Heartening to hear Simon say only “a chance of rain”. It felt like a bit more than that in his piece from yesterday …
“Morning/evening/whatever from Auckland!” says Simon Burnton, our correspondent on the tour. “First, weatherwatch: yesterday it drizzled all day and while today has been dry (so far, there’s a chance of rain later), it was outrageously windy as I did the rather dreary walk here from town. England are unchanged, with Phil Salt collecting a commemorative cap in the team’s pre-match huddle on the occasion of his 50th T20 appearance (they really need to make some more effort with these special caps, because they are absolutely identical to the standard ones which makes it hard to see what the point is), and Luke Wood, who is making his 14th appearance, also getting congratulated for a reason I was unable to ascertain from a distance.”
Stiller’s documentary about his parents, comedy duo Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, is a tender reflection on marriage and what it costs to keep smiling in the entertainment business
Ben Stiller has created a sweet, affectionate, unexpectedly poignant portrait of his parents Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara – and, perhaps without quite realising it, of himself as well. His mum and dad were two hard-working actor-comedians who had a very successful TV double act in the 60s and 70s and a long marriage. This has been the source of so much material, based on the quarrels and tensions to which Ben and his sister Amy were intimate witnesses.
Both parents’ backgrounds were hard. Anne’s mother had taken her own life; Jerry’s dad was tough and unsupportive. Perhaps they never experienced the full status of stardom that their son has enjoyed, although Jerry had a new lease of late-life TV fame in the 90s with his superb portrayal of George Costanza’s dad in Seinfeld. The film is centred on Ben and Amy clearing out their mum and dad’s New York apartment after Jerry died in 2020; Anne had died in 2015. And Ben Stiller himself emerges as a complex and unresolved personality from this film: he considers the fact that his parents were sometimes not there for him because of the pressures of show business, and that he himself was not around for his own children because of being away on film sets. He and his wife Christine Taylor separated for three years but reunited in 2020.
Typhoon Rai killed more than 400, displaced nearly 3.2 million, and destroyed more than a million homes in 2021
Trixy Elle still weeps when she remembers how she and her family fought for their lives as Typhoon Rai tore across the Philippines days before Christmas four years ago. In a matter of hours, intense rain and storm surges swallowed their home on Batasan Island in Tubigon, Bohol province.
Elle, her elderly parents, brother, husband and two young children linked hands as they swam against flood waters in the dead of the night, praying to survive.
My epic rail journey to some of the continent’s most creative and edgy cities mimics a cruise – I hop on and off, eat too much and soak up the culture
The people queueing for the Eurostar at London St Pancras station, rushing in from the rain in hoodies, look noticeably less enthusiastic than the usual holiday crowds. But then, we aren’t heading to the usual hot, heady holiday destinations of Spain or the south of France, but boarding a train to north-east Europe. For me, it will be a journey of more than 1,000 miles – via Amsterdam, Berlin and Warsaw to Vilnius – visiting some of the coolest capitals in the north. At least in terms of temperature.
As England sweltered this summer, and Spain reached a hellish 46C, it made sense to head away from the heat on what is now fashionably being called a “coolcation”. I left in August, with a suitcase full of jumpers.
Great sound, decent noise cancelling and solid battery life with a novel Talk button that turns the case into a microphone
Nothing’s latest semi-transparent noise-cancelling earbuds have a new trick up their sleeves: a high-quality mic in the case that you can push a button to talk into.
This so-called Super Mic is designed for all those who want a microphone-in-the-hand experience for clearer conversations, recordings and voice notes in noisy environments. For those who talk into the bottom of their phone out in front of them, these are the earbuds for you.
The Book of Dust trilogy is brought to a complex and fitting end as Lyra battles the Magisterium over her lost imagination
Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman’s magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force “is destroying the air and the seasons”; at the same time, “money’s going bad, and no one knows why”. Power is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. “Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly”, says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. “Things we thought were firm and solid are weakening and giving way.”
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman’s concluding foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It’s a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in animal form; where the skies are filled with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and tea is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
From a red-throated loon landing on water, to good and bad hair days and an airborne squirrel, here is a selection of the finalists in this year’s Nikon Comedy Wildlife awards. A winner will be announced on 9 December
Private member’s bill backed by Chris Packham and Natalie Bennett would impose a duty of care on government and business
A radical proposal to change the legal status of nature will be launched today in the House of Lords, with the unveiling of the UK nature’s rights bill initiative.
The private member’s bill aims to legally enshrine the idea that there can be no lasting economic progress or social justice without respect for the natural world, and to change the legal status of nature from objects, property and resources to a legal subject with inherent rights.
A biscuit crossed with a flapjack crossed with a bread pudding: these snacks are best enjoyed with a hot drink
This, then, was the situation: it was Friday night after a long week, and having met a friend on the way home for a glass of wine, which arrived with crisps, taralli, dry roasted peanuts and enough salt that we needed another glass, it seemed a good idea to go home and cook polenta – the long-stir sort as opposed to the instant variety, although I always have that in the cupboard, too. Another good idea, which came to me as I pulled a new packet from the back of the dresser and ignored the flutter of tiny wings, was to make more than enough polenta and pour the extra into a Pyrex dish while it was still hot, so it could set into a block to be cut into slices and grilled the next day.
