17 h. ago Barry Hoban, British cycling legend and Tour de France icon, dies aged 85

Yorkshire-born cyclist won eight stages of Tour de FranceFamously beat Eddy Merckx at Gent-Wevelgem in 1974The pioneering British road sprinter and Classics rider Barry Hoban has died at the age of 85. Hoban was for many years the UK record holder for stage wins in the Tour de France notching up a tally of eight during his 17-year professional racing career, a total bettered only by the greatest sprinter of them all, Mark Cavendish, in 2009.Hoban’s first stage victory in the Tour, in 1967, was not one he cared to remember – or that he felt was really a win – as it came the day after the sudden death of his friend and rival Tom Simpson on Mont Ventoux; he was “permitted” to escape and cross the line first by the grieving peloton. Continue reading...

Events

22 h. ago Pixar fans scramble to create ‘The Increggibles’ and ‘Eggside Out 2’ for Easter

Parents across the country have been taking to TikTok to post the egg-centred creations their children have made in the lead up to Easter.

Politics

35 h. ago Iconic Nintendo themed LEGO sets see huge discounts ahead of Switch 2 launch

Whether you're a Mario or Zelda fan, there are great LEGO deals available to please both types of gamer.

Politics

41 h. ago ‘Don’t ask what AI can do for us, ask what it is doing to us’: are ChatGPT and co harming human intelligence?

Recent research suggests our brain power is in decline. Is offloading our cognitive work to AI driving this trend?Imagine for a moment you are a child in 1941, sitting the common entrance exam for public schools with nothing but a pencil and paper. You read the following: “Write, for no more than a quarter of an hour, about a British author.”Today, most of us wouldn’t need 15 minutes to ponder such a question. We’d get the answer instantly by turning to AI tools such as Google Gemini, ChatGPT or Siri. Offloading cognitive effort to artificial intelligence has become second nature, but with mounting evidence that human intelligence is declining, some experts fear this impulse is driving the trend. Continue reading...

Technology

45 h. ago The 14 most valuable Lego sets and minifigures you might have in your home

Lego is one of the world’s best-loved toys, with the building bricks as we know them having been fuelling children’s imaginations since 1958.

Politics

66 h. ago LEGO fans race to buy £40 Harry Potter set for £24 in Easter bank holiday weekend deal

The set replicates the Owlery tower where Harry asks Cho if she'll go to the Yule Ball with him in the Goblet of Fire

Economics

66 h. ago Pink smoke, pigs and Pixar: a dozen movie Easter eggs to feast on

Hidden references and in-jokes in cinema can be an acquired taste, but here’s a festive selection of the best arch nods for aficionados to enjoyOne of Hollywood’s most durable Easter eggs debuted in Howard Hawks’s His Girl Friday (1940) when Cary Grant’s character says: “The last man who said that to me was Archie Leach just a week before he cut his throat!” And in Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) his character sits pensively in a cemetery where Archie Leach’s gravestone is to be seen. In Charles Crichton’s A Fish Called Wanda (1988), John Cleese’s character is called Archie Leach. Leach is, of course, the real name of Cary Grant – a very goofy and unglamorous sounding name compared with the sonorous “Cary Grant” – and a rare example of Hollywood alluding to the open secret of rebranding its stars and effacing the bland ordinariness of their origins. Peter Bradshaw Continue reading...

Events

3 d. ago 'Unique' LEGO set that works as a wall decoration drops to £29 at Marks & Spencer

This LEGO set can be picked up for £15.80 cheaper with a TopCashback deal.

Economics

4 d. ago Psychologist warns about the dangers of becoming emotionally dependent on AI

Some Americans are using AI programs like ChatGPT to ask for emotional support and advice. But clinical psychologist Paul Losoff warned against getting to close to robots.

