18 h. ago Fight to save historic city pub next to Apollo Theatre ramps up

"It has been a successful long term venture from the 19th century and we feel it would be sorely missed."

Culture

26 h. ago Warning over return of 19th century disease after 4,332 deaths

There have been fatal outbreaks in 31 countries, according to the World Health Organisation

Events

46 h. ago Yorùbá Boy Running by Biyi Bándélé audiobook review – from enslaved teenager to celebrated preacher

The novelist’s final work tells a remarkable tale of resilience, based on the life of Samuel Àjàyí Crowther, who was kidnapped by slavers but won his freedomSet in 19th-century Òsogùn in what is now Nigeria, Yorùbá Boy Running opens with 13-year-old Àjàyí reporting a premonition to his mother about dark days ahead. A week later, the town is surrounded by Malian slave raiders and Àjàyí is kidnapped along with his mother, sister, best friend and neighbours. He is taken to Lagos and sold to Portuguese slavers preparing to ship their human cargo to the Americas. But they are intercepted by the British navy, which releases Àjàyí in Sierra Leone, where he is recruited by missionaries. From there, he is put on a path that leads to him to study at Oxford and become a celebrated preacher, linguist and abolitionist who meets Queen Victoria.A remarkable tale of barbarism and resilience, Yorùbá Boy Running is the final work by the Nigerian novelist and film-maker Biyi Bándélé, who died in 2022 ...

Culture

56 h. ago Welsh town's cliff railway pulls you up to incredible coastal views and hilltop café attraction

Something curious rises from the northern end of this Welsh promenade and features unique attractions.

Politics

3 d. ago Trinny Woodall unleashes her inner cowgirl as she undergoes Western makeover with lookalike daughter Lyla Elichaoff during ghost town visit

The beauty entrepreneur, 61, was joined by her look-a-like daughter Lyla Elichaoff, 21, as they set off to explore Dunton Hot Springs, a 19th-century ghost town.

Politics

3 d. ago The Victorian flower making a comeback with British shoppers

The blooms had a hidden meaning in the 19th century

Politics

5 d. ago Today's rugby news as WRU warn regions are losing fans and Joe Marler considers shock return

The latest headlines from Wales and around the world

Events

9 d. ago Great Eastern Hotel by Ruchir Joshi review – a panoramic view of India in flux

The political and emotional journey of a young communist revolutionary is brought sensuously to life, in a magnificent epic that took 25 years to writeThe observation by architect Louis Kahn that you “can only really see a building once the building becomes a ruin” runs through this book like the Hooghly river through India’s former capital. There’s no better Indian ruin than Kolkata, a city that still clings to the centrality of its role in the 19th-century intellectual renaissance that buttressed the case for Indian self-rule. The adage back then was that “what Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow”.Great Eastern Hotel, the second novel from the author of The Last Jet-Engine Laugh, is 920 pages and well over 300,000 words long. The staff of your local Waterstones will kindly describe it as “an undertaking”. It is set in and around the still-standing, now eye-wateringly expensive Great Eastern Hotel, which is, as the book points out, a model for the city itself: a place t...

Politics

9 d. ago EastEnders star Jessie Wallace gave bosses warning over Michelle Ryan return

BBC EastEnders star Jessie Wallace refused the idea over Zoe Slater return as she would feel the audience had been "completely conned" as actress Michelle Ryan makes Albert Square comeback

Events

9 d. ago How did a new War of the Worlds movie get a 0% critical rating?

A cursed Covid-made version of the HG Wells classic, starring Ice Cube, was quietly buried after a five-year delay and perhaps it should have stayed buriedJust over 20 years ago, Steven Spielberg released War of the Worlds, a remake of the HG Wells classic updated for then modern day, capturing an era of post-9/11 anxiety filtered through the prism of late-90s disaster movies. That movie’s reputation has only grown over the years – it’s basically the thinking and anxious person’s Independence Day – but the Wells text has been revisited repeatedly since its publication at the tail end of the 19th century. 2025 seems as good a time as any for another update. And if ever any viewers yearned to see a new War of the Worlds beset with the constant pinging of a Microsoft Teams chat, Prime Video has a real treat in store.Yes, hovering towards the top of Prime Video’s movie charts is a new War of the Worlds, which arrived with little fanfare on the service at the end of July. In it, Ice Cube...

Events

1 week ago The Salford pub where Marx and Engels may have drank faces uncertain future

The grade-II listed boozer dates back to the 19th century.

Politics

1 week ago One of Greater Manchester's most iconic pubs is facing an uncertain future

The grade-II listed boozer dates back to the 19th century.

Politics

1 week ago Suspect in fatal shooting of four in Montana bar could be heading back to town, authorities warn

The manhunt for Michael Paul Brown entered its third day on Sunday, with authorities warning the suspected gunman may return to town.

Events

1 week ago Eddie Howe fires strong warning to Alexander Isak ahead of awkward Newcastle return

Newcastle boss Eddie Howe has had to address the attitude of Alexander Isak after the club embarked on their pre-season tour without him as he readies to return to training

Events

1 week ago To the Sea by Train: The Golden Age of Railway Travel is a trip down the tracks of time to the great British seaside

The British seaside holiday began with the railways. Before the mid 19th century and the tentacle-spread of rail to the country’s outer edges, the coastline was, apart from a few Georgian watering holes, inhabited mainly by fishermen. A century later, sand and shingle was decked with resorts, spas, piers and promenades.

Politics

4 w. ago Men paid to dig out holes full of poo in grim and smelly job

It's a dirty job but someone's got to do it – before the 19th century super sewer, which turns 150 this year, festering cesspits had to be cleared out by hand – or at least a bucket and a cart by gong farmers

Politics

4 w. ago Poor Creature: All Smiles Tonight review | Jude Roger's folk album of the month

(River Lea)Masters of atmosphere, Ruth Clinton, Cormac MacDiarmada and John Dermody contrast hauntological synths with robust noise on this playful debutThe latest gorgeous release from the fecund Irish folk scene doesn’t begin with bassy dread in the Lankum mode, but a mood of gentle, haunting psychedelia. Adieu Lovely Erin starts by evoking Broadcast swirling around a maypole; then it’s as if Cocteau Twins had been transported to a traditional music session. Its sweet, high female vocals also evoke the improvisations of sean-nós singing, while simmering, krautrock-like drums build drama.Poor Creature comprises three musicians expert in heightening and managing atmosphere: Landless’s Ruth Clinton, Lankum’s Cormac MacDiarmada plus live Lankum drummer John Dermody. Their debut album steeps cowboy songs, Irish ballads, bluegrass and other traditional songs in a misty, playful lightness that somehow also carries an eerie power. Bury Me Not is a 19th-century American song about a dying ...

Politics