and garden makeovers gone wrong

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Ben Fogle is an adventurer, broadcaster and bestselling author. He has presented TV series from all over the globe: his many extreme exploits include climbing Everest, rowing the Atlantic, crossing the deserts of the Empty Quarter in the Middle East and racing across Antarctica to the south pole.

He has toured the UK with his sell-out shows, and most recently has become co-owner of Sheffield-based outdoor clothing brand Buffalo Systems. His work combines adventure, conservation and storytelling.

Introduced by an unsupervised Lee Anderson, the byelection candidate was out of his depth immediately

An idiot’s guide to running a byelection campaign. First, know your constituency boundaries. Sometimes easier said than done. On Tuesday morning, Lee Anderson was to be found doing a photo op for the Gorton and Denton byelection by posing outside the Stanley hotel. Which just happens to be in Angela Rayner’s constituency. Shame that someone pointed out Anderson’s mistake. He could happily have spent the next four weeks knocking on the wrong doors.

Not that Lee was in any way apologetic. He quickly tweeted that the photo he had posted clearly showed he was in the right place. Go figure. Maybe it was just the camera that moved. In any case, Reform are happy bunnies these days. Thrilled with the defections of Nadhim Zahawi, Robert Jenrick, Suella Braverman and … er, Andrew Rosindell. It’s almost as if they have no quality control. All failed Tories. They also can’t believe their luck that Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham are locked in a death spiral. A three-way marginal seat had just become a whole lot more winnable.

She has based ballets on Frida Kahlo, Coco Chanel and Eva Perón. So Annabelle Lopez Ochoa was well placed to take on the passionate, complicated figure of Anne Lister

A couple dance across the studio, their movements formal, the mood resigned. The man pulls his partner towards him but she spins away, landing face to face with another woman. Now the two women dance and everything is different: bright and playful as their eyes meet. It ends in a clinch behind a bookcase. The great love is not between the woman, Mariana, and her husband, but between Mariana and Anne Lister, also known as Gentleman Jack.

I’m watching this play out in a rehearsal room at Northern Ballet in Leeds, where choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa is in the midst of creating a ballet version of Gentleman Jack, as popularised in Sally Wainwright’s hit TV series (Wainwright is a consultant on the ballet). Lister was a 19th-century landowner running her family’s estate in Halifax, but is better known for the diaries that revealed her passionate lesbian love affairs and for boldly living an unconventional life for the times.

Some in Hampshire constituency happy to vote for former Tory MP again but others find defection ‘quite alarming’

For Jamie Jewell, the pub owner at the Golden Lion, there has been radio silence from his local MP, Suella Braverman. In January last year, the MP for Fareham and Waterlooville visited the pub, offered to help the owners with removing a protected tree that was damaging the property, and posted photos with the staff on her Facebook page and for local media.

Jewell has not heard back from her since. “I’ve sent emails saying ‘we need support here’ and never received a response. Not even an acknowledgment,” Jewell said.

PM promises ‘stability and clarity’ in approach on first visit to Beijing by UK leader in eight years

• ‘Very low bar’: analysts say Starmer faces slim pickings in China

Keir Starmer has said the UK government will remain “clear-eyed and realistic” on the national security threat posed by China as he travelled to Beijing in an effort to improve relations with the economic powerhouse.

The prime minister promised “stability and clarity” in his approach to Beijing after years of what he described as “inconsistency” under the Tories, as western powers turn to China in their search for economic stability amid concerns the US may no longer be a reliable partner.

The man who sprayed her was swiftly tackled to the ground by security, but Omar insisted on continuing her remarks

Minnesota raids continue as DHS report indicates two agents fired guns at Pretti

Melania Trump has called for “unity” in the wake of the fatal federal law enforcement shootings of US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis and widespread peaceful protests this month.

Asked about the tensions in Minneapolis on Fox News this morning, the first lady said:

We need to unify. I’m calling for unity. I know my husband, the president, had a great call yesterday with the governor and the mayor, and they’re working together to make it peaceful and without riots.

Study also says almost half have a mental health issue such as anxiety or depression

• How bad is maternal health in Europe, and how can we fix it?

Seven out of 10 mothers in the UK feel overloaded and almost half have a mental health issue such as anxiety or depression, new research has revealed.

The survey of mothers’ experiences in 12 European countries also found that most of those in Britain still do the majority of household tasks and caregiving work alone, and that the UK was among the worst for motherhood disadvantaging a woman’s career.

71% of UK mothers feel overloaded – 4% more than the 67% European average

47% of UK mothers suffer from mental health issues, including burnout, compared with 50% in Europe as a whole

31% of UK respondents felt motherhood had a negative effect on their career, higher than the 27% average, with Ireland the highest on 36%

Joël Guerriau sentenced to four years in prison after spiking lawmaker’s champagne with ecstasy

A French court has found a former senator guilty of drugging a female lawmaker with ecstasy with intent to sexually assault her.

Joël Guerriau, 68, was sentenced to four years in prison on Tuesday, of which 18 months must be behind bars.

In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support for rape and sexual abuse on 0808 802 9999 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

Matthew Goodwin, who is standing in Gorton and Denton, said UK-born people from minority ethnic backgrounds were not always British

The Reform UK candidate in the Gorton and Denton byelection has refused to disown his claim that UK-born people from minority ethnic backgrounds are not necessarily British.

Matthew Goodwin, a hard-right activist, was presented on Tuesday as the party’s candidate in the demographically diverse seat in south-east Manchester.

Advertising Standards Authority says firm advised by George Osborne ‘trivialised risks of cryptocurrency’

A cryptocurrency company advised by George Osborne has been banned from showing a set of adverts that suggested using its services could be a solution to the cost of living crisis.

Coinbase, which appointed the former Conservative chancellor to chair its global advisory council last year, has been told by the UK’s advertising watchdog that its adverts were “irresponsible” and “trivialised the risks of cryptocurrency”.

Proposals would require clearer pricing and transparency as CMA finds fees have risen at nearly twice rate of inflation

The biggest shake-up of the UK veterinary sector for 60 years should push down costs for pet owners by requiring practices to make their pricing clearer, the government has said.

Ministers have announced a package of measures after an investigation into reported high prices found problems in the vet sector could be costing UK households at least £1bn over five years.

Company cites impact of mandatory age checks introduced in summer 2025 under the Online Safety Act

Pornhub is to stop new users accessing its site in the UK from next week, citing the impact of mandatory age checks that were introduced last summer under the Online Safety Act.

The pornography website, which is one of the most visited in the world, announced that from 2 February only users who have already verified their age will retain access through their existing accounts. The change also affects YouPorn and RedTube, explicit websites operated by the same Cyprus-based company, Aylo.

Manchester toddler Jude Owens becomes youngest person to perform bank shot and double pot just weeks apart

A two-year-old has become the holder of two Guinness World Records by becoming the youngest person to perform a pair of trick shots in snooker.

Manchester toddler Jude Owens successfully performed a pool bank shot at two years and 302 days old on 12 October last year.

People urged to stand up against populism and antisemitism as the world marks International Holocaust Memorial Day

Survivors of Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp, laid flowers and candles at the memorial site on Tuesday, as commemorations marking its liberation 81 years ago took place around Europe and beyond.

Marking International Holocaust Memorial Day, Jewish leaders across the continent warned against forgetting the extermination of millions, while some of the few remaining survivors urged ordinary people to stand up against populism and extremism.

Jeff Bezos’s Amazon MGM Studios is to release its feature-length documentary about Melania Trump, directed by Brett Ratner, a formerly exiled film-maker accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women. The film was screened at a promotional event at the White House attended by what the Hollywood reporter described as '70 assorted VIPs', including Apple’s Tim Cook and Mike Tyson. Bezos bought the rights to the film for $40m (£30m) and spent a further $35m on a global marketing push – but so far, ticket sales are reportedly ‘soft’. It is expected to be screened in more than 100 UK cinemas

Keir Starmer’s former number two will be a focus of the renewed speculation about party’s future leadership

The political world abhors a vacuum of intrigue and gossip. The scuppering of Andy Burnham’s return to Westminster has therefore brought renewed attention to other potential successors to Keir Starmer. That is in turn likely to involve renewed scrutiny of Angela Rayner.

Starmer’s former number two and housing secretary has been quietly loyal since she resigned as a minister nearly five months ago after what she said was the inadvertent underpayment of stamp duty on a flat in Hove.

The Hollywood actor is about to go stratospheric thanks to Nouvelle Vague, a film about the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s masterpiece. How did she feel about playing the blond gamine in some of cinema’s best loved scenes?

Richard Linklater’s latest film Nouvelle Vague is not so much a re-enactment of cinema history, but a celebratory tribute act – joyously reliving the spirit of the early French New Wave, as it re-imagines 1959 Paris and the chaotically innovative shooting of Jean-Luc Godard’s epoch-making Breathless (A Bout de Souffle). Most of the cast are newcomers, but there’s one familiar face: American actor Zoey Deutch. She plays Jean Seberg, already a Hollywood star when Godard cast her as expat student and newspaper vendor Patricia. Seberg’s stroll with Jean-Paul Belmondo on the Champs-Elysées, in T-shirt, slacks and ballet flats, is one of the legendary duets of French cinema.

Deutch has Seberg’s style down impeccably: her awkward American-accented French, her balletic bounce in that scene, her exuberant shout of “New York Herald Tribune!” On a Zoom call from Los Angeles, Deutch – Seberg’s blond gamine cut now grown out into symmetrical black bangs – admits that when Linklater first suggested she might play the role, she knew nothing about Seberg, or about Breathless. That was way back in 2014, when they were shooting Linklater’s college baseball comedy Everybody Wants Some!! “I was 19,” says Deutch, “and I know there are plenty of 19-year-olds who are cinephiles and know a ton about that world, but I didn’t.”

ICA, London
Lima made her name with surreal encounters meant to free you from mundane everyday thinking. It’s rather a lot to ask of a key-grabbing hand, a dancing parasol and some melting ice

One of the worst things contemporary art can make you do is think serious thoughts about stupid things. Sure, sometimes a urinal is beautiful, a shed is interesting, and an empty room is a container of countless ideas. But sometimes, it has no deeper meaning worth seeking out. Sometimes it’s just a bit silly.

Brazilian conceptualist Laura Lima would rather call it absurd. Her show at the ICA – her first solo presentation in the UK despite decades of international exhibitions and biennale appearances – is filled with surreal encounters, all of which are meant to jostle you out of your mundane, staid mental rut (“our habitual modes of attention”) and find meaning in the unexpected.

What began as an exciting gen Z food trend has become ubiquitous. Is the bubble about to burst under the weight of ‘fake’ honey and cheap, mass-produced knock-offs?

