Constituents’ frustration with Richard Tice reflects growing problem for party and its leaders’ climate-sceptic stance “The worst part of it was the smell,” says Audrey Crook, 58. A full-time carer who lives with her 20-year-old son, Crook woke up at 11pm one night to find a foot of flood water on the ground floor of her home. “It was like black water. It had sewage and everything in it, it was ab...
Constituents’ frustration with Richard Tice reflects growing problem for party and its leaders’ climate-sceptic stance “The worst part of it was the smell,” says Audrey Crook, 58. A full-time carer who lives with her 20-year-old son, Crook woke up at 11pm one night to find a foot of flood water on the ground floor of her home. “It was like black water. It had sewage and everything in it, it was absolutely disgusting.” Crook’s home – along with more than 30 others on Wyberton West Road and Park Road in Boston, Lincolnshire – was flooded in January last year when heavy rain swept across the region, raising river levels and exceeding flood defences. Continue reading...
Olivia Dean, Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell, Jacob Alon, Self Esteem and Kae Tempest lead this year’s Ivors, with two nominations each Olivia Dean, Ellie Rowsell of Wolf Alice, Jacob Alon, Self Esteem and Kae Tempest lead this year’s Ivor Novello awards for excellence in British and Irish songwriting, with two nominations apiece. Self Esteem’s cowriter Johan Hugo, and Tempest’s Fraser T Smith, are als...
Olivia Dean, Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell, Jacob Alon, Self Esteem and Kae Tempest lead this year’s Ivors, with two nominations each Olivia Dean, Ellie Rowsell of Wolf Alice, Jacob Alon, Self Esteem and Kae Tempest lead this year’s Ivor Novello awards for excellence in British and Irish songwriting, with two nominations apiece. Self Esteem’s cowriter Johan Hugo, and Tempest’s Fraser T Smith, are also credited among the leading acts. Tempest will go up against himself in the best contemporary song category, with two nominations: one for I Stand on the Line, written with Smith, and one for Know Yourself, written with Smith and Tom Rowlands of the Chemical Brothers. Both songs come from Tempest’s fifth album, Self Titled. Continue reading...
John Skoog’s monochrome film is based on an art installation, and that shows in the pacing, but his central character is intriguing and utterly unique Denis Lavant is an intriguing and vulnerable presence, somewhere between Quasimodo and Nosferatu, in this beautifully shot monochrome feature from Swedish artist, photographer and film-maker John Skoog, developed from a short film and installation p...
John Skoog’s monochrome film is based on an art installation, and that shows in the pacing, but his central character is intriguing and utterly unique Denis Lavant is an intriguing and vulnerable presence, somewhere between Quasimodo and Nosferatu, in this beautifully shot monochrome feature from Swedish artist, photographer and film-maker John Skoog, developed from a short film and installation project. Lavant plays farmhand Karl-Göran Persson who, in remote southern Sweden of what could be the 1950s or 1960s, is galvanised by an official pamphlet distributed to the public informing them of what to do in case of a nuclear war; he becomes obsessed with the idea of turning his primitive shack in the middle of a field into a “redoubt” that the entire community could use if the bomb drops. (Skoog has evidently based this on a real case.) Continue reading...
The ancient city – with its gardens, hammams and Moorish architecture – comes alive in spring and its Holy Week processions are among the most authentic in Andalucía As I turned the corner on a narrow, cobbled street in Granada, I felt as if I had stumbled upon a slightly sinister re-enactment society. Mysterious men dressed in white robes and tall, conical, face-covering hats with slits for their...
The ancient city – with its gardens, hammams and Moorish architecture – comes alive in spring and its Holy Week processions are among the most authentic in Andalucía As I turned the corner on a narrow, cobbled street in Granada, I felt as if I had stumbled upon a slightly sinister re-enactment society. Mysterious men dressed in white robes and tall, conical, face-covering hats with slits for their eyes were followed by women in black dresses and mantillas , holding pillar candles and crosses, then children wearing caped cloaks, carrying baskets of prayer cards. It was indeed a re-enactment of sorts, but deeply rooted in Catholicism, representing the Passion of Christ, staged during Holy Week ( Semana Santa ), which runs from 29 March to 5 April this year. Easter processions are held across the country, but this Andalucían city hosts one of the most authentic in Spain. Continue reading...
