79 m. ago Bring the House Down by Charlotte Runcie review – the joy of the hatchet job

Is giving an artist a one-star review an act of abuse? An influential theatre critic finds out in this smart story of #MeToo-era revengeWhen Jesus is pressed to condemn the woman taken in adultery, he says, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” No one does, and a lesson in critical generosity is learned. Judge not, that ye be not judged.Is giving an artist a one-star review an act of abuse – casting the first stone? Is it worse when the reviewer is male and the artist female? That’s the starting point of this entertaining and very timely debut novel from Charlotte Runcie, an arts journalist who, as a young intern, was lambasted on stage by a successful standup to whom she’d given a bad review.There was an interactive customer feedback device propped up on the bar. Tell us what you think of our service, it said, and underneath there were two buttons you could press: an angry red face or a smiling green one. Excellent or worthless, nothing in...

Society

79 m. ago Grenfell: Uncovered review – heartwrenching account of avoidable tragedy

Bleak, enraging documentary combines firsthand accounts of the disaster with appalling record of official negligenceThe 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London which caused 72 deaths is now the subject of Olaide Sadiq’s heartwrenching and enraging documentary, digging at the causes and movingly interviewing survivors and their families, whose testimony is all but unbearable. At the very least, the film will remind you that when politicians smugly announce they wish to make a bonfire of regulations, they should be taken, under police escort if necessary, and made to stand at the foot of the tower. As for the housing secretary at the time of the tower’s refurbishment, the abysmally arrogant Eric Pickles, he was made a life peer in 2018.With the very considerable help of the housing-issues journalist Peter Apps, the film shows how the horror was created by a perfect storm of incompetence, mendacity, greed, and (that heartsinking phrase) systemic failure. The local council were keen to spruc...

Politics

79 m. ago Shop assistant, 24, went on second Tinder date and was chopped into 14 pieces

Sydney Loofe fell prey to a twisted pair of killers who shared dark fantasies and believed they 'gained 'powers' from their sordid and torturous acts, that for Sydney, ended tragically

Politics

79 m. ago Pioneering London playwright decried gentrification of ‘writer’s paradise’

Pioneering London playwright decried gentrification of ‘writer’s paradise’  The Guardian

Politics

2 h. ago I hope this is the last piece I ever have to write about assisted dying | Polly Toynbee

Today’s vote is on a knife edge. MPs must take their chance to drive forward personal freedoms – and add to Labour’s legacyMPs, read this horror before you vote today. Here’s how some people are slowly dying, right now, in mortal agony untreatable by the best palliative care: “Some will retch at the stench of their own body rotting. Some will vomit their own faeces. Some will suffocate, slowly, inexorably, over several days.” An average of 17 people a day are dying these bad deaths, according to 2019 figures, as reported by palliative care professionals who see it happen.The Inescapable Truth, a report from Dignity in Dying, revealed what is usually kept hidden from us: the shocking last months for the unluckiest. It could happen to you or me. The assisted dying bill’s final Commons vote today is no abstract debate about slippery slopes or what God wants: to do nothing is to inflict torture on many.Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnistIn the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contact...

Events

2 h. ago ‘I don’t want my brother to just be a number’: How Netflix’s powerful Grenfell film sheds new light on the tragedy

As Netflix releases a powerful new documentary about the blaze that took 72 lives at Grenfell Tower in 2017, Hannah J Davies speaks to a man who lost a close relative in the fire, as well as the film’s director and a journalist who’s spent years reporting on the failures that led to the catastrophe

Politics

3 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

3 h. ago ‘You’d never make Slumdog today’: Danny Boyle on risks, regrets and returning to the undead

In 28 Years Later, zombies maraud over a Britain broken by more than Brexit. Its director discusses cultural baggage, catastrophising – and why his kids’ generation is an ‘upgrade’The UK is a wasteland in Danny Boyle’s new film. Towns lie in ruins, trains rot on the rails and the EU has severed all ties with the place. Some residents are stuck in the past and congregate under the tattered flag of St George. The others flail shirtless through the open countryside, raging about nothing, occasionally stopping to eat worms. You wouldn’t want to live in the land that Boyle and the writer Alex Garland show us. Teasingly, on some level, the film suggests that we do.Boyle and Garland first prowled zombie Britain with their 2002 hit 28 Days Later. It was an electrifying piece of speculative fiction, a guerilla-style thriller about an unimaginable world. Since then we’ve had Brexit and Covid, and the looming threat of martial law in the US The story’s extravagant flights of fancy don’t feel s...