When hot honey started popping up on restaurant menus about five years ago – drizzled over pizza perhaps, or used as a glaze for meat or halloumi – it seemed novel; something unusual and exciting to try. Word soon got out, particularly among gen Z, about its “swicy” (sweet and spicy) appeal, and the product has “gone a bit crazy over the last couple of years”, according to Laurence Edwards, owner of Black Mountain Honey, which has seen its hot honey sales shoot up.

Like salted caramel, its forebear in the world of food trends, hot honey – generally made by adding or infusing chilli to honey – now seems to be everywhere. Not only can you buy supermarket own-brand versions, but products such as hot honey Jaffa Cakes, hot honey Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut cereal and, most recently, hot honey flavoured Walkers crisps, have now come into existence.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s antifa parable is queasily relevant to the times, but here’s hoping Tim Key and co can get some reward for their brilliant British film

• Combat intensifies as One Battle After Another takes 14 Bafta nominations
• Bafta film awards 2026: full list of nominations

The Bafta nominations list underscores the enormous award-season love being felt for Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, his subversive vampire riff on America’s black experience – though it isn’t making history in quite the same way as it is at the Oscars, having 13 Bafta nominations, one behind Paul Thomas Anderson’s league-leader One Battle After Another with 14.

The awards-season prominence of Anderson’s epic antifa parable, inspired by the Thomas Pynchon novel Vineland, with Leonardo DiCaprio as a dishevelled, clueless ex-revolutionary facing off against Sean Penn’s brutal honcho Colonel Lockjaw, is happening at a queasily appropriate zeitgeist moment. The grotesquely trigger-happy immigration officers of ICE are shooting people dead on US streets and this ugly fiasco is giving us a horribly familiar-looking new figure.

Halle am Berghain, Berlin
This towering display projected inside a former East German power plant-turned-techno stronghold is a gut-wobbling mythological journey that will leave you unhinged

Go up the concrete stairs, cross the concrete floor and mind the concrete pillars. People are groping about in the darkness, waiting for their eyes to adjust, though most give up and start navigating by the light of their smartphones, trying to find Pierre Huyghe’s new work without quite realising they are already in it. Huyghe’s Liminals is more than just a film projected on a towering screen in a gutted power station. It is a quantum experiment, a mythological journey and a terrifying vision, set to a shifting thrum of gut-wobbling vibrations, a sizzling aural rain of dancing particles and sudden ear-splitting crackles which ricochet everywhere. You can’t always tell what’s happening on the screen and what’s happening in the cavernous space around you.

I could feel the vibrations even on the street outside, looking up at the brooding hulk of the defunct 1950s power and heating plant that once serviced the socialist paradise of postwar East Berlin. Now the home of the world’s most famous techno venue, Berghain, it also hosts a queer sex club, dark spaces and bars, while the plant’s former boiler room, the Halle am Berghain, with its columns and suspended coal chutes, has currently been taken over by the LAS Art Foundation to stage a number of exhibitions, including Huyghe’s Liminals.

Online, people are documenting their attempts to clock up as many ‘nos’ as they can this year. Is this actually the best possible route to more ‘yeses’ than you’re used to?

Name: Rejection spreadsheets.

Age: There’s nothing new in rejection. JK Rowling was rejected by 12 publishers, Elvis was told he couldn’t sing. Going back a little further, Cain had an offering of produce rejected by God himself, would you Adam and Eve it?

Innocent people are being frozen out of basic banking services – and it all traces back to reforms rushed through after 9/11

Hamish Wilson lives a few miles away from me, in a cosy farmhouse in the damp hills of mid Wales. He makes good coffee, tells great stories and is an excellent host. Every summer, dozens of Somali guests visit Wilson’s farm as part of a wonderfully wholesome project set up to celebrate their nation’s culture, and to honour his father’s second world war service with a Somali comrade-in-arms.

Inadvertently, however, the project has revealed something else: a deep unfairness in today’s global financial system that not only threatens to ruin the Somalis’ holidays, but also excludes marginalised communities from global banking services on a huge scale.

It took an FOI request to bring this national security assessment to light. For ‘doomsayers’ like us, it is the ultimate vindication

I know it’s almost impossible to turn your eyes away from the Trump show, but that’s the point. His antics, ever-grosser and more preposterous, are designed to keep him in our minds, to crowd out other issues. His insatiable craving for attention is a global-threat multiplier. You can’t help wondering whether there’s anything he wouldn’t do to dominate the headlines.

But we must tear ourselves away from the spectacle, for there are other threats just as critical that also require our attention. Just because you’re not hearing about them doesn’t mean they’ve gone away.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

A lack of communication in a relationship can be a problem. But so too can getting a blow-by-blow account of your partner’s day – as I know all too well

A psychologist has – at long last – shared the three signs you’re “overcommunicating” in your relationship. Overcommunicating. This is a somewhat revolutionary concept, as we’re consistently told communication is the key to a successful long-term union. But, whaddaya know? Turns out you can have too much of a good thing.

The revelation, courtesy of Mark Travers PhD, provides much food for thought generally but, more importantly, gives me a chance to utter those three little words you can never say often enough to your partner: told you so.

The package being offered is not insignificant but the hospitality sector is still in trouble

Will the chancellor’s inevitable U-turn on business rates for pubs be enough to quieten the developing riot behind the taps? Possibly, a bit. After two months of damaging headlines, Rachel Reeves has granted pubs a 15% discount on bills, worth £1,650 on average in the next tax year, then a two-year freeze in real terms, with the promise of a change in methodology in time for the next revaluation in 2029. Live music venues get the same deal. The package is not insignificant, especially as it was the year-three escalation in bills that was causing the most angst.

Yet it would be a mistake to think the government’s troubles on business rates end there. First, and most significantly, the rest of the hospitality industry got nothing extra in Tuesday’s announcement beyond a similar pledge to rethink valuation methods for hotels in future.

Does Britain have any leverage over human rights or security concerns or is it a decaying nation that cannot risk trade relations?

This week, Keir Starmer will reportedly visit China. This will be the first trip of this kind by a British prime minister since Theresa May’s three-day visit to Beijing in 2018. Since then, relations between London and Beijing have become increasingly fraught, caught between growing security concerns and deep economic interdependence. Allegations of espionage and influence operations have sharpened political and public suspicion in the UK, even as deep trade links and supply chains on which the country depends make disengagement unrealistic. As fierce debate about the recent approval for the new Chinese embassy has shown, there are strong opinions about how to best manage relations with Beijing – as well as what, precisely, constitutes a threat and what is an opportunity. The result is an uneasy balancing act in which caution and cooperation coexist, often uncomfortably.

These security concerns are grounded in recent experience. In December, the Foreign Office disclosed it had been the target of a sustained cyber-attack two months earlier that was suspected to be the work of a Chinese group known as Storm 1849. This followed investigations into alleged espionage involving parliamentary researchers and repeated warnings from security agencies about technology transfer and data exposure in sensitive industries.

Peter Frankopan is professor of global history at the University of Oxford. His most recent book is The Earth Transformed: an Untold History.

My pup Romeo and daughter Harper share names with the Beckham offspring. Could VB not just have laid claim to ‘Posh’ instead?

As a sidebar to the civil war in the House of Beckham, it emerged at the weekend that Victoria has trademarked all her children’s names. A lot of people think this is a peculiar parenting move, and a lot of other people think this a perfectly natural thing to do, for someone who has built a global brand from just their name and raw talent – but I thought, wait a second: my daughter is also called Harper and my dog is called Romeo, and even though neither of them has imminent plans to launch a perfume, I still should have been consulted on this.

My Harper was born two years before the Beckhams’, and therefore by any reasonable metric, Posh copied me. But – see brand-building, above – by the time my Harper was four, even her own father couldn’t remember which one had come first. No such excuse for Romeo the dog, who started out 14 years younger than Romeo Beckham^TM, but is now 46 years older, thanks to dog years. The name clash couldn’t be helped: he came from a themed litter (featuring Rogue, Rebel, Ricky, Ross and Raoul) and he was the most loving. You can’t mess with that kind of nominative determinism.

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 country where safety is under threat from federal violence on the streets is not fit to stage soccer’s showpiece event

Removing the United States as co-host of the 2026 World Cup would hurt for pretty much everyone. Fans would miss out on seeing the sport’s pinnacle in their home towns (or somewhere nearby). Cities and businesses small and large would lose the financial benefits they had banked on. It would be a logistical and political nightmare on an international scale, the likes of which have never been seen before in sports. It would be eminently sad. And it would be entirely justified.

It brings me no pleasure to say this. The United States has been eager to host a men’s World Cup for more than a decade and a half. The desire survived and even grew after 2010’s failure to out-bid Russia and Qatar (in public and behind closed doors) for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. With hosting rights for 2026 later secured alongside Canada and Mexico, the US soccer scene prepared to show off that the sport is now part of the nation’s fabric, 32 years after hosting the tournament for the first time in 1994. Soccer’s growing popularity in America has helped inspire other US sports to try new formats, encouraged us to engage more fully with the world in a sporting context, and has been at the center of conversations about our society and culture. The 2026 World Cup was seen as the best chance for the world to fully experience not just how much the US has improved at soccer, but how much soccer has improved the US.

A new Joseph Rowntree report underlines the corrosive impact of years of anti-welfare rhetoric. A reframing of the debate is urgently needed

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s latest report on poverty in the UK, published this week, should be read first and foremost as an indictment of all Conservative governments between 2010 and 2024. During almost a decade and a half of Tory rule, the JRF estimates that no progress at all was made in reducing overall levels of relative hardship. No surprise perhaps. Through wide-ranging, ideologically driven welfare cuts, ministers actively sought to make life harder, not easier, for many of the least well-off.

The grim legacy of that approach is that in 2023-24 – the last dataset available – about one in five people were in relative poverty, defined as less than 60% of median income. But it also turns out that 6.8 million people were struggling to survive on far, far less than that, having effectively been economically cut adrift. Some 3.8 million people experienced destitution in 2022. As the JRF’s chief analyst, Peter Matejic, puts it: “Poverty in the UK is still not just widespread, it is deeper and more damaging than at any point in the last 30 years.”

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.

Checks and balances will be needed under the home secretary’s new vision of policing, with its ‘British FBI’

The police, said the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, in the House of Commons on Monday, is “the last great unreformed public service”. Her white paper aims to redraw the policing map of England (though policing is devolved, the other nations will feel the effects). If she succeeds, the current patchwork will be replaced by a multi-tier system. The 43 existing police forces, most serving a single county, will be abolished and replaced with a smaller number of bigger organisations.

Above all this will sit a new National Police Service – likened to a British FBI – that will take over responsibility for counter-terrorism from London’s Metropolitan police, and for serious and organised crime from the National Crime Agency set up under David Cameron. It will also take over major fraud investigations, as well as functions of the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing. Training, standards and leadership will henceforth be under one umbrella. The leader of this organisation will be the country’s most senior officer.

