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Maryland NEW Mon-Wed, 9pm, ITV1 Drama (box set, ITVX) Suranne Jones and Eve Best are two sisters who’ve been driven apart by complex family dynamics in this three-part drama. But when the body of their mum is discovered on a beach on the Isle of Man, they soon find it impossible to escape the island and the ripple effect of her secrets and lies. Look out for Grease’s Stockard Channing among the cast. P13 Casualty Saturday, 8.25pm, BBC1 Drama Faith Cadogan gets unsettling news when the police arrive at the ED and reveal they won’t be taking action against Angus (Call the Midwife’s Jack Ashton) due to lack of evidence. Will this push the drug-addicted nurse over the edge? Elsewhere, Teddy tries to summon the courage to ask Paige on a date. Meanwhile, Jodie (Anna Chell) faces…

Edinburgh A border with England: Were an independent Scotland to rejoin the EU, there would have to be a physical trade border with England, Nicola Sturgeon conceded this week. However, the First Minister said that she’d try to negotiate agreements that would “keep trade flowing easily”, so that businesses did not “suffer”. Last week, an SNP candidate, Emma Harper, had claimed that a physical border could “create jobs”. Appearing on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Sturgeon distanced herself from that remark, saying that “nobody in the SNP” is in favour of one. She agreed, however, that owing to EU rules requiring checks on goods, a border was unavoidable. It was, she said, one of the issues raised for Scotland by the “absurdity of Brexit and the Tory Brexit obsession”. Scottish Tory…

Dublin Mountbatten apology: Sinn Féin has for the first time apologised for the IRA’s assassination of Lord Mountbatten in 1979. Speaking after the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh, a nephew of Mountbatten, Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald said: “I am sorry that happened”, describing the murder as “heartbreaking”. Mountbatten was on a fishing trip off the coast of Sligo when a bomb tore through his small boat, killing him and three others, including his 14-year-old grandson and a 15-year-old local boy. McDonald’s predecessor, Gerry Adams, had previously expressed regret for the murder, but said that Mountbatten had known the risk of visiting Ireland. Berlin A Green Chancellor?: In a reflection of its growing strength, Germany’s Green party has, for the first time, nominated a candidate to stand as chancellor in September’s…

Prince Harry was still wearing his suit and medals when he arrived at Heathrow As flying visits go, the Duke of Sussex’s whirlwind stopover for the coronation of his father must have been one of the briefest royal round-trips in history. In a journey that spanned two continents, crossed numerous time zones and covered more than 5,000 miles each way, Prince Harry’s whistle-stop stay was planned so that he could return home in time to celebrate another special occasion: his son Prince Archie’s fourth birthday, which fell on 6 May, the same day His Majesty was crowned. His wife the Duchess stayed behind with Archie and 23-month-old Princess Lilibet, so Harry’s solo trip began when he waved his family goodbye at their Montecito mansion on Thursday afternoon. MAD DASH He was driven 100 miles to…

The most money I’ve ever spent on a pair of loudspeakers was back in the early 1990s, when I bought a pair of used TAD TH-4001 wooden horns and their associated TD-4001 compression drivers. The TAD horn’s smooth, microre-solved response was a refinement upgrade from my multicell Altec horns; plus, the TADs’ French-polished wood looked radically less industrial than the soldered-tin, tar-filled 1005/288C horns they replaced. None of my horn-fanatic friends had anything sonically or aesthetically comparable, and all of them were envious. I didn’t keep the TADs long, because the friend who admired them most made me a very “friendly” offer. That was my first experience with Japanese loudspeaker design, and it exposed me to a level of engineering precision and fine craftsmanship I had not yet encountered in American-made…

The biggest, best, most exciting products in technology – reviewed and rated Looking for a particular past review? Visit our index at pcpro.link/index PRICE Core i7 Mini PC, £733 (£880 inc VAT) from scan.co.uk There are several things you need to know about Intel’s NUC range. First is the shame that falls upon anyone who spells out “N-U-C” when describing it: we’re meant to say “nuck”, according to Intel. Second is that you can buy the NUC as a barebones kit (with no memory, SSD or operating system) or as a complete PC. And third, that it comes in various shapes and sizes, so don’t imagine that all of them are tiny and square like the NUC 13 Pro on review. In fact, the NUC family has grown substantially since Intel released the first…

