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Our working from home uniform is currently joggers or leggings and a Zoom-ready top. If you're the same and you need to update your collection then let Holly Willoughby's look on Thursday's This Morning inspire you! … [Read more...] about Boy, 13, who bonded with Joe Biden about overcoming his stammer reveals President ‘inspired him’ with tips such as reading poetry aloud and practicing speaking in the mirror

One masked Proud Boy I met at a rally in Portland, ostensibly there to support Gibson’s Senate bid, told me that anyone in their crew who expressed racist views would be stomped out – but “not literally”, the Proud Boy, who said his name was John, quickly added. But for every John, there’s a “General Graybeard” – an older man who led members of the “Freedom Crew” and “Hiwaymen”, two patriot groups from Arkansas, wearing tactical gear and bearing shields emblazoned with the Confederate battle flag. He explained that the imagery was about honouring the south’s history. “We fly it so people know it’s not racist,” the self-proclaimed general said. “It’s about heritage. It’s about the constitution.” When I asked John whether he accepted this explanation, he shrugged. “I gotta take that at face value,” he said. … [Read more...] about Trump’s useful thugs: how the Republican party offered a home to the Proud Boys

Their fantasies were overblown, but not entirely baseless. In 1965, the Argentinian revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara had waved an emotional goodbye to his comrade-in-arms Fidel Castro, leaving Cuba. He vowed to initiate a new phase of revolutionary activity, extending guerrilla warfare across Latin America. Che was killed while carrying out his mission in Bolivia in 1967, but the US by then viewed revolution in Latin America as an existential threat – recalling how Russian nuclear weapons had reached Cuban soil during the 1962 missile crisis. In a bid to strengthen anti-communist forces, the US pumped money and weapons to armed forces across the region, vastly increasing the power of the military within these states and eventually, as the American journalist John Dinges has written, ending up in an “intimate embrace with mass murderers running torture camps, body dumps, and crematoriums”. In the 70s, as rightwing military coups and state terror swept … [Read more...] about Operation Condor: the cold war conspiracy that terrorised South America

Stewart Lee has intricate theories about the trends in comedy, the waves of popularity and fashion. He’s got diagrams that look like Leonardo Da Vinci drew them. I’m not sure where we are on the chart, or when the next comedy doldrums is, but he’ll tell you, and what will rise to take its place. Actually, circus is crazy huge, isn’t it? For me, it’s fun for 20 minutes and then I wanna see something that is different to what happened last night. That said, I acknowledge there’s not a lot of room for improv in circus. Who’s Highwire Is It Anyway? hasn’t caught on yet. That’s one reason I love live comedy – the room can seem more alive than for any other performance, although actually it’s often as tight as a trapeze act. … [Read more...] about Will Adamsdale: ‘Comedy today is tweeting with one hand and playing a ukelele with the other’

Although never likely to be as venerated here as the Gervais original, the US Office was a huge deal. Consistently one of the biggest shows on NBC, it racked up more than 200 episodes compared to the 14 of the British version. It saw star Steve Carell go from cult comedy star to bona fide household name, and provided an audience-free template for subsequent comedy successes such as 30 Rock and Parks And Recreation. As one of the key men both in front of and behind the camera, Novak’s been a hot property ever since – and has gone on to play a similarly influential role on much-praised Fox sitcom The Mindy Project. … [Read more...] about BJ Novak: out of the office