21 h. ago Kate Humble’s ‘Welsh wonderland’ wild walk that will really take you off the beaten track

The BBC presenter said she felt like a 'shrinking Alice' in her 'Welsh Wonderland'

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4 d. ago You can boat through France's 'Wild West' where wild horses, black bulls and flamingos roam free

Chloe Govangoes on a French river cruise and finds Camargue a wild and wonderful ride, setting off from St Gilles, a gorgeous old town on the Rhone-Sete Canal and gliding off on an adventure

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5 d. ago All Fours by Miranda July audiobook review – the frank, sexy novel everyone’s been talking about

The author’s hypnotic reading evokes the desires and existential crisis of a 45-year-old woman on a wild road trip In the second novel by writer, actor and film-maker Miranda July, a nameless Los Angeles-based artist who has had success “in several mediums” leaves behind her husband, Harris, and their young child, Sam, to drive across America. She is due at a meeting in New York and has decided to get there via a leisurely road trip. But what starts off as a fleeting break from the mundanity of marriage and motherhood turns into a wild and wonderfully odd unravelling. Just half an hour into her journey, she impulsively leaves the freeway and checks into a scruffy motel. There she is electrified by a younger car hire worker who has “a Huckleberry Finn/Gilbert Blythe look that I used to flip out over as a teenager.” After the two lock eyes while he squeegees her windscreen (not a euphemism), she decides to pursue him in an unusually chaste love affair.All Fours – which has been shortl...

Culture

2 w. ago After 20 years, I thought I knew London – then I walked the Capital Ring

Spring in the air, and London is calling – not by Tube, but on foot. Jessica Furseth explores a 78-mile circular walking route and finds a surprisingly wild, wonderfully weird and deeply revealing way see London

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2 w. ago Montreux Jazz Festival to feature Chaka Khan tribute to Quincy Jones

Khan will be joined on the bill by the likes of Neil Young, Pulp, Diana Ross, Lionel Ritchie, FKA Twigs and The Black Keys.

Politics

3 w. ago Chaka Khan on Prince, poetry and wild, wonderful nights: ‘No one’s done anything but craziness at 4am’

The singer answers your questions about her drum skills, friendship with Joni Mitchell and more – and reveals unheard music with both Prince and SiaCan you remember the precise moment you realised you had a gift as a vocalist? SalfordRed64I was doing a talent show at the Burning Spear in Chicago. My group, the Crystallettes, graced many a nightclub stage in competitions, and every time either us or [fellow Chicago girl group] the Emotions would win. But I remember singing some Aretha Franklin songs and people in the audience were throwing money on the stage, and they started calling me “little Aretha”. That’s when I connected the dots: “Oh, I see what this is all about.” I realised I didn’t have to become a teacher or a whatever I wanted to be when I grew up back then – I could be a singer!You have so much confidence and you just knew you and [the band] Rufus were going to make it big. Where does that confidence come from? stifwhiffWhen I was with Rufus, I knew I loved what we were ...

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4 w. ago ‘I feel as though I’ve been in chains’: the bittersweet life of lovers rock legend Mari’ Pierre

The British-Guyanese singer topped the reggae chart with 1978’s Walk Away, but despite work with Robert Plant and others, she’s rarely returned to the studio. This interview might change that In December 1978, Marie Pierre was at No 1 in the UK reggae chart with the lovers rock classic Walk Away, a beautiful tearstained lament on a troubled relationship. Her 1979 debut album Love Affair, powered by another enduring scene song in Choose Me, remained one of Trojan’s best-selling albums well into the 1980s; Pierre, with her crystalline multi-octave voice, seemed destined to follow her contemporary, Silly Games singer Janet Kay, into mainstream pop-reggae success.But in the 46 years since, Pierre has never released another album. A career that promised so much has – despite TV work and successful backing singing gigs with Robert Plant, Donna Summer and Chaka Khan – been one of frustration and thwarted ambition. Misfortune, mistrust and mistreatment, personal and professional, have sidel...

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