The scent of rosemary stirs childhood memories and inspires this rustic dish of hunter’s chicken cooked in the style of the southern Roman countrysideI once saw a woman pull a plant from a bed, then put it in her handbag. I must have been about eight, and visiting a garden – probably one padding a National Trust house. Either my brother or sister had fallen over, because we were all crouched on the gravel, and Mum was examining a knee. While she pulled things out of her bag on one side of a flowerbed, so did a much older woman on the other side. Namely, a small trowel, which she used to dig up a plant and its wispy roots, and a plastic bag to receive the plant, which she then dropped into her open handbag. Now, I probably wouldn’t remember anything about this particular incident were it not for what happened next. As the woman snapped her handbag shut, she looked up, and straight at me. She held my eyes for a few seconds before breaking into a small smile that was both sheepish and victorious. I found myself smiling back and, as I did so, I understood that she was stealing the plant and that now I was her accomplice! After all, I, too, had a handful of leaves and gravel in my pocket.It is human nature, I know, that of the billions of memories stored and indexed in our frontal lobes, it is the ones with high emotion that repeat on us most often. In this case, it is both guilt and excitement at having witnessed a garden crime, and also admiration at how brazen it all was, to bring a trowel and a bag, and to dig in broad daylight. Later, we would see the same woman in the coffee shop eating coffee cake, her bag hanging on the chair just metres from a National Trust volunteer. Continue reading...

Benjamin and Blanca, 41 and 40, hit it off after their first meeting, but didn’t meet up again for another year. They are now married and live in LABenjamin Speed was on holiday in Los Angeles when his friend suggested he meet Blanca Lista, a film producer. “I am a composer working in the film and TV industry, and he thought we’d have common interests,” Benjamin remembers. Blanca set aside some time one afternoon for the meeting. “I noticed he was handsome and radiated confidence, which was very attractive.” Benjamin instantly fell for her and asked her out via email, but she turned him down. “I thought he was just passing through town and I had my mum staying at the time,” she says. Benjamin says he returned home to Australia feeling “really sad”.A year later, in September 2012, Blanca was offered the chance to visit Australia for work. She visited four states over the course of her month-long trip, ending in New South Wales. Once there, she visited Sydney, where Benjamin was living. “Our old mutual friend recommended getting in touch again, so I wrote to him.” He was delighted to hear from Blanca and took her to his favourite restaurant in Chinatown. Blanca had been due to leave the following day, but before their meeting she extended her trip another 24 hours. “I think I already knew I would want more time with him.” Continue reading...

Guy Brice Parfait Kolelas, who urged voters to ‘fight for change’, died as he was being flown to France for treatmentThe Republic of the Congo’s main presidential opposition candidate, Guy Brice Parfait Kolelas, has died from coronavirus aged 60.Kolelas died on Sunday of Covid-19 as he was being flown to France for treatment, his campaign director said on Monday, the day after presidential elections. Continue reading...

Critics say handing police and home secretary more discretionary powers will undermine civil libertiesThe police, crime, sentencing and courts bill has come under scrutiny after the handling of the Sarah Everard vigils. What are the bill’s provisions and why is it generating so much controversy? Continue reading...

Philippines defence chief says vessels at Whitsun reef are manned by militias rather than fishermen, and accuses Beijing of ‘provocation’The Philippines’ defence chief has demanded more than 200 Chinese vessels he said were manned by militias leave a South China Sea reef claimed by Manila, saying their presence was a “provocative action of militarising the area.”“We call on the Chinese to stop this incursion and immediately recall these boats violating our maritime rights and encroaching into our sovereign territory,” defence secretary Delfin Lorenzana said in a statement on Sunday, adding without elaborating that the Philippines would uphold its sovereign rights. Continue reading...

Cases of coronavirus reached record highs on the weekend, as more than 120 hospital staff in Port Moresby hospital test positive

Heavy rains across New South Wales have brought the worst flooding in half a century in some areas, forcing thousands to evacuate and damaging hundreds of houses.People in parts of north-west Sydney were ordered to flee their houses in the middle of the night as fast-moving waters caused widespread destruction. Several dams, including the Warragamba Dam, Sydney's main water supply, spilled over, causing river levels to surge.‘We are now particularly worried around that Hawkesbury Nepean area. The Warragamba Dam did start to spill yesterday afternoon with the rain coming into the catchment area and that is affecting the low-laying areas of the Hawkesbury Nepean,’ said Carlene York, New South Wales’s state emergency commissioner.

