A talking balsam flower asks an elderley yakuza to weigh up a life of violence and kindness in Baku Kinoshita’s quietly contemplative tale An original story from director Baku Kinoshita and writer Kazuya Konomoto, this is the kind of quiet, contemplative anime feature that rarely gets a theatrical release. Enveloped in the dusk, the film opens in a lonely prison cell, home to the elderly former ya...
A talking balsam flower asks an elderley yakuza to weigh up a life of violence and kindness in Baku Kinoshita’s quietly contemplative tale An original story from director Baku Kinoshita and writer Kazuya Konomoto, this is the kind of quiet, contemplative anime feature that rarely gets a theatrical release. Enveloped in the dusk, the film opens in a lonely prison cell, home to the elderly former yakuza Akutsu. Now on his deathbed, he finds an unexpected confidant in … a talking balsam flower. (The legend goes that only newborns and the dying can converse with the plant.) Over the course of one sleepless night, his life story unfolds in bursts. Thirty years prior, another balsam flower also grows in the back yard of Akutsu’s humble house, which he shares with Nana and her baby son, Kensuke. The relationship between the taciturn man and the bubbly young woman is seemingly platonic; Kensuke is not his son. Yet there are hints of romantic attraction; they share bowls of piping hot ramen noodles, play endless rounds of Reversi , and join in harmonising the Ben E King classic Stand By Me. Continue reading...
The young Vincent van Gogh spent a year in south London pursuing a fitful career as an art dealer, and may have had a relationship with his landlady or her daughter. Nicholas Wright’s 2002 play imagines this episode: in Georgia Green’s tender production, it emerges as far more than a footnote from art history. Landlady Ursula, clinging to crow-black widow’s weeds, feels her life is over. Vincent, ...
The young Vincent van Gogh spent a year in south London pursuing a fitful career as an art dealer, and may have had a relationship with his landlady or her daughter. Nicholas Wright’s 2002 play imagines this episode: in Georgia Green’s tender production, it emerges as far more than a footnote from art history. Landlady Ursula, clinging to crow-black widow’s weeds, feels her life is over. Vincent, all misdirected energy, tries to get his life started. In Wright’s telling, they share a mental perturbation: they uncover kinship in misery, then a romance that alleviates it. The snug Orange Tree stage suits Charlotte Henery’s kitchen setting, made for quiet confidences. Sunday roast turns the air savoury. Donato Wharton’s gentle sound design adds birdsong, pans puttering on the stove, the rush of Vincent’s blood at his first kiss. View image in fullscreen Niamh Cusack as Ursula with Kales as Van Gogh. Photograph: Johan Persson Jeroen Frank Kales makes a pale and knobbly Vincent. His maladroit candour is almost too much for the space, always at risk of scattering the crockery. At first sight, Niamh Cusack’s Ursula is all steady competence: hands moving swiftly over eggs and herbs. But before long, she is drawn and twitchy, Cusack’s rich-layered voice a distraught murmuration. In a time before a diagnostic vocabulary for mental illness, Wright’s characters must find other ways to describe their feelings: personal and poetic. They fall into the darkness of their soul; wretchedness casts a thick fog in every corner. The play is brimful with troubling emotion. The writing is wonderfully non-judgmental, and Green’s cast give full-hearted performances. An excellent Rawaed Asde plays the other lodger, a ferment of doubt beneath his bonhomie. Ayesha Ostler is Ursula’s vigilant daughter, and Amber van der Brugge is briskly abrasive as Vincent’s fervent young sister. The relationship is a brief, radiant interlude. Ursula sinks into lassitude, and Vincent becomes a man of sorrows. T...
When the moment came, Raheem Sterling ran out of road. At long last a few yards of space had opened up and here, advertised by a spike in the decibel level around De Kuip, was an invitation to attack the Ajax right-back Lucas Rosa. There was no doubting what his mind intended to do: go around the outside, skitter along the byline and execute in the manner that has defined a largely brilliant caree...