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

Readers respond to the national executive committee’s decision to stop the Manchester mayor from standing in the Gorton and Denton byelection

The argument that it would be too costly to run a mayoral election in Manchester and run the risk of its being won by Reform UK is perfectly valid (‘Huge mistake’: Labour in turmoil as Burnham blocked from byelection race, 25 January). The problem is that that is not how the decision of the Labour party’s national executive committee will be read. And this is now a pattern.

Kicking off with the foolhardy acceptance of luxury goodies from Lord Alli, fast followed by the removal of pensioners’ winter fuel payments and going on to a failure to read the runes over the grooming gangs and many other depressing own goals, this government has demonstrated a quite astonishing lack of self-awareness.

Dr Liz Rolls-Firth recalls the place where would-be nurses spent three months training before being let loose on patients

Peter Bradshaw missed out an important cultural feature of Letchmore Heath (‘The Village of the Damned was shot here – then George Harrison bought a house’: our UK town of culture nominations, 23 January). Before Piggott’s Manor was sold to George Harrison, it was the preliminary training school of St Bartholomew’s hospital in Smithfield, London, where 18-year-old would-be nurses spent three months before being let loose on real patients – learning how to bandage, give bed baths and change bed sheets with the “patient” still in it (practising on each other), give injections (into oranges), present food in an appetising way and – most importantly – to clean.

Following this three-month period, we spent the next two-and-three-quarter years on the wards (as a form of apprenticeship) doing actual nursing work of greater complexity and responsibility. A far cry from the major cultural shift of today’s nurse training spent in universities and on placements.
Dr Liz Rolls-Firth
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

Anne Ayres suggests that if you are working, you should pay national insurance, regardless of age, while Brian Cookson says ageism is rampant in society. Plus a letter from Elizabeth Belcher

Simon Jenkins is right to point out the growing feasibility of older people choosing to work into their 80s (Mary Berry, and now Prue Leith. Retiring in your 80s is the new 60s, 23 January). As he says, older people are far healthier than they used to be and continuing to be economically active is generally good for one’s health.

But I feel that he, and successive governments, have missed a trick. He states that “the idea of Britons becoming useless at 60 was increasingly unreal”, yet as soon as retirement age is reached, one ceases to pay national insurance (NI). I was astonished when I no longer paid NI after the then retirement age – yet I would not have missed it in my extra two years of teaching. It would have simply been a continuation of what I’d already been paying.

Communication gap | Tom Jones syndrome | Frontline inaction | Gift from Suella Braverman | Tory defections

A group of retired senior staff at City & Guilds met its chair of trustees, Ann Limb, and chief executive, Kirstie Donnelly, on 2 December to find out more about the sale (The Guardian view on the City & Guilds privatisation: big bonuses cast a shadow over this deal, 21 January). We complained that a large number of stakeholders, including pensioners, had been told nothing about it officially. Limb apologised for this “oversight” and promised that a communication would be sent out. We are still waiting.
Andrew Sich
London

• Re your feature (You be the judge: should my husband stop quoting song lyrics during serious conversations?, 22 January), if this man is quoting lyrics from hits such as Delilah and Green, Green Grass of Home, he’s probably got Tom Jones syndrome. But she needn’t worry – a lot of people have it. It’s not unusual.
Michael Fuller
Ampthill, Bedfordshire

• Updates from the women’s singles tennis on Rod Laver Arena

• Polish No 2 seed takes on Kazakhstan’s No 5 in Melbourne

• Any thoughts? Get in touch with an email

Elena Rybakina* (5) 3-2 Iga Swiatek (2) The duo exchange points as the game moves to 30-30, before a backhand dragged wide by Swiatek gives the opening to secure the hold Rybakina. After a brief baseline exchange, Swiatek is sent deep and forced into a forehand that looks to go just high and wide, giving the hold to the fifth seed.

Elena Rybakina (5) 2-2 Iga Swiatek* (2) A more straightforward, but not altogether simple, hold for Swiatek.

• Root hails captain after third ODI win against Sri Lanka

• Brook imitates move of wrestler after making century

The wrestler “Stone Cold” Steve Austin was the surprising inspiration for Harry Brook’s century celebration as the England white-ball captain led his side to a one-day international series victory against Sri Lanka with a thrilling, unbeaten 136.

Brook, who was involved in a clash with a nightclub bouncer on the tour of New Zealand earlier this winter, took his gloves off upon reaching his hundred and imitated Austin’s move of bashing beer cans together in the ring before drinking them.

• WSL says it is committed to increasing pay floors

• Clubs can be docked points for breaching salary cap

Players aged under 23 in Women’s Super League 2 are not guaranteed to be paid the equivalent of the national living wage for a typical full-time worker annually, despite a large pay increase for the division’s lowest-paid players after the introduction of minimum salaries this season.

WSL2 clubs must pay players aged 21 and 22 a minimum of £22,200 and those aged 18 to 20 at least £17,500. Regulations state they must receive a minimum “contact time” of 20 hours a week excluding matchdays and mealtimes. For players aged 23 and over, the minimum salary is £26,900.

• Fijians want neutral venue to maximise crowd receipts

• RFU privately delighted to take national team on the road

Everton have been offered the chance to host England’s Nations Championship game against Fiji in July at the Hill Dickinson Stadium in what would be their first match in England held away from Twickenham since 2019.

The 11 July Test against Fiji is an away fixture for England in their second game of the inaugural Nations Championship after they face South Africa in Johannesburg the previous week. However, the host union wants to move it to a neutral venue to maximise the revenue they receive from gate receipts.

• Amateur rider claims Dane ‘got angry’ when followed

• Team ask for riders to be given space after Málaga crash

Visma-Lease a Bike have reminded amateur cyclists of the dangers of interacting with professional riders on the road following the revelation that Jonas Vingegaard crashed on Monday after being tailed by a fan during a descent near Málaga, Spain.

“Jonas Vingegaard crashed during training on Monday. Fortunately, he is OK and did not sustain any serious injuries,” read a team statement. “In general, as a team we would like to urge fans on bikes to always put safety first. For both your own and others’ wellbeing, please allow riders to train and give them as much space and peace as possible.”

From a cult hero ski jumper, to African bobsleigh pioneers and more, here are half a dozen unexpected heroes

Michael “Eddie the Eagle” Edwards, was the antithesis of the Olympic high-flyer. Heavily disadvantaged by his 82kg (181lb) weight – far heavier than his rivals – poor eyesight and the small matter of being entirely self-funded, he became Great Britain’s first Olympic ski jumper. He finished 67th and last at the 1987 world championships but managed to hit the qualifying standard to secure the sole British spot for Calgary. At the Games, he finished last in the normal hill (70m) and large hill (90m) events. In the normal hill, he scored 69.2 points from two jumps of 55m, while the winner Matti Nykänen scored 229.1 points from 89.5m jumps. Despite the last-place finishes, his enthusiasm captured global media attention but also lead to the “Eddie the Eagle Rule” which was introduced to tighten entry requirements and prevent similar “Olympic tourists”.

• Kader Meïté of Rennes monitored as possible signing

• 1958 fans’ group to protest before Sunday’s Fulham game

Manchester United fear Patrick Dorgu could be out for a prolonged period because of the muscle injury he sustained in Sunday’s 3-2 win at Arsenal, in what would be a blow to Michael Carrick’s resurgent side. While tests are still to confirm the prognosis there is concern the Dane has a hamstring problem that will cause him to miss several weeks, with some reports stating his absence may be more than two months.

Dorgu has been a key factor in United’s upturn, scoring in each of Carrick’s opening two matches. His goal against Arsenal came after an equally important one in United’s 2-0 victory over Manchester City the previous weekend. He also scored the winner in the 1-0 Boxing Day victory over Newcastle, making it three goals in his last seven appearances.

Planet closer to destruction as Russia, China and US become more aggressive and nationalistic, says advocacy group

Earth is closer than it has ever been to destruction as Russia, China, the US and other countries become “increasingly aggressive, adversarial, and nationalistic”, a science-oriented advocacy group said on Tuesday as it advanced its Doomsday Clock to 85 seconds until midnight.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist members had an initial demonstration on Friday and then announced their results on Tuesday.

South-west England bears brunt of storm, but yellow weather warnings are also issued for Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland

A major incident has been declared in Somerset after swathes of south-west England were left flooded and cut off by Storm Chandra.

The heavy rain and strong winds prompted calls for more resources to be invested in making the region more resilient in extreme weather.

A ‘massive smack’ of lion’s mane jellyfish has appeared across Port Phillip Bay, but experts say fears of a ‘jellygeddon’ are overblown

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Swimmers have been advised to steer clear if they see red jellies in the water after a gelatinous horde descended on Melbourne beaches.

Thousands of lion’s mane jellyfish have washed into the shallows and on to the sand across Port Phillip Bay, from Altona in the west to Blairgowrie on the Mornington Peninsula.

Proposed cuts by DHSC and DfE came despite concerns about inactivity among children contributing to obesity

A row between government departments has broken out after the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) proposed cutting all its funding for physical education in schools.

The DHSC is now intending to restore the funding despite insisting privately for weeks that it would end its contribution. Ministers are understood to have overruled the cuts, it emerged after the Guardian contacted the department.

Attack in Kharkiv region was denounced as terrorism by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said it undermined ‘efforts to end the war’

A Russian drone strike on a passenger train in north-eastern Ukraine has killed five people, prosecutors said, an attack denounced as terrorism by president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Prosecutors said fragments of five bodies had been found at the scene of the strike on the train, which occurred on Tuesday near a village in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region.

1,500 people evacuated from Niscemi after battering by Cyclone Harry triggers 4km-long chasm in hillside

The mayor of a hilltop town on Sicily said “the situation is dire” after a powerful storm brought down a long section of hillside, leaving houses perched perilously on a cliff edge.

About 1,500 people have so far been evacuated from their homes because of the landslide, which began to show signs of movement on Sunday before developing a 4km-long front. The chasm continues to widen, raising fears it could swallow the town’s historic centre.

Experts are watching for how other countries will react as the ‘real economy’ shifts to cheaper, cleaner energy

The United States has officially exited the Paris climate agreement for the second time, cementing Donald Trump’s renewed break with the primary global venue to address global heating.

The move leaves the US as the only country to have withdrawn from the pact, placing it alongside Iran, Libya and Yemen as the only countries not party to the agreement. While it will not halt global climate efforts, experts say it could significantly complicate them.

Insurance practices in an age of climate volatility raise troubling questions about home ownership and housing affordability – the bedrock of the American middle class

For a few frenetic days last January, after losing their midcentury ranch home to the wildfires that ravaged Los Angeles, Jessica and Matt Conkle thought they could see a glimmer of hope.

Their insurance company, State Farm, had sent emergency response teams to Altadena, where they lived, and they filed a claim right away. It wasn’t long before they received a check that covered four months of living expenses.

