22 h. ago 'Substantial' repairs to collapsed canal banking will take 12 weeks to complete, engineers warn

The Macclesfield Canal burst its banks over the weekend

Events

44 h. ago JPMorgan's London repo traders are leaving now bonuses are banked

JPMorgan's London repo traders are leaving now bonuses are banked  eFinancialCareers

Politics

64 h. ago A 19th Century canal has burst its banks leaving boaters across the north west 'gridlocked'

'It's a big issue and a mjor problem to fix'

Politics

4 d. ago Cynthia Ozick: ‘Alice in Wonderland seems calculatedly cruel’

The American author on the wonder of Little Women, re-evaluating Lolita and her belated discovery of ThoreauMy earliest reading memory Andrew Lang’s Fairy books – the blue, yellow and violet ones. And the unadulteratedly grim Brothers Grimm, evocative phrases like “avenue of trees”, the now and then alluring English archaisms, the always expected three sisters or sons, the youngest first despised and then victorious.The book that changed me as a teenager A late teenager, at 17, and it was two books nearly simultaneously, both histories. One was Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in dazzling prose. The other was Heinrich Graetz’s 19th-century History of the Jews, translated from the German, far out of date but distinctly not dated. (It was revelatory to learn much later that Kafka was immersed in this multivolume work.) Together they gave me a sense of the long and intertwined corridors of the past, and a conviction that a mind shorn of history is vacuous. Continue...

Politics

6 d. ago Historic hotel that attracted global stars faces being knocked down

The Corbett Arms in Tywyn, Gwynedd, was the pride of the seaside village when it opened in the 19th century but has been left abandoned since 2011

Politics

7 d. ago Sew Torn review – seamstress thriller turns into Run Lola Run

A sewing supply shopowner who stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong is faced with three choices – commit the perfect crime, call the police, or run awayThread-slingers with an addiction to YouTube tutorials (like me) may have seen an amusing film by seamstress/historian Bernadette Banner in which she reacts to a bunch of films that feature actors sewing, or at least pretending to sew. Examples include How the Grinch Stole Christmas (not convincing) to The Phantom Thread (mostly bang on, featuring real dressmakers at work). Each one is picked apart with waspish scrutiny by Banner, who can spot the difference between a vintage treadle-operated chain stitch machine and a lockstitch machine from different periods in the 19th-century. Hopefully Banner will get a chance to scrutinise this loosely sewing-themed thriller and nitpick its faux pas, such as the bit where the seamstress protagonist Barbara (Eve Connolly) seems to sew a button on a client’s wedding dress in less than a minute. (N...

Politics

8 d. ago A disease that killed millions in the 19th Century is growing again in Wales

Heath officials say that cases of tuberculosis increased in Wales last year

Events

9 d. ago Tourist invasion of 'England's most beautiful village' could see coaches BANNED after families lose patience with the thousands of visitors

People living in Bibury, Gloucestershire, once described by 19th Century writer William Morris as the 'most beautiful village in England', say it has increasingly become inundated with tourists.

Events

9 d. ago It’s time to embrace Dugnadsånd – the Norwegian concept we all need right now | Emma Beddington

With its combination of community, cooperation and selflessness, this could offer some small comfort in a terrifying eraA new hygge has dropped, but you’ll need to take off your cosy slippers and put down your cinnamon bun to try it. There is a real danger of getting the wrong end of the stick when we get enthusiastic about other nations’ lifestyles – such as when the New York Times writes about modern Britons enjoying boiled mutton for lunch, or “cavorting” in swamps, and we all get cross – but this comes straight from the Viking’s mouth.That’s Meik Wiking, the perfectly named chief executive of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen. Writing in Stylist, Wiking suggests we consider adopting a Norwegian concept that requires no blankets or candles: dugnadsånd, approximately translated as “community spirit”. He likens dugnadsånd to barn-raising in 18th- and 19th-century North America, describing a “collective willingness of people to come together in the context of community ...

Politics

1 week ago The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue review – countdown to disaster

A train on a fateful trajectory is the location for a zippy Agatha Christie-like thriller giving a taste of life in fin-de-siècle FranceWhen an express train smashes through the barriers at Montparnasse, screeches across the concourse and emerges through an exterior wall, panicked onlookers assume it’s a terrorist attack. Plus ça change; this happened in October 1895 and is the inspiration for Emma Donoghue’s new novel, which takes place on that train as it hurtles from Granville to Paris.Donoghue specialises in contained settings. She is best known for the 2010 novel Room, narrated by a child who has been raised in a single room by his kidnapped mother. The Wonder is set mostly in a cramped 19th-century rural Irish cottage, then in 2020 came The Pull of the Stars, located, with eerie prescience, in the pandemic isolation ward of a Dublin maternity hospital in 1918. Most recently, there was 2022’s Haven, where Donoghue isolates three seventh-century monks on a speck of rock in the I...