When the moment came, Raheem Sterling ran out of road. At long last a few yards of space had opened up and here, advertised by a spike in the decibel level around De Kuip, was an invitation to attack the Ajax right-back Lucas Rosa. There was no doubting what his mind intended to do: go around the outside, skitter along the byline and execute in the manner that has defined a largely brilliant career. For a split second the muscle memory seemed enough but Rosa’s angles were perfect and the legs had no way of compensating. Just as he had in a tighter spot before half-time, Sterling could only dribble the ball off the pitch. Four minutes later, he would be exiting it for good. Feyenoord had gone a goal down in De Klassieker to a drab, workmanlike Ajax and the unfortunate truth was that there was only one place to look. The home side’s slim pickings so far had come down the right flank, leading to a semi-presentable chance for Ayase Ueda; perhaps the 20-year-old Slovakian Leo Sauer, who ran on as Sterling trudged towards the bench, would offer a modicum of spark on the opposite side. Only 55 minutes of the Eredivisie’s showpiece occasion had passed. Jakub Moder’s late penalty meant Feyenoord took a point and, for now, pushed Sterling’s struggles down the list of local agitations. A month since his debut this is a difficult spot for Sterling and a club that demands more than it is getting. Feyenoord have no chance of overhauling the runaway leaders PSV Eindhoven and there is a sense they have done little more than stumble into second spot, which would still guarantee direct Champions League qualification. Finishing there might also keep an under-pressure Robin van Persie in the head coach job. Perhaps the stakes are too high to bank on microwaving match fitness into a player still thawing from a half season in the cold, simultaneously expecting him to haul you over the line. “Those two worlds need to align sooner rather than later,” Van Persie admitted afterwards. “We ar...
It may seem slightly churlish to suggest the pressure is rising in the lower reaches of Super League when the clocks haven’t even gone forward yet and the season is still in its early stages. But if there were any doubting clubs across the competition are feeling the heat despite there being no automatic relegation to the Championship, the news that filtered out from Huddersfield Giants on Sunday ...
It may seem slightly churlish to suggest the pressure is rising in the lower reaches of Super League when the clocks haven’t even gone forward yet and the season is still in its early stages. But if there were any doubting clubs across the competition are feeling the heat despite there being no automatic relegation to the Championship, the news that filtered out from Huddersfield Giants on Sunday lunchtime that Luke Robinson had been relieved of his head coaching duties after a winless start to 2026 hammered the message home. The side that finishes bottom may not automatically drop to the second tier these days owing to the IMG-devised gradings method that selects Super League’s elite teams, but the reality is clubs are spending more than ever on wages. That, in turn, means club owners are putting more of their own cash in to plug increasingly large financial black holes. All of this is happening too at a time when NRL investment into Super League appears imminent. Clubs are clearly jockeying to show they can play a central role in any Australian-led vision for the British game and when you throw all of that together, it was not difficult to see why this game, even in mid-March, had huge significance attached for Hull FC. Unlike at Huddersfield, the expectations in Hull – both sides of the river – are lofty. So if the Giants could sack their coach so early into 2026 with no real hope of making the playoffs, you could easily ponder what kind of pressure John Cartwright would fall under if they slipped to a fourth loss in five league games – coupled with the fact they are already out of the Challenge Cup. Few cities, after all, talk about pressure in rugby league like Hull. There are already questions over the river about the defending champions, Hull KR, after their third loss in four to start the season – but their big rivals are now one win better off after sending a statement that things have not quite reached panic stations with a win over Leeds that few would ha...
Predatory feral ferrets have been removed from an island for the first time ever, in a boost for Northern Ireland’s largest seabird colony. Rathlin Island is ferret-free after a £4.5m five-year partnership led by RSPB NI involving islanders, charities, volunteers and a red labrador called Woody. The invasive, non-native ferrets were believed to have been let loose on to the picturesque island off ...
