85 m. ago Ghibli’s midlife crisis: as beloved Japanese studio turns 40 will the magic fade?

Much of Studio Ghibli’s success is down to one man: 84-year-old Hayao Miyazaki, a master animator whose presence towers over the studio’s outputDisney, Pixar Ghibli. For its legions of admirers, the Japanese studiohasn’t just held its own against the American powerhouses, it has surpassed them with the impossible beauty of its hand-drawn animation and its commentary on the ambivalence of the human condition.Although he would refuse to acknowledge it, much of Studio Ghibli’s success is down to one man: Hayao Miyazaki, a master animator whose presence towers over the studio’s output. Making a feature-length anime the old-fashioned way may require a large and multitalented cast, but Miyazaki is the thread running through Ghibli’s creative genius. Continue reading...

Events

91 m. ago Popular children’s cough medicine recalled over potentially deadly bacterial infection risk

The medicine was recalled because it contains Bacillus cereus, a type of bacteria that can cause two types of foodborne illnesses

Events

5 h. ago Club World Cup didn’t start the fire – it didn’t light it but we'll try to fight it | Max Rushden

Football competitions are expanding, overlapping and bleeding into one another, but is a month off too much to ask?Does it feel too much? Premier League bleeding into the playoffs into the Champions League into the international break we’re still bleeding rip off your shirt and make a tourniquet! The European Under-21 and Under‑19 Championships into the Club World Cup, overlapping with the Women’s Euros oh look the Premier League fixtures for 2025-26 are out and the EFL ones come out next week and there’s David Prutton paying (excellent) homage to David Mitchell’s pisstake of Sky Sports on Sky Sports: “Catch all of the constantly happening football here it’s all here and it’s all football. Always. It’s impossible to keep track of all the football.”You start to imagine Billy Joel rewriting We Didn’t Start the Fire an endless list of footballers and pundits, of owners and streaming services, of controversies and grimness amid the beauty and joy. Will it ever reach ...

Events

8 h. ago ‘It is impossible to recall him without smiling’: Simon Rattle on Alfred Brendel

The conductor first heard Brendel as a schoolboy. He was to become his cherished friend, inspirational collaborator and valued mentor for many decades. Simon Rattle remembers the great pianist’s wit, wisdom – and a particular pair of scissorsIt’s hard even to know where to start with Alfred: for any musician of my generation he was simply always there, the very definition of integrity and a kind of unique probing humour.I heard him first in Liverpool, playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 22, K482, an unforgettable concert for an impressionable 14-year-old. I could never have imagined then that my first collaboration with him would be in the same city when I was 20. That Beethoven – his first piano concerto – began a long journey of learning and friendship over the subsequent decades. I cannot stress how much I learned from him, or how painfully obvious it was to me just how steep the climb was to be able to come anywhere near to being an adequate partner for him. I remember clearly th...

Politics

10 h. ago ‘Youths everywhere were spitting over tinny beats playing off a Nokia’: great grime photographer Simon Wheatley

He was young and broke when he became grime’s first documentarian. Then his book Don’t Call Me Urban captured the energy of the grittier first wave – and an expanded edition is finally hereIt’s an overcast Thursday morning, and photographer Simon Wheatley is doing a soft-shoe shuffle through Roman Road in Bow, east London, as a market stall blares out exquisite 70s funk. “That’s more like it,” he says, with a grin on his face. “A bit of energy.” This was once grime’s artery, its chaotic central hub, even its muse – a street Wiley once told me was “the nurturer” of local talents like him and Dizzee Rascal. And it was here, in the 2000s, that Wheatley would create a vivid and intimate document of grime in its frenzied flush of youth, and of working-class neighbourhoods like this before they became considerably more sedate. Fourteen years after the release of Don’t Call Me Urban, Wheatley’s long-sold-out photo-book from that era – once described by Vice as “grime’s Old Testament” – it ...

Culture

10 h. ago A man of sense and wide sensibilities, Alfred Brendel was simply the pianist of pianists

His technique was of the highest order, his performances unmatched – but it was always at the service of the music, not of his own reputationAlfred Brendel would have scorned the suggestion he was the world’s leading pianist. He would have dismissed such an accolade as banal, journalistic and ignorant. He would, of course, have been right. Piano playing, he once said, was never sufficient, even when it was faultless.Yet, for a generation of musicians, especially in Britain, where he lived the second half of his long life, this dismissal of his own greatness could itself be dismissed as false modesty. When London’s Royal Festival Hall, still at that time the capital’s most cherished classical music large venue, reopened after a long renovation in 2007, the choice of its first recitalist was a no-brainer. For his legions of admirers, Brendel was always the one. Continue reading...

Politics

13 h. ago ‘It’s life and death’: parents of baby killed at nursery call for for mandatory CCTV

Nursery worker would not have been convicted of Genevieve Meehan’s manslaughter without footage, parents sayThe weekend before Genevieve Meehan died was one of the best of her short life.The nine-month-old with the beaming smile and emerald eyes was leaping through her milestones: she had taken her first tentative steps, hands clasped to her mother’s, and said her first word: “Dadda”. She tried on sunglasses and a swimsuit for their first family holiday two months later. Continue reading...