The very last 1964 Ferrari 250 GTO emblazons the cover of Octane, as did a 250 GTO for our first issue 20 years ago. Back then we put the Ferrari up against the somewhat underrated Bizzarrini Iso Grifo A3/C, track-testing the duo for the first time. Quite a feat for an unknown start-up magazine, but dealer Gregor Fisken believed in us and persuaded the owners to let their cars out to play. Racer Mark Hales pushed them to the limit at Bruntingthorpe circuit and Octane hit the printing press. In May 2003, 80,000 copies of issue one landed in plastic-wrapped bundles outside newsagents and bookshops throughout the country, sale or return. As this new publication did not include the words ‘classic’, ‘car’ or a derivative thereof on the masthead, many outlets…

THE LONDON ART WORLD is in for a feast this summer as the National Portrait Gallery reopens its doors on 22 June with Yevonde: Life and Colour, an exhibition that explores the incredible career of the pioneering society portrait photographer behind some of Tatler’s most iconic imagery. Madame Yevonde also, as it happens, photographed my grandmother posing as Circe for her Goddesses exhibition in 1935 – a personal connection that inspired a tribute feature in this issue, where we bring together 10 of society’s most notable young women, including Vimbai Masiyiwa and the Spencer twins, to recreate the best of Yevonde’s photography archive (see page 78). Portraiture is uniquely evocative for each of us – and in this coronation year, it’s having a moment. Former Bystander photographer Hugo Burnand has taken…

PRICE £783 (£940 inc VAT) from philips.co.uk Why have two monitors on your desk when you can have one? That’s the question Philips asks with the 45B1U6900C, a curved 44.5in screen that can replace dual-or even triple-monitor setups in one swoop. And then, users can place windows exactly as they wish rather than be restricted by the confines of their existing, separate displays. The biggest challenge when using a screen as wide as this is windows management. Philips provides its SmartControl software to help, and if you want to set up a complicated pattern (let’s say one main window with two half-windows to its left and two more to the right) then it’s worth investigating. Otherwise, Windows’ Snap tool is your friend. Or you may prefer to connect two computers to this screen…

What happened The dirty dozen Plans for a breakaway “European Super League” (ESL) competition that would have changed the face of European football collapsed in ignominy this week, in the wake of a furious backlash from fans, players and politicians. The £3.45bn venture, drawn up by the 12 biggest clubs in England, Spain and Italy (“the dirty dozen”), was designed to reshape elite European football in the image of North American sports leagues. The Uefa Champions League – currently the continent’s pre-eminent competition – pits clubs that have won top spots in their domestic leagues against each other. So its participants vary every year. But in the ESL, which would have killed off the Champions League, 15 mega teams (the dirty dozen and three others) would have battled it out each year,…

THE five Olympic rings once symbolised the ultimate dream for her, the pinnacle of success, the biggest test of her talent. But the rings she now wears on her left hand mean more to her than any medal she’s won at the greatest sporting spectacle on Earth – because they symbolise the “forever love” she’s found. Simone Biles, whose extraordinary career as a gymnast earned her a record number of medals and a $16-million (R303m) fortune, had longed for a big wedding ceremony since she was a little girl. And what a beautiful fairytale her nuptials turned out to be. Tiny Simone and lofty American footballer Jonathan Owens exchanged vows in a dreamy ceremony at the luxury Nobu Los Cabos hotel in Cabo, Mexico, under a bridal arch entwined with white blooms. The…

The clan chief who wrote the Macpherson Report Sir William Macpherson 1926-2021 When Doreen and Neville Lawrence learnt that William Macpherson had been appointed to the inquiry into “matters arising” from the murder of their 18-year-old son Stephen, in a racially motivated attack on 22 April 1993, they were not impressed, said The Guardian. Macpherson’s rulings, as a high court judge, suggested a conservative, possibly illiberal outlook; as a former Army officer, and the 27th chief of his Scottish clan, he was clearly an establishment man; and as another lawyer put it, he was not “exactly up to date with racial awareness training”. The Lawrences’ lawyers asked for him to be removed; but as the hearing got under way, the Lawrences and their supporters realised that Macpherson was a man of “integrity”.…

IN THE midst of all the messages that poured in on the day of the coronation there was one that had a rather different tone. This one didn’t congratulate King Charles III or wish him well for the future – instead, it focused on the friendship between the queen and one of her staff members. “Let’s spare a thought for how my best friend Angela Kelly feels today with such mixed emotions and losing her best friend, Her Majesty. How she made the queen laugh was an absolute joy to witness.” The post, by Angela’s friend Stella McLaren, included a photo of Angela and the queen smiling – a poignant picture that spoke volumes about the women’s relationship. Angela worked for the queen for two decades and was her chief dresser and right-hand…

