71 m. ago A84 review underway to enhance road safety for crossing school children

Transport Scotland is conducting a review and is consulting with Kincardine-in-Menteith Primary School to look at potential improvements to the A84 past the school, the church hall and bus stops there.

Politics

89 m. ago Benedicte Maurseth: Mirra review | Jude Rogers' folk album of the month

(Hubro)Rhythmic repetitions and rustling textures evoke the traditional music and ecological harmony of Maurseth’s native NorwayA hardanger fiddle player from the fjord-and-mountain-filled region of Norway, where the instrument comes from, Benedicte Maurseth explores traditional music, nature and landscape influenced by the idea of ecosophy, a philosophy of ecological harmony. From childhood, she studied under master hardanger fiddler Knut Hamre, exploring the tunes, styles and effects associated with her instrument: its sympathetic strings, funnelled under the fingerboard, are particularly hypnotic, vibrating in response to the notes resonating above, as they do on the sitar and sarangi.A follow-up to Maurseth’s 2022 Nordic music prize-winning Hárr, Mirra is named after an old dialect word describing wild reindeer running together in a circling pattern. Norwegian folk’s rhythmic repetitions feed Maurseth’s intricate compositions (as do the influences of minimalism and Krautrock), b...

Politics

89 m. ago China and Britain shared a mission to fight aggression and fascism. And we can work together today | Zheng Zeguang

As we remember VJ Day, let us also recall a spirit that can help us combat regional instability and climate changeZheng Zeguang is Chinese ambassador to the UKThis year marks the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese people’s war of resistance against Japanese aggression and the world anti-fascist war. On Friday, there will be a two-minute silence at noon in the UK to honour the 80th anniversary of VJ Day. This is a moment not only for solemn remembrance, but also for reflection on the enduring bonds forged in the crucible of history – bonds that continue to resonate in our world today.At the darkest hour of the second world war, China and the UK fought on different fronts but shared a common mission: to defend humanity against fascism and aggression. Millions of lives were lost, cities razed, and families torn apart. Yet in that darkness, courage and solidarity illuminated the way forward. The Chinese and British peoples stood shoulder to shoulder, united by sacrifice and ...

Events

1 hour ago Rise Against: Ricochet review – slick shift doesn’t skimp on righteous anger

(Loma Vista)Blood-and-guts emotion with the energy of the punk veterans’ early years meets high-sheen recording craft in a hulking 10th albumRise Against are not the first punk band to embrace the trappings of arena rock, but few of their forerunners can say they moved between those opposing states with the confidence and style displayed here. Having spent two decades retrofitting the breakneck melodic hardcore of their early work with rafter-shaking hooks and gleaming production, the Chicago veterans’ 10th album is a hulking thing, its bombast and righteous anger fed by vocalist Tim McIlrath, who finds the middle ground between Strike Anywhere and Creedence Clearwater Revival more often than you might think possible.Working in tandem with producer Catherine Marks, fresh from Grammy wins for her work on Boygenius’s The Record, and mixer-to-the-stars Alan Moulder, they regularly square the circle between blood-and-guts emotion and high-sheen recording craft. McIlrath’s community-mind...

Politics

2 h. ago Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser review – how did television ever sink so low?

Cruelty. Contestants who have abuse screamed in their face. Cash prizes. This documentary about a horrific 00s weight-loss reality TV series in the US makes for deeply troubling watchingThe mid-2000s were a peculiar time in television. After the dubious 90s innovations of Jerry Springer in the US were followed by the UK launch of Big Brother, it was clear that using the travails of so-called ordinary people as fuel for small-screen entertainment was an idea with legs. There was a mini goldrush of sorts as programme makers realised that conflict, extremity and dysfunction would always sell – and that any human-interest subject could be shoehorned into some version of reality TV.In Britain, ITV’s The Jeremy Kyle Show began casting its malign spell in 2005. In the US, something similarly queasy (and enduring) had arrived a year earlier in the shape of NBC’s weight loss bootcamp-meets-bearpit, The Biggest Loser, which took contestants living with obesity then belittled them with humilia...

Culture

3 h. ago Sienna Miller and Alexa Chung love this French face cream which keeps skin looking young

The A313 Vitamin A Lightweight Face Cream has been hailed as the 'French-girl secret to great skin' and is packed with anti-ageing ingredients like retinyl palmitate

Politics

3 h. ago In the Green Heart by Richard Lloyd Parry review – neocolonial jungle fever

An intensely political story of a new father’s escape with his baby through a rainforest during wartimeRichard Lloyd Parry, a longtime foreign correspondent whose experiences of war and regime change are recorded in his remarkable 2005 memoir In the Time of Madness, can be said to know whereof he speaks. Many of that book’s issues, including the psychic damage he incurred from events he witnessed in Indonesia, East Timor and Afghanistan in the 1990s and early 2000s, are reinflected in this, his first novel.Kit and Lara live in a remote village in the deep rainforest. She works for a small, undependably financed NGO. He’s a stay-at-home husband, living for their baby daughter Helen. While Lara presents as impulsive yet practical and barely able to contain her own energy, Kit is dreamy, internalised, exhibiting a calmness that falls easily into dissociation. “This is your life,” she shouts at him shortly before they leave the UK, “a day of your life, and it requires your presence.” He...