Predatory feral ferrets have been removed from an island for the first time ever, in a boost for Northern Ireland’s largest seabird colony. Rathlin Island is ferret-free after a £4.5m five-year partnership led by RSPB NI involving islanders, charities, volunteers and a red labrador called Woody. The invasive, non-native ferrets were believed to have been let loose on to the picturesque island off the Antrim coast in the 1980s in a bid to reduce its wild rabbit population. It was claimed only male ferrets were introduced but females were among them and the rapacious mustelids bred, feasting on rare and declining burrow and ground-nesting birds. Rathlin is home to endangered ground-nesting birds such as corncrakes, cliff-nesting birds including peregrine falcons and choughs and more than 250,000 seabirds, including puffins, razorbills, guillemots and Manx shearwaters. The ferret population grew to more than 100, predating Irish hares as well as eviscerating islanders’ chickens. In 2017, a single ferret got into Rathlin’s puffin colony and killed 26 birds over two days. The Life Raft (Rathlin Acting for Tomorrow) project – funded by EU Life, the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Northern Ireland’s Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs and the Garfield Weston Foundation – established a network of 110 cameras across the island to monitor the ferrets. Thermal drones were deployed to detect animals alongside Woody the labrador, who was trained to sniff out ferret latrines and scent. Live traps were set which alerted trained staff and volunteers as soon as an animal was caught, minimising the suffering of an animal in a trap. The trapped animals were swiftly shot, which is considered the most humane way to kill them. Invasive predators are one of the biggest threats to biodiversity around the world and their removal from small islands has been repeatedly shown to boost rare and declining species, particularly seabird colonies. The island of South Georgia su...
(Human Re Sources) Almost overstuffed with musical ideas, the singer’s second studio album can be self-indulgent and messy, but it’s a heartfelt and exuberant grand statement from an artist determined to go her own way Last autumn, Raye was the subject of a lengthy profile in a major fashion magazine. In it, the singer told an anecdote that placed her in precisely the position you would expect fol...
(Human Re Sources) Almost overstuffed with musical ideas, the singer’s second studio album can be self-indulgent and messy, but it’s a heartfelt and exuberant grand statement from an artist determined to go her own way Last autumn, Raye was the subject of a lengthy profile in a major fashion magazine. In it, the singer told an anecdote that placed her in precisely the position you would expect following her successful debut album: ensconced in the studio with a very big name producer, the better to capitalise on its success. But the recording session was, she suggested, “fuckshit”: the producer simply turned up with a beat and expected her to sing over it. Raye declined to, as she put it, “do that dance … I was just thinking: ‘Get me out of here.’” This story seems telling in light of This Music May Contain Hope, an album that very much suggests an artist determined to go her own way. It’s about an emotional breakdown occasioned by romantic woe, online criticism, a troubling call from her grandmother and, she notes, “seven negronis”. And, like Lily Allen’s West End Girl , it flies in the face of perceived wisdom about how people consume music in the streaming age, being a 17-track, 73-minute concept album divided into four sections and evidently intended to be listened to from start to finish. Continue reading...
Kobbie Mainoo needs a power boost, Everton revel in home comforts but Brentford must rediscover their buzz Premier League top scorers: check the latest standings One theory behind Manchester City’s subpar 18 months is that the end is sliding into view on Pep Guardiola’s glorious reign, and the fact that he may be considering life after City is transmitting itself to his players. Sunday’s Carabao C...
Kobbie Mainoo needs a power boost, Everton revel in home comforts but Brentford must rediscover their buzz Premier League top scorers: check the latest standings One theory behind Manchester City’s subpar 18 months is that the end is sliding into view on Pep Guardiola’s glorious reign, and the fact that he may be considering life after City is transmitting itself to his players. Sunday’s Carabao Cup win goes some way to refuting that. Not only did he see off the challenge of his former apprentice Mikel Arteta, but it was vintage Guardiola on the touchline. He looked gobsmacked when decisions didn’t go his side’s way, produced a Chuck Norris tribute kick to an advertising hoarding when City took the lead then sprinted down the touchline, fists pumping, when Nico O’Reilly scored his second of a fairytale final for the local lad. If Guardiola’s intense level of care has dropped, he’s disguising it well. Anybody writing off him – and City’s league title ambitions – would do well to remember just what level of manager we are dealing with here. Alex Reid Match report: Arsenal 0-2 Manchester City Player ratings: Arsenal 0-2 Manchester City Match report: Tottenham 0-3 Nottingham Forest Continue reading...