Funding cuts, conspiracy theories and ‘powder keg’ pine plantations have seen January’s forest fires tear through Chubut in southern Argentina

Lucas Chiappe had known for a long time that the fire was coming. For decades, the environmentalist had warned that replacing native trees in the Andes mountain range with highly flammable foreign pine was a recipe for disaster.

In early January, flames raced down the Pirque hill and edged closer to his home in the Patagonian town of Epuyén, Argentina, where he had lived since the 1970s. Thirty people with six motor pumps fought for hours, hoses stretched for kilometres, but “there was no way”.

Questionnaire completed by 10,000 people finds sobriety on rise, with women slightly more abstemious than men

One in four adults in England do not drink alcohol, with increasing numbers of men and young people deciding to stay sober, according to a survey.

The figures, which come from a questionnaire of 10,000 people as part of the Health Survey for England, found that almost a quarter (24%) of adults in England had not drunk alcohol in 2024, an increase from just under a fifth (19%) in 2022.

Capt Philip Gilbert Muldowney, 25, died after an incident at one of the UK’s largest army training ranges, the MoD confirms

A British army officer has died after an incident during live fire training in Northumberland, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed.

Capt Philip Gilbert Muldowney, 25, died on Sunday after the incident at Otterburn Training Area, one of the UK’s largest army training ranges.

Gyms, pharmacies, restaurants, cafes and convenience store owners question why only pubs and live music venues should get help in England

• Pubs and live music venues to get support after business rates backlash

• Waterstones boss defends government’s business rates shake-up

Gyms, local shops, restaurants, nightclubs and pharmacies have criticised the government for not extending business rates support beyond pubs and live music venues.

The Treasury announced on Tuesday that every pub and live music venue in England would get 15% off its new business rates bill from 1 April, worth an average of £1,650 for each, with bills frozen in real terms for a further two years.

Critics say government hiding true cost of agreement ‘despite being forced to admit financial burden will grow year on year’

Ministers are under growing pressure to end the “secrecy” around the UK’s deal with the US over the cost of medicines, which critics claim is “a Trump shakedown of the NHS”.

MPs from Labour and several opposition parties want the government to publish its impact assessment of the agreement it reached last month with Donald Trump’s administration.

Filing by New Mexico’s attorney general includes Meta staff emails objecting to AI companion policy

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, approved allowing minors to access artificial intelligence chatbot companions that safety staffers warned were capable of sexual interactions, according to internal Meta documents filed in a New Mexico state court case and made public on Monday.

The lawsuit – brought by the state’s attorney general, Raul Torrez, and scheduled for trial next month – alleges Meta “failed to stem the tide of damaging sexual material and sexual propositions delivered to children” on Facebook and Instagram.

Exercises described by President Trump as an ‘armada’ to be led by the USS Abraham Lincoln amid standoff

The US has announced plans to hold multi-day military exercises in the Middle East as it deploys what Donald Trump has called an “armada” led by the USS Abraham Lincoln to the region as part of a tense standoff with Iran.

The display of US air power was announced as the White House has suggested it could launch new strikes on Iran after the government’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters that has left thousands dead and many more in detention with their fates uncertain.

Joshua Ryan Hoath, 27, argues his political views should not have been considered by Queensland police

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A former member of the Australian neo-Nazi group the National Socialist Network is appealing a police decision to revoke his weapons licence, on the grounds it infringes his right to freedom of political communication.

The Queensland civil and administrative tribunal is hearing an application by Joshua Ryan Hoath, 27, to have the licence reinstated. Hoath has argued that his “political views, activities, or communications” should not have been considered by police.

Before wild feline was caught, authorities had advised residents to slowly back away if they encountered it

Wildlife officials in San Francisco captured a young mountain lion that was spotted roaming the streets of the city.

Authorities issued a warning to residents late on Monday, saying a mountain lion had been seen walking the streets in the Pacific Heights neighborhood and advised people to slowly back away from the animal if they encountered it.

Dario Amodei questions if human systems are ready to handle the ‘almost unimaginable power’ that is ‘potentially imminent’

• Quarter of Britons fear losing jobs to AI in next five years

Humanity is entering a phase of artificial intelligence development that will “test who we are as a species”, the boss of the AI startup Anthropic has said, arguing that the world needs to “wake up” to the risks.

Dario Amodei, a co-founder and the chief executive of the company behind the hit chatbot Claude, voiced his fears in a 19,000-word essay titled “The adolescence of technology”.

French port’s green energy push, evoking second world war spirit of resilience, is seen as a testing ground for reindustrialisation

A new cargo and passenger ferry service directly linking Scotland and France could launch later this year as the port of Dunkirk embarks on a €40bn (£35bn) regeneration programme it claims will mirror the second world war resilience for which it is famed.

The plans could include a new service between Rosyth in Fife and Dunkirk, eight years after the last freight ferries linked Scotland to mainland Europe, and 16 years after passenger services stopped.

Researchers say artificial intelligence system matches human expert classification about 90% of the time

Experts have created an app that uses artificial intelligence to identify dinosaurs from the footprints left behind after they stomped across the land tens of millions of years ago.

“When we find a dinosaur footprint, we try to do the Cinderella thing and find the foot that matches the slipper,” said Prof Steve Brusatte, a co-author of the work, from the University of Edinburgh. “But it’s not so simple, because the shape of a dinosaur footprint depends not only on the shape of the dinosaur’s foot but also the type of sand or mud it was walking through, and the motion of its foot.”

Dmitrii Ovsiannikov, who had held senior roles in Russian government, used a variant spelling of his name to access UK banking system

The UK’s sanctions watchdog has fined Bank of Scotland £160,000 for opening a bank account and processing payments for an ally of Vladimir Putin.

Dmitrii Ovsiannikov, who became the first person to be prosecuted for circumventing UK sanctions last year, made 24 payments totalling £77,383 to or from a personal current account during February 2023.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s gonzo caper takes slight nominations lead over the Ryan Coogler horror, with surprise five noms for British Tourette movie I Swear
• Full list of nominations
• Bafta has caught the zeitgeist with One After Another nominations

Sinners may have made history last week, when it became the first film ever to secure 16 Oscar nominations, but it was its awards season rival, One Battle After Another, that proved narrowly victorious at Tuesday’s Bafta nominations.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s counterculture comedy heads into the competition with 14 nominations, while Ryan Coogler’s vampire thriller has 13. Meanwhile, Marty Supreme and Hamnet are close on their heels with 11 nominations each, and Frankenstein and Sentimental Value have eight nods apiece.

Accused, isolated and constantly under scrutiny, The Traitors contestant drew on years of social deduction gaming to stay calm under pressure

The latest series of The Traitors, which ended last week on a nail-biting finale, featured some of the usual characters – from guileless extroverts to wannabe Columbos endlessly observing fellow contestants for the slightest flicker of treachery. But one faithful stood out for her quiet determination, despite a ceaseless onslaught of suspicion and accusation. That person was Jade Scott, and I wasn’t at all surprised when, quite early on in the series, she revealed she was a keen gamer.

“Minecraft was my way in, when I was 15,” she says. “I made loads of friends at school playing that.” From this innocent introduction, however, she moved on to darker titles: the first-person shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and the multiplayer battle-arena game Dota. “That’s where my interest in strategy gaming really kicked in,” she says.

Their faces may not have been given any airtime, but they remain some of the most beloved characters in television history – in shows like Friends, Frasier and This Country. Take a bow, Ugly Naked Guy …

When you think of television characters, chances are you remember the ones you can actually see. But this is a wildly unfair slight on a small but powerful minority: the characters who remain staunchly offscreen. For decades – mostly in comedies, with a handful of dramatic exceptions – these invisible workhorses have more than earned their keep, and they deserve their props. Here are the 10 best characters whose faces you have never actually clapped eyes on.

Sundance film festival: Zoey Deutch is a small-town girl hunting down Jon Hamm for sex in David Wain’s disposable yet often funny lark

There’s been the expected amount of heavy-weighted seriousness at this year’s Sundance – stories about sexual assault, climate change, opioid addiction and dementia – but also a remarkable amount of silliness. Perhaps realising we might be in desperate need of an uplift, the festival has given us a cartoonish dom-sub romance, a killer Barney horror, a pop star mockumentary, a Weekend at Bernie’s art world caper and a film where Olivia Colman shags a man made of wicker. But those films are all pretty stern-minded in comparison to David Wain’s disposable, dopey comedy Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass, a film without a single serious moment, driven by the sole purpose of making us laugh.

It succeeds in fits and starts – I laughed more than I have at many a comedy in the past year – but its wild, scattershot humour is so hit and miss, too many jokes going nowhere, that it’s not quite the rousing win I wanted it to be. Wain has previously toyed with more conventional studio comedies like Wanderlust and Role Models (which for me was one of the best examples of the form in the 2000s) and spoofs, targeting 80s sex comedies with Wet Hot American Summer and romcoms with They Came Together. Gail Daughtry belongs in the latter group but it doesn’t have quite as direct of an aim, a Wizard of Oz-inspired, Hollywood-set action comedy about marriage, fame, espionage and the burning desire to have sex with Jon Hamm.

Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Tape is screening at the Sundance film festival and is seeking distribution

T​his fantastically enjoyable romp about the boy band covers the highs, the oiled thighs and the chainmail codpieces. But why does Gary Barlow twiddle his bandmates’ earlobes so much?

‘I don’t like cauliflower cheese,” says Howard Donald (57), prodding at a hillock of cheddar-festooned florets as he tackles an otherwise inoffensive backstage repast during Take That’s 2024 stadium tour. Gary Barlow OBE (55) is aghast. “You don’t like cauliflower cheese?” he splutters between mouthfuls of pie. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Cheesy,” mumbles his carefully bearded bandmate. “It’s too cheesy.”

As the budding restaurateurs suffer 17th-century flashbacks, Jamie Campbell Bower – AKA Vecna in Stranger Things – saves director Chuck Russell’s remake from cheesy oblivion

Jamie Campbell Bower gave the standout performance as the big bad in the otherwise ho-hum fourth season of Stranger Things, and in this tawdry but fun occult-themed thriller, like Satan himself, he’s back to his same old scene-stealing tricks. Once again, he’s not the protagonist but a sinister figure first met literally in the shadows, making ominous pronouncements in that posh-boy accent. When finally revealed, he is dipping his chin and looking up with those uncannily blue eyes like a vogue dancer catching the spotlight. If he keeps at it with roles like this, he could be the Peter Cushing of modern horror, but with catwalk-queen hair, or the goth equivalent of the young Ralph Fiennes in his rent-a-villain era. What’s not to love?

When Campbell Bower’s creepy antiquities expert Alexander Babtiste isn’t around, though, Witchboard reverts to its cheap and doleful resting form, in which B- and C-list actors play doltish young people bewitched by a proto-Ouija board that summons the spirit of a 17th-century French witch (Antonia Desplat). Somehow, the board has found its way to today’s New Orleans, where main girl Emily (Madison Iseman) finds it in the forest while foraging for mushrooms with her hipster-chef boyfriend Christian (Aaron Dominguez). At the urging of Christian’s slinky ex-girlfriend, Brooke (Mel Jarnson), who crashes their party, Emily tries out the board, and is soon having flashbacks to a life she never lived.