Events

4 d. ago What is QuillBot? AI writing assistant for paraphrasing, plagiarism detection and more

The AI-powered editor can rewrite your work, ‘humanise’ ChatGPT-generated text, and spot chatbot-assisted fakes — all for slightly less than a Grammarly subscription

Politics

4 d. ago We asked ChatGPT and other AI chatbots for the best spots to hide Easter eggs

Typing the prompt of ‘Which five places can I hide an Easter egg for a hunt?’ into ChatGPT, Claude, Grok and WhatsApp’s AI tools elicited some interesting answers

Politics

5 d. ago Anthropic’s Claude AI can now search your Gmail inbox for you

The AI start-up’s assistant, Claude, can now be linked with Google’s Gmail and Calendar.

Politics

5 d. ago ‘I sent AI to art school!’ The postmodern master who taught a machine to beef up his old work

Warhol for colour, Hopper for volume American art world star David Salle is using AI on old paintings of his that had a mixed reception – with wild, sprawling results. Why isn’t he afraid of being replaced?By the time you read this article, there’s a good chance it will have already been scanned by an artificially intelligent machine. If asked about the artist David Salle, large language models such as ChatGPT or Gemini may repurpose some of the words below to come up with their answer. The bigger the data set, the more convincing the response – and Salle has been written about exhaustively since he first rose to art world stardom in the 1980s. The question is whether AI can ever say anything new about the artist and his work, or if it’s for ever condemned to generate more of the same.A similar question lingers beneath the surface of the paintings that Salle has been making since 2023, a new series of which he has just unveiled at Thaddaeus Ropac in London. His New Pastorals were ma...

Politics

5 d. ago Amazon Is Practically Giving Away LEGO’s London Skyline Set, Just Matched Its Black Friday Price

Amazon Is Practically Giving Away LEGO’s London Skyline Set, Just Matched Its Black Friday Price  Gizmodo

Politics

5 d. ago Top Lego boss, 64, dies in tragic Swiss ski accident as tributes pour in for the Danish royal family's close friend

Michael Halbye was on holiday in the exclusive Swiss Alps resort of Verbier when the tragedy unfolded on Saturday, 12th April.

Events

5 d. ago Simpsons voice actor says stepping away from Apu role ‘required a deep dive’

Hank Azaria admitted that he was ‘participating in harm’ after the character was labelled racist

Politics

5 d. ago Lego boss and close friend of Danish royal family killed in skiing accident

Michael Halbye, 64, had been skiing in the Verbier region on Saturday when he fell off piste and was fatally injured

Events

6 d. ago Top Lego boss dies in horror skiing fall as tributes pour in for close pal of Royals

“Inspirational” Lego boss Michael Halbye, 64 has tragically died after taking a heavy fall while skiing with many tributes for the close friend of the Danish royal family

Events

6 d. ago The Simpsons' most eerie predictions that have actually come true

From Donald Trump becoming president to Disney buying Fox and AI robots ruling our lives, American showThe Simpsons has made several uncanny predictions over the years.

Politics

6 d. ago I’m a comedian – this is why Saturday Night Live’s jokes about Aimee Lou Wood’s teeth didn’t work | Athena Kugblenu

There’s funny, there’s mean, and there’s mean and funny. But unfunny and mean will always die a deathIn these partisan times, when all is binary and everyone must pick a side, I have chosen mine. Aimee Lou Wood, she of The White Lotus and thus now instantly recognisable worldwide, is absolutely right to call out Saturday Night Live, the legendary US entertainment and satire show, for making jokes about her teeth. The special relationship is under enough strain without having to lean into old stereotypes about British gnashers. I am still reeling from the Big Book of British Smiles gag in The Simpsons and I continue to floss every day because of it.The SNL joke, if you are yet to see it, is part of a wider sketch making fun of the Trump administration. (Because if one thing has been proven to quell the march of the right, it’s parody.) A White Lotus character is mashed up with someone adjacent to Robert F Kennedy, he mentions fluoride, and a Wood-esque character says “What’s that?”At...

Politics