38 minutes ago Christmas party game with red cups is fun for all the family and has simple rules

If you're eager to get your whole family playing games together this Christmas, you may want to consider this simple competition using red solo cups and a ping pong ball

Society

83 minutes ago Knowing the Christmas school fair is on? Not for all the reminders in the world | Seamas O'Reilly

Some parents are good at noting the important events, others at making up for it in the sweets raffleThe Christmas fair in my son’s school was, like all such things, unexpected. This is no one’s fault, but my own. I have a tendency to be – nay, an addiction to being – the last person to know about anything going on in his school. It is entirely my fault, you understand. There are leaflets and emails and reminders, it’s just that they never seem to sink in and leave me filling out zoo paperwork at 6am on the morning of ‘Adopt a Giraffe’ Day, or scrambling to cobble together a costume on Sunday night, before ‘Dress Like One of Those Chilean Miners That Got Trapped In 2010’ Week begins in earnest for another year.It’s tempting to say that I was blindsided by this Christmas fair, but sadly, such a claim does not stand up to scrutiny. For one thing, I have been reminded of it several times by people in our school WhatsApp group and my son has also mentioned it several times more than onc...

Science

1 hour ago PLAY TEAMSHEET: Can YOU remember the Arsenal team that beat Ipswich Town 2

Every day we'll challenge you to name a different starting XI from the Premier League era. We'll give you a team's rough formation, and the number of letters in each player's name. Then it's up to you!

Politics

1 hour ago Tottenham XI vs Liverpool: Confirmed team news, predicted lineup and injury latest for Premier League

Ange Postecoglou facing defensive selection decision for visit of the leaders

Politics

2 hours ago Manchester United XI vs Bournemouth: Predicted lineup, confirmed team news and injury latest

Ruben Amorim sweating on fitness of key defender for clash at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium

Events

2 hours ago Liverpool XI vs Tottenham: Predicted lineup, confirmed team news and injury latest for Premier League

Reds handed boost ahead of trip to Tottenham Hotspur Stadium

Politics

2 hours ago Chelsea keep denying but Christmas at Premier League summit would change title talk

Blues will spent Christmas at top of the table if they beat Everton and Liverpool drop points against Tottenham

Politics

2 hours ago Death is at the heart of Christmas. That’s why we love to tell festive ghost stories | Kate Maltby

It’s a creepy time of year from The Archers to Nosferatu to Mark Gatiss’ Woman of StoneThis Christmas, find some pity for Lynda Snell MBE. Fans of the BBC radio soap The Archers know Lynda as the stalwart organiser of every Christmas panto in the fictional village of Ambridge. This year, she found herself tasked with something more arduous: voice-coaching the hard-living Mick, who had volunteered to play Father Christmas at the local pub, only for the landlords to discover that Mick had a performance voice so rasping and gravelly it was guaranteed to terrify the children.Readers who, like me, are incurable listeners of The Archers will know the solution: Lynda sparkily announced that this year, Ambridge would host a “creepy Christmas” event, allowing Mick to snarl to his heart’s content as Krampus, not Santa, and a range of other Christmas bogeymen. Hilarity, by Ambridge standards, ensued when Lynda found herself scrambling to hide Mick and his demonic horns from the vicar. Continue...

Events

2 hours ago Mufasa: The Lion King review – technically dazzling Disney origin story lacks soul

Moonlight director Barry Jenkins’s all-action tale boasts uncanny CGI effects and songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda, but the screenplay is schmaltzy and derivativeIt’s a technical marvel. Using the same photorealistic CGI techniques as John Favreau’s 2019 “live-action” remake of the classic 1994 Disney animation The Lion King, this origin story for Mufasa, father of Simba and the character whose death is the inciting incident in the original film, is a visually arresting spectacle. Directed by Barry Jenkins, the indie darling behind the triple Oscar-winning masterpiece Moonlight, and the similarly lauded If Beale Street Could Talk, Mufasa: The Lion King feels like a massive leap forward in terms of the rendering capacity of the computer animation software.It captures not just the fur, but the play of muscle and sinew beneath it; not just water and ice but the minute refractions of light through a droplet or crystal. It even solves the lack of facial expression of the somewhat taxidermied-...

Politics

2 hours ago Liverpool players at risk of suspension: Reds duo in immediate danger of ban

Reds in danger of losing two players to suspension in the Premier League

Sport