Events

1 week ago Next UK interest rate cut may not come until August after hawkish Bank of England hold – as it happened

Monetary Policy Committee votes 8-1 to leave UK interest rates unchanged at 4.5%Bank of England says companies freezing hiring plans as it keeps interest rates on holdIn the property world, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is buying a quarter of Covent Garden.The Norges Bank Investment Management has entered a partnership with landlord Shaftesbury, and will pay £570m for a 25% stake in the Covent Garden estate.This investment underscores our belief in the strength of London with the portfolio complementing our other high quality West End investments.Covent Garden is one of the world’s most recognised retail, leisure and cultural destinations and we look forward to supporting Shaftesbury Capital’s management team, with their strong track record of delivering the growth potential of this prime West End estate.”“The reforms I have announced will ensure everyone who can work gets the active support they need, including through an extra £1 billion for personalised health, skills and employ...

Politics

1 week ago Next UK interest rate cut may not come until August after hawkish Bank of England hold – business live

Monetary Policy Committee votes 8-1 to leave UK interest rates unchanged at 4.5%Bank of England says companies freezing hiring plans as it keeps interest rates on holdIn the property world, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is buying a quarter of Covent Garden.The Norges Bank Investment Management has entered a partnership with landlord Shaftesbury, and will pay £570m for a 25% stake in the Covent Garden estate.This investment underscores our belief in the strength of London with the portfolio complementing our other high quality West End investments.Covent Garden is one of the world’s most recognised retail, leisure and cultural destinations and we look forward to supporting Shaftesbury Capital’s management team, with their strong track record of delivering the growth potential of this prime West End estate.”“The reforms I have announced will ensure everyone who can work gets the active support they need, including through an extra £1 billion for personalised health, skills and employ...

Economics

1 week ago Bank of England leaves interest rates on hold despite ‘intensifying’ trade war uncertainty – business live

Monetary Policy Committee votes 8-1 to leave UK interest rates unchanged at 4.5%In the property world, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is buying a quarter of Covent Garden.The Norges Bank Investment Management has entered a partnership with landlord Shaftesbury, and will pay £570m for a 25% stake in the Covent Garden estate.This investment underscores our belief in the strength of London with the portfolio complementing our other high quality West End investments.Covent Garden is one of the world’s most recognised retail, leisure and cultural destinations and we look forward to supporting Shaftesbury Capital’s management team, with their strong track record of delivering the growth potential of this prime West End estate.”“The reforms I have announced will ensure everyone who can work gets the active support they need, including through an extra £1 billion for personalised health, skills and employment support for sick and disabled people.“We’ve already put in place measures to make ...

Economics

1 week ago Bank of England expected to leave interest rates on hold today; global debt exceeds $100tn – business live

Monetary Policy Committee set to announce interest rate decision at noonIn the property world, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is buying a quarter of Covent Garden.The Norges Bank Investment Management has entered a partnership with landlord Shaftesbury, and will pay £570m for a 25% stake in the Covent Garden estate.This investment underscores our belief in the strength of London with the portfolio complementing our other high quality West End investments.Covent Garden is one of the world’s most recognised retail, leisure and cultural destinations and we look forward to supporting Shaftesbury Capital’s management team, with their strong track record of delivering the growth potential of this prime West End estate.”“The reforms I have announced will ensure everyone who can work gets the active support they need, including through an extra £1 billion for personalised health, skills and employment support for sick and disabled people.“We’ve already put in place measures to make work pay...

Economics

1 week ago What is brain rot and how is mindlessly scrolling on social media impacting your mental health?

TikTok inspires 19th century term’s surprising comeback

Science

1 week ago Santander closures: full list of 95 UK bank branch closures, which banking branches are closing in 2025

The bank’s latest cuts will leave more towns without in-person banking services 💰

Politics

2 w. ago Katie Price turns heads as she leaves a tanning salon in Brighton after shocking fans with new look

The former glamour model, 46, showed off her gleaming white smile while taking a trip to Waitrose, but her followers were stunned.

Events

2 w. ago French politician jokes US should return Statue of Liberty for siding with ‘tyrants’

Raphaël Glucksmann quips that US should give back 19th-century gift from France over Trump’s approach to UkraineA French European parliament member has quipped that the US should return the Statue of Liberty, which it received as a gift from France about 140 years ago, after Donald Trump’s decision “to side with the tyrants” against Ukraine.“Apparently you despise it,” said Raphaël Glucksmann of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, evidently with his tongue in his cheek. “So, it will be just fine here at home.” Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago 19th century ring linked to Scottish geologist found on South African beach

The ring is engraved with the name of pioneering scientist Hugh Miller who died in 1856.

Politics

2 w. ago Plans to mark Perth birthplace of Scotland's first female photographer

Fair City blue heritage plaque proposals for 19th century photographic luminaries Jessie Mann and David Octavius Hill.

Culture