Received wisdom says older cheese is better, you should pair it with red wine and wrap any leftovers in clingfilm. Here is what the experts say‘I hate to dictate to people. I don’t like too many rules,” says Iain Mellis, a cheesemonger of 40 years, with cheese shops bearing his name scattered across Scotland. Mellis has spent his life trying to make artisan cheese more accessible; the last thing he wants is to be so prescriptive that people are put off.Yet the world of good cheese is already mired in misunderstandings that, at best, detract from its enjoyment and, at worst, result in its ruination. Cheese stored incorrectly is easily marred, while the mistaken beliefs that you need red wine, specialist knives or even a cheeseboard to enjoy it only reinforce cheese’s recherché reputation. Continue reading...
Being a beautiful watery creature is a challenge if you have no technique or breath control – and can’t hear a word beneath your floral swimming capI am too old for Disney’s Little Mermaid. My sister was the right age, but our right-on 80s household was a princess-free zone (though The Little Mermaid is arguably one of the more subversive films in the canon, with its exploration of identity and conformity and nods to drag culture). I have, however, gleaned that the transformation from mermaid to human is a risky business; I believe a crab says so.But what about the reverse? Because today, I, a human, am becoming a mermaid, thanks to Donna Rumney of Mermaids at Jesmond Pool, in Newcastle upon Tyne. Donna is booked out with children’s mermaid parties but adult sessions are popular, too: everyone wants to be a mermaid now. There are mermaid pageants and conventions; people pay thousands of pounds for custom-made silicone tails. Something about that in-between state, the grace and fluidity, appeals when life on land feels so hidebound and joyless. I love the idea of achieving a state of otherworldly aquatic grace; what could possibly go wrong? Continue reading...
Photographer Andrea Capello, who became a British citizen in 2021, wanted to know more about the experience of other people who had chosen to do the sameOn 28 July 2021, I became a British citizen. I’ve been living in the UK for 18 years, and never considered taking this big step until now. I am proudly European and, I must admit, Brexit played a massive role in my decision. Once I started the application process, something happened to me; collecting payslips, P60s and several documents from decades ago triggered a range of conflicting emotions.I realised how much living in this country changed me and shaped my character. I became an adult here, I made strong friendships and met extraordinary people. I learned how challenging it is to live away from your family, how rewarding it is to live in a multicultural society, and how contradictory and yet exhilarating British culture is. I then started to ask myself other questions: why did I come here in the first place? Is the UK still the same country as when I arrived? How do other British/European citizens like me feel about it and what are their hopes for the future?Sonia Vico, a multidisciplinary artist from Valencia, Spain. British citizen since June 2021. Continue reading...
by Harriet Sherwood and Andrew Roth in Moscow on (#5SQ5F)
Members of Belarus Free Theatre say authorities ‘are more scared of artists than of political statements’For 16 years, the Belarus Free Theatre has advocated for freedom of expression, equality and democracy through underground performances from ad hoc locations to audiences hungry for an alternative voice to the country’s repressive dictator, Alexander Lukashenko.Now the banned company has taken the momentous decision to relocate outside Belarus, saying the risk of reprisals against its members is too great for it to continue its cultural resistance under the Lukashenko regime. Continue reading...
by Presented by Michael Safi with Joe Parkin Daniels on (#5SQ47)
Animals brought illegally to Colombia by the drug kingpin have been allowed to roam free and are now disrupting the fragile ecosystemMyths and legends continue to surround Colombia’s most notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar 26 years after his death. But his legacy has had an unexpectedly disastrous impact on some of the country’s fragile ecosystems. A herd of more than 80 hippos roam free, the descendants of animals smuggled to Colombia from Africa in the 1980s and now flourishing in the wild.Reporter Joe Parkin Daniels tells Michael Safi that when Escobar was shot dead by police on a rooftop in his hometown of Medellín, the authorities seized his estate and the animals on it. While most were shipped to zoos, the logistics of moving his four hippos proved insurmountable and they were left to wander the Andes. Continue reading...
Venues that say they respect personal choices may sound community-minded but really they undermine efforts to keep everyone safeLike most Aucklanders, I can’t wait to get out of the city. After more than three months in lockdown, I’m keen for a break. Last summer, my partner and I went to Tauranga. We had so much fun that we’re planning to return – but this time, things will be different.As Aotearoa New Zealand shifts from the Covid-19 “alert level” system to the new “traffic light” system, hospitality venues have been given a choice. Under the “red” and “orange” settings, they can welcome customers inside, but only if they’re willing to check vaccine passes. If they don’t want to do that, their service has to be contactless. Continue reading...