I’ve written about polenta before; how the word is ancient and generic – referring to any mushy dish made from cereal flour and water – and how, after its arrival in Europe in the 1600s, it became synonymous with ground maize. There exists a world of different grades and milling, but, broadly speaking, when you buy ground maize (cornmeal) for polenta, you will have two options: finely ground (which might also be white) for a soft, thin polenta, and coarsely ground, which will have glassy-looking grains and makes an excellent body scrub and a harder, tastier polenta. The latter also takes much longer to cook, anything from 40 minutes to several hours, depending on who (or which packet) you consult, although in my experience an hour is almost always enough, and anything beyond that is more a way of deepening the flavour. Stirring is also a matter of opinion, with some saying it must be constant, while others (hello, Anna Del Conte!) noting that after 10 minutes, if the heat is low enough, you can in fact leave the pan to attend to other things, coming back every now and then to give it a strong, hard stir.
It means breaking with hundreds of years of tradition, but it can’t wait. As hard-right figures spread division and laud autocrats, a fail-safe is vital
After two years in Brazil, I felt I understood its political system better than I understand the UK’s. The reason is a short book in simple language that almost everyone owned: the constitution, published in 1988. Admittedly, I discovered the document’s limitations while trying to explain its principles to a furious captain of the military police with a pump-action shotgun. But at least I knew exactly which of my rights he was infringing.
To achieve a similar grasp of rights and powers in the UK, you’d need to be a professor of constitutional law. They are contained in a vast and contradictory morass of legal statutes, court precedents, codes of conduct, scholarly opinions, treaties, traditions, gentlemen’s agreements and unwritten rules. They are rendered still less intelligible by arcane parliamentary procedures and language so opaque that we need a translation app.
The NHS warns against using GLP-1s while breastfeeding – for the baby’s sake as well as the mother’s. But how much does that count when they’re so readily available and there’s so much pressure to ‘bounce back’?
Lydia* first started thinking about weight-loss drugs during pregnancy. “Everyone was talking about them and the advertisements were everywhere,” she says, as her baby son naps upstairs. “I remember thinking: ‘That’s how I’ll lose weight for my wedding next year.’”
When Lydia explains that most of her life before pregnancy was spent in a welter of yo-yo dieting and body dissatisfaction, I say to her that I think most of us can relate. Her pregnancy, however, brought a level of body acceptance and contentment that the 33-year-old from Wales had never had before.
As the police and courts continue to struggle with the legacy of austerity, many people are seeking alternative routes to justice – but it could be making matters worse
In the summer of 2018, the private investigator Simon Davison got a call from a woman who said her ex-boyfriend had stolen £10,000 from her. Carol (not her real name), a traffic manager at a local council, was not a typical client for Davison. As the director of investigations at AnotherDay, a crisis consultancy in London, Davison usually works for wary companies and wealthy individuals. A former police detective, Davison has recovered stolen cryptocurrency, uncovered secret properties owned by bankrupt business people and tracked down fraudsters to Cyprus.
Davison’s speciality is private prosecutions, a little-known area of law that allows victims to pay for justice. These cases are heard in the same courts used by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the public prosecutor for England and Wales, and they can carry the same amount of prison time for suspects. “We really mirror the process between the police and the CPS,” Davison said. The difference is that the police are agents of the state, whereas people call on Davison when the state fails to help.
Bonuses for families have done nothing to fix a baby bust caused by post-communist Europe’s relationships crisis
In 2015, I found myself advising Poland’s president on the nation’s demographic woes: thecountry’s fertility rate had stalled at 1.3 children per woman, among the lowest in Europe. I thought I understood the problem. Most Polish couples wanted to have two kids but settled for one. The culprits, I believed, were predictable: precarious jobs, not enough childcare, apartment prices out of reach. At 27, flush with the confidence that comes from being both right and young, I sparred with politicians and policymakers twice my age, usually men, who insisted that women like me would reproduce if only the state threw enough cash into the cradle.
We were all, it turned out, fighting the wrong battle. In the decade since then, unemployment in Poland has sunk to one of the lowest in the EU. Incomes have more than doubled. Nursery and childcare places are multiplying. The government now channels almost 8% of the national budget into cash transfers known as the “800 Plus” programme, so called because the state pays families 800 zlotys every month, per dependant child.
Anna Gromada is an assistant professor at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw and a policy adviser to international organisations.
Walker Art Gallery highlights contemporary artists and ‘connections, histories and legacies’ to mark 250 years since Turner’s birth
Visitors to a major JMW Turner exhibition may well be surprised to see the opening work is by Jeff Koons, and Damien Hirst sharks, a Bridget Riley stripe painting and some Doc Marten boots supplied by the curator herself are also on display.
“Surprised? That’s what we’re hoping,” said Melissa Gustin, the curator of British art at National Museums Liverpool. But by the end it will all make perfect sense, she hopes. “That is the vibe we are after. We want visitors to see the connections, the histories and the legacies.”