In order to lose weight, most people need to maintain a calorie deficit over a sustained period, says Bethan Crouse, a performance nutritionist at Loughborough University. “This can be done by increasing exercise to boost your calorie expenditure and therefore create a deficit,” she says. “In that case, exercise might be the key to losing weight. But you could approach it the other way: by choosin...
In order to lose weight, most people need to maintain a calorie deficit over a sustained period, says Bethan Crouse, a performance nutritionist at Loughborough University. “This can be done by increasing exercise to boost your calorie expenditure and therefore create a deficit,” she says. “In that case, exercise might be the key to losing weight. But you could approach it the other way: by choosing less calorie-dense foods and reducing your energy intake, you can create a deficit without changing how much you exercise.” Relying on workouts alone for weight loss can be challenging. “If you’re aiming to burn an extra 300 to 500 calories a day, that’s an awful lot of exercise. You’re likely to need some kind of nutritional intervention as well to create that gap between energy intake and output.” She recommends focusing on diet, ensuring meals are built around a good source of protein, plenty of vegetables and fruit, healthy fats and a wholegrain carbohydrate – but don’t make carbs the majority of the meal. When it comes to movement, Crouse suggests thinking about overall daily activity rather than formal workouts. Sedentary office workers, for example, could use their lunch break to get some fresh air and steps in, while social plans might shift towards more active options – swapping the cinema for table tennis, or the pub for a walk in the park. Crouse is keen to underscore the benefits of exercise, beyond weight loss. She encourages people to meet NHS guidelines of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity (or 75 minutes of vigorous activity) a week, plus strength training on two days. “It has mental health benefits, improves cardiovascular fitness, supports bone health and strength, and becomes especially important as you get older for things like fall prevention,” she says.
The first time Kind starred in Nazi-spoof The Producers, he lost 30lb. Is he – and the West End – ready for his return? And why is he so worried about his old flatmate George Clooney? Richard Kind has played everything from a child’s imaginary friend in the Pixar fantasy Inside Out to a neighbour with antibiotic-resistant pinkeye in Only Murders in the Building. He was a physics savant with a seba...
The first time Kind starred in Nazi-spoof The Producers, he lost 30lb. Is he – and the West End – ready for his return? And why is he so worried about his old flatmate George Clooney? Richard Kind has played everything from a child’s imaginary friend in the Pixar fantasy Inside Out to a neighbour with antibiotic-resistant pinkeye in Only Murders in the Building. He was a physics savant with a sebaceous cyst in the Coen brothers’ A Serious Man, Joaquin Phoenix’s final tormentor in the nightmarish Beau Is Afraid and Larry David’s insufferable cousin Andy in Curb Your Enthusiasm, where he squabbled over the correct direction of travel for a Lazy Susan and became an accessory to the murder of a swan. “Ubiquitous?” splutters Kind, his letterbox mouth agape. “I’m all over the fucking place! Nobody works more than me.” We meet at the Garrick theatre in London, where the genial 69-year-old is beginning a seven-week stint in Mel Brooks’ bad-taste, Nazi-spoofing musical The Producers . Kind is temporarily taking over from Andy Nyman in the role of Broadway huckster Max Bialystock, who plans to swindle his backers by staging a surefire stinker called Springtime for Hitler and pocketing their investments when it closes prematurely. Continue reading...