Former minister is surprise winner of Les Républicains’ nomination, beating high-profile names such as Michel BarnierFrance’s rightwing opposition party has chosen a female candidate for next year’s presidential election for the first time in its history.Valérie Pécresse emerged victorious after two rounds of voting by members of Les Républicains that unexpectedly saw favourites including “Monsieur Brexit” Michel Barnier knocked out in the first vote last week. Continue reading...
The release of filmed confession of Somerset woman jailed for killing husband prejudiced her hearing, says lawyerA woman jailed for at least 18 years after being found guilty of murdering her husband is to appeal against her conviction on the grounds that video and audio evidence released into the public domain midway through her trial impeded her right to a fair hearing.Penelope Jackson, 66, was found guilty of murder in October at Bristol crown court after a jury of eight women and four men delivered a 10-2 majority verdict. Continue reading...
Vehicle travelling to wedding keels over and sinks in fast-flowing waters in Kitui CountyMore than 20 people drowned on Saturday when a bus travelling to a wedding in Kenya was swept away by fast-flowing waters as it tried to cross a flooded river.Onlookers screamed as the yellow school bus hired to take a church choir and other revellers to the ceremony in Kitui County keeled over and sank as the driver tried to navigate the surging waters. Continue reading...
Ultraviolent gangs are threatening to subvert the rule of law in Sweden. We head out with police in a Gothenburg suburb to find out what it could mean for the rest of Europe and the UKThey began heading for the shopping mall exit when they saw the police. One of the four gang members, a local rapper called Lelo whose music videos venerate handguns and violence, turned to exchange pleasantries with Mike, an officer with the Swedish police.Lelo and Mike have history. During a recent riot outside the mall that prompted a killing that could easily have led to another six, Lelo was among 32 arrested. In his subsequent court appearance, Mike had to intervene as Lelo’s posturing threatened to boil over. Continue reading...
The market in no- and low-alcohol drinks is booming in the UK as more people swap the festive hangover for mindful drinkingThe concept of a Christmas without champagne, wine or whisky is counterintuitive to many. But this festive season, growing numbers of Britons are eschewing alcohol and gearing up for a teetotal – or at least partially so – celebration, according to retailers.Sales in the no- and low-alcohol category, also known as “NoLo”, are expected to grow by 17% in the UK this year, reports IWSR Drinks Market Analysis, and will hit almost 19 million cases and a value of $741m (£558m). Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Tesco all report that sales of NoLo drinks have seen huge rises year on year, a trend they expect to continue in the run-up to Christmas, amid a rise in “mindful drinking”. Continue reading...
From best friend Carl Reiner to wife Anne Bancroft, the great comic has had to face great loss. But even in the middle of a pandemic, the 95-year-old is still finding ways to laughIn February 2020, I joined Mel Brooks at the Beverly Hills home of his best friend, the director and writer Carl Reiner, for their nightly tradition of eating dinner together and watching the gameshow Jeopardy!. It was one of the most emotional nights of my life. Brooks, more than anyone, shaped my idea of Jewish-American humour, emphasising its joyfulness, cleverness and in-jokiness. Compared with his stellar 60s and 70s, when he was one of the most successful movie directors in the world, with The Producers and Blazing Saddles, and later his glittering 2000s, when his musical adaptation of The Producers dominated Broadway and the West End, his 80s and 90s are considered relatively fallow years. But his 1987 Star Wars spoof, Spaceballs, was the first Brooks movie I saw, and nothing was funnier to this then nine-year-old than that nonstop gag-a-thon (forget Yoda and the Force; in Spaceballs, Mel Brooks is Yoghurt and he wields the greatest power of all, the Schwartz).I loved listening to Brooks and Reiner – whose films included The Jerk and The Man With Two Brains – reminisce about their eight decades of friendship in which, together and separately, they created some of the greatest American comedy of the 20th century. The deep love between them was palpable, with Brooks, then 93, gently prompting 97-year-old Reiner on some of his anecdotes. It was impossible not to be moved by their friendship, and hard not to feel anxiety about the prospect of one of them someday having to dine on his own. Continue reading...