In 2024, nearly a million hectares of Ukraine’s land burned. Heat, mines and shelling contributed, but footage of drones targeting firefighters has raised the question of war crimes
Natalia Pryprosta was tending to her pigs when fire swept into the village of Studenok, near the city of Izium in eastern Ukraine. There was no time. She grabbed her papers, pulled her elderly mother into a friend’s car, and tried to get the animals out of the shed. Smoke and the speed of the blaze made it impossible. She didn’t see the animals burning, but learned of their fate later.
Smoke smothered Studenok, turning the village as dark as night. Pryprosta’s neighbours fought the flames with shovels, digging in scorched earth to stop the crown fire’s advance. Firefighters arrived, but the blaze was relentless. At one point, it surged around a fire truck, trapping the crew.
Budapest marches by ruling Fidesz party and opposition Tisza will take place in a highly polarised political climate
Tens of thousands of people are expected to turn out for rival rallies by Viktor Orbán’s ruling party and his main opponent as they kick off campaigning for elections next year in a highly polarised political climate.
The anniversary on Thursday of Hungary’s thwarted 1956 uprising against Soviet rule holds a central place in the ideology of the populist far-right Fidesz party, which was once firmly anti-Soviet but has grown closer to Russia under Orbán.
The Australian band’s second album, Again, is among the year’s best, put out by Jack White’s Third Man Records. This time, they say, ‘it’s cool being part of a record release where people are going to hear it’
Again, one of the year’s best indie rock albums, comes courtesy of the Belair Lip Bombs, a Melbourne four-piece who write with a precision and attention to melody that could put hired-gun pop songwriters to shame.
Their second album, which follows their 2023 debut, Lush Life, looks set to establish the Lip Bombs – guitarist and vocalist Maisie Everett, bass player Jimmy Droughton, drummer Daniel Devlin and guitarist Mike Bradvica – as rising stars in Australia and far beyond. It’s the band’s first album for Jack White’s Third Man Records – Lush Life, released by the Frankston label Cousin Will, was reissued by Third Man last year – and the band are appreciative of this new, larger platform.
2nd over: India 1-0 (Rohit 1, Gill 0) Josh Hazlewood begins with a maiden and no surprise that India are cautious against the metronomic Australian quick after he caused the top order so much trouble in Perth. Rohit leaves the second ball of the over and is fortunate to watch it bounce over middle and off – but that was close.
1st over: India 1-0 (Rohit 1, Gill 0) Mitchell Starc takes some time to get his inswinger firing and Rohit is content to defend to the off side. The former India skipper eventually chases a wider ball but fails to make contact. A straight delivery allows Rohit to clip a single off his pads as Gill times his first ball with Starc finally getting movement in the air.
Teachers, nurses and public service staff among those walking off job and also pressing for more government investment in health and education
An estimated 100,000 nurses, teachers and public sector staff walked off the job in New Zealand on Thursday to call on the government to better fund and resource public services, in one of the country’s largest ever strikes.
The so-called “mega strike” brought together workers from multiple sectors, including more than 60,000 school teachers, 40,000 nurses and salaried medical specialists and 15,000 public service staff.
Final debate was marked by heated exchanges between the frontrunners, while Sliwa quipped at Cuomo’s expense
New York City’s three mayoral contenders had a fiery debate on Wednesday night in their final televised face-off less than two weeks before voters decide the city’s next leader on 4 November.
Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, independent Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa participated in a tense and often chaotic discussion. The current mayor, Eric Adams, who dropped out of the race weeks earlier, once again did not attend.
An “inexperienced” British surfer and a friend who jumped in to save him have been identified as the two men who died in rough waters off a popular pier in Victoria during wild winds on Wednesday.
Emergency services were called to Frankston beach in Melbourne’s south-east after reports of two men in trouble in the water at about 5pm, as the state was lashed by intense wind gusts.
The Hyunmoo-5 ‘bunker buster’ missile can reportedly carry an eight-tonne warhead and will be ready for deployment at the end of the year
South Korea has said it will begin deploying its largest ballistic missile yet at the end of the year – a projectile known as the “monster missile” by local media – marking a significant upgrade of its conventional arsenal as tensions rise with nuclear-armed North Korea.
Defence minister Ahn Gyu-back recently told Yonhap News that South Korea must build a “considerable” number of the Hyunmoo-5 missiles in order to “achieve a balance of terror” in the face of the threat posed by the North, and that a next-generation missile with even greater power is needed.
Candidates come out swinging as they vie for New Yorkers’ votes in final debate
“It’s us versus them,” Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate, says in his brief opening statement, in which he claims that he is the true representative of New Yorkers.
Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor, begins by urging the Knicks to win, and then pivots to attacking “my main opponent”, Zohran Mamdani.
The family of Cheryl Grimmer has said “what we want now is the truth” after a New South Wales MP used parliamentary privilege to reveal the identity of a man who police previously alleged murdered the UK-born toddler 55 years ago.
Cheryl vanished from outside a shower block while with her mother and three older brothers at Fairy Meadow beach in the Illawarra region of NSW on 12 January 1970.
Connexion
