Day: August 26, 2024

Like many Dutch teenagers – like many teenagers, full stop – Aimée de Jongh first read Lord of the Flies at school. She was 14 and in an English lesson when she found herself irresistibly drawn to this ostensibly rather British book about a group of schoolboys marooned on a remote Pacific island after a … Read more

Pop, rap, folk, jazz and more Andrew Tuttle and Michael Chapman After Yorkshire guitarist Michael Chapman died in September 2021, aged 80, his partner Andru found solace in the music of Brisbane banjo player Andrew Tuttle. The pair eventually met in Australia and Andru left Tuttle with some of Chapman’s final recordings, which he has … Read more

Which is the most interesting road in the UK? Not necessarily the most scenic, but the one that is most important historically or has the most fascinating story. Olly, Warwickshire Send new questions to nq@theguardian.com. Readers reply A contender should be Calum’s Road on Raasay, built by the islander Calum MacLeod. According to Wikipedia, locals … Read more

There are, Serhii Plokhy says, not many amusing stories to come out of the war between Russia and his native Ukraine. But he couldn’t help but have the bleakest of laughs at one item of news from the last week. It was prompted by a statement from the Russian foreign ministry. Faced with the prospect … Read more

David Bowie was ahead of his time when he said he would like his death to be as interesting as his life – now, a raft of funeral directors and undertakers are shifting the dial on what the end of life can look like. The most tangible differences are the products on offer. Choices range … Read more

Autumn, it seems, will begin on Tuesday, with a set-piece speech by Keir Starmer. The sunny anthem that serenaded New Labour to power has been frostily remixed: “Things will get worse before we get better,” he will reportedly warn, while he serves notice of “tough choices” and “unpopular decisions”. To no one’s great surprise, he … Read more

French judicial authorities on Sunday extended the detention of the Russian-born founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, after his arrest at a Paris airport over alleged offences related to the messaging app. His arrest at the Le Bourget airport outside Paris on Saturday was the latest extraordinary twist in the career of one of the world’s … Read more

Northwest Passage Ocean Science Expedition Brothers Isak and Alex Rockström are navigating through the dangerous Northwest Passage “There is no room for error,” says Isak Rockström. “Where we are now, the only help we could get would be from the few Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers that are patrolling the whole Canadian Arctic.” For the past … Read more