China has cut exports of two metals used in military technology to Japan while increasing shipments of rare earth magnets, in what could signal a muted warning after geopolitical tensions between the two Asian economies flared last year. Exports of gallium to Japan registered zero volume in the first two months of the year, compared with 8,007kg (17,652 pounds) in the same period of 2025, customs ...
China has cut exports of two metals used in military technology to Japan while increasing shipments of rare earth magnets, in what could signal a muted warning after geopolitical tensions between the two Asian economies flared last year. Exports of gallium to Japan registered zero volume in the first two months of the year, compared with 8,007kg (17,652 pounds) in the same period of 2025, customs data showed. Germanium exports were also at zero in January and February, compared with 400kg (882 pounds) a year earlier. The halt comes amid strained ties between Beijing and Tokyo, though Chinese officials have not publicly acknowledged any specific curbs targeting Japan’s access to the metals. In November, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi angered Beijing by suggesting that a hypothetical attack on Taiwan could constitute an “existential threat” and warrant a military response. Advertisement Two months later, Beijing banned exports of products with both commercial and military applications to end users linked to the Japanese military, after already halting group tours and suspending imports of Japanese seafood. Gallium and germanium are crucial inputs for semiconductors, fibre-optic strands and renewable energy technologies, with both civilian and military uses. Germanium-based infrared optics can support military surveillance, while gallium helps make semiconductor materials in radars and missile guidance systems. Advertisement Ja Ian Chong, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, said that if China were deliberately restricting such exports, it might be seeking to deny Japan access to “dual-use” materials.
Washington and its allies are drawing up plans to establish an ammunition production facility in the Philippines , a move critics warn would turn the Southeast Asian nation into a logistics arm of US “warmongering”. The proposal emerged last week from the Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience (PIPIR), a US-led initiative founded in 2024 to reduce supply chain vulnerabilities and help ...
Washington and its allies are drawing up plans to establish an ammunition production facility in the Philippines , a move critics warn would turn the Southeast Asian nation into a logistics arm of US “warmongering”. The proposal emerged last week from the Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience (PIPIR), a US-led initiative founded in 2024 to reduce supply chain vulnerabilities and help allies produce and sustain military equipment closer to potential flashpoints. Members agreed to launch a Japan -led programme to manufacture solid rocket motors and to advance regional cooperation on small military drones, including common standards and shared supply chains, the Pentagon said in a statement on Wednesday. Advertisement Separately, they agreed to explore establishing a facility in the Philippines to assemble and package 30mm-by-173mm ammunition: a workhorse calibre used across the maritime and coastal defence platforms Manila’s military increasingly depends on. Philippine soldiers load ammunition into an Autonomous Truck Mounted Howitzer System during a live-fire exercise in Tarlac province in 2024. Photo: AFP “The timing is significant,” said Sylwia Monika Gorska, a political analyst at Britain’s University of Central Lancashire whose research spans international relations and East Asian geopolitics.
Listen to Odd Lots on Apple Podcasts Listen to Odd Lots on Spotify Watch Odd Lots on YouTube Subscribe to the newsletter Dubai has become a huge destination for the rich, with an influx of high-net-worth residents driving up property prices and boosting the UAE’s tax revenues in recent years. And of course, Gulf countries more broadly have a lot of oil wealth that they’ve ploughed into everything ...
Listen to Odd Lots on Apple Podcasts Listen to Odd Lots on Spotify Watch Odd Lots on YouTube Subscribe to the newsletter Dubai has become a huge destination for the rich, with an influx of high-net-worth residents driving up property prices and boosting the UAE’s tax revenues in recent years. And of course, Gulf countries more broadly have a lot of oil wealth that they’ve ploughed into everything from real estate to private credit and tech. But the situation with Iran looks set to test that prosperity. In recent weeks, Iran has been attacking Gulf energy infrastructure and even launched drone strikes on residential areas in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. In this episode, we speak with Hiten Samtani long-time Dubai resident, founder of Ten31 Media, and publisher of The Promote about what’s behind Dubai’s luxury boom, how Gulf capital has reshaped global finance including private credit, and what life in Dubai feels like amid rising geopolitical risk.
