70 minutes ago I have visited North Korea 30 times and seen almost every province, but I'm still not bored of it and would LOVE to return. Here's why...

Zoe Stephens, 30, from Liverpool here shares photos and video footage of the hermit kingdom as well as memories of her time there.

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87 minutes ago Britain's Got Talent judge exposes major golden buzzer blunder on first day of filming

EXCLUSIVE: Alesha Dixon has been a judge on Britain's Got Talent for almost a decade and recently shared a hilarious anecdote about Bruno Tonioli's first day of filming.

Events

87 minutes ago ‘It’s a monster task’: can culling ferrets and rats save one of the UK’s largest seabird colonies?

Puffins, Manx shearwaters and kittiwakes on Rathlin Island in Northern Ireland have been dying. Now islanders and experts think they have the solutionThe dramatic sea cliffs, crags and stacks of Rathlin Island, county Antrim, rise more than 200 metres above the Atlantic Ocean and host one of the UK’s largest seabird colonies, including hundreds of endangered puffins, attracting up to 20,000 birders and tourists a year.On a spectacularly sunny day in September, the cliff faces are devoid of birds, with the puffins already having made their annual migration to spend the winter months at sea. Instead, Rathlin’s cliffs are dotted with roped-up figures in harnesses and bulging rucksacks, directed from above by a Scottish mountaineer, via a walkie-talkie. Continue reading...

Politics

87 minutes ago The assisted dying debate is about so much more than kindness v conservatism | Sonia Sodha

George Carey is wrong to reduce the bill to a simple question of right or wrongThere is perhaps nothing more 2020s than taking a sensitive, morally fraught issue loaded with complexity and nuance, and casting it as progress and kindness versus indifference and obdurate conservatism. When even senior members of the clergy fall into this trap, it is a sign of just how much social media has collapsed public discourse into a simple question of right or wrong.The debate about assisted dying has become depressingly reductionist, but I was still taken aback when the former archbishop of Canterbury George Carey last week chose to mirror its flaws rather than adopt a more careful tone. He urged bishops in the House of Lords to back Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s private member’s bill to legalise ass...

Events

87 minutes ago 'That’s big nuts': Forget Cristiano Ronaldo, biggest character at Hampden was unsung Scotland hero

McLean praises mentality of his club and country team-mate Hanley after Portugal show

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88 minutes ago I tried Arran Sense of Scotland’s advent calendar and it has the ultimate Christmas fragrance

The bath, beauty and perfume brand has pulled together a stunning mix of fragrances in its crowd-pleasing Christmas offering and we've found a way to save 20% on its cost

Politics

2 hours ago Britain’s Got Talent judge Alesha Dixon exposes major golden buzzer blunder on first day of filming

EXCLUSIVE: Britain’s Got Talent star Alesha Dixon spoke exclusively about her fellow judge’s major golden buzzer gaffe during their first day of filming.

Events

2 hours ago ‘Does time heal? I don’t think so’: Richard E Grant on love, loss – and bonking

The raw intensity and personal honesty that Richard E Grant brought to Withnail and I was real and has never left him. Now the actor and diarist, still grieving the loss of his wife, talks openly about heartbreak, ambition and his traumatic upbringingA month before she died, the acclaimed dialect coach Joan Washington recorded a poem to be played on her daughter’s wedding day. Washington died on 2 September 2021 from lung cancer, concluding a 38-year marriage to the actor and diarist Richard E Grant. Olivia, the couple’s daughter, celebrated her marriage this past September at the house Grant and Washington shared in London. Grant wore an elegant tuxedo, his blue eyes startling, and the house was swollen with flowers. His speech included “all the things a father says. You want it to be ...

Politics

2 hours ago Karla’s Choice: A John le Carré Novel by Nick Harkaway review – the Circus is back in town

John le Carré’s son does him proud in an excellent spy thriller about a Soviet agent that faithfully bridges two of his father’s classic talesAutumn now seems officially to be John le Carré season, given that this is the fourth year running since the author’s death in 2020 we’ve had a new book by or about him: first came the posthumously published novel Silverview, then an edition of his letters, as well as a memoir by his lover Sue “Suleika” Dawson (The Secret Heart), before last year’s follow-up exposé by his biographer Adam Sisman, The Secret Life of John le Carré, documenting other lovers the espionage writer hadn’t wanted mentioned in his lifetime.Considering the drift of those books, it’s maybe unsurprising if we’ve lost sight of le Carré’s achievements as a novelist, especially i...

Politics

2 hours ago Claire Sweeney, 53, on the struggles of menopause: 'I want to eat all the time'

Claire Sweeney, 53, has spoken out about her experience with menopause in a bid to break the stigma - 'It really is a wonderful thing that women are talking about it'

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