For six months out of 12, Japan’s northernmost island, Hokkaido is covered in snow. Elizabeth Sanjuan’s haunting images make the most of this monochrome landscape Continue reading...
For six months out of 12, Japan’s northernmost island, Hokkaido is covered in snow. Elizabeth Sanjuan’s haunting images make the most of this monochrome landscape Continue reading...
Royal Shakespeare theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon Co-artistic director Tamara Harvey stages a well-acted production that never hits as hard as it should The bellicose patriotism in this, the last instalment of Shakespeare’s Henriad, makes it a perfect drama for today – showing us the repeated history of war, invasion and acquisition in the name of nationalism. Those parallels are unspoken in this pro...
Royal Shakespeare theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon Co-artistic director Tamara Harvey stages a well-acted production that never hits as hard as it should The bellicose patriotism in this, the last instalment of Shakespeare’s Henriad, makes it a perfect drama for today – showing us the repeated history of war, invasion and acquisition in the name of nationalism. Those parallels are unspoken in this production, traditionally rendered in period dress. Director Tamara Harvey begins with a flashback – from Henry IV, Part 2 – to an ailing Henry IV and a son keen to don his crown, to denote the ambition that now lies within the younger Henry. Alfred Enoch makes a genial young king, with a limber playfulness at the outset that carries the last embers of “wildness” from his dissolute days with Falstaff. Enoch harnesses his likability to spur on the fight in his “once more unto the breach” speech and Saint Crispin’s Day rallying call. Continue reading...
The fragility of the global food system fills me with dread – and the war with Iran has exposed just how close to collapse it is The fate of environmentalists is to spend their lives trying not to be proved right. Vindication is what we dread. But there’s one threat that haunts me more than any other: the collapse of the global food system. We cannot predict what the immediate trigger might be. Bu...
The fragility of the global food system fills me with dread – and the war with Iran has exposed just how close to collapse it is The fate of environmentalists is to spend their lives trying not to be proved right. Vindication is what we dread. But there’s one threat that haunts me more than any other: the collapse of the global food system. We cannot predict what the immediate trigger might be. But the war with Iran is just the right kind of event. Drawing on years of scientific data , I’ve been arguing for some time that this risk exists – and that governments are completely unprepared for it. In 2023, I made a submission to a parliamentary inquiry into environmental change and food security , with a vast list of references. Called as a witness, I spent much of the time explaining that the issue was much wider than the inquiry’s scope. George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Sex, booze and subterfuge – the extraordinary friendship of Graham Greene and spy Kim Philby At the Café Royal in Regent Street in 1944 three intelligence officers bent over their plates while Europe held its breath. Outside, London braced for D-day. Inside, Graham Greene announced that he was resigning from MI6. Kim Philby, his chief in Section V, MI6’s counterespionage arm, blinked. Educated at ...
Sex, booze and subterfuge – the extraordinary friendship of Graham Greene and spy Kim Philby At the Café Royal in Regent Street in 1944 three intelligence officers bent over their plates while Europe held its breath. Outside, London braced for D-day. Inside, Graham Greene announced that he was resigning from MI6. Kim Philby, his chief in Section V, MI6’s counterespionage arm, blinked. Educated at Westminster, converted to communism at Cambridge and by then securely installed as Moscow’s man at the heart of the British establishment, he had helped orchestrate the deception on which Operation Overlord depended, persuading Hitler that the allies would land at Calais rather than Normandy. Greene had played his part in tending the illusion. Yet here he was, strolling off-stage before the curtain rose. Continue reading...
South Africa’s Venice pavilion left empty after Gabrielle Goliath’s ‘highly divisive’ tribute to Palestinian poet blocked A piece of performance art that was blocked from representing South Africa at the upcoming Venice Biennale over its supposedly “highly divisive” tribute to a Palestinian poet will go on display at the world’s largest art exhibition after all. South African artist Gabrielle Goli...
South Africa’s Venice pavilion left empty after Gabrielle Goliath’s ‘highly divisive’ tribute to Palestinian poet blocked A piece of performance art that was blocked from representing South Africa at the upcoming Venice Biennale over its supposedly “highly divisive” tribute to a Palestinian poet will go on display at the world’s largest art exhibition after all. South African artist Gabrielle Goliath’s project, Elegy, will be shown for three months from 4 May as a video installation at the Chiesa di Sant’Antonin church in the Castello district, a venue in the vicinity of the main site that is not part of the Biennale. Continue reading...