Events

13 h. ago ‘It’s life and death’: parents of baby killed at nursery call for mandatory CCTV

Nursery worker would not have been convicted of Genevieve Meehan’s manslaughter without footage, parents sayThe weekend before Genevieve Meehan died was one of the best of her short life.The nine-month-old with the beaming smile and emerald eyes was leaping through her milestones: she had taken her first tentative steps, hands clasped to her mother’s, and said her first word: “Dadda”. She tried on sunglasses and a swimsuit for their first family holiday two months later. Continue reading...

Events

13 h. ago Brad Pitt in the paddock: how F1 the Movie went deep to keep fans coming

F1 and Liberty Media went to great lengths to assist filming, with star’s APX team embedded within the sportAfter the British Grand Prix last year the drivers took their places in the media zone to conduct interviews, with Formula One world champions Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso among them. Yet it was all but impossible not to cast a glance sideways as Brad Pitt nonchalantly strolled out to face the microphones and cameras of his own, entirely staged, media scrum.None of us in the media pack openly goggled at the fact that Hollywood’s A-list had joined the sweaty throng, because Pitt was there filming what would become F1 the Movie. And we, as with everyone else, were under strict instructions to behave normally. Continue reading...

Politics

13 h. ago From Street Fighter to Final Fantasy: Yoko Shimomura, the composer who put the classical in gaming’s classics

With a four-decade career beginning at Capcom in the 8-bit era, Shimomura is one of the most acclaimed names in gaming. She recalls her early struggles – and explains why her beloved classical music fits best with RPGsAlfred Hitchcock, David Attenborough, Harold Pinter, Stanley Kubrick, Ridley Scott, Hideo Kojima – these are just a few of the recipients of the Bafta fellowship, the highest honour the academy can bestow. Japanese composer Yoko Shimomura is the latest to receive the accolade; one of only 17 women and four Japanese people to have done so. She is also the first video-game composer to be recognised by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and the first composer recognised at all since John Barry in 2005.It is with good reason that the academy has honoured her. Shimomura is an icon. You’ll know her music from Street Fighter, Final Fantasy, Super Mario, Kingdom Hearts, Legend of Mana, Streets of Rage and more than 70 other games she has contributed original comp...

Sport

14 h. ago M&S' 'cutest' £8 Percy Pig item with 'shimmering' effect 'impossible to resist'

Percy Pig fans praised the 'lovely' £8 item that impressed one shopper so much they purchased it as a gift and kept it

Economics

16 h. ago Race horse sculpture by Sir Alfred Munnings to be sold at auction

The bronze tabletop artwork of Brown Jack is expected to fetch up to £300,000.

Politics

16 h. ago GMB's Kate Garraway admits 'it was my fault' as she recalls bailiffs turning up at door

Good Morning Britain star Kate Garraway made a candid admission during Friday's show

Politics

17 h. ago The first Lions match is about laying down a marker – but Pumas bring range of threats | Ugo Monye

Early days in a Lions camp can be nervy and everyone wants to play in Friday’s first match but Argentina provide a tough testEvery single member of the British & Irish Lions squad is in the perfect sweet spot at the moment. Blair Kinghorn aside, they all arrived into camp with a spring in their step and a smile on their face because their dreams have been realised. Speaking from experience, it is amazing how quickly you can leave national allegiances at the door.At this stage, there is no sense of what the Test team will be, no division, or feeling that you have to make do with being a midweek dirt-tracker – the thing you are probably most nervous about is who your roommate will be. You know it will be someone from a different country and my first roommate was Keith Earls. As the youngest member of the 2009 squad, he was responsible for looking after the Lions mascot and I felt like I needed to mind him. I soon realised there are few as competitive as Keith and he did not need m...

Events

17 h. ago Simon Calder answers your air travel safety questions – from Boeing worries to the truth about budget airlines

Travel expert Simon Calder answered readers’ questions on flight safety – from how crashes like the Air India disaster are investigated to what passengers can do to stay safe

Politics

20 h. ago US debate over whether to bomb Iran recalls anguish of Iraq war

Shadow of intelligence debacle two decades ago hangs over Donald Trump as he considers joining Israeli attacks

Events

20 h. ago The first rule is to forget your past life: Ukrainian marine tells of his three years of torment in Russian captivity

Dmytro Chorny tells of hunger, beatings and torture before a mass prisoner exchange freed him to go home to – and marry – his girlfriend, DianaDespite all they have endured, it doesn’t take much to draw shy smiles from Diana Shikot, 24, and Dmytro Chorny, 23.You could ask them about Chorny’s sweetly bungled marriage proposal the day after his release from Russia’s notorious penitentiary system, in which he languished as a prisoner of war for three years. Continue reading...

Politics

23 h. ago I'm not ashamed of reading troll paradise Tattle. It exposes grifting influencers and their hypocrisy... I'll be bereft if it shuts down: CLAUDIA CONNELL

Given my experience of trolling, you might expect that the news the man behind gossip forum Tattle Life has been sued for defamation would bring a smile to my face. Not so. I, in fact, love Tattle.

Politics

27 h. ago Miley Cyrus says dad Billy Ray Cyrus smoked weed on Hannah Montana set — and she got blamed

Actor recalled the core memory from the set of the Disney Channel show on her mother and sister’s podcast

Events

28 h. ago Popular cough medicine for children recalled over bacterial infection risk that can be deadly

The medicine was recalled because it contains Bacillus cereus, a type of bacteria that can cause two types of foodborne illnesses

Events