(Gingerbread Man/Atlantic)Despite embracing Indian and Persian sounds, Sheeran’s eighth album goes back to basics after two records of muted melancholy – albeit with some surprising undercurrents As he points out on the opening track of Play, Ed Sheeran has now been around a long time. It’s 20 years since he […]
PM and foreign secretary were nowhere in sight as hapless Stephen Doughty faced the Commons over Peter Mandelson UK politics live – latest updates If only there had been some kind of clue. The tiniest of hints that Peter Mandelson might not have been a suitable candidate to act as […]
Fifty years after the release of Wish You Were Here, we count down the best of the band’s Syd Barrett years, their difficult recovery and later reunion Low on memorable tunes, big on racked, strangulated lead vocals, possessed of a worldview that makes every other Pink Floyd album look like […]
Summer 2025 was marked by a surge in anti-immigrant protests, attacks on mosques and racist graffiti across the UK. The unrest, stoked by far-right agitators such as Tommy Robinson, sought to pit communities against each other. But in Luton, where Tommy Robinson himself grew up, writer and journalist Taj Ali […]
Soap-based injuries, bleak festive deaths, Hugh Bonneville vomiting blood: we look back on 15 years of highs and lows as the frothy period drama comes to an end with its final spin-off film Prepare for stiff upper lips to wobble. Clutch monogrammed hankies for period-appropriate eye-dabbing. After 15 years on […]
The Guardian’s reporter in Gaza describes the dilemma facing her family and others, many hungry, penniless and without transport The ninth of September is my sister Enas’s birthday, so we were happy this morning, drinking coffee as a family and telling jokes, until we saw the leaflets dropping down telling […]
The Tory leader usually misses the open goals, but after the US ambassador’s creepy letter to Epstein she went in for the kill Some days you just have to write off. Keir Starmer might have guessed that this was going to be one of those days when he was woken […]
Forty-eight teams will participate in next summer’s World Cup and 30 places are still up for grabs Forty-eight teams will participate in next summer’s World Cup, with the hosts, Canada, Mexico and the United States, granted automatic entry. A further 43 places are determined by qualifying competitions from the six […]
From The Simpsons mauling George HW Bush to South Park’s current head-to-head with Trump, animations are no stranger to political battles. But sometimes, things get far, far more brutal It shouldn’t really be a surprise that South Park has become “the most important TV show of the Trump 2.0 era”. […]
The creativity process has been divided into four phases – including one where you need to let your unconscious do the work AE Housman, the English classical scholar and poet, often took a walk after lunch. During one walk he was exceptionally creative – unconsciously. As he strode along, a […]