Mohammad Ureza Azizi, 57, to face court charged with murdering Malak ‘Katy’ Adabzadeh who was found dead in house on 25 NovemberA man has been charged with the murder of a 47-year-old woman whose body was found at a house in Stoneycroft, Liverpool.Emergency services were called to The Green around 4.55pm on 25 November to reports Malak Adabzadeh had been found in a house, Merseyside police said. Continue reading...
by Angelique Chrisafis in Paris and Stephanie Kirchga on (#5SNCT)
Human rights groups criticise French president’s planned meeting with crown prince in Saudi ArabiaHuman rights groups have criticised Emmanuel Macron’s planned meeting with Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, which will mark the first one-on-one public meeting of a major western leader with the crown prince since the state-sponsored assassination of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
A prosecutor in Michigan filed involuntary manslaughter charges on Friday against the parents of a boy who is accused of killing four students at Oxford high school. 'Gun ownership is a right but with that right comes great responsibility,' Karen McDonald said at a press conference on Friday morning.The parents were summoned to the school a few hours before the shooting occurred after a teacher found a drawing of a gun, a person bleeding and the words 'help me', McDonald revealed
Eduardo Cabrita’s driver accused of negligent homicide and speeding after death nearly five months agoPortugal’s interior minister has stepped down nearly five months after his driver was involved in a car crash that killed a road worker while the government official was on the back seat.Eduardo Cabrita, who joined prime minister’s Antonio Costa’s cabinet in 2015, when the Socialist party came to power, had been repeatedly urged to resign since the fatal accident. Continue reading...
by Robert Booth Social affairs correspondent on (#5SNAD)
Sponsorship deal with Kingspan sparked furious backlash from the Grenfell communityLewis Hamilton’s Mercedes Formula One team is facing growing pressure to scrap a sponsorship deal with a firm that made combustible insulation on Grenfell Tower, after the government threatened to change advertising rules.The racing team’s deal with Kingspan will mean the logo of the firm that made some of the foam boards used on the tower will be emblazoned on the nose cone of cars driven by Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas starting at this weekend’s Saudi Arabia Grand Prix. Continue reading...
Connor Gibson, 19, offered no plea in appearance at Hamilton sheriff court and was remanded in custodyConnor Gibson has been charged with murdering and sexually assaulting his sister Amber Gibson, whose body was found in a park in South Lanarkshire.Connor Gibson, 19, appeared at Hamilton sheriff court on Friday accused of murder, sexual assault by penetration and an attempt to pervert the course of justice. Continue reading...
The new National leader is a millionaire, anti-abortion, ex-CEO who owns seven homes and is against increases to the minimum wageIn the end, the party of business picked the businessman. Former National party leader Simon Bridges is out – again – and former Air New Zealand chief executive and MP for Botany, Christopher Luxon, is in.In hindsight it seems like it was always a done deal. Sir John Key, the former prime minister and National party leader, was a prominent supporter while outgoing leader Judith Collins was running an “anyone but Bridges” policy, effectively handing the leadership to Luxon (and making him a hostage to her and her faction’s demands in the process). Political commentators were picking Luxon as a future leader before entering parliament and, only one year later, here he is. Continue reading...
Floods and landslides in British Columbia devastated livestock in ‘easily the costliest natural disaster in Canada’s history’Floods and landslides that battered the Canadian province of British Columbia last month killed hundreds of thousands of farm animals and forced nearly 15,000 people from their homes, new figures revealed, as officials described the scope of the devastation – and the challenges of recovery.As many as 628,000 chickens, 420 dairy cattle and 12,000 pigs were killed by the floods. An estimated 3 million bees in 110 hives were also submerged. Continue reading...
Europe says new Iranian regime has walked back on previous progress and advanced its nuclear programmeThe first formal talks between western powers and the new Iranian regime on how to restore the 2015 nuclear deal were suspended on Friday, with Europe warning that Iran had walked back all previous diplomatic progress and fast-forwarded its nuclear programme.It now seems possible the talks will collapse next week if Iran does not modify its demands, potentially risking an attack on Iran by Israel. Continue reading...
Anne Schreiber describes her son Thomas’s actions and character to the court from a Salisbury spinal unitThe partner of a multimillionaire who was left paralysed when her son stabbed her repeatedly has described the moment she turned from the kitchen sink to find him brandishing a knife in front of her as if they were in a crime film.Giving evidence from a spinal unit, Anne Schreiber said her son, Thomas Schreiber, looked like a wild-eyed stranger as he assaulted her at the mansion she shared with Sir Richard Sutton, who was killed in the attack. Continue reading...
Foreign ministry says US, UK and others trying to ‘economically strangle’ BelarusBelarus has threatened to retaliate after the US, UK and other western countries introduced a new round of sanctions over its government’s human rights abuses and the orchestration of a migration crisis on the border with Europe.“The goal of this entire policy is to economically strangle Belarus,” the Belarusian foreign ministry said on Friday, while the country’s authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, called the pressure “unprecedented”. Continue reading...