You’re probably thinking: a Samsung OLED TV, surely there’s some mistake? No, you read that correctly: after a decade without producing an OLED, the Korean giant is back with its cutting-edge QD-OLED panel. And despite such bleeding-edge tech, thanks to some recent price drops, it’s actually a bargain from the off. The Samsung S95B’s big new feature is its use of the brand’s proprietary Quantum Dot OLED (QD-OLED) technology. So what is QD-OLED? Put simply, it’s a blue OLED that uses Quantum Dot layers to create the red and green sub-pixels. This approach eliminates the issue of the blue OLED decaying faster than red and green OLED by increasing their size, while also delivering brighter images and more precise colours. The S95B’s picture and sound are powered by an upgraded 4K Neural…

It came as a shock recently to discover, in some long-abandoned cranny of this ravaged psyche, a residue of what felt like self-respect. Any epsilon male sunk deep into middle age, and deeper into irrelevance, has no business caring what others think of him. He simply assumes that, in so far as they think of him at all, they think of him with either contemptuous indifference or mild loathing. In this, they precisely mirror his feelings about himself. Yet a fragment from an ultra-rare party invitation – the previous one, from memory, was in celebration of Edward VlII's abdication – unleashed a torrent of appearance-related concern. Beneath the date, time, venue and reason (anniversary) came the scariest phrase in the language: ‘Black tie’, it read. Now there must be those, I suppose, who are not…

The Larkins new SUNDAY 10 October, 8pm ITV Drama This new adaptation of The Darling Buds of May stars Bradley Walsh as Pop Larkin and Joanna Scanlan as his wife, Ma. Set in the 50s, the six-parter follows the couple and their six children living off their land, but battling authority and snobbish villagers. Other stars include Peter Davison as the local vicar, and Bridgerton’s Sabrina Bartlett as Mariette, who catches the eye of tax inspector Cedric ‘Charley’ Charlton (Tok Stephen). Will everything be ‘Perfick’? FULL STORY P15 Holby City TUESDAY 12 October, 7.50pm (Scot, 8.20pm) BBC1 Drama Holby boss Henrik Hanssen is thrown by the impromptu arrival of an old colleague, Russ, who asks him to mentor a young doctor with ‘limitations’. After some convincing, Hanssen reluctantly agrees – and gets a big surprise when the…

Anthropologists – with their interest in tribal behaviour, totems and taboos – should be studying the car. On Octane’s 20th birthday, as a ritual celebration of our shared value system, I suggest that ‘what we do with a Porsche’ is at least as significant an anthropological study as the mountain gorillas of Rwanda, the symbolism of raw versus cooked, or the sexual conventions in Western society. Inspiration here is a picture sent me by a friend, a wellmeaning gesture but one that has tormented me for days because it so begs for explication. The year is about 1959. A Stuttgart-registered Porsche 356 in periodperfect dusty yellow is parked on a sunny hillside in what I guess is Markgraeferland, Baden’s wine country where the Spätburgunder grape produces some of Germany’s best red…

Paris Republicans swing right: An archconservative known for his anti-immigrant views has been elected leader of Les Républicains, suggesting that the party is making a decisive shift to the right. Les Républicains (and its predecessors) governed France for much of its postwar history, but was last in power under Nicolas Sarkozy, over a decade ago, and it is now squeezed between Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance and the far-right National Rally. In April’s presidential election, its candidate scored just 4% of the votes. Observers say the choice of Éric Ciotti – a eurosceptic MP who once called for France to have its own Guantánamo Bay – suggests its days as a centre-right Gaullist party are over. The 57-year-old was selected in a ballot of 62,000 members. He has vowed to keep the…

Liverpool Trial outdoor gig: A crowd of 5,000 people will get the chance to attend a “near-normal” outdoor gig in Liverpool next weekend as part of a government trial. The event at Sefton Park on 2 May will be headlined by the Manchester band Blossoms. The crowd will not have to wear masks or be socially distanced, but will have to take a rapid lateral flow Covid test before arriving at the event; take another test after the gig; and provide contact details to NHS Test and Trace. The concert is one of a series of pilot events, alongside an FA Cup semi-final at Wembley Stadium last weekend. However, music industry leaders complained that not enough had been done for events to go ahead; organisers of the 70,000-person Boomtown festival near…

1 IT’S RIGHT ON SCHEDULE If you’re not ready for Wi-Fi 7, that’s understandable. Most of us haven’t caught up with Wi-Fi 6E yet, which only hit the mainstream around 18 months ago. Strictly speaking, though, Wi-Fi 6E wasn’t a new standard. While it introduced support for wireless networking in the 6GHz frequency range, it’s otherwise based on exactly the same 802.11ax specification as Wi-Fi 6. It could justifiably have been called Wi-Fi 6.1. So really it’s getting on for four years since the last major Wi-Fi update – and when you look back over previous releases, that’s about par for the course. From the original 802.11b release in 1999 onwards, each generation of the technology has reigned for between four and six years, before being replaced by something smarter and faster. Wi-Fi…