After his death aged 73, we look back at a selection of the hundreds of tracks the Sly and Robbie drummer had a hand in making

It isn’t Sly Dunbar’s most spectacular performance as a drummer – although his playing is right in the pocket: listen to the lightness of his touch on the cymbals and the tightness of his occasional fills – but as recording debuts go, appearing on an early 70s reggae classic in your teens, a single that furthermore went to No 1 in the UK and sold 300,000 copies despite British radio’s disinclination to play it, is quite the impressive way to open your account.

Folk duo Pound & Stevens have transformed, and added to, Holst’s The Planets Suite and tour the new work this week with Britten Sinfonia. Will Pound explains why playing by ear is his greatest strength

I’m a harmonica and accordion player and one half of folk-classical duo Stevens & Pound. As a multi-instrumentalist I am rooted in a folk tradition that is oral, aural and communal. Music and song are passed down by ear, either through recordings or – more fun – traditional music sessions. Here, players and singers get together to share, swap and play tunes, drawing from a repertoire that is always evolving. While collections of tunes are certainly notated, their scores act as a skeleton – providing the basic architecture of pitch and rhythm but rarely offering explicit guidance on how the music should be played.

Delia Stevens and I are about to head out on tour, performing with the Britten Sinfonia and Robert Macfarlane in a new work called The Silent Planet, a recomposition of Holst’s Planets suite. It’s the culmination of 18 months of rehearsals and revisions, and the score for this 60-minute work, orchestrated by Ian Gardiner, totals 165 pages and includes Earth, an entirely new composition.

The mysterious Cornish electronic music pioneer has gained an extraordinary second life in the TikTok era. Writers and musicians explain why his glitchy slipperiness is so in tune with life today

QKThr, an obscure cut from Aphex Twin’s 2001 album, Drukqs, sounds like an ambient experiment recorded on a historic pirate ship. Shaky fingers caress the keys of an accordion to create an uncanny tone; clustered chords cry out, subdued but mighty, before scuttling back into dreamy nothingness.

This 88-second elegy has always been overshadowed by another song on Drukqs, the Disklavier instrumental Avril 14th, which alongside Windowlicker is the Cornish producer’s best-known track. But QKThr has become a weird breakaway success, featuring on nearly 8m TikTok posts, adorning everything from cute panda videos to lightly memed US presidential debates, and a fail video trend dubbed “subtle foreshadowing”.

Why do we focus on the bad news stories about cuts and crises in classical music ? Musicians are doing incredible things to engage, support and sustain us; we should tell those stories too

When did you last read a good news story about classical music?

Think of the stories that have made the headlines in recent years: funding cuts to national opera companies, closure threats to university music departments, councils axing local provision, classroom music-making in decline.

This second novel in a sharp duology offers a powerful interrogation of language in the age of mechanical mass destruction

Never knowingly unknowing, Ali Smith pre-empts the most likely criticism of her latest novel, Glyph, when a character says: “I’m just not sure that books that are novels and fiction and so on should be so close to real life … or so politically blatant.”

Glyph, which follows sisters Petra and Patch as they reflect on childhood attempts to grapple with the finality of death following the loss of their mother, goes further than any of Smith’s recent work in robustly answering this charge. While the Seasonal Quartet playfully anatomised the social fracture of post-Brexit Britain, and immediate predecessor Gliff dealt with the violence of the securitised state, Glyph, in its explicit engagement with the Israeli government’s apartheid and genocide in Palestine, raises the ethical stakes decisively. To engage in a Smithian pun – this is Art in the Age of Mechanical Mass Destruction.

A quietly revolutionary account of cohabiting captured a nation’s heart – but what does it mean for the rest of the world?

When Sunwoo and Hana met on Twitter, they were in their 40s and committed bachelorettes. Both raised by the sea in Busan, they studied in Seoul before entering the city’s famously brutal rat race, Sunwoo as a fashion journalist, Hana as a copywriter. They shared the same taste in music and books, and importantly, both had rejected marriage. No wonder. In South Korea’s stubbornly patriarchal culture, women in dual-income families spend nearly three hours more a day on household chores than men. Instead, Sunwoo and Hana joined the large number of South Koreans living alone. At first, independence felt exhilarating. By middle age however, loneliness was beginning to gnaw, and their boxy studio apartments felt oppressively small.

Two Women Living Together, a 2019 South Korean bestseller that spawned a popular podcast, charts Sunwoo and Hana’s decision to buy a sunlit house together and live not as a romantic couple but as friends. Across 49 warm, chatty essays, they invite us into the life they share with four cats, reflecting on everything from the food they love to their retirement fantasies.

A brilliant analysis of the trial of Gayle Newland and the literary and social antecedents of ‘sex by deception’

In September 2015, Gayle Newland stood trial accused of sex by deception. It was alleged that she created an online identity as a man and used this character, Kye Fortune, to lure another woman into a sexual relationship, which was consummated repeatedly with the assistance of a blindfold and a prosthetic penis. The woman believed she was having sex with Kye until one day her ring caught on his hat and she felt long hair. Tearing off her blindfold, she realised her male lover was actually her female friend. As these lurid, almost fairytale details seeped out, the case went viral. “Sex attacker who posed as man found guilty” was one of the milder headlines.

The trial caught Izabella Scott’s attention because it was a real-life example of a plot device she recognised from literature. The bed trick can be found in folk stories and operas, in Chaucer and Shakespeare. Often told for comic effect, it concerns sex by trickery and deception, under cover of darkness. “The plot suggests,” Scott writes, “that, in bed, anyone might be mistaken for anyone else.”

Words of stern moral advice to a besotted young man are delivered with a brisk and even sunny touch

Song

Why, Damon, why, why, why so pressing?
The Heart you beg’s not worth possessing:
Each Look, each Word, each Smile’s affected,
And inward Charms are quite neglected:
Then scorn her, scorn her, foolish Swain,
And sigh no more, no more in vain.

From rhino-sized Rhyhorns to worm-like Diglett, visitors to PokéPark Kanto will roam a forest populated by lifelike Pokémon statues when the attraction opens next week

In Japan, February is normally a period of quiet reflection, a month defined by winter festivals in Sapporo’s snowy mountains and staving off the cold in steaming hot springs. Traditionally, international tourists start to arrive with the blossoms in spring – but thanks to the opening of Pokémon’s first ever amusement park on 5 February, this year, they are likely to come earlier.

Unlike the rollercoaster-filled thrills of Tokyo Disney Sea or Universal Studios Japan in Osaka, PokéPark Kanto is essentially a forest populated by models of the creatures from the perennially popular games. Nestled in the quiet Tokyo suburb of Inagi, half an hour from the city centre, the park is a walkable forest with more than 600 Pokémonin it. Where the Mario-themed Super Nintendo World slots neatly into the massive Universal Studios Japan, PokéPark Kanto is hidden in the back of the less glitzy, funfair-esque Japanese theme park Yomiuri Land.

I’ve been a games journalist since 2007, but still there isn’t much video games coverage that feels like it’s specifically for people like me. So I’m creating a home for it: Mothership

Whether you’re reading about the impending AI bubble bursting or about the video game industry’s mass layoffs and cancelled projects, 2026 does not feel like a hopeful time for gaming. What’s more, games journalists – as well as all other kinds of journalists – have been losing their jobs at alarming rates, making it difficult to adequately cover these crises. Donald Trump’s White House, meanwhile, is using video game memes as ICE recruitment tools, and game studios are backing away from diversity and inclusion initiatives in response to the wider world’s slide to the right.

The manosphere is back, and we’ve lost mainstream feminist websites such as Teen Vogue; bigots everywhere are celebrating what they see as the death of “woke”. Put it all together and we have a dismal stew of doom for someone like me, a queer woman and a feminist who’s been a games journalist and critic since 2007.

Quake Brutalist Jam began as a celebration of old-fashioned shooter level design, but its latest version is one step away from being a game in its own right

A lone concrete spire stands in a shallow bowl of rock, sheltering a rusted trapdoor from the elements. Standing on the trapdoor causes it to yawn open like iron jaws, dropping you through a vertical shaft into a subterranean museum. Here, dozens of doors line the walls of three vaulted grey galleries, each leading to a pocket dimension of dizzying virtual architecture and fierce gladiatorial combat.

Welcome to Quake Brutalist Jam, the hottest community event for lovers of id Software’s classic first-person shooter from 1996. First run in 2022, the Jam started out as a celebration of old-school 3D level design, where veteran game developers, aspiring level designers and enthusiast modders gather to construct new maps and missions themed around the austere minimalism of brutalist architecture.

After years away​ revisiting my abandoned island uncovers new features, old memories and the quiet reassurance that ​you can go home again

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Nintendo’s pandemic-era hit Animal Crossing: New Horizons got another major update last week, along with a £5 Switch 2 upgrade that makes it look and run better on the new console. Last year, I threw a new year’s party for my children in the game, but apart from that I have barely touched my island since the depths of lockdown, when sunny Alba was my preferred escape from the monotonous misery of the real world. Back then, I spent more than 200 hours on this island. Stepping out of her (now massive) house, my avatar’s hair is all ruffled and her eyes sleepy after a long, long time aslumber.

I half-expected Alba to be practically in ruins, but it’s not that bad. Aside from a few cockroaches in the basement and a bunch of weeds poking up from the snow, everything is as it was. The paths that I had laid out around the island still lead me to the shop, the tailors, the museum; I stop by to visit Blathers the curatorial owl, and he gives me a new mission to find a pigeon called Brewster so that we can open a museum cafe. “It’s been four years and eight months!” exclaims one of my longtime residents, a penguin called Aurora. That can’t be right, can it? Have I really been ignoring her since summer 2021? Thankfully, Animal Crossing characters are very forgiving. I get the impression they’ve been getting along perfectly fine without me.

The Place, London
Sadiq Ali’s intimate dance piece follows a woman with an HIV diagnosis at a time when it was misunderstood and stigmatised

In the programme note for Tell Me, its creator Sadiq Ali says that 2025 was the year he might have been expected to die of Aids-related complications, were it not for advances in medicine. Instead here he is, muscled and strong, wound round a Chinese pole, suspending himself in the air, abs glistening.

Ali is also thriving as an artist. His last show, The Chosen Haram, garnered five-star reviews, and he has just officially launched his own circus/theatre company. This new work, Tell Me, follows a woman with an HIV diagnosis, which is something still stigmatised and misunderstood, especially outside the LGBTQ+ community. It is a subject that’s personal to Ali but he doesn’t put himself at the centre. Instead Phoebe Knight is the protagonist, joined by Ali and Jonah Russell, and along with a clever set made from cube-shaped frames that double as poles and trapezes to climb and swing from, they portray a coherent story and evoke some stinging emotions.

Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Cardiff
This was a richly satisfying and moving concert of music that ranged from Mahler and Schumann to Simon Holt’s the Bell and Oliver Leith’s Eeyore

In this astute interleaving of old and new, horn-player Ben Goldscheider and pianist Richard Uttley’s lunchtime recital could not have been more sonorous or richly satisfying. They opened with Schumann’s Three Fantasiestücke, Op 73, which is more often the province of clarinettists or cellists, but the full lyrical flood of Schumann’s Romanticism proved to suit the horn even better. It also showed immediately the infinite musical sensibilities of this duo, equally attuned each to the other and matched in virtuosity.

Simon Holt’s The Bell was written for them in 2022, its arresting opening – slightly spiky and precisely articulated – giving way to striking exchanges between the instruments with the glistening bell-like sounds at the top of the keyboard offering the perfect foil to the horn’s mellifluous phrases, its final clarion statement an almost defiant gesture.

Arcola theatre, London
Beguiling but deeply disturbing verbatim solo show is based on testimony of Gazan children and relates the confusion and tragedy of war

Eleven-year-old Renad dreams of becoming a famous storyteller. She brims with tales of the grandmother who inspired her love of stories, and of the rest of her family, and also of myriad other children who, like her, are living through war, hunger, displacement and terror in Gaza.

This is a beguiling yet deeply disturbing solo show performed by co-deviser Sarah Agha, which builds its drama through multiple young voices, based on verbatim accounts from a booklet compiled by Leila Boukarim and Asaf Luzon called A Million Kites: Testimonies and Poems from the Children of Gaza.

Circle and Star theatre, London
Touring to mark the diarist and Carry On star’s centenary year, David Benson’s poignant show covers the full spectrum of what made Williams so funny, beloved – and insufferable

It will be 100 years next month since Kenneth Williams’ birth, and almost 30 since David Benson created his hit show about him, Think No Evil of Us – versions of which he has toured ever since. Here’s another one marking the centenary, and, more resurrection than mimicry, it can’t help but be striking to anyone who grew up with the raconteur, diarist and Carry On star as a mainstay of British life. There are ever fewer of us around, mind you: this is “a boomer show”, Benson admits, as strong on nostalgia as it is on insight into what made Williams tick.

Indeed the first act is more about what made 13-year-old Benson tick. In 1975, his winning entry in a Jackanory story competition was read by Williams on national TV. We see him relive the moment, mortified that he’d now be associated by school bullies with the campest man in the UK. Elsewhere in act one, Benson recounts his adolescent awakening as an exponent of funny voices, casually deploying his note-perfect Frankie Howerd, Sergeant Bilko and the entire cast of Dad’s Army.

Composer says values of Trump-dominated Kennedy Center ‘are in direct conflict’ with symphony’s message

Philip Glass, the celebrated US composer, has withdrawn the world premiere of his latest symphony at Washington DC’s John F Kennedy Center in protest of Donald Trump’s presidency.

In a statement on Tuesday, the 88-year-old composer said: “After thoughtful consideration, I have decided to withdraw my Symphony No 15 ‘Lincoln’ from the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Symphony No 15 is a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, and the values of the Kennedy Center today are in direct conflict with the message of the symphony.

Drummer who with the bassist Robbie Shakespeare provided the rhythm section for Peter Tosh, Grace Jones and Black Uhuru

Sly Dunbar, who has died aged 73 after a long illness, was one of the most renowned Jamaican drummers, respected internationally for his precision timing and for the inventiveness with which he approached his instrument.

Crafting non-standard reggae rhythms that drew on funk, soul and disco, Dunbar and his bass-playing partner, Robbie Shakespeare, backed nearly every reggae artist of note and collaborated with an array of admirers, including Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Ian Dury, Joan Armatrading, Madonna, the Fugees and Sinéad O’Connor, though many will remember him best for the outstanding hits that brought Grace Jones to stardom.

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Hollywood Chamber of Commerce says it did not approve a promotional stunt linked to the actor, after lingerie was draped over the landmark’s letters

The Housemaid star Sydney Sweeney has been reprimanded by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce for a promotional stunt that involved draping bras over the celebrated Hollywood sign in Los Angeles.

Sweeney posted footage on social media of her and a group of people climbing up to the sign which is situated on Mount Lee, in the Hollywood Hills area of the city, and hanging dozens of strung-together bras over the sign’s 50ft-tall letters.

The internet has enabled a golden age of techno-vanity. But hating your looks is a time-honored tradition

Take a second before you read this to look in the mirror. Go on, it’ll be worth it. I’ll be here when you get back.

OK, how’d that go? Did you like what you saw? Probably not. Feeling a bit puffy? See a zit in a conspicuous area? Did you want to punch yourself for the sin of experiencing the natural course of ageing? These feelings are normal. Being disappointed in how you look is a time-honored tradition; it’s just that now, we have the means to fix all that. GLP-1s mean you can lose weight quickly, without doing much more than shoving a needle in your bum a few times a month. Plastic surgery, Botox, fillers, Turkish hair plugs. We live in the golden age of techno-vanity, where “self-improvement” can be had for a few bucks (and days and days of living in bandages like a hipster mummy). The odious trend of “looksmaxxing” is the natural nadir of our collective obsession with not being ugly.

Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist

Designer’s third collection confirms his dream start at the label, as warmth for the women who wear it shines through

It is the biggest job in fashion and Matthieu Blazy is knocking it out of the park. Chanel, the most famous fashion house in the world, with annual sales of almost $20bn (£14.6bn) and a designer lineage that includes Coco Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld, is an intimidating prospect for a 41-year-old Belgian designer who, until his appointment last year, was little known outside the industry. But this haute couture debut, his third collection for the house, confirmed that Blazy is off to a dream start.

The show concluded with a standing ovation from the audience, which included Anna Wintour, Nicole Kidman and Dua Lipa. Backstage, veteran Chanel personnel were high-fiving each other – a remarkable display of giddiness in an industry where cool is all. In the Grand Palais venue, transformed into a willow wood of sugar-pink trees and fairytale giant mushrooms, clients tossed sable coats to the ground and clustered for grinning selfies. By every metric, approval ratings for the new-look Chanel are off the charts.

From luxury Simba and Otty mattresses to brilliant budget buys, here’s what we recommend – and how to know if you’ve found a good deal

• The best mattresses for back pain
• The best mattress toppers, tested

A good mattress improves your sleep, say mattress makers – and they would, wouldn’t they? But they’re right. The older I get, the more I know it. When I was 20, I could sleep anywhere: a friend’s floor, a filthy sofa – even a phone box one night. These days, I won’t get a single one of 40 winks if I’m not lying on a decent mattress. Comfy but firm, cosy but breathable, and with loads of cool spots for my feet.

Today’s best mattresses promise all this and more. Gone are the days when your biggest decision was between a sprung double and a sprung king-size. Pocket springs are still around, but they face stiff – well, medium-firm – competition from hybrid mattresses that combine springs and memory foam to provide that all-important balance of comfort and support.

Best mattress overall:
Otty Original Hybrid

Hunkering down in January; hiking boots for outdoor adventures; and cold-weather beauty essentials

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Congratulations, you’ve made it through more than 75% of January, Blue Monday and all. Extra kudos if you got through it without booking a holiday amid the onslaught of sun-soaked adverts, although I confess I’m not tempted. Would I rather spend hours on a plane with 200 strangers who had prosecco for breakfast, or hibernate until spring? I’ll take hibernation, thanks. Especially now that I’ve learned to do it properly.

Hunkering down may not sound like something you need tips to master, but January is the best of times and the worst of times for those of us who struggle with insomnia. On the upside, all the darkness encourages your body to produce plenty of the “sleep hormone” melatonin (nature’s way of telling you to sleep through it). On the downside, lack of sunlight is a key trigger for seasonal affective disorder (Sad) – one of the symptoms of which is broken sleep. Never simple, is it?

The best women’s boots for winter: 24 favourites, from knee-high to ankle

The best heated clothes airers to save time and money when drying your laundry, tested

The best women’s walking boots, tested by our expert hiker

The best men’s walking boots for every type of hiking adventure, tested

The best electric heaters, from traditional stove-style units to modern smart models – tested

How I shop with Dawn O’Porter: ‘Good skin is an obsession’

‘Wonderfully thick, creamy and clean-tasting’: the best supermarket natural yoghurts, tasted and rated

Cold feet? Not on our watch: our fashion expert picks the best boots for every occasion

• How to dress in cold weather

The season of the boot is officially upon us, with cold breezes and dreary downpours all around. Versatile, durable and effortlessly stylish, boots are a wardrobe staple, able to elevate an outfit instantly.

Whether you prefer a wearable ankle cut, a pair fit for muddy walks or something that takes you from day to night, investing in quality is essential. Thoughtful choices can shield you from flimsy soles, cracked faux leather and the disappointment that comes around eventually with impulse buys.

Which supermarket live yoghurts leave a sour note and which are naturally divine?

• The best supermarket frozen fruit smoothie mixes

Live natural yoghurt is the bedrock of my family’s diet. My six-year-old, for instance, gets through well over a kilo a week: for breakfast, she’ll have it with porridge, sometimes with blackstrap molasses, while most evenings she’ll have a generous bowl of yoghurt topped with frozen blueberries or mango before bed (ideally before teeth-brushing negotiations begin). To avoid excessive sugar and more processed ingredients, we never buy sweetened or flavoured yoghurt: just the plain, full-fat stuff that’s packed with beneficial bacteria.

So what is live yoghurt, and why does it matter? Live yoghurt contains active bacterial cultures, most commonly strains of Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium and Streptococcus thermophilus. These cultures help ferment the milk, which is what gives live yoghurt its tang, texture and digestibility, and they’re one of the reasons it’s linked to gut health.

Our panel says they dabble with homemade tortilla chips, hummus and crudites, olives, pastry twists, savoury granola … untold possibilities abound

What savoury snacks do your recipe columnists make when they’re trying to stay away from the biscuit tin?
Jess, by email
The pull of the biscuit tin is all too familiar to Guardian baker Benjamina Ebuehi, who, unsurprisingly, is often found in full “sweet mode”. To counterbalance the intake of cake, she tends to look for “something salty, spiced and crisp”, and, if time is on her side, that usually means homemade tortilla chips. “Chop corn tortillas into triangles, brush with olive oil and seasonings – flaky salt, za’atar, dukkah, garlic granules, or everything bagel seasoning, which is elite.” Bake until nice and crisp, then dunk into hummus. Her fellow Guardian regular Georgina Hayden is also rarely found without a tub of that creamy chickpea dip, whether it’s homemade or shop-bought: “I usually drizzle chilli crisp oil over the top of my hummus, then scoop it up with crudites [celery, carrot, cucumber, say]. That’s so good – and so easy.”

