The pressure to conform in Japanese society made being a punk risky – even before you factor in the flamethrowers. As a new rash of reissues arrives, 80s stalwarts Lip Cream, Death Side and the Nurse recall the thrills and threats

A few short years after punk’s initial shock-and-awe inspired thousands of teenagers to spike their hair and learn three chords, the genre mutated into hardcore: a leaner, meaner and fiercely independent hybrid that would soon be tearing up squats, church halls and dive bars around the world.

Forty-five years on, hardcore is enjoying a moment in the mainstream thanks to bands such as Turnstile, Speed and Knocked Loose. There are hardcore bands on talkshows, in fast-food ads and on $40 T-shirts – all things that the 1980s artists would probably have gobbed at.

The award-winning star of Say Nothing and Trespasses refuses to play the fame game when they can fight government inaction. They open up on making amazing TV … and why morals matter more than nice handbags

Few people are less daunted about the prospect of turning 30 than Lola Petticrew. “I used to be so afraid of getting old, and now I just think it’s the best thing ever,” they say. “I feel like I’m just coming into myself. And it feels fucking amazing. I think it’s such a fantastic thing to age – all the shit starts falling away and what you care about becomes more concentrated. I know what I want my life to be now, and I’m pretty stern on it. I don’t have to care about anything else.”

They’re telling me this over Zoom from New York, where Petticrew is shooting Furious, the new show by Elizabeth Meriwether (New Girl, Dying for Sex). Petticrew plays a character who was sex-trafficked as a child and is now out for revenge, tailed by an FBI agent played by Emmy Rossum.

Joyce Beatty seeks to remove the president’s name from the newly minted ‘Trump-Kennedy Center’

Democratic US representative Joyce Beatty of Ohio sued Donald Trump on Monday to seek the removal of his name from the John F Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington DC.

The lawsuit from Beatty, an ex-officio trustee on the board, argued that the vote to rename the Kennedy Center is a “flagrant violation” of law as congressional approval is required for such an action.

Fans are expected to eat up the third annual Pop-Tarts Bowl on December 27 as the annual college football game has become a viral sensation

From Sinners to F1 to Highest 2 Lowest, Guardian writers pick the scenes that stuck with them the most this year

Spoilers ahead

Disclosure: I covered auto racing for years and still follow Formula One skeptically. I definitely went into F1: The Movie knowing what I was in for, an answer to the hypothetical: what if the bougiest sport on God’s green earth was turned into a western? But you can’t help going along for the ride once Brad Pitt starts filling the frame with his blue-eyed winks, wry smiles and Butch Cassidy swagger. I should’ve been more indignant about this martinet sport making a literal hero out of the biggest rogue on the grid. But I left disbelief in parc fermé as Pitt’s Sonny Hayes bumped and nicked his way to the season finale at Abu Dhabi to much consternation before his wingman (Damson Idris) takes up the ticky tactics at Yas Marina circuit and winds up sacrificing himself and producer Lewis Hamilton (not again!) to help Sonny win his first race and thwart a hostile takeover of their fragile team. And when the lights went up at my desolate midday screening, it was just me still on the edge of my seat and my disbelief still firmly off track. Andrew Lawrence

He stole our hearts in The Celebrity Traitors – then it all went wrong. The actor and comedian opens up

When I catch up with Nick Mohammed, he is on the set of War, a new HBO series. Full of legal eagles, tech-bro hot shots and ugly divorces, it’s a punchy, slick enterprise, nothing at all like The Celebrity Traitors – except for the high drama, unbearable tension and the fact that Mohammed is reunited with Celia Imrie. Traitors was filmed in April and May and this started in September, so they both knew exactly what had happened in the castle, but were still in their chamber of deadly secrecy. Mainly, Mohammed was happy just to kick about with Imrie again. “She’s wonderful,” he says. “Everything you think she might be, she absolutely is – she’s just brilliant.”

Which brings us to the root of the problem, the answer to the question: “What the hell happened, Nick?” Spoiler alert: we intend to talk about exactly what went down in the most infuriating Traitors final since, well, the last non-celebrity Traitors. If Joe Marler had had his way, he and Nick would have sauntered to victory, Alan Carr’s magisterial fibbing finally unmasked. Instead, Nick’s niggling doubts brought down the ship.

Swift’s six-parter charting her Eras tour began with some riveting revelations – but the drama ebbed away, leaving another piece of mere product for fans

In the behind-the-scenes documentary series Taylor Swift: The End of an Era, the singer Florence Welch ascends to the stage to perform their duet Florida!!! to a crowd of 90,000 people. Welch later reflects on their duet at Wembley Stadium with a mix of awe and bemusement. “Taylor is my friend,” she says. “I know her as this very cosy person, and I came out of that lift and I was like, ‘Oh my God, it’s fucking Taylor Swift.’”

If Swift is a cosy person, The End of an Era – now complete, with its concluding episodes dropping today – is certainly a cosy watch; the sort of lighthearted, low-demand viewing that feels especially welcome in the lazy days leading up to Christmas and stretching towards the new year. Viewers will be familiar with the story. The Eras Tour was great, it tells us. It broke records, burst hearts and boosted the economy. We know she pulled it off. This is only a problem insofar as it means there is almost zero jeopardy in the series, which feels repetitive and thinly stretched over its six hour-long episodes.

This year’s highlights include the remodelling of a Richard Seifert brutalist ‘corncob’ tower, a celebration of Japanese carpentry and a wearable hot-water bottle
• The best art and photography of 2025
• More on the best culture of 2025

In a case of contents outshining the container, the V&A’s national museum of everything takes the public up close and personal to a gallimaufry of precious things, from porcelain to poison darts, textiles to tiaras. Elegantly shoehorned into the gargantuan hangar that was originally the broadcasting centre for the 2012 Olympics, it’s an Amazon warehouse crammed with global treasures, setting visitors off on an odyssey of “curated transgression” through an immersive cabinet of curiosities.

Whether your household is in the mood for singing, driving, quizzing or shouting, here are our top choices for homely holiday fun

Multiplayer hand-to-hand combat games are ridiculously good fun and there are plenty to choose from, including the rather similar Gang Beasts and Party Animals. I’ve gone for this one, however, which lets everyone pick a cake to play as before competing in food fights and taking on mini-games such as roasting marshmallows and lobbing fruit into a pie. If you ever wished that the Great British Bake Off was ever-so-slightly more gladitorial, this is the game for you.