From dipping biscuits in mugs filled with baked beans to singing about eating custard, Look Mum No Computer’s Eins, Zwei, Drei is trying to win through novelty value. Will it backfire?

What is to be done about Britain’s lowly standing in the Eurovision song contest? It’s a question to which the obvious answer is: who cares? We’re led to believe millions across the UK are rendered livid on an annual basis by our poor showing – we’ve made the top 10 in the final once in the last 16 years – but you somehow never actually meet anyone who gives a monkey’s, despite the BBC’s Stakhanovite efforts to convince us that Eurovision is the musical event of the year. In 2023, Radio 2’s coverage involved broadcasting not merely the final itself, but a documentary, a Eurovision after-party show, both semi-finals, a show involving Sophie Ellis-Bextor playing non-stop Eurovision winners, a show involving Sophie Ellis-Bextor playing tunes from Eurovision celebrities, a show involving Sophie Ellis-Bextor playing Eurovision runners-up and an all-request Eurovision party: it is unrecorded if the latter was deluged with requests to make it stop.

It’s tempting to suggest that ranks of people who don’t care much about Eurovision either way includes those responsible for deciding Britain’s entry. Our solitary success in recent years was Sam Ryder coming second in 2022, a feat pulled off via the cunning new approach of equipping our entrant with a relatively memorable song, a well-written Elton/Bowie pastiche called Spaceman. You might have thought there was a lesson in there, but no. Normal service was resumed the following year. Try humming the chorus of Mae Muller’s vaguely Dua Lipa-ish Wrote A Song (2023), or Olly Alexander’s Dizzy (2024), or Remember Monday’s country-hued What The Hell Just Happened (2025), the latter pair scoring zero in the public vote. You can’t, can you?

Exhibition at Victoria and Albert Museum celebrates Italian designer’s moment-making approach to fashion

When Kylie Jenner stood on the marble steps of the Petit Palais in 2023, a fake lion head attached to her off-shoulder dress, even by the standards of the youngest member of the Kardashian clan, the outfit looked a bit much.

Hand-painted for lifelike realism, the Schiaparelli head and dress were designed by the Texan Daniel Roseberry. Although already four years in the role of artistic director, the look was transformative – earning Jenner front row seats at the biggest shows and propelling the nearly century-old Paris fashion house, long overshadowed by Chanel, Balenciaga, and Dior, into viral ubiquity.

Investigation finds three were hacked by Paragon spyware at same time, potentially fuelling questions for government

Italian prosecutors investigating a domestic spying scandal say they have independently confirmed that two immigration activists and a journalist were hacked at the same time in late 2024, suggesting all three were part of the same “infection campaign”.

The development could bring more questions for the far-right government of Giorgia Meloni, who has denied any involvement in the hacking of the journalist, the Fanpage editor-in-chief, Francesco Cancellato.

The Californian creative navigates seamlessly from bass-driven disco to sparse electronic beats on her expansive debut album

From Richmond, California
Recommended if you like Molly Nilsson, Chromatics, the 1975’s 1980s pastiches
Up next Self-titled debut album out 10 April

For those of us who can’t resist the pull of melancholy synth-pop, Californian artist Hannah Lew is set to become a new obsession. Soon to be released via Night School Records – home to the likes of Tristwch Y Fenywod and Teresa Winter – Lew’s self-titled debut is one of those albums that could easily be a greatest hits, with nine irresistible, single-worthy tracks all saturated with neon-lit heartbreak.

Gravity Archives by Andrew Motion; Rabbitbox by Wayne Holloway-Smith; Strange Architectures by JL Williams; I Do Know Some Things by Richard Siken

Gravity Archives by Andrew Motion (Faber, £12.99)
From his 1978 debut through his laureate elegies for Princess Diana and the Queen Mother, death remains a major preoccupation for Motion. And for good reason: his mother’s accidental fall from a horse and subsequent premature death catalysed an unshakeable elegiac pattern, the poet as chronicler of loss – and, by extension, love. But something has subtly shifted in this latest gravitational turn. No longer the bewildered and ambivalent Englishman, who in his previous book, Randomly Moving Particles, emigrates to the US, here we see a more rooted and resolute eye surveying the mortality of others as well as his own. An opening sequence of eight roughly sonnet-like poems mourning the Baltimore poet Joseph Harrison contrasts the American’s dying courage with the poet’s English reticence. “You talk. I will – but warn you, Joe, / talk is not first nature. I blame Dad, / his silence fathomless. I tried.” An awkwardness relegates grief back to its private place, giving way to alternatives sometimes hopeful or outright hilarious. In Autumn Light a sequence for familial dead begins “Andrew Motion has also died … He was a fool in his own opinion”, mixing pathos and bathos. In English Elegies John Berryman appears as a “staggeringly drunk” spirit guide, advising against the melancholic pull of home. “That place was done for, England, and so on, / John said.” Wisely, Motion resolves, “High time / it is that I, like everyone, set out to die alone.”