Events

6 h. ago Horrific texts sent by 'torture mastermind' before victim's body found naked

Thomas Campbell's bloodied body was found, dressed in only a pair of socks, police investigated and now John Belfield stands trial accused of murder and conspiracy to rob

Events

9 h. ago Gang 'mastermind' cracked jokes after torturing Coleen Campbell's ex to death, trial hears

John Belfield denies murdering Thomas Campbell and conspiring to rob him - the victim's body was found dressed in only a pair of socks in his hallway while his legs and buttocks had been burned

Events

10 h. ago The jokey texts from 'mastermind behind murder of man who was tortured to death in his own home' are revealed in court

John Belfield, 31, 'fled' to South America after Thomas Campbell's bloodied body was found, dressed in only a pair of socks, leaving his alleged 'right-hand man' to stand trial for murder.

Events

10 h. ago ‘Morbidly obese’ Samsung exec’s boss suggested he get chemotherapy to lose weight: lawsuit

Exclusive: Former sales director Joseph DeRosa, who has a Body Mass Index of 43, claims his manager relentlessly fat-shamed him in front of his colleagues

Politics

12 h. ago Tucker Carlson is doing a better job than Democrats of countering Trump on Iran: ‘We’re in such a bizarro world’

ANALYSIS: Carlson’s anti-war advocacy even earned him reluctant praise from his arch-nemesis, Jon Stewart, Richard Hall writes.

Politics

12 h. ago Sister act Haim keep the spirit of Brian Wilson alive with an album of sunny California pop, writes Adrian Thrills

I Quit is ostensibly a break-up record, but even when Danielle, Este and Alana sing about heartache, they find it hard to stop the sun from breaking through.

Politics

13 h. ago 'Must have bled everywhere': 'Mastermind behind murder of man who was 'tortured to death' in his own home joked about killing in series of text messages, court hears

John Belfield, 31, 'fled' to South America after Thomas Campbell's bloodied body was found, dressed in only a pair of socks, leaving his alleged 'right-hand man' to stand trial for murder.

Events

13 h. ago La Mer: French Piano Trios album review – expansive, beguiling and unexpected

Neave Trio(Chandos)Works by Saint-Saëns, Mel Bonis and Sally Beamish’s imaginative reinterpretation of Debussy’s La Mer make for a disparate but rounded programmeThree French works make a disparate but rounded programme on this release from the Neave Trio. Saint-Saëns took years to write his Trio No 2, and the result was a sprawling five-movement work that gets an appropriately wide-ranging and meaty performance here. The first movement roils and surges, the players catching both the push and pull of the restless theme and the brief passage of stillness later on. The slow third movement sings .with wistful nostalgia, and the fourth flows by in a waltz-like whirl pitched somewhere between Chopin and Dvořák. But the second movement, with its obsessively repeated rhythmic motif, perhaps needs a little more imagination to make it work.The two movements of Mel Bonis’s Soir et Matin, written in 1907, are the opposite way round in atmosphere from how you might expect: Soir (Evening) is sou...

Politics

14 h. ago Georgia dad learns fate after subjecting children to ‘extreme bootcamp’ punishments likened to ‘torture’

Carey Clark and Nora Rodgers withheld food from the children and inflicted physical injuries for years

Politics

15 h. ago Manchester City fined £1m by Premier League over delayed kick

City breached rules in nine league matches last seasonCEO Soriano excited by global impact of Club World CupManchester City have been fined more than £1m by the Premier League over delayed kick-offs or restarts related to nine matches last season. The league entered into a sanction agreement with the club over the breaches of its rules, which occurred between October and February.The longest delay was two minutes and 24 seconds before the resumption of the Manchester derby last December. The league said City had accepted and apologised for the breaches, with the fines totalling £1.08m. The club have 14 days to make payment from the execution of the sanction agreement. Continue reading...

Politics

15 h. ago On the hottest day of the year it's brass monkeys at our house thanks to British Gas: RICHARD LITTLEJOHN

I know World War Three is breaking out and the country is going to hell in a handcart, writes RICHARD LITTLEJOHN, but it's sweating the small stuff which sends us bonkers. And I do mean sweating.

Society

15 h. ago Victor Osimhen to Man United transfer latest as theory emerges after £64m bid rejected

Victor Osimhen's decision to turn down a move to Saudi Arabia leaves the door open for Manchester United to swoop in.

Economics