EU cancels in-person summit as politicians across Europe voice concerns about health systems becoming overwhelmed

Local pilot scheme led to a change in government policy on police data to help tackle abuse

Exclusive: interview will add to view that deployment of elite SBS was ‘over-reaction’ by UK authoritiesFurther questions have arisen over a decision to deploy special forces against a group of seven asylum seekers accused of hijacking an oil tanker after one of them told the Guardian they only approached the ship’s crew because they believed they had been abandoned to drown.Politicians and human rights campaigners have called for an inquiry into the incident, which happened off the coast of the Isle of Wight on 25 October, on board the Nave Andromeda, a Liberian-registered ship owned by the Greek shipping company Navios. Continue reading...

Lira could plunge 15%, analysts warn, after Turkey’s president risks destabilises fragile economy with removal of governorThe Turkish lira could plunge up to 15% in an “ugly reaction” when financial markets reopen on Monday, analysts have warned, after president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sacked the country’s central bank chief days after a sharp rise in interest rates.With one expert calling the decision “as bad as Brexit”, Erdoğan shocked global investors by removing the bank chief after only five months and replacing him with a party loyalist. Continue reading...

Pro-Beijing politicians accuse newly built M+ Museum of breaching the sweeping national security lawAfter successfully muzzling Hong Kong’s democracy protests and opposition, Beijing’s loyalists have warned art institutions about their collections as they seek to impose mainland-style orthodoxy on culture and purge the city of dissent.Newly built on Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour, M+ Museum aims to rival western contemporary heavyweights like London’s Tate Modern and New York’s MoMA. Continue reading...

Government’s advice that victims of domestic violence should use super to escape abusers a stark contrast, Kristina Keneally says

Residents along Hawkesbury River told to evacuate in the middle of the night as NSW braces for another day of wild weatherPeople in flood-hit areas of NSW have been told to leave their homes in the middle of the night as the state’s extreme rain event continues.The heavy rain kept falling overnight and into Sunday morning as rivers across NSW and near Sydney overflowed or threatened to flood. Continue reading...

As the popular BBC drama returns, a former crime reporter takes a look at the reality of fighting police corruptionLast week, an officer from South Wales police received formal notification that they were under investigation regarding their dealings with a man who had been arrested and held overnight in a cell in Cardiff.The suspect had been released from custody the following morning then found dead shortly afterwards. The investigation is to focus on whether the level of force used by the officer was “necessary, proportionate and reasonable” in the circumstances. Continue reading...

The prime minister is under pressure to resist an ‘excess of caution’ as a third wave of infections grips Europe

The force upheld 119 cases among 600 complaints; they included an officer who was sacked after having sex with a rape victimAn extraordinary catalogue of sexual misconduct allegations against Metropolitan police officers, including claims that one had sex with a rape victim and another assaulted a domestic abuse survivor, are revealed in documents obtained by the Observer.The disclosures will intensify pressure on the Met after its officers manhandled women at last Saturday’s vigil for Sarah Everard where hundreds demanded the right to be safe on London’s streets. Continue reading...

In 15 years of living together, Danie Tregonning and Mark Perkins have only spent two nights apart – but the pair still know not to ‘smother each other’Names: Danie Tregonning and Mark Perkins

Today’s snapshot of Britain will see many reject church as immoral or irrelevant, academics predictThe “post-Christian era” in the UK will be cemented by data emerging from Sunday’s census which is expected to show further generational disengagement from organised religion, according to a leading academic.The once-a-decade snapshot of the country has included a voluntary question about religion since 2001. In 2011, returns across England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland showed 59.3% ticking Christianity, a fall from 71.6% a decade earlier. Continue reading...

Incompetence elsewhere in Europe can’t hide the prime minister’s ineptitude•You can order your own print of this cartoon Continue reading...

Guards fired three teargas canisters into a crowded hangar to end a protest by the migrants, killing at least 45 peopleYemen’s Houthi rebels on Saturday broke their silence on the cause of a fire that tore through a detention centre for migrants earlier this month, killing at least 45 people, mostly Ethiopian migrants.The rebels acknowledged that guards fired three teargas canisters into a crowded hangar in the capital, Sana’a, trying to end a protest by the migrants. Continue reading...