His vivid and moving performances, including an Olivier award-winning Richard III, made Sher one of the world’s most respected theatre actorsMichael Billington: ‘A man of staggering versatility’
It was shot in a week and premiered to 12 people, but micro-budget sci-fi movie Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes has become the breakout success of the year“We made the film in seven days, shooting non-stop from six in the evening to six in the morning. It was hell. We were always tired. And the cast and crew were always picking on me because my brain would just go completely dead at 2am every day.” Japanese film-maker Junta Yamaguchi is talking about his first feature film, Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes, which was shot almost entirely inside a real cafe in Kyoto. “We couldn’t film anything during their opening hours.”But Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes isn’t your average small-scale indie film. It’s a nicely innovative time-travel yarn that asks: in our world of remote working and Zoom calls, what if the face staring back at us from our computer was a version of ourself two minutes in the future? It’s also the latest example of the nagamawashi (long-shot) film, the micro-genre currently putting no-budget Japanese cinema on the map after the success of One Cut of the Dead – the 2017 zombie horror-comedy that became an international cult sensation, grossing over $30m (£22m) worldwide from a $25,000 budget. Continue reading...
A hundred forces staff to be based in Weardale, County Durham and 130 sent in Scotland, as thousands still have no electricityThe army has been deployed to help residents who have been without power for a week since Storm Arwen caused “catastrophic damage” to the electricity network.Durham county council said around 100 forces staff would be based in Weardale to help local people. Continue reading...
The US has struck a deal with Mexico to make asylum seekers wait south side of the border while their applications are processedThe Biden administration’s move to revive Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy will subject thousands of people to “enormous suffering” and leave them vulnerable to kidnap and rape as they languish in dangerous Mexican border cities, migration advocates have warned.After reaching a deal with Mexico, the US will by 6 December start returning asylum seekers from other Latin American countries to Mexico where they will be obliged to wait while their case is assessed. Continue reading...
A new book details how nudism began as a movement of intellectuals, feminists and artists, only to be suppressed by the state. But our attitudes to nakedness also tell us a lot about ourselvesWhen Annebella Pollen was 17, she left behind her strict Catholic upbringing for the life of a new-age hippy, living in a caravan and frolicking naked among the standing stones of Devon, while earning a living by modelling for life-drawing classes. That early experience, followed by a relationship with a bric-a-brac dealer, shaped her later life as an art historian. “I’m very interested in things that are culturally illegitimate,” says Pollen, who now teaches at the University of Brighton. “A lot of my research has been looking at objects that are despised.”Foraging trips with her partner to car-boot sales alerted her to a rich seam of 20th-century nudist literature that is still emerging from the attics of middle England: magazines whose wholesome titles – Sun Bathing Review or Health & Efficiency – concealed a complex negotiation with both public morality and the British weather. This is the subject Pollen has picked for her latest book Nudism in a Cold Climate, which tracks the movement from the spartan 1920s through the titillating 50s, when the new mass media whipped up a frenzy of moral anxiety, to the countercultural 60s and 70s, when the founding members were dying off and it all began to look a bit frowsty. Continue reading...
Creator Álex Pina and others on the appeal of the Spanish series, which comes to an end on FridayFour years of schemes, schematics, bullets, blasts, anti-capitalist allegory, remarkable contingency planning and wildly ill-advised workplace romances will come to an end on Friday with the release of the final five episodes of Netflix’s blockbuster Spanish series La Casa de Papel.The drama, known to English-speaking viewers rather more prosaically as Money Heist, follows the adventures of an inevitably motley crew of robbers who dress in red overalls and Salvador Dalí masks to plunder the Royal Mint and then the Bank of Spain. Continue reading...
New South Wales leaders are urging the public to keep coronavirus numbers in perspective as a potential locally-acquired case of the Omicron variant is investigated. NSW health minister Brad Hazzard and premier Dominic Perrottet both said the focus is shifting from the number of overall Covid-19 cases to the number of hospitalisations and ICU presentations Continue reading...
by Philip Oltermann in Berlin and Jennifer Rankin on (#5SM0R)
Military band in Berlin honours departing chancellor of 16 years, who hands over to Olaf Scholz next weekThe end of Angela Merkel’s reign as German chancellor was marked with Beethoven, a romantic chanson and an East German pop hit, all played with clockwork precision by the Bundeswehr military band.After 16 years in office, Angela Merkel is handing over to Olaf Scholz next week, and was awarded a military tattoo in her honour, the highest tribute to a civilian. Dressed in a simple black coat and black gloves, Europe’s most powerful politician looked sombre, betraying little emotion, as she watched torch-carrying soldiers in full regalia parade through the courtyard of Berlin’s defence ministry. Continue reading...