Rabbitbox by Wayne Holloway-Smith (Scribner, £12.99)
The “toxic grammar” of home mediates a different form of filial elegy in Rabbitbox, where male violence terrorises the boy, or “boy-rabbit”. Here we mourn not the dead but those prevented from living: a young mother and her child besieged by a shadowy husband and father. “The mother one time locked herself unable / behind the door of the downstairs toilet / to elude the rage that thumped against it / and the mind recalls the dinner cold upon the table”. In nine unnumbered sections, we understand that for Holloway-Smith the mind recalling is a dismembered remembering by “a narrator who doesn’t want to look / his story too directly in the eye”. Inspired partly by Joseph Pintauro’s 1970s mystical children’s book, The Rabbit Box, the boy-as-rabbit is a kind of trickster looking for safety and love. He is also a shadow puppet projected on to a wall, a two-dimensional illusion of hands. Hiding in a wardrobe, the boy’s only escape is via a broken fairytale, his mother’s painful song “that had known him all its life”. Devastating, sharp with skilfully wrought language, this book is an ambitious leap into a lyricism that dissembles.

Juanita Avila later helped expose ICE’s ‘arrest first, justify later’ tactics in a lawsuit that won a major victory for immigrants’ rights

The moment 19-year-old Emely Agustin spotted the group of masked immigration agents tackling a woman facedown on the pavement, her heart dropped.

She saw the woman’s red jacket.

The bombing of Iran is deeply unpopular. Despite the Tories’ urgings, Keir Starmer must not further embroil the UK in this disaster

Keir Starmer’s immediate response to the Israeli-US attack on Iran last weekend was sensible and correct. Donald Trump had lied that the US was at risk of imminent attack, and had presented no coherent reason for going to war. Even after Starmer weakened and allowed the US to use British bases, although it did not really need them, Trump was furious. He accused Starmer of being “no Winston Churchill”. Starmer should have been equally furious and said Trump was no Franklin Roosevelt – more George W Bush.

Britain is now contending with an unreliable, mendacious and warmongering ally across the Atlantic. It surely must hold itself consistent and principled at a deeply uncertain time. But does its Tory opposition leader, Kemi Badenoch, agree? She goes to her spring party conference this week having hurled abuse at Starmer in parliament, supporting Trump on the dubious grounds that: “We’re in this war, whether they like it or not.” This appeared to be a confession of weakness, that other states can order Britons to go to war. As it was, Starmer found he had a navy left him by Badenoch’s party with hardly any seaworthy destroyers. It was surely a moment for a joint stance, not dispatch box point-scoring.

• World Cup winners will miss club games this weekend

• England Women cricketers move training to South Africa

Ellie Kildunne and Sadia Kabeya, two of England’s Women’s Rugby World Cup winners, are stranded in Dubai amid Israel’s and the United States’ war with Iran.

Kildunne, the Red Roses’ standout player as John Mitchell’s side were crowned world champions at Twickenham last summer, will miss Harlequins’ home Premiership Women’s Rugby (PWR) fixture against Saracens on Saturday. Kabeya will be unavailable for Loughborough Lightning’s match at Sale.

The actor says he had only ‘a nanosecond’ to process the racial slur shouted during the Baftas before continuing to present with co-star Michael B Jordan

Sinners star Delroy Lindo has spoken in more detail about the N-word controversy at the Baftas, which saw the BBC and Bafta apologise after a racial slur shouted by Tourette syndrome (TS) activist John Davidson was broadcast on BBC One in the edited highlights of the ceremony.

Lindo, who is nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar for his role in the film, was speaking to Tonya Mosley on NPR’s Fresh Air podcast, and said that at first he didn’t take in what had happened as he took to the stage to present an award with fellow Sinners star Michael B Jordan.

In 1995, the bands tussled for No 1 – and the Britpop crown. Our writer was on the inside of the mad-for-it contest. Does The Battle accurately capture this divisive moment? And what was Noel’s problem with risotto?