As we hit the first anniversary of lockdown, I realise it’s people and places that I’m really hungry forThere were two branches of Thorntons in Sheffield when I was growing up, but because only one of them was by a stop for our bus, family shopping trips always involved, until I was in possession of hard cash myself, a certain amount of faux-casual, ruthlessly opportunistic manipulation. Basically, if you could persuade your mum to take this route (as opposed to that route) around town, you’d wind up at the aforementioned bus stop rather than the very bleak one opposite Barry Noble’s Roxy Nite Spot, at which point there was every chance that she would buy you a quarter of special toffee as you waited for the number 51. The best strategy was to look meekly un-needy; to breathe in the buttery smells wafting from its door while never actually asking for the goods themselves. Pleased by your forbearance, the offer would then be made – unless the bus appeared first, in which case you’d have to make do with a corned beef sandwich back at home.I thought about those long ago shopping trips as I read the obituaries of Tony Thornton, the chocolate maker’s former chairman, who died in January (his grandfather founded the company, which recently announced plans to close all its shops, in Sheffield in 1911). Ah, for the days when my idea of an unimprovably posh chocolate was a Viennese truffle. But in these times, thinking is not enough, is it? As we arrive, pale-faced and blinking, at the first anniversary of the first lockdown, I’m beset by sudden cravings – urgent longings on which I must act immediately. Putting down the newspaper, I ran to my desk. Minutes later, I’d added a bag of special toffee to my weekly supermarket haul, where it joined various other items I haven’t eaten in years, the most embarrassing of which was … actually, I can’t bear to tell you that. Continue reading...

Police order crowds to disperse after demonstrators gather in Hyde Park for Piers Corbyn speech

The chef and TV presenter on being lectured by his siblings, what to drink while playing backgammon – and cooking for his dogI have a painting of an old lady stirring a pot on a fire in a West Indian kitchen, cooking with her children. It used to hang in my mum’s kitchen and now I’ve got it in mine. It’s lovely and tells of yesteryear.My father was an entertainer and had lots of people in showbiz – like Des O’Connor – round in the front room. Mum used to make them snacks and nibbles and I’d watch the reactions of appreciation and hear the banter. Continue reading...

Limited supply of chocolate eggs launched by former Sinn Féin president only available in BelfastGerry Adams has launched his latest bid for Irish unity, this time in the form of a chocolate egg.In a video shared on Twitter, the former Sinn Féin president unveiled a “very, very, very special package that we have put together at considerable expense” – a chocolate egg wrapped in a sheet of paper that says #Time4Unity. Continue reading...

The Costa-winning author on enjoying Sade with a glass of wine, Line of Duty and why the Caribbean’s female writers need to be heardMonique Roffey is an award-winning writer born in Trinidad in 1965 whose novels include The White Woman on a Green Bicycle and House of Ashes, which were shortlisted, respectively, for the Orange and the Costa prizes. She is also a senior lecturer at Manchester Writing School. Her sixth novel, The Mermaid of Black Conch, won the Costa book of the year and is shortlisted for the 2021 Rathbones Folio prize, announced on 24 March. Continue reading...

From praise from Paul McCartney to writing music for Game of Thrones, the musician has had an extraordinary career so far. She discusses her next step - an album embracing the natural world through electronica

The author, 75, on escaping into books, becoming politicised as a teacher, and not knowing what will happen tomorrowMy first memory is of my mother having serious surgery. I would be about three or four at the time, and because my father was an alcoholic with many problems, including violence, I was sent to stay with a friend of my mother’s while she recovered. Our home was a chaotic house, but here things were totally different. Every night, when she put me to bed, she gave me a cherry ice-cream soda and read me a story. There were no books or storytelling in our house.I associate books with stability and peace – all the right things in life Continue reading...

The novelist on trying to escape Patrick Melrose, recovering from long Covid and putting to rest rumours that he wrote the eulogy for Princess DianaMost interviews in the lockdown era are conducted by video, but the novelist Edward St Aubyn and I are talking by old-fashioned telephone because, his publicist warns me beforehand, “Teddy doesn’t do Zoom.” Of course he doesn’t. In truth, it’s a surprise that Teddy does telephones, because he often gives the impression that his presence in prosaic 21st-century London – as opposed to early 20th-century Russia alongside his great-uncle Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, or 19th-century Britain with his great-grandfather, the Liberal MP Sir John St Aubyn, first Baron St Levan – is an administrative error shortly to be rectified.His novels satirise the foibles of the world around him with the savagery of a true insider, such as when he takes on the petty snobberies of social climbers, and the bemusement of one who finds the modern world a frequent source of frustration. Mother’s Milk – the fourth book in his Patrick Melrose series – was nominated for the Booker prize in 2006; it didn’t win, but he metabolised the experience into 2014’s Lost for Words, in which he described literary prize-givings with the horrified amusement of an alien gazing upon bizarre human rituals. (Alas, not even mockery could save him from being subjected to such indignities again: Lost for Words won the Wodehouse prize for comic fiction.) Continue reading...

