Who went out of strictly come dancing

For the record, I am normally far too cool to care about mundanities such as dish placement. But these are not normal times. Spending so much time stuck in the house has led me to fixate on weird things; when everything outside is so chaotic, there is great comfort to be had in organisation. E seems to have got like this with the kitchen cupboards, which she has rearranged multiple times (although, somehow, an errant Tupperware lid still falls on your head whenever you open one). She is also fanatical about making the bed properly, which I have come to appreciate. I try to make the bed, too, but it never seems to be up to her high standards and she always redoes it. No doubt muttering: “What kind of person does this?” … [Read more...] about How was lockdown living with my partner? So good I missed her when she went to the balcony

Sport Novak Djokovic may still be the best player in men’s tennis but Dominic Thiem can fairly lay claim to be leading the charge of the new wave of contenders after beating Alexander Zverev to win the 2020 US Open on a tie-breaker in a five-set thriller. Eoin Morgan hailed the aces in his bowling pack after a thrilling fightback at Old Trafford that saw Australia blow their chance to wrap up the ODI series and instead set up a decider on Wednesday. José Mourinho was critical of his Tottenham team after they slumped to a 1-0 home defeat against Everton, describing their pressing as lazy and complaining about the overall lack of intensity. Chelsea’s manager, Emma Hayes, described big scorelines as “teething pains” symptomatic of the growth of women’s football after her team put nine past a crumbling Bristol City. … [Read more...] about Monday briefing: ‘Abide by rule of six,’ police plead

So what are you and your team at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport doing to reassure the arts community and provide a concrete plan of action? Well so far you have come up with a five-phase roadmap for the performing arts that is worse than useless. Sam Goldwyn said that “a verbal agreement isn’t worth the paper it’s written on” and a roadmap that offers no clue as to how to get to one’s destination is positively insulting. What’s most alarming is that it reveals a total incomprehension as to how the arts actually work. A Phase 1 stage of “rehearsal and training” supposedly leads to a Phase 4 and 5 stage of outdoor and indoor performance. But how can any theatre start rehearsing a production when it has no guarantee of financial support nor any idea whether it will even exist in a few weeks’ time? Wouldn’t that be the height of irresponsibility? … [Read more...] about Dear Oliver Dowden, have you even begun to grasp the scale of our arts crisis?

"We enforce a strict non-discrimination policy and under our Open Doors initiative, if a guest feels they have been discriminated against, we will provide personalised support to ensure they find a place to stay." … [Read more...] about ‘Fat-phobic’ Airbnb hosts slammed for BANNING anyone over 16st from their cottage as they ‘may damage the old oak beams’

People, quite rightly, talk a lot about climate change. But it is now clear that man-made global warming is only one of a number of crises in play. A team of esteemed scientists led by Johan Rockstrom and Will Steffen have identified nine critical thresholds hard-wired into Earth’s environment: climate change, fertiliser use, land conversion, biodiversity loss, air pollution, ozone-layer depletion, ocean acidification, chemical pollution and freshwater withdrawals. … [Read more...] about Boris Johnson’s fiancée Carrie Symonds says Sir David Attenborough’s show warning of mass extinction of wildlife left her in TEARS – as she pleads: ‘Everyone should watch this, it’s time to act’