The Guardian • Published 10/4/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

Each month Guardian Australia editors and critics pick the upcoming titles they have devoured – or can’t wait to get their hands onGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailFiction, Simon & Schuster, $34.99 Continue reading...

BBC News - Entertainment & Arts • Published 10/4/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

The chart-topping singer takes legal action against one of the producers of her hit single Messy.

The Guardian • Published 10/4/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

From superintelligent AI to the climate and democracy, three leading thinkers discuss how to navigate the futureWhat happens when an internationally bestselling historian, a Nobel peace prize-winning journalist and a former politician get together to discuss the state of the world, and where we’re heading? Yuval Noah Harari is an Israeli medieval and military historian best known for his panoramic surveys of human history, including Sapiens, Homo Deus and, most recently, Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI. Maria Ressa, joint winner of the Nobel peace prize...

The Guardian • Published 10/5/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

White hair, head scarves and one with a walking stick – they looked like they had stepped out of the same babushka dollRead more in the Kindness of strangers seriesOne Saturday morning, I accompanied my mum to the local market to do our weekly fruit and veg shop. Mum was still looking around when I offered to take the shopping back to the car, which was stuffed into a little red trolley. It was like a Mary Poppins bag – quite a small thing, but it was surprising how much you could load it up. Or so we thought.With the trolley heaving under the weight of an already full load of groceries, my...

The Guardian • Published 10/5/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

Bands such as Magma and Art Zoyd provided a soundtrack for the student protests that shook the country. Little remembered now, a new book reveals their decisive influence on later successes such as Air and Daft PunkThe seismic shock that May 1968 had on the French way of life has been widely documented. The student protests, which erupted at the Sorbonne before spreading around the country, hastened the end of the Gaullist regime, politicised French philosophy, and spawned a wave of radical films such as Jean Eustache’s The Mother and the Whore.Much less is known – outside France, at least...

The Guardian • Published 10/5/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

The pair have a hoot as they turn Thelma and Louise. Plus: Rob Brydon goes on a country music adventure. Here’s what to watch this evening9pm, ITV1 Continue reading...

The Guardian • Published 10/5/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

It’s the staple dish of the Caribbean: a moreish rubble of beans, rice and flavour, flavour, flavour …Rice and peas (or peas and rice, according to Bahamians) is to the Caribbean what polenta is to north-west Italy – it is, Jamaica’s Helen Willinsky explains, “a staple of our diet”, and so much more than a mere side dish. Traditionally served on Sundays, it’s now on menus every day of the week, but it’s also worth saving for a special occasion.Prep 10 min Soak OvernightCook 2 hr Rest 10 min+ Serves 6 Continue reading...

The Guardian • Published 10/5/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

Embracing Sarah’s asexuality has allowed her and Cameron to connect in many different ways• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymouslyI’ve never loved sex. Growing up, I felt broken because everyone put it on a pedestal Continue reading...

BBC News - Entertainment & Arts • Published 10/5/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

The Duchess of Sussex visits the fashion spectacle for the first time in more than a decade.

The Guardian • Published 10/5/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

From Athens’ beach-studded – and still warm – coastline to the ancient food markets of PalermoCraggy coves and sandy bays make up the resplendent mix that is the Athens Riviera. So it was that at the end of an autumn day I found myself with a not unpleasant question: where to head to soothe bones still aching for a last splash of summer sun. For Athens offers something that other European cities cannot: a coastline of more than 40 miles dotted with beaches many a Greek island would covet. Continue reading...

The Guardian • Published 10/5/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

Forty years ago Prince, Madonna and Judas Priest were among stars dubbed the ‘Filthy Fifteen’ in a high-profile parents’ campaign against ‘objectionable’ music. Some of those artists, and supporters like Alice Cooper, recall a major moral panicPrince’s Purple Rain album had been bought by 11 million Americans by May 1985. One of them was 11-year-old Karenna Gore. Back home, Karenna’s mother was shocked to hear Prince sing, on the album’s fifth track Darling Nikki: “I knew a girl named Nikki / I guess you could say she was a sex fiend / I met her in a hotel lobby/ masturbating...

The Guardian • Published 10/5/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

I was working 80-hour weeks and having no luck on the New York singles scene. A move to Europe opened my mind – and helped me find love in the most unexpected place“Tu es où?” I texted, peeking out the balcony to see if he was near. I checked my lipstick in the mirror over the mantelpiece. Then fretted whether my kindergarten-level French was off-putting.“I’m coming,” he texted. And before I could wonder about inviting a strange man to my home for a first date in a foreign country, Thomas knocked. Soon after we exchanged la bise and he took off his layers of winter gear, I realised...

BBC News - Entertainment & Arts • Published 10/6/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

The novelist was best known for books like Rivals, which was recently made into a Disney TV series.

BBC News - Entertainment & Arts • Published 10/6/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

Lost Boys and Fairies has scooped five awards at the Bafta Cymru film and TV awards ceremony.

