2 d. ago Vinted users baffled by £2.19 beach rock listing with bizarre TV show connection

A Vinted shopper was left baffled after coming across a plain rock picked up from a Welsh beach listed for £2.19 on the app - until she saw the bizarre TV link in the item's description

Economics

3 d. ago A child on thin ice: EA Hanks on life with her abusive mother – and world

One half of the author’s early life was spent with a mother who struggled with addiction, her mental health and caring responsibilities. The other was with her father Tom on film sets and in a house full of love and structure. She discusses her road trip back into her complicated pastWhen EA Hanks was 14, her mother announced she had bought a Winnebago and they were going to drive across the US in it. It was 1996, and Hanks (her initials stand for Elizabeth Ann), had recently left her mother, Susan, to go to live with her father, the actor Tom Hanks, in Los Angeles. “Things between my mother and I were at an absolute low point,” she says. The drive, she remembers, from California – long hours on the road, her mother chain-smoking and listening to Christian rock music, stopping only to eat and sleep – was “three awkward, silent, painful months that would end up with us in Florida”. It is not clear what the point of the road trip was – though Hanks met members of her mother’s family f...

Events

4 d. ago Vinted users reveal top tips for buying and selling as company's profits triple amid second

Business is booming for Lithuanian-based Vinted, the popular app where users buy and sell second-hand clothes, as more shoppers opt for cheaper used items instead of new.

Economics

1 week ago Royal fans share bizarre conspiracy connecting Lilibet to classic Judy Garland movie after hearing the little Princess speak for the first time

The Duchess of Sussex , 43, posted a video in which she can be heard asking Lilibet, three, what she thinks of her jam while at their home in Montecito, California.

Politics

2 w. ago British tourist baffled by ‘shocking’ extra charge for ice cubes at Spanish beach bar

The coffee surcharge left social media users feeling frosty

Society

3 w. ago ‘One minute it’s “would you like to listen to Galaxie 500?”, the next humanity’s enslaved’: can anyone escape Spotify?

As a new book skewers Spotify’s effect on music, two Guardian music writers spent a week assessing the limits of living with and without itLaura Snapes, deputy music editor I was set the task of not listening to Spotify for a week, but Alexis, your task was much worse: only listening to Spotify-created playlists, and the songs it suggested to you based on your listening history. How did that go?Alexis Petridis, chief rock and pop critic One day in the car I just listened to nothing instead of facing it again. When it plays me songs I like, it’s not what I want to hear at that moment. That’s not to say the music it was recommending wasn’t good. One morning it played Schizophrenia by Sonic Youth. I love that song but I didn’t want to hear it then. It played me Billie Holliday’s Riffin’ the Scotch followed by My Bloody Valentine, which clearly demonstrates the great breadth of my music taste – but just because I like it all doesn’t mean I want to hear it all together. I didn’t like tha...

Politics

3 w. ago Brits name weird and wonderful hacks to speed up slow broadband connections

A new study has revealed the bizarre ways in which Brits try to improve their broadband connections - from holding routers in the air to blaming the weather for slow speeds

Politics