As always, I want to hear from you today! Be sure to message me with any thoughts on the Euro 2025 quarter-finals so far and predictions for tonight’s match.
I think I’ve only just recovered from the drama of Thursday’s clash between Sweden and England. What a match! Here is how England fans reacted to the outcome…
India did their level best to mess up what should have been a relatively straightforward run chase: the lowlight was a horrendously casual piece of running by Harleen Deol which led to her dismissal purely because she couldn’t be bothered to ground her bat.
Three decades on from Blur and Oasis, a new and more diverse wave of stars is celebrating British identity
In the opening episode of Lena Dunham’s Netflix show Too Much, a heartbroken New Yorker moves to London to live out her fantasy of British life and love stories. Jess is quickly swept up in her feelings for an indie musician, dreamily referring to him as “My Mr Darcy, my Rochester, my Alan Rickman”.
Produced by the team behind Bridget Jones, Notting Hill and Love Actually, the show was inspired by Dunham’s own move to London in 2021.
The author’s instinctive image of colourful windows in a house undergoing renovation was selected for the Royal Academy’s annual Summer Exhibition
Elizabeth Day felt as if she hadn’t seen the sun for decades. It was a gloomy December morning and the podcaster and author was headed towards a London recording studio. On the way, she passed a row of houses that were being renovated. The windows on one particular house had just been replaced and covered with a translucent blue sheet and haphazard orange tape; the scene caught her eye, so she paused to capture it with her iPhone 15 Pro.
“I’m known among my loved ones as someone who takes photos of random things, but I just found this so arresting,” Day says. “I was struck by the grammar of it, the angular nature. The tape reminded me of art’s golden ratio, the geometry like a Mondrian crossed with a Rothko. I was exhausted that morning and it completely brightened my mood.”
Campaigning on ‘protecting democracy’ isn’t appealing for non-college-educated voters. So why haven’t Democrats changed their message?
Doing the same thing and expecting a different result – that’s the definition of insanity. So I fall into despair when I hear yet another news story, and yet another politician, talking incessantly about assaults on democracy. It’s as if folks have read no post-2024 election polling. Defense of democracy was a top issue for Democrats but way, way down for those who voted for Donald Trump: their top concerns were inflation and the economy. Democrats lost the popular vote. They need to attract voters they lost in the last election. What’s complicated about this?
Assaults on democracy are driven by narcissistic authoritarianism, for sure – but they’re also a strategy to control the narrative in ways that aid and abet the far right. Democrats need to stop walking into the same old trap, and supplement defense of democracy with a viable strategy to lure back enough non-college-educated voters to win elections.
Six-hour bombardment of the strategic hub in the Dnipropetrovsk region came at the same time as airstrikes killed one person in Odesa
Russia launched its biggest ever attack on the eastern Ukrainian city of Pavlohrad early on Saturday, as part of a large wave of strikes across the country involving hundreds of kamikaze drones and ballistic missiles.
The six-hour bombardment was the worst in the city’s history. The head of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Sergey Lysak, said a factory was damaged, a fire station destroyed and a five-storey residential building hit.
Royal Albert Hall, London An oddly disparate programme, including an Errollyn Wallen world premiere and a Vaughan Williams rarity, didn’t quite cohere in this opening concert, but all was outstandingly played
This year’s Proms began with a curiously uneven concert. The programme, conducted by Sakari Oramo with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, felt oddly disparate. The main works were the Sibelius Violin Concerto with Lisa Batiashvili as soloist, and Vaughan Williams’s oratorio Sancta Civitas, a comparative rarity. There was new music, too, the world premiere of The Elements by Errollyn Wallen, Master of the King’s Music. Oramo opened, however, with Arthur Bliss’s Birthday Fanfare for Sir Henry Wood, before segueing, without pause, into Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture, the latter most beautifully done, with finely focussed strings and woodwind, but something of a jolt after Bliss’s jaunty little piece for brass and timpani in honour of the Proms’ founder.
Wallen’s new work, meanwhile, didn’t feel entirely successful. The Proms Guide argues that it explores the “periodic table of orchestral elements” that form the basis of composition, though Wallen writes, in her own programme note, that its prime concern is “the fundamentals of music, life and love.” It’s cast in a single-three section movement, the first dark and gritty, the second poised, elegant and sounding like Ravel, the third ringing changes on music from Purcell’s The Fairy Queen. But it never coheres, and the Purcell quotes just leave you longing for the original.
The conductor, whose historically informed evangelism helped transform the classical music world, has died. Tom Service remembers a man who looked to the past to find a fresh and thrilling present.