The Guardian • Published 10/6/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

In an age of self-deprecation, the former cabaret star is infuriating fellow standups by calling herself ‘Australia’s first attractive comedian’ – and flaunting her sex appeal on stageIs Elouise Eftos really Australia’s first attractive comedian? Her fellow countryman Sam Campbell has boyish charm, after all – and in some of those frocks, even Dame Edna cut quite the dash. But if you’re thinking in these terms – if you’re taking the claim at face value – you’ve already got the title to Eftos’s hit standup show all wrong. You wouldn’t be the first. “I had fellow...

The Guardian • Published 10/6/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

The latest in our series of writers explaining their favourite comfort watches is a recommendation of Baz Luhrmann’s irresistible audience hitStuck on the wall above the desk where I write is a Post-it note, which I look at for inspiration whenever I feel that the chapter I’m working on needs some extra oomph. If you’ve seen Strictly Ballroom, Baz Luhrmann’s 1992 directorial debut, the words on it – Scott’s knee-slide – will be immediately and ecstatically familiar. If not, allow me to introduce you to what is, for my money, one of the most purely enjoyable films ever made.Scott...

BBC News - Entertainment & Arts • Published 10/7/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

The star says "you can't control the box office" after his latest film makes just $6m at cinemas.

BBC News - Entertainment & Arts • Published 10/8/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

The comedian's new book supports the case for the UK to give £18 trillion in compensatory payments.

BBC News - Entertainment & Arts • Published 10/8/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

George Gilbert, 23, had already been given warnings by Big Brother earlier in the series.

The Guardian • Published 10/8/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

A versatile and creamy green mayo made by wilting the lettuce leaves in butter and blending with salty pistachios – genius!Wildair in New York is a groundbreaking restaurant that has deeply influenced my cooking. It opened in 2015 as a sister to the now closed Contra, an impeccable fine-dining restaurant, and the same precision and ingenuity was applied to Wildair’s dishes, which have that perfect balance of elevated refinement and skilled execution, all combined with a casual playfulness. You can probably imagine my excitement, then, when I found out that one of my favourite dishes from...

BBC News - Entertainment & Arts • Published 10/8/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

Sir Stephen Fry, Alan Carr and Celia Imrie are among the stars who will be sitting at the round table.

BBC News - Entertainment & Arts • Published 10/8/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

The writer of The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse says his iPad full of ideas was taken from his car.

The Guardian • Published 10/8/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

Tom Daley, Charlotte Church and Stephen Fry are just a few of the famous schemers. Plus, an Australian crime drama with a big reveal. Here’s what to watch this evening9pm, BBC One Continue reading...

BBC News - Entertainment & Arts • Published 10/9/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

The former Spice Girl's new Netflix documentary has landed - under the shadow of a reported family feud.

BBC News - Entertainment & Arts • Published 10/8/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

Stephen Fry, Celia Imrie and Alan Carr are among the stars sitting at the round table in the new series.

The Guardian • Published 10/8/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

He made millions on Wall Street, moved to the Costa Rican jungle with his wife … and ended up being shot in bed. A new podcast tells the wild tale of the US couple whose dream became a nightmareThe death of John Bender mystified the world. A handsome American millionaire, Bender moved to Costa Rica with his wife, Ann, two years after they married, and set about building a 2,000-hectare nature reserve, centred on a mountaintop mansion that had neither walls nor windows. But despite moving to this vision of paradise, the couple’s mental health fell into sharp decline and in January 2010...

BBC News - Entertainment & Arts • Published 10/9/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

The former BBC Radio 1 DJ is also charged with nine counts of indecent assaults and two counts of sexual assault.

The Guardian • Published 10/9/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

London film festival Brathwaite’s empowering images of African Americans in the 1960s gave a new generation a fresh template for representation, brilliantly honoured hereThere have been some fascinating documentaries about photographers: Tish Murtha; Martin Parr; Vivian Maier. Maybe the movie documentary form is something that naturally comes alive when showcasing particularly vivid still images. Here is another outstanding example, from writer-director Yemi Bamiro, about the remarkable career of Kwame Brathwaite, a photographer, musician and African American activist who was a unique...

BBC News - Entertainment & Arts • Published 10/9/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

The writer returns with a show about a female rock band, and the "middle squeeze" on midlife women.

The Guardian • Published 10/9/2025 • Last cited 10/21/2025

Serpentine Gallery, LondonPairing his fantastic landscapes with a soundtrack blasted on vintage sound systems, the painter blurs the lines between club and gallery to seismic effectA giant sound system towers against green mountains in Peter Doig’s painting Maracas, while a tiny man stands on a speaker-stack to reveal the monstrous scale. It’s a utopian – or dystopian – daydream of what sound can be. Could the speakers broadcast enough sonic power, enough soul and love, to blast away reality? They are silent, of course; the mystery, the dread, lies in the expectancy.Not any longer...