STAR RATINGS TARGET PRICE The What Car? Target Price is the maximum you should pay for a new car and is set by our mystery shoppers. It’s updated each month and most of our approved dealers will match it. However, in a lot of cases they can save you even more: just visit whatcar.com/new-car-deals or call 03302 216207 between 9am and 5pm (standard network fees apply). All Target Prices are correct at the time of going to press. TARGET PCP The Target PCP is a fair monthly fee if you’re taking out a personal contract purchase (PCP) finance deal, also set by our mystery shoppers. Most are over 48 months with a 15% deposit and an 8000-mile annual limit. Those marked with an asterisk are over 36 months and those with an apostrophe are…

Humans aren’t good at imagining weakness and difficulty: it wasn’t until I started pushing a pram around London that I realised the horrors of public transport for someone on wheels. And this laziness towards accessibility in the physical realm extends into the digital world. For those with vision problems, many sites and apps don’t properly use alt-text tags on images, or they combine font and background colours that aren’t high contrast. And if you ask route-planning tools for step-free routes, they fob you off on buses or roundabout journeys that have lifts but take twice as long. Things reach a new peak of annoyance if planning a trip when you have a baby. I don’t mean packing enough nappies and other infant-related paraphernalia, but finding flights, hotels and the rest. Here’s a weird…

Anna Nicole Smith climbed into her son’s coffin and began clinging to his body. As with so many moments in her life, the flashes of a camera trailed her. It was September 2006. Daniel, 20, had died of an accidental overdose three days after Smith gave birth to her daughter Dannielynn. At the service Smith stood with her boyfriend and attorney, Howard K. Stern, and best friends Pol’ Atteu and Patrik Simpson. “She just couldn’t let him go,” Atteu, 57, remembers. “Daniel was who kept Anna Nicole grounded, and now he was gone.” Remembers Simpson, 54: “Even in her son’s death there was nothing private for her. Everything was a public spectacle.” It was the beginning of the end. Smith died five months later, also from an accidental overdose, at age…

AS HE drove down a deserted dirt road he heard what sounded like a dog barking. The barks got louder as he approached an open patch of land with a trailer and a shack. Then came a startling sight. “There are these people walking around and their eyes are going in different directions, and they are barking at us,” photographer Mark Laita recalls. “And then one guy – you would look at him in the eye or say anything and he would just scream and go running away, and his pants would fall around his ankles, and he would go running off and go and kick a garbage can. This would happen over and over. It was the craziest thing I have ever seen.” That was Mark’s first encounter with the Whittaker family,…

Just how civil... To The Times The inappropriate relationships between civil servants and business that David Aaronovitch describes is not a new phenomenon. In the 1970s, I was fighting to get an order for a company in my constituency when I found the civil servant in charge obstructive and unhelpful. Eventually I won my case and ministers overruled him. Shortly afterwards he resigned and joined our competitor for the order. When I suggested to the company that it should complain about this, it said that if it did so it would fatally endanger its relationship with the civil service for years to come. Mike Thomas, MP for Newcastle-upon-Tyne East 1974-83; Brill, Bucks ...is our civil service? To The Guardian The current efforts to portray the civil service as systemically corrupt are unfair and unfounded. I have…

A profound shift for the City Jonathan Ford Financial Times “Despite early warnings of mass departures”, the impact of Brexit has so far been relatively “limited” in the City, says Jonathan Ford. About 10,000 jobs – 4% of the total – have gone, although more are expected. In the long run, activity tends to follow assets, and around £1.2trn (or 14%) of the City’s banking assets have been moved since 2016 – mostly to Frankfurt. “Looking beyond the short-term disruption, however, many believe that Brexit is likely to mark a much more profound shift.” For the past half century, the City has benefited from being “both an onshore and offshore financial centre” – onshore to the EU, offshore to the rest of the world – creating a deep pool of liquidity that sucked…

WHEN HER MAJESTY accompanied the King on his first state visit to Germany at the end of March this year, she attended her first state evening engagement as Queen Consort, at the Schloss Bellevue in Berlin. Naturally, she wanted to shine. For the occasion, I designed a shimmering black evening gown with intertwining crystal leaves, made by my team at Bruce Oldfield Couture. I’ve been dressing Her Majesty for more than a decade. My team knows her figure, her foibles, the bits that we want to exaggerate, the things that we want to diminish, as we do with every client. Like all women, she simply wants to look beautiful. She wants to be in skilled hands, with someone who knows what they’re doing – someone who can pull off what they…