Celebrate Nowruz, or Persian new year, with a traditional spread of broad bean dip, stuffed spiced trout and herbed riceToday is Nowruz, the celebration of spring and renewal that marks the beginning of the Persian new year. The celebrations usually start weeks beforehand, though, with what you might call a spring clean and laying down a haft-sin, which is a display of seven items that start with the letter “s”. In recent years, people have personalised their displays in what is probably my favourite part of the whole celebration, because each item on display symbolises a wish for the coming year.Celebrations traditionally continue for two weeks that are full of family, friends and amazing food – and lots of it, too. There’ll be fresh herbs in abundance, symbolising renewal, fish for life, eggs for fertility and, of course, plenty of sugary treats to start your year on a sweet note. Unfortunately, the lockdown took its toll on last year’s celebration, and will do so again this year as well, but we will still put out a haft-sin, cook a celebratory meal for two and video call our loved ones to wish them sal-e nu mobarak! Continue reading...

Scientists say increasing cases on continent show UK must be cautious in easing restrictions

City battered by rain as storms across the state trigger floods, a mini-tornado in Chester Hill and hamper Covid vaccine deliveriesSwathes of suburban Sydney were on alert for dangerous flooding after the city’s main dam spilled over on Saturday, with severe storms across New South Wales also triggering a mini-tornado, evacuations, and hampering coronavirus vaccine delivery.Warragamba Dam spilled over at about 3pm on Saturday and daily rainfall records for parts of the mid north coast for March were broken by more than 100mm. Continue reading...

Duke writes about his mother’s death in book for bereaved children as part of National Day of Reflection

The potato gets a makeover in these salads: one a Nepalese dish singing with tangy spices, the other a riot of smoky tomato and citrusThe starting point for most of my recipes are the vegetables that are in season. Truth be told, there are one or two vegetables that make me wonder how many more ways they can be seen in a new light (not that I don’t adore it, but sorry, asparagus), but not the potato. What some call the “humble” spud, I think of as the most versatile, ever-surprising and flexible of vegetables. This comes not only from how different one variety is from the next – from waxy to floury, nutty to creamy, dry to buttery, and so on – but also from how much can be done with each type of potato itself. Even zooming in on one world, as I do today with potato salad, merely opens new worlds of possibility, texture and flavour. Continue reading...

The actor on stage fright, entitlement and losing his poodleBorn in Kent, Orlando Bloom, 44, played Legolas in The Lord Of The Rings and Will Turner in the Pirates Of The Caribbean films. His latest movie, Retaliation, is released digitally on 26 March. He lives in Santa Barbara with his partner, the singer Katy Perry, and their daughter; he also has a son with his former wife, the model Miranda Kerr.When were you happiest?

‘I never belonged’: this is the most illuminating book yet written about the spy and his defection to the Soviet UnionGeorge Blake’s story, Simon Kuper writes, is “known only to a few people and then only insofar as anything can be known for certain in the world of deceit that is spying”. His first assertion is questionable; there are now eight books devoted to Blake on my shelves, including that by the anti-war campaigners Michael Randle and Pat Pottle on their role and motives in helping his dramatic escape from prison. But this is the most illuminating account by far.Kuper’s second point must be true – neither side in the world of double agents has an interest in coming clean. MI6 files on Blake remain suppressed, merely to avoid embarrassment, one suspects. There is nothing to suggest that Blake’s death in December at the age of 98 will persuade MI6 to adopt a more relaxed attitude towards the files they hold on this truly extraordinary case. Continue reading...

When Yaa Gyasi’s book rocketed up the charts after last year’s Black Lives Matter protests, she grieved. Treating authors of colour as tools for self-improvement is an impoverished response to centuries of harmIn 2018, two other novelists and I were being driven back from a reception in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, to our hotel in downtown Detroit, when we saw a black man getting arrested on the side of the road. The driver of our car, a white woman who had spent the earlier part of the drive ranting about how Coleman Young, Detroit’s first black mayor, had ruined the city, looked at the lone black man surrounded by police officers with their guns drawn and said: “It’s good they’ve got so many on him. You never know what they’ll do.”Two years before, I had published my first novel, Homegoing, a book that is, among other things, about the afterlife of the transatlantic slave trade. The book thrust me into a kind of recognition that is uncommon to fiction writers. I was on late-night shows and photographed for fashion magazines. I did countless interviews, very little writing. The bulk of my work life was spent touring the country giving various readings and lectures. I spent about 180 days of 2017 either at an event, or travelling to or from one. By the time that car ride in Michigan came around, I was exhausted, not just by the travel but by something that is more difficult to articulate – the dissonance of the black spotlight, of being revered in one way and reviled in another, a revulsion that makes clear the hollowness of the reverence. Continue reading...

