51 h. ago Wigtown Book Festival diary: AI's thoughts on love and how a small town can rally emergency musicians

Local pub comes to the rescue after annual ceilidh cancelled due to bad weather

Culture

3 d. ago Tim Dowling: II love books – but can’t remember anything about the ones I’ve just read

In bed I lie awake, staring at the books on my nightstand, trying to remember a single salient fact about any of themThe oldest one is recommending the book he’s just finished to me.“You should read this,” he says, handing me a well-thumbed paperback, which I turn over in my hands. Continue reading...

Politics

3 d. ago Tim Dowling: I love books – but can’t remember anything about the ones I’ve just read

In bed I lie awake, staring at the books on my nightstand, trying to remember a single salient fact about any of themThe oldest one is recommending the book he’s just finished to me.“You should read this,” he says, handing me a well-thumbed paperback, which I turn over in my hands. Continue reading...

Politics

6 d. ago Kate Moss hides behind dark glasses and clings to her bodyguard as she enjoys another night out in Paris during Fashion Week

The model, 51, has been attending a string of shows during Fashion Week, and the second day was no different as she departed the Costes Hotel after a signing for her book A Love Letter To Kate.

Politics

1 week ago Liverpool Women honour Matt Beard’s legacy with strong League Cup display

Beard’s family were in attendance on an emotional night filled with tributes as his former team took on SunderlandQuietly they stood in the queue, stretching far beyond the door of the main reception at St Helens, to pay their respects to the former Liverpool manager Matt Beard. Once inside, an image of Beard and his trademark smile was displayed on a screen above a table where red and white flowers – one bouquet accompanied by a handwritten note expressing love from Sunderland – lay next to the books of condolence that were quickly filling up with messages of love.The scene was so sombre, it was, momentarily, difficult to imagine there was a game of football to watch, but soon the Liverpool fans were inside the stadium for the first match since the news of Beard’s sudden death at the age of 47. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Wigtown Book Festival: Visitors will get chance to feature in brand new film, as Nicola Sturgeon attends

The Wigtown Book Festival will start on Friday.

Culture

2 w. ago Tim Dowling: we’re low on milk the kids must have moved back home

Having flown the nest, two of our sons are now back under our roof – and the third lives just around the cornerIt is late on Saturday morning, and the oldest one and I are sitting opposite one another at the kitchen table, staring at our laptops in silence. We are silent because we are both working on the same puzzle, and neither of us wants any help from the other at this point.The front door opens and my wife comes in, bringing with her the middle one and all his worldly possessions. Only the youngest one, the last to leave, has yet to return home, but he lives just minutes away and, like the other two, he has a key. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Tim Dowling: I’m ruing the day I started looking for a roofer

I thought I had found someone, but my wife wants to know if he’s any good – and if he’s ever killed anyoneThe quote we receive from the roofer seems surprisingly reasonable, although it’s possible that in anticipation of the quote I was simply letting my paranoia run wild. The truth is, I had no idea how much a new flat roof should, or could, cost.But my wife wasn’t home when the roofer came round, climbed out on the roof, and said: “That’s really bad.” She didn’t hear his wholly convincing explanation of what was wrong, and what must be done to put it right. She was not impressed by my version of those explanations. And she probably hadn’t worked herself up into expecting a quote at double the price. In any case, she has reservations. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Prince and Hollywood star Kim Basinger were like 'teenagers in love' new book reveals

Incredible new detail about the life and loves of Prince has come to light in a new book on his career

Politics

3 w. ago The new 2025 London Open House Festival tours to book if you love homes

The new 2025 London Open House Festival tours to book if you love homes  wallpaper.com

Society

3 w. ago I Love You, Byeee by Adam Buxton audiobook review – warm and witty whimsy

A chatty, self-deprecating memoir recalls the podcaster’s start in TV and his lifelong friendship with comedian and film-maker Joe CornishThe writer and comic Adam Buxton’s first memoir, Ramble Book, dug into his childhood and his relationship with his father, who featured as the cantankerous BaaadDad in Buxton’s 1990s pop culture series The Adam and Joe Show. I Love You, Byeee is the follow up in which he remembers his late mother, Valerie, and reflects on his TV career which began with him landing a job at Takeover TV, a showcase for new talent on Channel 4, where he brought in his childhood friend Joe Cornish.Fans of The Adam and Joe Show will find reminiscences about the pair’s toy movies, where they recreated films such as Titanic and Trainspotting, and their radio shows on XFM and 6Music. Buxton is candid about the strain of their working relationship and his feelings of insecurity when Cornish went off to direct his first film, Attack the Block, without him. Continue reading...

Events

4 w. ago The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai review – a dazzling epic

Longlisted for the Booker, this capacious story of love, work and family set between India and the US is both dizzyingly vast and insistently miniatureOn a trip to see his grandparents in the Indian city of Allahabad, journalist Sunny Bhatia flicks through the morning papers, and is immediately at sea: what can the convoluted sentences before him – “TTIM files complaint against MSL at JM Rastra. MP(LTTK) holds GL Mukti strike to blame for Vasudev debacle. BORS reverberates in KLM(U) case” – possibly mean? His bewilderment at an India he cannot decode is, equally problematically, mirrored by the incomprehension he experiences in New York, where he occupies a junior role at the Associated Press.Fortunately, there are other more readily accessible stories: a woman sold at a cattle fair in Rajasthan, and a retired railway clerk in Mysore who has grown his fingernails so long that they reach across the room and oblige his family to attend to his every physical need. They do not mind, the...

Politics