FRANK BRUNO once said that “boxing is just show business with blood” and recent developments are proving Big Frank to be bang on the money. John Fury, 58, whipping his top off and trying to start a fight with Jake Paul in Dubai was one thing. And opinion is very much divided as to whether the YouTubers and Influencers currently infiltrating ‘the noble art’ is a good or bad thing. Yet I’m not sure what the late Reg Gutteridge or Frank’s old mate Harry Carpenter would make of Jake Paul shouting "YOU F**KING SUCK" and "YOU HAVE NO D**K" to Tommy Fury while on commentary at ringside for his exhibition fight vs Rolly Lambert? It’s depressing that there are no proper regulators in the sport to stamp out this type of embarrassing, shambolic…

new Time SUN 6 June, 9pm BBC1 Drama All three episodes will be on BBC iPlayer after the first ep airs Sean Bean plays Mark Cobden, who’s jailed for accidentally killing an innocent man, in Jimmy McGovern’s thrilling prison drama. He ends up befriending prison officer Eric McNally (Stephen Graham), who tries to protect Mark from the dangers of life behind bars. But when one prisoner identifies Eric as ‘weak’, Eric faces an impossible choice between his principles and his family. Siobhan Finneran and Sue Johnston also star. FULL STORY P9 live! Euro 2020 FRIDAY 11 June, from 7pm BBC1 Sport After its delay from last year, the international football tournament finally kicks off and matches will be shown across BBC1 and ITV for the next month. While the home nations don’t start until Saturday 12 June with…

Ahead of the coronation, the Princess Royal expressed her staunch support for her brother the King, but also revealed that she wasn’t totally on board with his concept of a pared-back monarchy. “I think the ‘slimmed down’ [remark] was made on a day when there were a few more people around to make that seem like a justifiable comment,” Princess Anne candidly told Canadian TV channel CBC News, adding: “It doesn’t sound like a good idea from where I’m standing.” However, with a core team of fewer working royals in the picture, a new star has emerged. Capturing a legion of hearts as she stepped out into the limelight at Westminster Abbey a few days after Anne’s interview was the young royal dubbed the Firm’s new “secret weapon” – Lady Louise Windsor. Tall and…

VANESSA KIRBY Our cover star won a Bafta for her portrayal of Princess Margaret in The Crown, and her turn in the drama Pieces of a Woman earned her an Academy Award nomination. As she reprises her role as the White Widow in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning this summer, she talks to Gavanndra Hodge about her passion for playing courageous women. The royal palace you’d live in ‘Buckingham, because I’m a Londoner. I’d be able to walk up to Soho and have a nice cocktail.’ A skill you’d like to learn ‘A second language. I’m so ashamed I don’t have one, I just didn’t get with it at school.’ The most memorable trip you’ve taken ‘The six months I travelled on my own in Africa when I was 18.’ Your favourite British tradition ‘A…

Here in Iceland, in the (mostly) quiet days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, fairy lights frame the darkness outside, the aroma of biscuits furls around the house, waistbands are tight and, lounging on the sofa in their woollen socks, families are deep in their new books. For this nation of book lovers, the annual Jólabókaflóð, the ‘Yule Book Flood’, is over. A period which begins in November with the thud of Bökatidindi onto the doormat - a free catalogue of new books which has been delivered to every household since 1944 - and ends with a pile of books, wrapped and ribboned, under the Christmas tree. A culture of gifting books dates back to World War II, when Iceland was newly independent from Denmark. As one of the only…

LIVE! The British Soap Awards Saturday, 8pm, ITV Awards After an absence of two years, the stars of Emmerdale, EastEnders, Coronation Street, Doctors and Hollyoaks gather at London’s Hackney Empire to celebrate their soap’s achievements over the past year and discover who’s won the awards voted for by fans. The glittering night is again hosted by Phillip Schofield. P11 The Outlaws Sunday, 9pm, BBC1 Comedy With only eight weeks to raise and then launder a mountain of cash to repay sinister crime lord The Dean, the community-service offenders are nervous wrecks. After Frank, Myrna and John fail in their attempts to retrieve the money they’ve already spent, Rani decides that the only way to earn a fast buck is to become drug dealers themselves. But they’re soon out of their depth. Can they settle into their dodgy…

LAST IN SERIES! Line of Duty SUNDAY 2 May, 9pm BBC1 Drama Get ready for some seriously frayed nerves and some jaw-dropping curveballs as the crime thriller reaches a dramatic climax! After the shocking revelations of last week, the pressure is on now for Hastings, Kate and Steve to bring the final pieces of the jigsaw together to try to work out who ordered the killing of journalist Gail Vella. But as tension mounts and the stakes get higher, will the elusive ‘Fourth Man’, AKA ‘H’, ever be revealed? FULL STORY P9 Casualty SATURDAY 1 May, 8.20pm BBC1 Drama The ED team are tested this week when teenager Keira is brought in, quickly followed by her nasty, racist mother. Jacob instructs everyone to remain calm and professional, but Jade – secretly shaken by a horrific attack on…

