23 h. ago The North Road by Rob Cowen review – the poetry and pain of Britain’s backbone

A beautifully written study of our longest numbered route, the A1, is full of rich asides and haunting explorations, conjuring the visual pleasure of a road movieMost people know the North Road of this book’s title as the London-to-Edinburgh A1. But, as Rob Cowen writes, A1 is a cipher for a 400-mile multiplicity of roads – a historically diverse bundle that includes ancient trackways, a Roman road, the “Old North Road” and the “Great North Road” (the name generally applied to what became the A1 in the road-numbering scheme of the 1920s). This collective forms, as Cowen has it, our primary road – the “backbone” of Britain.As a frequent shuttler between north and south, I prefer the North Road to its rival, the bland, homogenous M1. It has verges and laybys, eccentric pit-stops where the coffee is not necessarily Costa, and a scruffy, improvised air, suggesting something organically arisen from the landscape. But whereas I have merely driven along the road, Cowen has communed with it...

Politics

3 d. ago The Narrow Road to the Deep North review – Jacob Elordi’s fine turn in complex, confronting war drama

Justin Kurzel’s adaptation of Richard Flanagan’s novel eschews battleground spectacle for a rich meditation on trauma that unfolds in three timelinesGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailMany great directors have been attracted to war movies – or, as is the case with Australian auteur Justin Kurzel, a war-themed series, adapting Richard Flanagan’s novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North.Film-makers of a certain calibre seem to view this genre as a rite of passage. Some productions – including the recent Apple TV+ series Masters of the Air – have a retrograde flavour, painting war (perhaps problematically) as a great big adventure. Many lean into spectacle, attempting to recreate the smoke and fury of battle, but in the process running the risk of celebrating or ennobling war. “Every film about war,” declared François Truffaut, “ends up being pro-war.”Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning Continue r...

Events

3 d. ago A Russian bucket brigade helps toads and frogs cross the road to get to a spawning site

It happens every spring along a section of road north of Russia’s second-largest city of St. Petersburg: Volunteers, some in yellow vests, patrol near the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve, and become crossing guards for thousands of toads and frogs

Politics

5 d. ago ‘We were all in it together’: Jacob Elordi on his wartime epic The Narrow Road to the Deep North

The Saltburn and Priscilla star talks about his first Australian lead role and the physical costs of playing a PoW on the Burma-Thailand railway Get our weekend culture and lifestyle emailTo everyone except fans of the teen drama Euphoria, Jacob Elordi’s star seemed to explode from nowhere two years ago. In 2023, Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla and Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn revealed to global audiences the breadth of the young Queenslander’s range – a tormented and controlling Elvis in one vehicle, a charmingly selfish young British aristocrat in the other. They also certified him as a bona fide celebrity and sex symbol – the kind that can inspire lookalike contests.Australians might be forgiven for not knowing the 27-year-old actor is one of us: aside from a handful of small roles (including his feature film debut, aged 17 in Stephan Elliott’s Swinging Safari – “I think I said two words, probably ‘shag me’,” he says) – he’s mostly played Americans and Brits.Sign up for the fun stuff wit...

Events

1 week ago Four people rushed to hospital after car mounts pavement and ploughs into cafe

A woman in her 40s is fighting for her life after the horror smash on Upper Street, a busy road which runs through Islington, north London, just before 8am.

Politics

1 week ago Saltburn star Jacob Elordi makes a bold statement in a protest shirt at the Melbourne screening of The Narrow Road To The Deep North

Jacob Elordi had a cause on his mind at the Melbourne screening of The Narrow Road To The Deep North.

Events

2 w. ago The quaint market town rocked by a 'drugs crisis': How gangs are flooding crack cocaine and heroin on to the streets of Keighley... and locals are left to pick up the pieces

On the face of it, Keighley is a picture postcard market town, just as attractive as historic Skipton, a few miles down the road across the North Yorkshire border.

Events

3 w. ago Police discover £100k of cocaine and heroin during raid in Glasgow

Officers searched a flat on Dyke Road in the north west of the city on Friday at 2.50pm, where they sized 3kg of cocaine and 1kg of heroin.

Economics

3 w. ago The Scottish road trip named 'epic but unknown alternative' to North Coast 500

The picturesque drive was praised for "taking in some of Scotland’s most sublime scenery".

Politics