Dash0 has raised $110 million at a $1 billion valuation in a Balderton Capital -led round to expand its monitoring platform, used to detect problems in software systems, across the US. The fresh funds will also accelerate the startup’s development of artificial intelligence agents, the company’s Chief Executive Officer Mirko Novakovic said in a statement that confirmed an earlier Bloomberg report ...
Dash0 has raised $110 million at a $1 billion valuation in a Balderton Capital -led round to expand its monitoring platform, used to detect problems in software systems, across the US. The fresh funds will also accelerate the startup’s development of artificial intelligence agents, the company’s Chief Executive Officer Mirko Novakovic said in a statement that confirmed an earlier Bloomberg report . Novakovic declined to disclose the company’s revenue, but said it aims to reach $100 million in annual recurring revenue “pretty quickly.” Dash0, headquartered in New York with operations in Germany, is one of a new generation of startups in the so-called observability space. This technology helps companies monitor what’s happening within their IT systems and detect anomalies like system errors and slow performance. Observability has become more critical as software architecture becomes more complex and companies experiment with code generated by AI as well as agents that can carry out tasks without supervision. Observability relies on telemetry data derived from sensors and trackers in companies’ apps and systems. Dash0 uses OpenTelemetry, an open standard for collecting and organizing data from apps. This provides a more flexible setup for companies that lets them more easily switch or add monitoring tools and avoid getting locked into any provider. The company analyzes the incoming data with specialized AI agents that aim to identify what’s causing problems and suggest fixes. Founded in 2023, Dash0 has more than 600 paying customers, including retailer Zalando , fast-food chain Taco Bell and the Telegraph newspaper. It charges customers based on the overall volume of data they collect, unlike rivals including Datadog which have billing structures that charge separately for different types of data. Dash0’s simplified billing gives it an edge compared to its rivals, Novakovic said. The recent public market selloff, prompted by fears that AI will render many software comp...
The AI image generation market has had an uncontested leader for months. Google's Nano Banana family of models has set the standard for quality, speed, and commercial adoption, while competitors from OpenAI to Midjourney have jockeyed for second place. That hierarchy shifted on Sunday when Luma AI , a startup better known for its Dream Machine video generation tool, publicly released Uni-1 — a mod...
The AI image generation market has had an uncontested leader for months. Google's Nano Banana family of models has set the standard for quality, speed, and commercial adoption, while competitors from OpenAI to Midjourney have jockeyed for second place. That hierarchy shifted on Sunday when Luma AI , a startup better known for its Dream Machine video generation tool, publicly released Uni-1 — a model that doesn't just compete with Google on image quality but fundamentally rethinks how AI should create images in the first place. Uni-1 tops Google's Nano Banana 2 and OpenAI's GPT Image 1.5 on reasoning-based benchmarks, nearly matches Google's Gemini 3 Pro on object detection, and does it all at roughly 10 to 30 percent lower cost at high resolution. In human preference tests using Elo ratings, Uni-1 takes first place in overall quality, style and editing, and reference-based generation, according to Luma. Only in pure text-to-image generation does Google's Nano Banana retain the top spot. But the numbers alone don't capture what makes this release significant. Uni-1 represents a genuine architectural departure from the diffusion-based approach that has powered nearly every major image model to date. Where tools like Midjourney , Stable Diffusion , and Google Imagen 3 generate images by iteratively denoising random noise, Uni-1 uses autoregressive generation — the same token-by-token prediction method that powers large language models — to reason about what it's creating as it creates it. There is no handoff between a system that understands a prompt and a separate system that draws the picture. It's one process, running on one set of weights. That distinction matters enormously for the enterprise customers who are rapidly adopting AI image tools for advertising, product design, and content workflows. A model that can genuinely reason through complex instructions, maintain context across iterative edits, and evaluate its own outputs reduces the human labor required to ...