If Hayden’s trying “to be fancy”, however, her attention turns to gildas, – “an olive, a little anchovy and a pickled green chilli on a cocktail stick – or just a lovely, salty, anchovy-stuffed olive”. You could, of course, thread any antipasti you have knocking around on to said stick: “Sun-dried tomato, artichoke heart or one of those gorgeous, marinated onions.” Having a batch of that in the fridge feels “like a treat, but less indulgent”, she adds.

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

Creamy celeriac with aromatic garlic and paprika topped with a salty-sour chorizo dressing

Celeriac is easy to ignore or overlook, but it really deserves a bit of attention in winter. January is a time for turning on the oven and cooking without having to think too much, and this is the sort of dish that more or less looks after itself while you get on with your evening. The kitchen feels warmer, the smell changes and you know that dinner is sorted. This is simple, honest food, and not remotely trying to be clever. It’s just something to put in the middle of the table, cut into and share, which is exactly what you want when the days are cold and nights are long.

There’s lots of deep umami flavour in this crunchy, rubbly side or salad

Brussels sprouts are for life, not just for Christmas. They’re still making a regular appearance in our house, from shredded and stir-fried with chilli and spice, to roasted and dressed, as in this salad. And what a salad it is: with a caesar-esque dressing, it is crisp, salty and crunchy, and hits all the right notes. You can bulk it out, if you like, by topping it with a few soft, jammy boiled eggs cut into wedges or some shredded leftover chicken. However, it is pretty perfect as it is, as a light lunch or side.

Mediterranean chicken meatballs with feta and black olives, Persian-style saffron chicken and rice, and a garlicky, Korean-inspired chicken and potato traybake

When it comes to traybakes, chicken is the undisputed hero, because it’s endlessly adaptable and perfect for carrying bold, global flavours. First up, some eastern Mediterranean chicken meatballs, flecked with feta and black olives for a sharp, savoury punch. Then a Persian-style saffron chicken and rice; the rice cooks with the chicken, absorbing all the flavours of the sunshine-yellow saffron and crisping up at the edges. Finally, a Korean-inspired chicken and potato traybake in which gochujang and soy create a deeply savoury sauce that elevates a simple midweek meal.

After the failure of his police career, Jack came to live with us, caring for the whole family indiscriminately. When I was sickest, and felt unlovable, he reminded me I was loved

Jack, the cocker spaniel, was sacked by the police. His career as a detection dog was an utter failure – he was more interested in people than cannabis and made some embarrassing mistakes, including begging for treats from potential offenders rather than alerting officers about drugs.

A colleague told me about a police dog that needed a home and so Jack arrived – via police van – at our house. He was lithe, glossy black and animated. He ricocheted around the house, knocking over children and pot plants. He chased rabbits and pheasants over the fields. He ate off the children’s plates and collected shoes. He loved us all indiscriminately and liked to have us where he could see us. If anyone left the room, he’d sigh deeply and follow, remaining close until the pack was back together.

Can a prison officer turned tram driver and a retired medical tech operations manager agree on incarceration, antisemitism and Trump?

Ian, 60, Manchester

Occupation Retired, used to be an operations manager for medical tech

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects trivial and profound considers a heartfelt matter

• This week’s question: To shred or not to shred: is it OK to recycle sensitive documents?

How can we accept that what feels like overwhelming love for someone is unrequited, and how can we get over it? HH, Suffolk, by email

Post your answers (and new questions) below or send them to nq@theguardian.com. A selection will be published next Sunday.

Susan Hayes and Craig got to know each other through an online game. When they finally met in person, it felt like a real-life romance novel

• Find more stories from the moment I knew series

When 2023 rolled around, I was ready for a change. I’d spent the Covid years locked down in Victoria, Canada. I had quit my day job at the end of 2019 to write full-time and travel, only for the world to shut down.

During those long, lonely years, I kept myself distracted by playing an online game. Nothing fancy, just a phone game about surviving a zombie apocalypse. It was a bit of fun and a way to connect with people from around the world. One of those people was a fellow named Craig.

I was stranded in Brussels after a power failure, but the promised refund for hotels, food and transport failed to arrive

Eurostar is refusing to honour expenses claims after a power failure in the tunnel stranded thousands of passengers last month.

Our party of four was stuck at Brussels station when all trains to and from London were cancelled for 24 hours. Eurostar staff told us to find a hotel and handed out leaflets promising that accommodation, food and transport costs would be refunded.

Holding multiple jobs without your employer’s knowledge has boomed in the age of hybrid working. Is it a canny response to job insecurity – or a fast track to getting fired?

Name: Polygamous working.

Age: It’s really a post-pandemic phenomenon.

She had entered end-of-life care and I relied on my car to get to her, but it hadn’t returned the licence

Our daughter, who has cancer, entered end-of-life care on Christmas Eve. I am a carer for her and her two young children.

We both live in rural villages with no public transport options, so I need a car to get to her at short notice, but last summer, out of the blue, the DVLA told me I could not drive until December and revoked my licence.

January is a prime time for people looking to get fit, so fraudsters create fake websites and apps

A new year means a new start – it’s time to get fit and there are quite a few deals out there. On Facebook you see a local gym advertising a discount on membership if you sign up within the next few hours. There are limited spaces so you act quickly.

It’s only after you pay that you realise the ad was a fraud: you’ve received no membership details and when you contact the gym it has no record of your payment.

The ligament that connects your foot bones can cause severe heel pain when inflamed. Here’s how to avoid that

Recently, I decided to go for a jog after not running at all for more than [redacted] years. I did a half-marathon a couple of presidential administrations ago, so surely it would be fine? It was! Until the next morning, when I rolled out of bed, put my feet on the floor and felt a sharp pain in my heel.

Plantar fasciitis, my old nemesis.

Strengthen the muscles of the feet. Silverman suggests doing toe curls (with your feet flat on a towel, grip the towel with your toes and scrunch it towards your body) or marble pickups (using your toes to pick up marbles or similar objects from the floor).

Stretching. Specifically, stretching the calf muscles and the achilles tendon. Regularly stretching and massaging these areas “can help to not only assuage the inflammation, but prevent it from coming back”, says Aiyer.

Increase activity levels gradually. Allow your body to get acclimated to increases in activity levels rather than suddenly ramping up. Basically, don’t do what I did.

Wear the right shoes. Choose a shoe that’s too supportive, and your foot muscles can weaken over time, says Silverman. But choose a shoe that’s not supportive enough, and you may expose your plantar fascia to more direct trauma. Rather than sweating this Goldilocks challenge, Silverman says you should “choose footwear that matches the environment and activity”.

Traditional bodybuilding advice has been to push workouts to the point of failure, and that soreness is an indicator of effectiveness. But recent studies show there’s another way

Until pretty recently, the conventional wisdom about building muscle was that it worked via a system you might think of as “tear and repair” – the idea being that working out causes microtears in the muscle fibres, which trigger the body’s repair processes, encouraging the muscles to come back bigger and stronger.

That’s why many old-school trainers will tell you that there’s no gain without pain, and why a lot of bodybuilding advice includes increasingly byzantine ways of pushing your biceps and triceps to the point where you can’t do another repetition: the more trauma you can cause, the thinking goes, the more “swole” you can become.

While there may be benefits to the treatment, anti-ageing probably isn’t one of them – which is something better left to the professionals

‘Red light therapy, where LED lights are shone on your skin, has been around for a while,” says Afshin Mosahebi, a professor in plastic surgery at University College London. But what was once an expensive treatment you’d go to a professional to receive is now becoming widely available in the form of light-up masks you can wear at home.

“Reasonable reports show that the treatment is good for wound-healing,” says Mosahebi. This is why it is recommended for inflammatory skin conditions such as acne, dermatitis and psoriasis, as it increases circulation, decreases inflammation, and improves cell regeneration.

Used in healing practices for centuries, modern versions of these spiky mats are increasingly popular, and many people find them invaluable. Here’s what the science says

Ever since Keith, 39, from Kansas, was in a car accident in 2023, he has lived with “pretty much constant mid-back and shoulder pain”. Over-the-counter treatments didn’t touch the sides and he didn’t want to resort to opiates. “Having exhausted everything there was solid science for with no satisfaction, I delved into acupressure,” he says. He bought an acupressure mat made of lightly padded fabric, studded all over with tiny plastic spikes, to lay his back on, and was surprised to find that it actually helped.

Acupressure mats, also known as Shakti mats, are inspired by the beds of nails that Indian gurus used for meditation and healing more than 1,000 years ago. While today’s mats have the nonthreatening sheen of a luxury wellbeing product, the spikes are no joke. In fact, the internet serves up a plethora of images of flaming, dented backs after their use – although you’re unlikely to seriously injure yourself using them. While the mats have been widely available for more than a decade, there has been a recent surge in mainstream interest. You may have seen them heavily advertised on your social media feed, the most prominent brand being Shakti Mat, made in India and costing up to £99 for the premium model. But Amazon is full of acupressure mats and pillows – Lidl recently stocked a mat and pillow combo for a tenner. Yet there is still no compelling evidence that they relieve stress, pain and sleep problems, or help with any other unmet health needs.

Designer spins the historic house off on a tangent in Paris, with his reading of its history being that shock value can sell

For billionaires with an eye on best-dressed lists and Oscar nominees with sights set on red carpet domination, Paris haute couture – where a dress can take months to make by hand, and cost as much as a small apartment in the city – is a shopping opportunity. For the rest of the fashion industry, it is a battle for bragging rights between the haughtiest brand names in the world. With ambitious young designers newly installed at Dior and Chanel vying for domination, that battle is feistier than ever.

Haute couture is an arms race like no other. At 10 o’clock on a Monday morning, the Oscar nominee Teyana Taylor was in a diamond tiara in the front row of Schiaparelli, where the house is preparing for a lavish exhibition opening at the V&A Museum this spring. A few hours later in the garden of the Rodin Museum, where a mirrored Dior catwalk reflected a suspended canopy of lush moss studded with silk flowers, Pharrell Williams and the actor Josh O’Connor arrived promptly, but the show was delayed an hour for the arrival of Rihanna in a black satin cocoon coat.

Goodbye, clean girl; hello, blazing icon! Hairstylist Jessie’s mismatched red-and-yellow look has been a joyful shot of warmth on our screens, and makeup artists say they’re here for it

‘It’s Stephen! It’s Stephen. And here they all come to chat a load of bollocks.” So said Jessie Roux all the way back in episode four, spewing truth bombs while wearing sweetcorn-yellow eyeshadow. Yet here we are – as I write this, on the day of the final – with Stephen Libby still masquerading as a Faithful, looking th’innocent flower but being the serpent under’t, as per Lady Macbeth’s advice.

