8 d. ago Buffy star addresses Doctor Who return despite Russell T Davies' blunt four

The Buffy the Vampire Slayer star formerly appeared in Doctor Who spin-off, Torchwood.

Politics

1 week ago Online gambling firm Spreadex fined £2m for social responsibility failings

The Gambling Commission said the firm did not appropriately engage with a customer who hit a daily deposit limit of £3,340 12 times in 14 days.

Economics

2 w. ago Dianaworld review: For Diana fans to enjoy — but not to trust

Generally when I’m reviewing a book on a subject I’ve written about, I turn to the index as soon as I’m bored to see if I’m quoted, so I can skip to the scintillating bits. No need to, here; I rock up in the very first paragraph of the introduction: “Of the various titles that Diana Spencer collected during her life, it is the unofficial one of ‘the People’s Princess’ that has most come to encapsulate her reputation. The origins of the term are contested. Many have claimed that Tony Blair’s spin doctor, the shrewd, calculating Alastair Campbell, invented it. Others have said it derived from Anthony Holden, a royal biographer and translator of ancient Greek poetry and Italian opera. Julie Burchill, a republican iconoclast perhaps best known for her writing about pop music, asserts that it was in fact she who bestowed the title upon Diana in a laudatory article about the princess published in 1992.”

Politics

2 w. ago By calling a genocide a genocide, Andor just made its most political point yet

Tony Gilroy’s Star Wars show has repeatedly felt like it was ripped from today’s headlines – but Mon Mothma’s radical speech was written two years agoWarning: this contains spoilers for episode nine of Andor season twoSince it started in 2022, the Star Wars spin-off Andor has proved an unexpectedly bolshie addition to the Disney-owned mega-franchise. By portraying worker uprisings, surveillance states, sexual violence and prison industrial complexes, showrunner Tony Gilroy added fresh political nuance and human stakes to George Lucas’s endless galactic civil war.And since its April premiere, the show’s second and final season has only doubled down. In the first episode, viewers saw smarmy spin doctors from the Empire’s “Ministry of Enlightenment” discuss how to “weaponise” galactic opinion to manufacture public approval for ethnic cleansing on the planet Ghorman. News anchors parrot Imperial talking points, while the military plots a long game: to provoke an uprising from “rebels yo...

Politics

3 w. ago Spin doctors: gambling firms adopt hard tactics to flood towns with 24hr slot machines

Companies deploys highly paid lawyers and appears to mislead councillors – but local authorities are fighting backIt is almost 2am in Peterborough and a handful of punters are wordlessly feeding their money into the machines at Merkur Slots.A fragment of a song, the lyric “nothing to lose”, drifts through the shop as their funds rapidly evaporate. Closing time is fast approaching, but that does not mean the end of the gambling. Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago Spin doctors: gambling firms adopt hard tactics to flood towns with 24

Companies deploy highly-paid lawyers and appear to mislead councillors – but local authorities are fighting backIt is almost 2am in Peterborough and a handful of punters are wordlessly feeding their money into the machines at Merkur Slots.A fragment of a song, the lyric “nothing to lose”, drifts through the shop as their funds rapidly evaporate. Closing time is fast approaching, but that does not mean the end of the gambling. Continue reading...

Events