Amelie Osborn-Smith was white water rafting in the Zambezi below Victoria Falls at time of incidentA British teenager has been reportedly attacked by a crocodile while travelling with friends on a gap-year holiday in southern Africa.Amelie Osborn-Smith, from Andover, Hampshire, was white water rafting in the Zambezi below Victoria Falls in Zambia when the reptile pounced at her, MailOnline reports. Continue reading...
Though the deposed civilian prime minister has returned, the military is still calling the shotsCoups are always something other people do. So Sudan’s army chief, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has insisted that the removal and detention of the prime minister and other politicians in October “was not a coup”. Instead, it was “correcting the track of the transition” that began with the ousting of Omar al-Bashir in 2019 following mass protests, and his replacement with interim arrangements under which the military and civilians shared power, uncomfortably.The tens of thousands who protested against military rule in Khartoum and other cities on Tuesday disagree with the general’s analysis. Though the military has now reinstated the prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, his former allies see him as a Potemkin leader whose presence whitewashes rather than reverses the coup. Twelve ministers, including those for foreign affairs and justice, resigned in protest at the deal; the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), one of the leading protest groups, called it “treacherous”. The deal does not appear to mention the Forces for Freedom and Change, the civilian coalition that ousted Mr Bashir. Nor is it believed to specify when the military will hand power to an elected civilian government, though it now claims that there will be elections in 2023. Continue reading...
by Vincent Ni China affairs correspondent on (#5SK5J)
ATP and ITF steer clear of the subject of future events in a market that’s worth billions of dollarsChina has attacked the Women’s Tennis Association’s boycott in response to the treatment of Peng Shuai, as two other major international tennis associations steered clear of the subject of future events in a market that’s worth billions of dollars.Wang Wenbin, a foreign ministry spokesperson, said at a daily briefing that his government was “always firmly opposed to acts that politicise sports”. Continue reading...
Conservatives joined Liberals in unanimous vote, prompting applause in House of CommonsCanadian lawmakers have passed a motion banning the discredited practice of “conversion therapy”, in a rare show of unanimity in the country’s parliament.A surprise motion on Wednesday by the opposition Conservatives to fast-track the legislation prompted applause in the House of Commons. A handful of Liberal cabinet ministers hugged their Conservative colleagues after the vote. Continue reading...
by Robert Booth Social affairs correspondent on (#5SKJX)
F1 champion will race carrying branding of company that made combustible panels used on towerThe seven-time Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton is facing protests from Grenfell survivors over a “truly shocking” sponsorship deal that will see his racing car emblazoned with the logo of a firm that made combustible insulation used on the tower.Kingspan has been named as an official partner of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One team, for which Hamilton is the star driver, and its branding is set to feature on Hamilton’s car starting at this weekend’s Saudi Arabia Grand Prix. Continue reading...
With Final Account, the late director Luke Holland set out to obtain testimonies from those who participated in the Nazi atrocities – before their voices were lost. The result is a powerful mix of shame, denial and ghastly prideOne day in 2018, the prolific documentary producer John Battsek received a call from Diane Weyermann of Participant Media, asking him if he would travel to the East Sussex village of Ditchling to meet a 69-year-old director named Luke Holland. Weyermann said that Holland had spent several years interviewing hundreds of Germans who were in some way complicit in the Holocaust, from those whose homes neighboured the concentration camps to former members of the Waffen SS. The responses he captured ran the gamut from shame to denial to a ghastly kind of pride. Now he wanted to introduce these testimonies to a mainstream audience, and he needed help.“Luke wasn’t consciously making a film,” Battsek says. “He was amassing an archive that he hoped would have a role to play for generations to come. We had to turn it into something that has a beginning, a middle and an end.” As soon as he saw Holland’s footage, he knew it was important: “It presented an audience with a new way into this.” Continue reading...
Analysis: Duchess off Sussex says she faced ‘deception, intimidation and calculated attacks’ and suffered a miscarriageThe privacy victory over the Mail on Sunday has seemingly exacted a toll on the Duchess of Sussex, who in vigorously pursuing the case went far further than any other present-day royal in taking on the tabloid culture.The court of appeal stressed “no expense” was spared in fighting and defending the legal action over publication of extensive extracts of her private letter to her estranged father. As losers, Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), publishers of the newspaper and Mail Online, will bear the brunt. Continue reading...
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