“At this point, it’s Israel/Palestine. Rangers/Celtic. No one remembers how it got started. All they know is, ‘I like this team and I don’t like that team.’ The whole country’s gone fucking mad. It’s what happens in a civil war – everyone starts thinking with the blood.”

Disco brought together music, fashion and nightlife in a cultural phenomenon that conquered the world. In A Night at the Disco by Alice Harris and Christian John Wikane, the stars of the scene are documented in photos spanning the 1970s

Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin are all trading blows over US involvement – while Sean Hannity says he’s staying out of it

The stars of the conservative media movement have been duking it out – in extremely personal terms – over Donald Trump’s decision to enter the United States into a conflict with Iran.

While it can be hard to cleanly group the warring factions, much of the fighting has centered on disagreements about whether the US is too deferential to Israeli interests. Those arguing that position most prominently include former Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, while conservative media personalities like Mark Levin (a current Fox News host) and Ben Shapiro have strongly supported both the American intervention in Iran and collaboration with Israel.

(Hallé)
Hallé/Elder
Watkins’s symphony, fanfare and concerto make for a spirited showcase of the orchestra’s clean harmonies

This recording is a celebration of what a fruitful relationship between a composer and an orchestra can be, as well as a souvenir of uneasy times. The Hallé co-commissioned Huw Watkins’ second symphony, having premiered his first; it was written amid Covid lockdowns and recorded for a filmed concert in spring 2021. Concurrently, Watkins wrote Fanfare for the Hallé, which in November 2020 was one of the first works played and recorded in the Bridgewater Hall after nine months of silence.

These energised performances, with Mark Elder conducting, are a tribute to the musicians’ resilience. In the symphony, tiny woodwind tendrils unfurl and curl around one another, creating a feeling of irresistible growth and motion, and turning into cartwheeling cascades. The slow movement has the feeling of a nocturne: gauzy, muted textures with glints of light, framing music of high agitation.

Move is part of scheme to target families for expedited voluntary removals before enforced removal proceedings

Children may be forcibly removed from the UK in handcuffs to “overcome noncompliance” as part of proposals Home Office is considering to send more asylum seeker families back to their home countries.

Since coming into office, the government has pledged to deport more migrants and has increased both voluntary and enforced returns, although some of those who have left the UK voluntarily did so without informing the Home Office.

⚽ All the latest news heading into the weekend’s action
⚽ Ten things to look out for | Football Daily | Email Dom

Will your team still be in the hat after the FA Cup fifth round?

Here are some things to look out for over the weekend – starting with Wolves v Liverpool, which kicks off in under 12 hours.

Reform UK leader told a ‘Save Chagos Boat Party’ yesterday he would be raising the issue in his meeting with the president

• Middle East crisis – live updates

A second government charter flight to bring UK nationals back from the Middle East is due to depart Oman this evening, Downing Street has confirmed.

Further flights are expected in the coming days and more than 160,000 British nationals have now registered their presence with the Foreign Office in the region.

The deputy prime minister is sliding down the slippery slope to full conflict by backing direct UK strikes on military positions in Iran.

We need an urgent clarification from number 10 on whether this is a change in Britain’s position on involvement in Trump’s illegal war.

We must not copy Trump’s unconstitutional and illegal approach to war in the Middle East.

Final deal with EU would be put to another referendum, Icelandic prime minister says

Icelandic foreign minister Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir submitted a government motion for a referendum on resuming accession talks with the European Union, proposing the vote should take place on 29 August, state broadcaster RUV has reported.

The draft resolution will be put to Icelandic parliament for approval next week.

Documentary First They Came for My College goes inside the fight for academic freedom at Florida’s New College

It took a half century to build New College into a sanctuary of independent thought and less than a year to destroy it. In 2023 the beloved Florida liberal arts school became state governor Ron DeSantis’s latest target in his so-called war on woke. DeSantis decimated the school’s trustee board and installed a cabal of rightwing cronies, aiming to transform it into a conservative institution modeled after Michigan’s evangelical Hillsdale College.

Library shelves were stripped, with books from Black and Indigenous authors and the shuttered gender studies department tossed into dumpsters. Frat boys arrived in droves and the campus was transformed into a meathead’s playground where queer couples stopped holding hands for fear of homophobic slurs. In a move ripped from the playbook of a spiteful cartoon villain, the community garden with its koi pond and roosting barn owls was bulldozed to make way for a baseball stadium.