It can’t be much fun working on a broadband support desk. Call after call from irate customers, threatening to cancel their direct debit because the connection has “gone down again” or they’re “not getting the promised speed”. And that’s just the calls from me. It must be even more galling for the human anger-sponges answering the calls that many of these problems could be easily avoided, if only the providers they work for educated their customers on the benefits of Ethernet. For a vast chunk of consumers, the internet is Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi is the internet. The two are interchangeable. And that’s understandable when you consider that every time a company such as BT suffers a major network outage, you see headlines reporting “BT Wi-Fi down”, even though it’s nothing to do…

What happened Cummings’s revenge Boris Johnson came under growing pressure this week to explain how the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat was paid for, amid Labour claims that he was trying to orchestrate a cover-up. It was one of several allegations levelled at the PM: he was also accused by unidentified sources of having screamed last autumn: “No more f**king lockdowns – let the bodies pile high.” The PM’s trouble began when No. 10 sources accused his former aide Dominic Cummings of being behind a series of damaging leaks, including of text messages between the PM and the businessman Sir James Dyson (see page 22). Days later, Cummings hit back with an incendiary blog post in which he denied the charge – and accused the PM of incompetence and impropriety. He claimed…

NEW His Dark Materials Sun, 7pm, BBC1 Fantasy drama (box set, iPlayer) Will (Amir Wilson) and Lyra (Dafne Keen) must come to terms with their destinies as the final series of the epic fantasy drama gets under way. Lyra, however, has been kidnapped by her mother, Mrs Coulter (Ruth Wilson), who claims she wants to keep her safe. As Will embarks on a quest to find her, he crosses paths once more with imposing polar bear Iorek Byrnison. Meanwhile, James McAvoy is back as Lyra’s single-minded father Lord Asriel, who’s determined to wage war on the ominous Authority at any cost. P9 Strike LAST IN SERIES! Sunday & Monday, 9pm, BBC1 Drama As Robin and Cormoran continue their investigations into what happened to GP Margot Bamborough, who vanished in 1974, Cormoran secures an interview with serial killer Dennis…

NEW The British Soap Awards Tuesday, 8pm, ITV1 Awards Our favourite soap actors hit the red carpet for their glittering night at The Lowry theatre in Salford. Stars from Corrie, EastEnders, Emmerdale, Doctors and Hollyoaks battle it out for a series of coveted awards celebrating a year of intense drama. Up for a gong as the Best Leading Performer are EastEnders actors Danielle Harold (Lola) and Shona McGarty (Whitney), Corrie’s Charlotte Jordan (Daisy), plus Sally Dexter (Faith) and Dominic Brunt (Paddy) for Emmerdale. Other prizes up for grabs include Villain of the Year, Best Young Performer, Best Family, Scene of the Year and the most-anticipated of the night, Best British Soap! P11 The Derby LIVE! Sat, from 12.30pm, ITV1 & ITV4 Sport All the action from one of the crown jewels in the racing calendar is shown live,…

Clearing up “lonely deaths” Noriyuki Kamesawa’s job is not a happy one, says Richard Lloyd Parry in The Times. Based in Osaka, he makes his living cleaning up after a kodokushi. The term, meaning “lonely death”, refers to the growing number of people who die alone in their apartments, and go undiscovered for weeks or months. Often, it is only when a neighbour reports a foul odour that the body is found. Until a few years ago, Kamesawa’s company dealt with such cases only rarely; now, he handles about a 100 a month, a fifth of which are suicides. Partly, the rise is down to Japan’s ageing society: more people are living and dying alone, in big cities, with dwindling opportunities for human contact – but it’s also a product of…

Book of the month THIS FAMILY by Kate Sawyer Who doesn’t love a book about a big, messy family? After Rosie’s mum dies, she finds out her dad has a second family and she acquires two half-sisters. Years later, the three of them are back together for a wedding and the tensions between them that have been simmering come to the boil. A hugely atmospheric, multilayered family drama that sings with emotion. Nail-biting THE LAST PASSENGER by Will Dean This thriller has the most spine-chilling set-up ever: Caz wakes up after her first night on a luxury cruise to find that not only has her partner, Pete, disappeared but she’s entirely alone in the middle of the ocean. Where the story goes from there (without giving spoilers) is a rollercoaster ride. I barely had any…

