24 h. ago Three Days in June by Anne Tyler audiobook review – a masterclass in marital disharmony

A mother reflects on the breakdown of her marriage as she attends her daughter’s wedding, in a novella that brilliantly depicts family dynamicsAt the start of Three Days in June, Gail Baines, a 61-year-old teacher, has a meeting with her school head, who informs her she is about to retire. Gail assumes she is next in line for the job, but the head tells her she doesn’t have the people skills and asks if she has considered retirement herself. Affronted, she walks out of the school and from her job without collecting the photo on her desk of her daughter, Debbie, who is about to get married. After Gail gets home, her ex-husband, Max, arrives. He is staying with her for the wedding weekend and tells her he has forgotten to bring a suit – although he has brought a cat. Not for the first time, Gail wonders “why it was that I had so many irritating people in my life”.Set in Baltimore, Anne Tyler’s novella spans the before, during and after of Debbie’s wedding. Told through Gail’...

Politics

7 d. ago Two more Brookside legends join Hollyoaks crossover and fans will be delighted

Brookside legends John McArdie and Paul Usher will be returning as Billy Corkhill and Barry Grant for the Hollyoaks crossover episode which will air in October this year

Politics

7 d. ago WWE Clash in Paris: UK start time, matches announced and current list of WWE champions heading into the event

John Cena clashes with Logan Paul, and the World Heavyweight Championship is defended in a four-way battle at this weekend’s Clash in Paris!

Politics

8 d. ago Gunk by Saba Sams audiobook review – messy nights and motherhood

The first novel from the Send Nudes author moves from a Brighton club to baby feedingGunk opens with new divorcee Jules sitting at home cradling a baby who is 24 hours and 17 minutes old, feeding him colostrum from a syringe. After being fed, the baby cries, which Jules interprets as a howl of rejection: “He has no language to tell me I’m not right for him.” We learn that Jules isn’t the child’s biological parent; the birth mother is Nim who, shortly after being stitched up, left the hospital ward and seemingly vanished. Concerned for her wellbeing, the hospital called the police who questioned Jules. “Nim has run away before,” she told them. “And she’s good at hiding.”Set in Brighton, this is Saba Sams’s first novel, the follow-up to her much-admired short story collection Send Nudes. Where that book examined the lives of girls coming of age, Gunk has an older heroine in Jules, who is desperate to have a child. Her alcoholic ex-husband, Leon, who ran a student nightclub and with wh...

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1 week ago Paul McCartney uses AI to 'extricate' John Lennon's voice from two more old demos

New AI mixes of two songs originally demoed on piano by John Lennon are set to be released on a new Beatles compilation.

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2 w. ago Drew McIntyre declares he's WWE's top 'troll' and opens up on Triple H 'freedom'

EXCLUSIVE: Drew McIntyre talks about facing Cody Rhodes, John Cena's heel turn, his new tag team partner Logan Paul, Hulk Hogan memories and why he, not CM Punk, is "the most controversial man in WWE"

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2 w. ago John and Paul by Ian Leslie audiobook review – the bromance behind the band

Actor Chris Addison narrates a deep dive into the creative partnership of Lennon and McCartneyAnother book on the Beatles? It’s hard to imagine a writer shedding new light on the band given the mountain of literature already in existence. But there is a freshness of perspective in Ian Leslie’s book, which tells of Lennon and McCartney’s unique alchemy through the songs they wrote together. Leslie’s background in psychology serves him well in a study that jettisons the usual narrative of male rivalry; their partnership, Leslie suggests, was closer to a marriage.He begins with the pair’s early songwriting sessions, usually in McCartney’s front room, where rather than each taking ownership of songs, they worked in sync. Other fabled musical partnerships such as Leiber and Stoller, or Rodgers and Hammerstein, divided the labour between lyrics and melody, but Lennon and McCartney worked together on both. Pointing to their profound connection, Leslie notes how in the song I...

Culture

2 w. ago ‘The King Lear in I Am the Walrus? That came from John Cage’: Paul McCartney on the Beatles’ debt to great avant

In the mid-60s, the Beatles tuned in to the world’s most audacious experimental musicians. Paul McCartney reveals how many of the Fab Four’s ‘far-out’ masterpieces were inspired by their sonic breakthroughsIt is a sunny October afternoon and I am sitting in a long wood-panelled hallway in an old converted townhouse in London waiting to be called into the office of Paul McCartney. I am dressed in my best clothes and trying not to let nerves get the better of me. I am here to ask him about an aspect of his career that is rarely discussed but which, I believe, helped cement his reputation as a world-conquering compositional force and which made the Beatles the most interesting and influential band of all time.In the mid-1960s, as well as topping the charts, turning a generation of teenage girls hysterical and finding themselves the focus of obsessive media attention, the Beatles were also engaged with, and educating themselves about, the work of classical music’s most audacious and imp...

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3 w. ago Yorùbá Boy Running by Biyi Bándélé audiobook review – from enslaved teenager to celebrated preacher

The novelist’s final work tells a remarkable tale of resilience, based on the life of Samuel Àjàyí Crowther, who was kidnapped by slavers but won his freedomSet in 19th-century Òsogùn in what is now Nigeria, Yorùbá Boy Running opens with 13-year-old Àjàyí reporting a premonition to his mother about dark days ahead. A week later, the town is surrounded by Malian slave raiders and Àjàyí is kidnapped along with his mother, sister, best friend and neighbours. He is taken to Lagos and sold to Portuguese slavers preparing to ship their human cargo to the Americas. But they are intercepted by the British navy, which releases Àjàyí in Sierra Leone, where he is recruited by missionaries. From there, he is put on a path that leads to him to study at Oxford and become a celebrated preacher, linguist and abolitionist who meets Queen Victoria.A remarkable tale of barbarism and resilience, Yorùbá Boy Running is the final work by the Nigerian novelist and film-maker Biyi Bándélé, who died in 2022 ...

Culture

3 w. ago Phil Collins fans left outraged as 'sick' AI photos of star, 74, appearing frail in hospital bed while being visited by Paul McCartney, 83, go viral amid rumours he's in a hospice

The fake images show the 74-year-old retired Genesis drummer sobbing as he is visited by Elton John and Paul McCartney, before the Beatles legend serenaded him with a song.

Sport

4 w. ago The Names by Florence Knapp audiobook review – a Sliding Doors

What happens to a boy called Gordon, Julian or Bear? Irish actor Dervla Kirwan narrates this smart tale about a how a boy’s name influences his lifeHow influential is a name? This is the question underpinning The Names, which opens with Cora taking her newborn son to register his birth. Her abusive husband Gordon wants his son to be named after him, though, secretly, Cora isn’t keen. She notes how the second syllable lands with “a downward thud like someone slamming down a sports bag”. She prefers Julian, which means “sky father”, though their nine-year-old daughter Maia would like her little brother to be called Bear, since it sounds “soft and cuddly but also brave and strong”.Florence Knapp’s smart debut novel features a Sliding Doors-style plot in which the three names are tried out for size, each triggering a different reality. By defying her husband and choosing Bear, Cora is subjected to a beating that prompts a neighbour to intervene and call the police; when she names him Ju...

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