But it hasn’t been for want of Jessie trying – the 28-year-old has been a fan favourite on the latest season of The Traitors for smarts like these, but also for her bright and mismatched makeup. Often yellow and red, like Rupert Bear’s outfit or the Lego logo, the shades are what Little Greene paint company calls exclamatory things such as Trumpet and Heat.

Fashion designer’s death has brought the red dress – and his distinctive shade of the colour – back into the spotlight

“The red dress,” said Valentino Garavani in 1992, “is always magnificent”.

This week, after the announcement of his death at the age of 93, the red dress – and the distinctive shade of red long associated with the designer known simply as Valentino – is back in the spotlight.

Slim frames and tinted lenses are reshaping how men present themselves. Glasses have become the must-have accessory – even if you don’t have a prescription

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Last spring, Tom Broughton, founder of eyewear brand Cubitts, was asked to comment on a meme that was going viral, that featured a pair of his company’s ‘Plimsoll’ frames. The small, delicate, and slightly round unisex shape had been worn by British actor, Jonathan Bailey, in leaked stills from the 2025 movie, Jurassic World Rebirth – and had been dubbed by the internet as a pair of ‘slutty little glasses’.

“It all just blew up,” remembers Broughton, noting how the brand struggled to deal with the sudden demand for what had become the sexiest specs on the market. A subsequent capsule collection, made in partnership with Bailey’s LGBTQ+ charity the Shameless Fund, sold out almost instantly, too. Thousands of pairs were gone in minutes, and after multiple restocks, “we’re maybe down to our last 15 pairs,” adds Broughton. Nearly the entire run was bought by men.

The distractions of daily life can make writing a book a frustrating task, so I sought boltholes offering creative support and solitude in inspiring landscapes

The idea for my novel came in a rush: as I walked over the Thames on the Golden Jubilee Bridge in central London, the scene at the heart of it leapt out of the deep blue dusk and clung on to me until I committed to writing it into existence.

A few months later, it became depressingly clear that the half-hour snatches of writing at the end of my working day just weren’t going to get me over the finish line.

Change your life – or just kick back and relax – by connecting with nature, trying a creative workshop, or taking a yoga course somewhere beautiful

Playfulness is at the heart of the Art and Play holiday, based on a farm outside the Bay of Kotor. A family-friendly retreat designed to reignite joy and reconnect with the inner child, it’s one for solo travellers and couples as well as parents with kids. There are creative sessions on everything from dance to painting, as well as time to enjoy the farm – feeding the animals, collecting eggs or helping harvest vegetables for farm-fresh meals. Excursions include hikes to hidden beaches, kayaking and trips to Kotor and Budva, but there’s time to chill by the pool too; evenings are for board games, music and campfires. Accommodation ranges from camping and glamping to cabins, a treehouse and restored farmhouse.
Seven days from £695, children 5-12 £350, under-fives free, includes brunch, dinner and snacks, 3 May and 23 August, responsibletravel.com

The process of learning to catch a wave is an all-consuming activity that can prove to be a powerful therapeutic tool

I can’t remember when my terror of waves began in earnest. Maybe it was a singular incident that triggered it, like that monster wave in Biarritz, France, almost 20 years ago that body-slammed me on to the seabed, taking all the skin off my chin.

More likely is that my transition from fearless to frightened had been more of a slow creep, and a perfectly rational one when you consider the danger of riptides, hidden rocks, sharks and concussion. But for me, I feel it goes deeper. Almost inevitably my job will have had something to do with this. Nearly two decades of working as a journalist reporting on the very worst things that human beings can do to other human beings in a wide array of contexts has definitely eroded my sense that I can keep myself – and others – safe from harm in a dangerous world.

From the jungles of Colombia to sailing in Croatia, our readers reflect on the life lessons travel has taught them
• Send us a tip on a museum or gallery – the best wins a £200 holiday voucher

I did a circuit of the Old Man of Coniston in the Lake District on a grey, drizzly weekday in October and it quietly rewired my head. I’d been running on always-on mode, and that climb forces you to slow down and breathe properly. From the Coppermines valley up to the ridge, then along the rocky summit and back via Goat’s Water, it’s rugged without being showy. The weather kept the crowds away, and the low cloud made the tarn feel like a secret. I came home muddy, soaked and weirdly calm, and started making space for long walks again.
Brandon Kindell

The historic port district – and setting for Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting – has evolved into a cultural and culinary hub. In the first of a new series, a local resident visits the venues powering the resurgence

Leith is Edinburgh’s port district, where people, goods and new ideas have flowed into the city for centuries. Here, the Water of Leith river meets the sea, and on bright days, when pubs and restaurants spill out to the Shore area, there’s nowhere quite like it. I moved here 13 years ago, and it has been a joy to watch the area evolve and reinvent itself. Today it’s the city’s creative heart, full of artists, musicians, designers and startups, with a thriving food and drink scene. The arrival of the tramline from Edinburgh city centre in 2023 has given it a big boost too.

A splint and a pinch of cinnamon can help repair minor stem damage, but don’t expect miracles

The problem
You brush past a favourite plant and hear that horrible snap as a stem bends or breaks. The break is rarely clean enough to propagate, yet not detached enough to ignore. You are left with a drooping limb and a sinking feeling. People on Reddit swear by a first-aid kit of drinking straws and cinnamon – can it save the day?

The hack
A straw acts as a splint to hold a bent stem upright while it heals. Cinnamon is sprinkled on the wound as a natural antifungal, said to help keep rot at bay.

Ripon City Wetlands and Welburn, North Yorkshire: First a starling ​and then a robin​ arrived like visitations​. I am truly grateful for ​them both

I’ve heard it said that birds come to people who’ve lost someone dear. It seemed a nice thing to believe, but I never really imagined it might be true. But neither did I imagine losing my only sibling at the age of 53. Nic’s childhood nickname, Twinkle, was apt. She was the brightest, kindest person I’ve ever known, and the ferocity of the cancer that took her in barely a month just before Christmas blindsided us all.

A few days after she slipped away, we went with friends to watch a starling murmuration. It’s something we do most years, but never before have we seen a bird tumble from the throng and crash at our feet like a feathered meteorite. I scooped her into my hat. Sometimes all a stunned bird needs to recover is a warm, safe place to rest. But it wasn’t to be, and so now that impossibly beautiful body is buried* under our damson tree. Star. Sister. Bird. Blossom. All the same interchangeable stuff.

Despite living on an island, David Warr avoided the water for five decades – until a swimming teacher made the link between his fear and a childhood trauma

When David Warr was 11 he thought he was dying. At his school swimming lesson, he jumped in and swam – then realised with horror that his feet couldn’t feel the bottom. He recalls his teacher, standing on the side of the pool, shouting at him to “just swim” and his own immobilising fear. “I thought, ‘I can’t. I don’t know what to do.’ I started to panic hard. I thought, ‘She’s going to let me die.’”

Warr, 61, has blocked out how he reached safety, but for five decades he refused to go out of his depth again. He lives on the island of Jersey where water is a fact of life – but even when his sons were small, he would only wade a bit, and watch them swim with envy and pride. In contrast, he felt he was “battling the water”.

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

Testimony from medics, morgue and graveyard staff reveals huge state effort to conceal systematic killing of protesters

On Thursday 8 January, in a midsize Iranian town, Dr Ahmadi’s* phone began to buzz. His colleagues in local emergency wards were getting worried.

All week, people had taken to the streets and had been met by police with batons and pellet guns. With treatment, their injuries should not have been too serious. But emergency room staff believed many wounded young people were avoiding hospitals, terrified that registering as trauma patients would lead to their identification and arrest.

She was half of a 90s art power couple that seemed unstoppable. But they split and the trauma floored her. Now she’s back with defiant paintings celebrating her punk past – and late-career motherhood

Sue Webster is reminiscing about boozy 90s art openings. A hazy memory of Damien Hirst riding Leigh Bowery’s shoulders is surfacing, and a terrible fight with Jake Chapman at Charles Saatchi’s gallery. “It was a verbal thing but he was probably about to punch me. You’d get very drunk on the free champagne.”

Webster, and her former partner in art, romance and general punk rockery, Tim Noble, hit London in 1992 as the YBAs rose to fame. Five years later, Saatchi stopped by their cheap-as-chips live-work space in Shoreditch and, with his taxi still running outside, snapped up a light sculpture called Toxic Schizophrenia and a “shadow sculpture” titled Miss Understood and Mr Meanor. The shadow sculptures were meticulously melded pieces of junk and detritus which, when lit from one side, projected self-portrait silhouettes onto the wall. Webster says she would sometimes cry when saying goodbye to an artwork after selling it. So what does an artist do when such a long and successful partnership ends? “I wanted to unravel my brain, and work out how I ended up here,” she says.

As a young teenager, Javid and his brother were caught stealing from slot machines, arrested and held in a cell. His future hung in the balance. How did he get from there to the top of UK politics?

In 2019, when Sajid Javid was home secretary, he spoke about growing up on “the most dangerous street in Britain” and said how easy it would have been to fall into a life of crime. Fortunately, he said, he managed to avoid trouble. But it turns out that Javid was being a little economical with the truth. He did get into trouble. Serious trouble.

Now 56, he has just published his childhood memoir, The Colour of Home. It’s crammed with incident – arranged marriages, savage beatings and boys behaving badly. I think there’s one key moment in your story, I tell him. “What, just one?” he hoots. Javid is not lacking for confidence.

We would like to hear from people about the impact of the stormy weather conditions in the UK

Flood and weather warnings from both Environment Agency and the Met Office are in place across much of the UK as Storm Chandra brought heavy rain and strong winds to many areas of the UK.

As day broke on Tuesday, there were almost 100 flood warnings in England and nearly 200 alerts – meaning flooding is possible – in place, with heavy rain falling on already saturated ground. There 24 flood alerts in Wales at the time of writing. A red flood warning – meaning danger to life – has been issued for a river in south-west England.

Our clothes can be one of the most powerful non-verbal communicators – tell us yours reflect who you are and what you do?

From uniforms to suits to tracksuits to costumes, clothes keep us warm and covered – but they are also one of the most powerful non-verbal communicators, a second skin which reflects who you are and what you do.

We want to hear from people about why they wear what they wear. Do your clothes help you in the workplace? Are they making a statement? Maybe you’re a waiter and have worn the same work uniform for years, or maybe your job involves wearing very little. Please tell us about yourselves.

We would like to hear your suggestions for the UK’s first town of culture

With the search for the UK’s first town of culture under way, we would like to hear your suggestions.

Guardian writers’ own nominations include Ramsgate in Kent, Falmouth in Cornwall, Abergavenny in Monmouthshire, and Portobello in Edinburgh. Which town would you nominate, and why?

As television turns 100, we would like to hear your highlights of the century

As television turns 100, we’ve charted TV history in a timeline of 100 extraordinary moments. Now, we would like to hear your highlights. Did we miss anything? What is your favourite TV moment of all time?

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