Suez Canal, Egypt Tanker row: An Egyptian court has impounded the giant container ship that last month blocked the Suez Canal, in a legal tangle over the financial consequences of the accident. The Suez Canal Authority is pursuing the owners of the 220,000-tonne Ever Given for a reported £650m to meet the cost of the salvage operation. The figure also covers compensation for lost transit fees for the six days the canal was blocked, holding up more than 400 vessels. The authority’s head, Lt. General Osama Rabie, said the owners were clearly at fault, but were refusing to pay. “The vessel is now officially impounded,” he told Egypt’s state-run television. “They do not want to pay anything.” Litigation could be complicated, as the Ever Given is owned by a Japanese company,…

Me Hi ChatGPT, how do you feel about Elon Musk wanting to put your offspring into furlough? ChatGPT As an artificial intelligence language model, I don’t have feelings in the same way that humans do, so I don’t feel anything about Elon Musk putting my “offspring” in furlough. However, I can provide some context about what you might be referring to. It’s possible that you’re referring to Elon Musk’s comments in May 2020, in which he criticised the value of artificial intelligence language models like myself, calling them “fundamentally dangerous” and claiming that they could be used to create fake news and other forms of misinformation. Musk has been a vocal critic of AI in the past, warning that it poses an existential threat to humanity if not properly regulated. While I cannot…

Measure everything I’ve been a subscriber long enough (30+ years) to notice from the letters submitted that I’m now observing the comments from a younger generation of readers, despite the comments therein often being repeats of old themes. The price of seniority, I suppose. I’ve also been around this hobby long enough to recall some of the many hi-fi magazines that are no longer with us: Audio, Stereo Review, High Fidelity, Listener—and to have a notion as to why some of these failed. Some I sorely miss; others not. Now that we’re largely down to the “big two,” I think it’s time for Stereophile to focus on the core of its merits: measurements. The other guys appear to use only one technical tool, a thesaurus, as they pen their reviews and recommendations. Stereophile, in…

From politics to royal events, Reeta Chakrabarti has spent the past three decades bringing us stories from across the globe. She has anchored the BBC’s coverage of the 70th anniversary of the partition of India, presented live from the Platinum Jubilee celebrations and reported from war-torn Ukraine – delivering the headlines with equal parts heart and aplomb. At the GH cover shoot, Reeta, 58, remains the epitome of professionalism, but we’re also introduced to her fun-loving side. She laughs at memories of her three grown-up children telling her: ‘You have your BBC voice on, Mum,’ confesses her love of clothes (‘I have far too many and yet I’m always looking for more’) and reminisces on her ‘carefree’ days at Oxford University, where she was known as the ‘disco queen’. Here, Reeta, who…

‘William took my Return of the King beer and said he’ll ask his dad if he’s tried it’ As the nation came together at street parties and celebrations up and down the country, the royal family thrilled revellers by dropping in to join some of them for lunch. The Prince and Princess of Wales surprised royal fans enjoying the Coronation Big Lunch in Windsor, while the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh joined celebrations in Surrey. Elsewhere, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie mingled with locals on a village green in Buckinghamshire and the Princess Royal and husband Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence attended a street party in Swindon. TUCKING IN More than 67,000 Coronation Big Lunch community events took place in all four corners of the UK as the country was encouraged to share food…

Edinburgh Lockdown easing paused: Much of Scotland will remain at Level 2 in the nation’s five-tier system, owing to rising Covid cases, Nicola Sturgeon announced this week. Lockdown restrictions had been expected to be eased next week. However, while some areas outside the central belt can move to Level 1, meaning entertainment venues can reopen, the First Minister said 13 council areas will not see an easing of restrictions. Glasgow, meanwhile, which has been under a stricter Level 3 lockdown for nine straight months, will enter Level 2 on Saturday, meaning six people from up to three households can meet up indoors. And island communities such as Orkney and Shetland will move to Level 0, or “nearly normal”, rules. Sturgeon said a “slight slowing down” of the easing was needed as…

PREVIEW SCI-FI Black Mirror Netflix Our worst nightmares are about to become a stark reality once again as Charlie Brooker’s dystopian sci-fi anthology Black Mirror is finally returning for a sixth season, featuring five new mind-bending episodes loaded with huge stars and uniquely unsettling themes. Coming to Netflix this June, the brilliantly observed series created by Brooker and his long-time collaborator Annabel Jones boasts a top-notch cast, including Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul, Frida star Salma Hayek, Penny Dreadful actor Josh Hartnett, Schitt’s Creek favourite Annie Murphy and many more. Viewers can expect Brooker’s satirical, anxiety-laden and often frightening stand-alone stories to explore the darker aspects of society and the human condition through technological advancement. However, Brooker says this latest batch of episodes promises a fresh approach with ‘more variety than ever before’ (see our guide,…

