88 m. ago As a child I showed little interest in my mum’s sewing skills. After she died, I realised what I’d missed out on | Nova Weetman

She filled my wardrobe with patchwork skirts and home-knitted vests and a dark-green corduroy coat – things that I would kill for nowThere is a photograph of a very young me wearing a homemade A-line denim dress with a peace sign boldly embroidered on the front. Mum made me the dress for an anti-nuclear rally sometime in the mid-1970s. I don’t remember wearing it that day, or being carried on my dad’s shoulders as we marched with thousands of protesters, but I do recall wearing many of the other clothes Mum made me as a child.There was a lemon floor-length cotton number that she pintucked by hand for my role as the narrator in the school play that would swish around my ankles as I walked across the stage. And a white cropped top that she splattered with neon paint, designed to show up under the fluorescent lights of the Blue Light disco when I was in my Wham phase and trying to attract a boy I liked from school. But my favourite was the spotted taffeta bubble skirt of my dreams that...

Events

98 m. ago ‘A gift of a role for a mother’: Game of Thrones star Natalie Dormer on playing Tolstoy’s tortured Anna Karenina

From Anne Boleyn to Lady W to Game of Thrones, she has played tough women who kick against society’s constraints. What will the actor bring to the great Russian character who leaves her husband and son?It was back in 2019 that the role of Anna Karenina was first mentioned to Natalie Dormer. Six years, many screen roles, one pandemic and two children later, Dormer is finally set to take on the titular role of Leo Tolstoy’s epic as Phillip Breen’s adaptation comes to Chichester Festival theatre. The delay has ended up working out well, says Dormer, since Tolstoy’s characters are at the “cutting edge of technology”. The new railways were transforming Russia, and that wasn’t all. “Electric light!” exclaims Dormer. “We talk about it in the play, how that’s going to revolutionise their lifestyles. That trepidation about new technology is so adaptable to today: the terror of the AI train that’s coming our way. That generation of adults in the story – they’re on the precipice of a futuristi...

Politics

1 hour ago Children in tears over school prom ban for lack of attendance and homework

Kepier Academy told students they needed to meet targets on attendance and behaviour to go to the school’s prom

Society

1 hour ago Robert Lewandowski left ‘betrayed and hurt’ by coach in Poland captaincy row

Veteran refuses to play ‘as long as coach remains’Coach Probierz: ‘In football, you can’t get offended’Robert Lewandowski has said that he has been left feeling “betrayed” and “very hurt” by the head coach of the Polish national team, Michal Probierz, after quitting the setup because of a row over losing the captaincy. The Barcelona striker was stripped of the armband on Sunday by Probierz, who has appointed the midfielder Piotr Zielinski as captain instead.Lewandowski then announced he was quitting the national team on social media, citing a “loss of trust in the coach”, refusing to return to play for his country “for as long as [the coach] remains in charge”. Probierz has been in charge of Poland since 2023, with Lewandowski leading the team at Euro 2024 last summer. “I hope I will still have another chance to play again for the best fans in the world,” the 36-year-old said. Continue reading...

Politics

1 hour ago ‘I watched Bob Dylan play tennis with three of the Beatles’: how we made the Isle of Wight festival

‘It’s a myth that Jimi Hendrix played while the stage was on fire. It was a firework’In 1968, when I was 22, my older brother Ronnie got a job as a fundraiser for a swimming pool on the island. I’d done a concert for CND [the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament], so we started talking about doing some sort of festival to raise the money. My younger brother Bill suggested it had to be pop. An agency in London gave Ronnie a list of acts including the Pretty Things, the Move, Fairport Convention, Tyrannosaurus Rex and an American act, Jefferson Airplane. We only had a £750 investment from the Isle of Wight Indoor Swimming Pool Association, but after a friend lent us his £1,000 army pay-off, we managed to book all those bands, sell 10,000 tickets and break even. In the interim, the pool association pulled out because it didn’t like the publicity about hippies, drugs and sex, but they allowed us to use their investment and we were able to pay them back. Continue reading...

Politics

2 h. ago If we want kids to get off screens, adults have to do the same

As a group of schools tells parents to limit their smartphone usage, Helen Coffey argues that our behaviour is just as important when it comes to helping the next generation get off their devices and into the real world

Politics

2 h. ago Alcaraz’s ridiculous victory over Sinner sets tone for next decade of rivalry at top of tennis | Tumaini Carayol

The frenzied last few games of the 2025 French Open final will go down as one of the greatest stretches of play in grand slam historyFive hours into the madness, when their legs should have been fading and sanity departing, the miraculous French Open final between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner ascended to even greater heights. So much had already happened. For a long time, Alcaraz had been dominated with the same ruthless efficiency Sinner reserved for the rest of the field and he soon stared into the abyss, trailing triple championship point at 3-5, 0-40 in the fourth set.That moment would instead mark the beginning of Alcaraz’s unprecedented, preposterous comeback as he completely turned the match around. He soon closed in on victory, leading by a break in the fifth set against a weary opponent. With his back to the wall, time running out, Sinner produced a transcendent return game as Alcaraz served for the title at 5-4 to draw level again. Continue reading...

