33 h. ago TOM UTLEY: Susie, the serene goddess of Countdown, has thrown in the towel

Just as Caesar thought his friend Brutus was the last man on Earth who would betray him, so I imagined Susie Dent would defend to her final breath the correct pronunciation of common English words.

Politics

2 d. ago The Spin | The summer of 2005 without Pietersen? Imagining World Test finals of the past

Ahead of next month’s match at Lord’s, we work out who would have reached previous finals and how history may have been alteredThis, dear reader, is the 1,126th edition of The Spin. For the past 23 years it has been a weekly source of news, views and automated data about the unread message count in the deleted items folder. As such it is hard to find new journalistic frontiers. But, in the face of some molten competition, this week’s Spin stands alone as the nerdiest, the most anal, the one grounded furthest from reality.We say this not to boast, only to flag that it may not be for everyone, and that we feel for those unfortunates whose neurological disposition means they have precisely no interest in imagining what a World Test Championship final might have looked like in May 1989. Continue reading...

Politics

5 d. ago No meat, no beer and hopefully no poison: the curious tale of Hitler’s food tasters

Based on Margot Wölk’s extraordinary account, Silvio Soldini’s film The Tasters sees a group of women seemingly risk their lives with each bite. But does the story add up?The story is almost too compelling to be true: a group of war-weary young women, long deprived of sufficient food, are herded together to dine on abundant vegetarian delicacies three times a day. The only price: risking their lives with each bite as they may have consumed deadly poison intended for Adolf Hitler.The extraordinary account by then 95-year-old Margot Wölk created a sensation when it first appeared in a Berlin tabloid more than a decade ago. Her decision to break what she called decades of silence about her wartime experiences captured the imagination of German reporters, then global media, finally inspiring a documentary, two novels and a play. Continue reading...

Events

8 d. ago Lines of disappointment etched into Spurs fans’ faces evaporate into the Bilbao air | Max Rushden

Emotion of Europa League final victory hits hard, particularly tangled in with homesickness watching from Australia at 5amI didn’t really cry until Son Heung-min was handed the trophy – the camera hadn’t cut to him enough at full time. Of all the players who look sad when they’re sad, Sonny really looks sad. Building up to the Europa League final all I could imagine was a disconsolate South Korean walking around the pitch applauding mournfully. The Harry Kane walk. His smile when shiny-shoed Aleksander Ceferin hands him the trophy broke me. Apparently the Uefa Cup weighs 15kg – the same as my three-year-old. That trophy certainly looked lighter than when young Ian demands to be carried home from the park.As a very sleep-deprived middle-aged dad of young kids, the emotion of football back home hits a lot harder than it used to. I found myself weeping at the videos of Crystal Palace fans after the FA Cup final. Someone focused from person to person, pausing for just enough time on eac...

Politics

8 d. ago The agony and ecstasy of watching Spurs win a trophy from 10,000 miles away | Max Rushden

Emotion of Europa League final victory hits hard, particularly tangled in with homesickness watching from Australia at 5amI didn’t really cry until Son Heung-min was handed the trophy – the camera hadn’t cut to him enough at full time. Of all the players who look sad when they’re sad, Sonny really looks sad. Building up to the Europa League final all I could imagine was a disconsolate South Korean walking around the pitch applauding mournfully. The Harry Kane walk. His smile when shiny-shoed Aleksander Ceferin hands him the trophy broke me. Apparently the Uefa Cup weighs 15kg – the same as my three-year-old. That trophy certainly looked lighter than when young Ian demands to be carried home from the park.As a very sleep-deprived middle-aged dad of young kids, the emotion of football back home hits a lot harder than it used to. I found myself weeping at the videos of Crystal Palace fans after the FA Cup final. Someone focused from person to person, pausing for just enough time on eac...

Politics

2 w. ago Pom Klementieff goes braless in a plunging lilac gown as she defies the new Cannes Film Festival dress code for star

Pom Klementieff left little to the imagination as she attended the star-studded Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning premiere during the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday evening. 

Culture