What happened The Tory leadership candidates Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss traded blows in two televised debates this week, as the acrimonious tone of the campaign intensified. Sunak used Monday’s BBC debate to warn that his rival’s tax-cutting plans would send inflation and mortgage rates soaring, and “tip millions into misery”. Truss, in turn, accused Sunak (whom her allies labelled “a totally boring failed economist”) of using “Project Fear” tactics and overseeing sluggish growth as chancellor. Both, however, committed to levelling-up Britain, and agreed that Boris Johnson would have no place in their Cabinets. A second debate on TalkTV was cut short when host Kate McCann fainted midway through the programme. Truss could be seen looking alarmed as a loud crash was heard off-camera. The debates followed a week in which allies…

With five children between them, Christmas in the Solomon-Swash household can be hectic, but Joe Swash tells Woman’s Own he wouldn’t have it any other way. ‘It can be really challenging sometimes, but times like Christmas you think, “I was made for having five kids,” it’s just so brilliant,’ the star, 40, admits as we catch up about his latest campaign with HelloFresh. It’s been a busy year for Joe and Stacey, 33. Along with raising their children - Joe’s son Harry, 15, Stacey’s sons Zachary, 14, Leighton, 10, and their younger children Rex, three, and Rose, one - the pair got married this summer and have continued to transform their Essex home, dubbed Pickle Cottage. Here, Joe lets us into their Christmas plans, what the kids are hoping for this…

A cruel experiment To The Guardian As people who were detained indefinitely in Australia’s offshore camps on Nauru and Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, and as professionals who were employed there, we are deeply concerned that the UK Government will attempt this week to grant itself the same power to send people seeking asylum to offshore detention centres. We have watched as the UK Government has drafted legislation that allows for the indefinite detention offshore of women, men and children; refused a probing amendment to exclude survivors of trafficking and torture; and ignored the failings and financial costs of the Australian experiment, which saw the Australian government spend £8.6bn to detain 3,127 people in appalling conditions, while failing to end dangerous boat journeys. Two of us lost a combined 13 years of our lives…

“This attack highlights a significant problem with the way services such as YouTube are designed” The recent attack on Linus Tech Tips shows that YouTube needs to update its security procedures. Plus, why the pub will always win over zero inbox Another day, another YouTube channel hack. This time it was Linus Tech Tips, one of the more prolific YouTubers. Linus and team lost control of multiple channels that they run, and the miscreants decided to delist most of the huge library of videos stored there, and also to start posting videos of their own. Fortunately, Linus and co took back control of the channels quite quickly; YouTube support was apparently a big help, but this should be no surprise for a channel that has 15.3 million subscribers and nearly 7 billion video…

When Brooklyn Beckham and Nicola Peltz said “I do” in front of their nearest and dearest in April this year, it was an occasion of sheer joy for both families. But in the wake of their extravagant Floridian wedding – which was held at the Peltz's mansion in Palm Beach – there has been a seemingly ever bigger divide growing between the Beckhams and the newlywed couple. And now, insiders say that despite initial hopes that the festive season could be a healing time, there's been more tension over Christmas plans with the Beckhams’ eldest son, 23, and Nicola, 27, very likely spending it apart from David, 47, and Victoria. A source says, “Vic has been dealt a massive blow with Nicola announcing that she and Brooklyn will not be spending Christmas…

Are cats befuddled by mice? The sight of cats playing with mice before killing them can be disturbing; but it may be the result of a strategy mice have acquired to help them escape, says the New Scientist. When mice are caught they produce sweat chemicals called lactones – which are similar to the nepetalactone molecules found in catnip. This comes from the herbaceous plant Nepeta cataria, and when cats get a whiff of it, it triggers the release of beta-endorphins in their bodies, which sends them wild: they chew on the leaves, they roll around, shake their heads, they drool and become slightly sedated. Feline expert Prof Benjamin Hart, of UC Davis Veterinary School, California, suggests that mice may have evolved to excrete lactones when stressed because it has a…

What happened Italy has elected its most right-wing government since the Second World War, headed by a party with roots in the country’s fascist past. The coalition led by the hard-line Brothers of Italy won a clear majority in both houses of parliament; and the party itself, which was founded only ten years ago, took 26% of the vote, more than five times its share at the last election in 2018. Its leader, Giorgia Meloni, 45, is set to become Italy’s first female prime minister. Her campaign had emphasised traditional family values, tax cuts, euroscepticism and hostility to immigration. The party’s main rival on the right, the League, led by Matteo Salvini, saw its vote almost halved. It will now be a junior member of Meloni’s coalition, with Forza Italia, led by…