Politics

2 h. ago Football Daily | Dilly ding, dilly dong! Italy press the big World Cup panic button again

Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now!When Italy were humbled by Norway in their opening World Cup qualifier on Friday night, the response from Gazzetta dello Sport was as measured as you would expect. “ENOUGH!” screamed the pink paper’s front-page headline the next day, while the lengthy howl of anguish over which it appeared declared that the country’s “World Cup is already at risk”. While Luciano Spalletti had been bullish in the immediate aftermath of his knack-ravaged side’s 3-0 defeat in Oslo, on Sunday he cut a far more forlorn figure as he appeared alone before a bloodthirsty press-pack to preview the qualifier against Moldova, unaccompanied by any of his players or even a simpering national team media handler.Taking into account the circumstances and a loss of trust in the coach [Michal Probierz], I have decided to resign from playing for the Poland national team for as long as he remains in charge. I hope I will still have another chance to play again for the ...

Politics

2 h. ago Elizabeth Line incident: Person dies at Hanwell station with passengers facing major delays

Major disruption on the Elizabeth line, the Heathrow Express and Great Western railway after death

Events

3 h. ago Yoshitomo Nara review: cutesy terrors swear, smoke, play guitar and burn down houses

Hayward Gallery, LondonThe Japanese artist’s instantly recognisable delinquent infants fill a huge show that also includes more sombre – and still angry – work made since the Fukushima disasterThere’s a video online of 100 kids playing football against three adult pros. The kids get absolutely annihilated. But they’d do a whole lot better if they were more like the menacing, knife-wielding little terrors who populate Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara’s world. Try dribbling past a toddler when he’s just jabbed a shiv in your calf, Lionel Messi.For 40 years now Nara has been dealing in cutesy kitsch with a vicious edge. His paintings and drawings of adorably bug-eyed little nippers are singularly Nara: love it or hate it, he’s carved out his own instantly recognisable aesthetic path. Continue reading...

Events

3 h. ago Beauty fans hail 'face lifting and sculpting' device on Amazon that costs under £23

Get a mini spa facial from home with this popular EMS massaging device.

Economics

3 h. ago Getty Images and Stability AI face off in British copyright trial that will test AI industry

Getty Images is facing off against artificial intelligence company Stability AI in a London courtroom for the first major copyright trial of the generative AI industry

Politics

4 h. ago Aaron Judge crushes home run off Red Sox rookie after ‘crazy’ Yankees jibe

Pitcher said he would rather retire than play for YankeesYankees slugger says comments affected at batAaron Judge crushed a 436ft home run off Boston Red Sox rookie Hunter Dobbins after the pitcher aimed a jab at the Yankees in the run-up to Sunday’s game.Dobbins, a lifelong Red Sox fan, was asked about his team’s bitter rivals in the run-up to his start for Sunday’s game. “If the Yankees were the last team to give me a contract, I’d retire,” he told the Boston Herald. He added that his feelings towards the Yankees were not just down to playing for the Red Sox though. “I think whoever I was playing with or whoever I would have been drafted by, I’d still hate the Yankees,” he added. Continue reading...

Events

4 h. ago China has a valuable card to play as it holds trade talks with the US today

China has a valuable card to play as it holds trade talks with the US today  CNN

Politics

4 h. ago Concerts in Scotland 2025: The biggest gigs coming to Scotland this year, from Oasis to Kneecap

After being axed from TRNSMT, Kneecap are set to play one of the most talked about Scottish gigs of the year in July.

Politics

4 h. ago Jodie Comer shares unexpected realisation she made after starring in Ryan Reynolds film

‘28 Years Later’ star suggested she’ll avoid similar projects in the future

Events

5 h. ago Pitbull review – like a children’s party, but with loads of booze

Co-Op Live, ManchesterWith a hedonistic seize-the-day message, the pop-rapper resembles a cult leader or motivational speaker – and his followers are willing to overlook the faults in his live showPitbull is trying to give over 20,000 people a language lesson. “I want to teach you a little bit of Spanish,” he says to the crowd, about 90% of whom are dressed in Mr Worldwide cosplay of bald caps, aviators and squiggly hand-drawn facial hair. The phrase he’s teaching? “Yo no quiero agua, yo quiero bebida”, which in English translates to “I don’t want water, I want a drink”. As people used to say: yolo.This is the vibe of Pitbull’s Party After Dark tour, which returns to the UK for its second run this year. It’s a relentless ride through the era of hedonistic and carefree EDM pop that sprouted up after the 2008 financial crisis, and given renewed economic uncertainty and horrific global events, it’s unsurprising that people are still seeking escapism. Why shouldn’t that be delivered by ...

Society

6 h. ago Home Bargains shopper, 62 put on facial ID watchlist after 39p paracetemol row

The 62-year-old woman who was wrongly accused of stealing paracetemol at her local store has complained after being put on a facial recognition camera watchlist

Economics

6 h. ago Prison riot sees three guards held hostage as police swarm in to stop jail break

Around 100 police officers descended upon a correction facility to prevent a potential prison break after a riot sparked chaos in the jail. Three prison guards were taken hostage by inmates

Events

6 h. ago Jodie Comer says play Prima Facie makes men ‘look back at their own behaviour’

The one-woman play follows the story of a barrister named Tessa, who specialises in defending men accused of sexual assault.

Events