Snowfall hit elevations above 1,500 metres in Tenerife as a yellow warning for rough seas was issued

The Canary Islands were plagued by adverse weather this week as Storm Regina, named by the Portuguese weather service, barrelled through the archipelago. The storm swept eastwards towards Africa on Tuesday and Wednesday after bringing strong gusts of up to 64mph to the island of Lanzarote.

Wave heights of 5-6 metres were widely reported, while some peaked above 6 metres along northern coasts in the Canary island chain. As a result, the area was placed under a yellow warning for rough seas. To add to the chaos, snowfall struck elevations above 1,500 metres in Tenerife, closing multiple mountain roads.

The Send Nudes author on rereading Lorrie Moore, finding Dodie Smith at the right time, and the enduring brilliance of Muriel Spark

My earliest reading memory
I remember reading Jacqueline Wilson aloud to my mum in the car. I think it was The Illustrated Mum. My mum couldn’t believe it was a children’s book, and I felt so proud. I always found most children’s books overly virtuous and safe, but Wilson’s never were. I love her for that.

My favourite book growing up
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark. I read it again recently, having mostly forgotten it, and loved it just as much. It’s totally alive.

The former homeland security chief was an incompetent figurehead of cruelty. Her departure reflects Trump’s political weakness

Was it the blanket that did it? On Thursday, Donald Trump announced he fired Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, in a post on Truth Social. Noem, at the time, was giving a press briefing in Nashville, and did not seem aware that she had been fired; she later posted on social media to thank the president for the new role that he had created for her as a golden parachute: “Envoy to the Shield of the Americas”, which sounds like something from a children’s superhero cartoon. Noem’s dismissal comes after a chaotic time at the department, in which she had endured successive national outcries over ICE kidnapping operations and the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti; corruption and mismanagement scandals within the department; rumors about an alleged extramarital relationship with her top aide and former Trump campaign chief, Corey Lewandowski; and scrutiny over her award of a lucrative advertising contract to a personal ally. Noem’s tenure at DHS seems to have been marked by state violence, managerial incompetence, and shockingly unprofessional conduct. Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Lewandowski summarily fired the pilot of a plane Noem was traveling on when a blanket (or possibly a bag) she had used on her flight was not retrieved for her when she switched planes. The pilot had to be quickly rehired because there was no one else to fly the secretary home.

Noem’s ousting comes just days after her contentious testimony at a pair of Senate committee hearings, at which even Republican House members made a point of being seen to criticize her on camera. Just hours before Trump’s announcement, the Senate had failed yet again to pass a measure which would resume funding for DHS; the department has been the subject of a congressional funding battle in which a partial government shutdown has flowed from Democrats’ demands that new limits be placed on the department’s immigration enforcement activities.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

As the public consultation on the BBC nears its end, the right will be out in force to undermine it. But its supporters can do their bit – with this guidance

The BBC may have more than one and a half years before its charter expires in December 2027, but the public consultation on its renewal closes next week. All those who care about the BBC’s future should hurry and send in their response before 10 March. Despite strong public support for the national broadcaster, you can bet battalions of enemies driven by the right will be out in force to undermine it.

The timing turns out to be accidentally apt. As chaos is unleashed across the Middle East, the BBC and its array of experienced correspondents has never been more visibly needed. Nightly reports from Jeremy Bowen, Sarah Smith, Lyse Doucet, Orla Guerin, Clive Myrie and all the rest give the country – and the world – trusted updates, as few others can do. The secretary of state for culture, media and sport, Lisa Nandy, a strong defender of the BBC, called its World Service “the light on the hill” in a world of flexible fictitious facts.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

(Dekmantel UFO)
The latest collaboration between the French producer and Egyptian singer pairs soaring musicality with frenetic electronics to examine the age of AI

Egyptian singer Abdullah Miniawy has spent the past decade lending his melismatic voice and Arabic classical maqam melodies to a fascinating range of experimental music, and. Alongside French trumpeter Erik Truffaz he released the 2023 jazz-inflected album Le Cri du Caire; in his ongoing collaboration with German trio Carl Gari, his vocals are paired with sparse electronic atmospherics; and his trio features two trombones playing through baroque-inspired compositions.

Since 2020, Miniawy has been working on a heavier, dancefloor-focused collaboration with French producer Simo Cell. Their debut EP, Kill Me Or Negotiate, employed snapping electronic percussion, thunderous trap bass and whispers of jazz horns, and the pair now delve into the darker corners of digital production.