Pandemic likely to skew answers on work and health in England, Wales and Northern Ireland

Floods to delay Covid vaccine deliveries as more than 400mm of rain falls on parts of mid north coast. This blog is paused

When Caitlin McNamara launched a literary festival in Abu Dhabi, she found herself plunged into a busy, exciting world. Then, she alleges, she was raped by an Emirati royalThis time last year, the world watched as Harvey Weinstein was led out of a New York courtroom, having finally been convicted of sexual assault. For many of us, it signified a hopeful shift in the law’s blemished record of allowing rich men to get away with treating women’s bodies as a perk of power.I watched this historic ruling on TV alone, at a beach resort in Oman. The sun had set over the Indian Ocean and I could hear honeymooning couples clinking glasses at the poolside bar below. As the coverage rolled, I scrolled through Instagram watching the man who had sexually assaulted me the week before, Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, be applauded on to a platform I had worked hard to build. Continue reading...

Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan discuss the new Disney+ series, patriotism and Chadwick Boseman’s legacySebastian Stan, AKA Bucky Barnes, AKA The Winter Soldier, is attempting to characterise his relationship with his on-screen partner Anthony Mackie, AKA Sam Wilson, AKA The Falcon: “I grew up with buddy comedies like 48 Hours, Coming to America, you know, Lethal Weapon, Turner and Hooch. All those movies I grew up with. So for me, it was like I was making an 80s film with Anthony Mackie.”Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips Continue reading...

One victim found stabbed at a house on Friday night, while two other victims were discovered at another address nearbyPolice have launched an investigation after the deaths of two women and a man in Newtownabbey north of Belfast.The PSNI said officers were called to reports of a stabbing at a residence in the Derrycoole Way area at around 11pm on Friday, where a woman was pronounced dead. Continue reading...

The hospital worker had received two doses of an unspecified vaccine, report says, as much of France re-enters lockdown

Children’s writer who nearly died from virus joins Joan Bakewell and other public figures in demanding investigation

The chocolate retailer’s closures shows businesses can’t make money out of trips down memory laneFor many Britons the Thorntons name conjures up happy childhood memories of sucking on toffee and boxes of continental chocolates presented with a flourish on special occasions.However, businesses do not make money out of trips down memory lane and this week the retailer said its 61 shops were to close permanently, affecting 600 jobs, blaming the “changing dynamics of the high street” and the impact of the coronavirus lockdowns on sales. Continue reading...

Plans to reopen to vaccinated tourists include short quarantine in popular holiday spots like Phuket and Koh SamuiThailand’s Phuket island used to vibrate with life. Before the pandemic, March was part of peak season and the resort’s long white beaches were packed with tourists from Europe, Australia, North America and China. At night, backpackers would flock to beach-front bars and on the hills stretching inland wealthy tourists would eat at five-star restaurants.Today, Phuket is a ghost town. The shockwaves of Covid-19 have reduced daily visitor numbers from up to 50,000 down to just hundreds. But there is hope that plans to bring tourists back could change the fortunes of the beach town, and the country. Continue reading...

Omena, 26, teacher, meets Felix, 28, administratorWhat were you hoping for?

Russell Hill and Carol Clay are thought to be dead. But technically they’re still just missingA year ago, two friends in their 70s went missing in some of the wildest terrain in Australia: Wonnangatta Valley. It’s the sort of place where you might go days without seeing anyone, with only kangaroos and snakes for company. A place of snow-capped mountains – even in summer. A place of bushfires and danger.The sort of place where it’s easy to get lost. Continue reading...

National security law dating from military rule has been used to detain or investigate critics of Brazil’s presidentProtesters against Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, have defied police in the capital after the latest round of arrests of the leader’s critics under a dictatorship-era national security law.Four demonstrators were detained in Brasilia on Thursday after calling Bolsonaro “genocidal” for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and displaying a cartoon depicting the president as a Nazi. But on Friday, police quietly watched an hour-long protest against Bolsonaro in the capital staged by about 40 people. Continue reading...