Politics

3 h. ago Married couple 'lived with corpse of intimate threesome partner for over a year'

James Agnew, 55, and Suzanne Agnew, 57, were arrested on Thursday and charged with multiple counts each, including abuse of a corpse and tampering with a deceased human body

Politics

4 h. ago Josh Barrie On the Sauce at All My Gods: Nuclear daiquiris in a temple of darkness

Praise be for this this charming sanctity

Events

4 h. ago Alison Goldfrapp: Flux review – Melody and meaning evaporate in mid

Goldfrapp said in 2023 that she wanted to challenge herself with her solo work, but she seems less edgily present here than she did with her bandmate Will Gregory

Politics

5 h. ago Limitless: Live Better Now review – Chris Hemsworth has absolutely no sense of rhythm

The Thor star’s documentary about improving his mental resilience sees him trying to learn the drums. But given how dreadful he is, promising to join Ed Sheeran on stage may have been a mistake So, you know how there was once the Era of All the Chrises? Pine, Evans, Pratt, Hemsworth. And they all looked the same, especially Pratt ‘n’ Evans and Pine ‘n’ Hemsworth (plus Hemsworth had 17 brothers who also looked the same, which felt like an unnecessary layer of complication). Then Evans became Captain America and Hemsworth became Thor and that sorted things out a tad, although Pratt ran interference as Star-Lord in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise for a bit.Anyway. Limitless is a reality-documentary sort of thing by the Hemsworth one (if you need further elucidation, he is Australian and looks like a handsome teddy bear with an unparalleled fitness regime). In the first series he investigated ways to deal with stress and shock, and how to slow the ageing process and other ills tha...

Politics

5 h. ago Sex for Sale: Trade in human flesh moved off streets as traffickers made millions promising women new lives

Many women who now advertise sex services online in Scotland are also the victims of ruthless people trafficking gangs

Economics

7 h. ago Amid the chaos after the fall of Kabul, two men became my lifeline | Shadi Khan Saif

Exactly four years later, our reunion in the safety of my new home in Melbourne was sweetSitting cross-legged on a richly patterned Afghan rug in a Melbourne living room, we chatted for hours, reflecting on the fall of Kabul four years ago that brought us together and nurtured a bond of friendship across continents.We had first connected in the chaos of August 2021, when the fall of Kabul shattered decades of fragile progress towards democracy, freedom and peace in Afghanistan. Our reunion this winter in Melbourne should have been pure joy – a celebration of survival and friendship – but it began in the quiet rows of a Muslim graveyard. We were there for the funeral of our mutual friend, Barez. Continue reading...

Events

9 h. ago The Confessions of Samuel Pepys by Guy de la Bedoyere: Pepys: diarist, sex addict...rapist

A shocking, uncensored edition of his diaries reveals one of history's best-loved to have been a violent, lecherous abuser who craved illicit sex and didn't care what he had to do to get it

Politics

10 h. ago Night Always Comes review – Vanessa Kirby gets lost in poverty thriller

A woman is forced to take extreme measures to save her family home in an initially stressful yet ultimately meandering Netflix dramaThere’s been a recent overkill of stories told about the super-rich, glossy films and shows set in ostentatious houses filled with characters as superficially on trend as they are painfully out of touch. It felt like needed escapism as we crawled out of the very worst of the pandemic, with The White Lotus, Triangle of Sadness, The Menu and Glass Onion all hitting a sweet spot, but it’s grown rather tiring, as Sirens, The Better Sister and Your Friends and Neighbors have felt less eat the rich and more what if we just admired their kitchens instead.It’s become especially uninteresting as the gap between the uber-wealthy and the rest of us has widened, food prices up and empathy down. That particular anger pulses through Night Always Comes, a well-intentioned yet often inert Netflix drama based on the 2021 novel by Willy Vlautin. It’s told over one awful ...

Politics

10 h. ago Sydney restaurant faces human rights complaint after temporarily denying entry to people wearing keffiyehs

Exclusive: Racial Justice Centre to file Australian Human Rights Commission complaint against Merivale restaurant Jimmy’s FalafelGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe Racial Justice Centre is preparing to file a group complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission after a Sydney restaurant denied dine-in service to people wearing Palestinian keffiyehs during a 20-minute period last weekend.The legal centre will file the complaint to Australia’s national anti-discrimination body on behalf of six Palestinian complainants, regarding an incident that took place on 3 August at Merivale-owned Jimmy’s Falafel in the Sydney CBD after the Sydney Harbour Bridge march, first reported by the Sydney Morning Herald. Continue reading...

Society

10 h. ago Stephen King meets The Office in the best Literary Fiction out now: THE EXPANSION PROJECT by Ben Pester, WATCHING OVER HER by Jean

Anthony Cummins reviews the best Literary Fiction out now.

Politics

11 h. ago Hibs and Partizan Belgrade deliver an Edinburgh Festival thriller with extraordinary goal and plot twists

Hibs progress in Conference League on night of high drama at Easter Road

Politics

12 h. ago JK Rowling claims Sturgeon created a 'dystopian nightmare' in foul

JK Rowling has published a review of Nicola Sturgeon’s Frankly - and the Harry Potter author has not held back

Politics

12 h. ago JK Rowling blasts Sturgeon memoirs as a 'shameless denial of reality and hard facts' in scathing review

Author JK Rowling has penned a scathing review of Nicola Sturgeon 's hotly anticipated memoirs on the day it was officially launched.

Politics