The conductor Sir Roger Norrington, whose death was announced yesterday at the age of 91, remains still the maverick presence that classical music needs. His mission wasn’t only to make us hear the repertoire we thought it knew through the prism of the techniques and playing styles of its time, rather than the ossifications of later traditions. He was also an irresistible firebrand in performance, whose energy wasn’t only about inspiring his performers to get closer to the music they were playing, it was also an invitation to his audiences that their listening should be involved too. Norrington wanted everyone to feel the urgency of Beethoven’s rhetorical power and rudeness, from the radiance of one of his favourite pieces, the Missa Solemnis, to the emetic contrabassoon in the finale of the Ninth Symphony, which was always the richest of raspberries in his performances and recordings.
Haydn’s symphonies, particularly, were pieces of participative performance art in Norrington’s hands, in which his delight in sharing the radical humour and jaw-dropping discontinuities of the music was so evident. The conductor would turn round to his listeners - especially in the Prommers in the arena of the Royal Albert Hall in one of his 42 appearances at the Proms - to make sure we all realised just how weird and wonderful this music really was.
Amy Heckerling, Alicia Silverstone and more involved with the defining 1995 movie talk about their memories of making a film that Hollywood kept passing on
In the early 1990s, the writer-director Amy Heckerling was feeling down. Heckerling had burst on to the scene a decade earlier with Fast Times at Ridgemont High, a groundbreaking coming-of-age comedy of libidinous teens, and scored a surprise box office hit with 1989’s Look Who’s Talking. But she was struggling to fit Hollywood demands. “I was thinking: ‘Oh, I’m never going to make a film that’s what I want it to be, because you can’t have protagonists that are female, you have to do slob comedies, but there’s only a few actors that they accept in those roles, and you don’t get a chance to work with them if you’re a female,’” Heckerling told me recently.
With little interest in catering to the prevailing tastes of the day, Heckerling went back to the drawing board: what did she want to write? A true native New Yorker with the accent to match, Heckerling “gravitated towards darker stuff” – early gangster movies, David Lynch. But she was most amused by “people who are very optimistic and happy. I just think, how the hell did they get that way?” Like the main character in the 1994 movie Ed Wood, perpetually pleased with his mediocre work, or the star of Gentleman Prefer Blondes (the book), sending herself flowers to stir the jealousy of men around her. She envisioned a woman in a “big, pink bubble that can’t be burst”, convinced of her centrality but still winsome, relentlessly positive and naive. Someone like Cher Horowitz, the most impeccably dressed 16-year-old in America, hapless social matchmaker of Beverly Hills’ Bronson Alcott high school and the lead of Heckerling’s movie Clueless.
Trump’s grooming of his followers is impossible to undo. Now he is bedeviled by a conspiracy theory gap
Some enchanted evening, Donald Trump saw a stranger across a crowded room.
It is likely that there is hardly anyone living who knows exactly under what glowing lights Donald Trump met Jeffrey Epstein, except perhaps Trump himself and Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend who is serving a 20-year prison term for helping to procure minors for sexual abuse. Trump said in an interview in 2002, when his Epstein relationship was still tight, that it had been a 15-year mutual admiration society. Epstein was “a terrific guy” and “a lot of fun to be with,” and “likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side”. Epstein described himself as “Donald’s closest friend for 10 years”.
“It’s sad. I think it killed the town,” says Debbie, sitting in a cafe in Bridgend and recalling the closure of Ford’s south Wales engine plant almost five years ago. “There were lots of men and women working there at the end.”
During its 40 years of operations, workers at Bridgend Ford produced 22m engines for Ford, Volvo and Jaguar cars, before it closed quietly in September 2020 during ongoing Covid restrictions.
The actor on disappointing her mother, the only time she will tell a lie, and a terrible spat with Glenda Jackson
Born in Oxford, Miriam Margolyes, 84, began acting at Cambridge University. In 1994, she won a Bafta for her role in The Age of Innocence and was later cast as Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter films. Her stage credits include Wicked, The Vagina Monologues and Dickens’ Women; her TV work includes Trollied and Blackadder. In 2002, she was made OBE, and in 2022 received a BBC Audio Drama lifetime achievement award. She takes Margolyes and Dickens: More Best Bits to the Edinburgh fringe at the Pleasance at EICC, Pentland theatre from 9-24 August. She lives in London.
When were you happiest?
On tour during Christmas vacation at Cambridge with its European Theatre Group, playing Shakespeare. I knew it was the best time of my life.
The White House is trying to drive out the Federal Reserve chair. Critics warn it would be a costly bid to pass the buck
Memo from the White House: inflation is “right on track”, it declared this week, citing the latest official data. Price growth is now “very low”, according to Donald Trump. The actual statistics paint a markedly different picture.
Just six months after he regained power, in part by promising to rapidly reduce prices, Trump has presided over the chaotic rollout of tariffs on an array of overseas products that many have argued risk having the exact opposite effect.
A Sicilian shaved ice dessert of fresh pomegranate juice and a luxurious frozen cream pudding layered with boozy cake
Here are two recipes that I’ve been eating at home with my family since even before the warmer weather started to make me smile: a tiramisu semifreddo and a granita, the Sicilian iced slush (made from fresh fruit juice, nut milks or coffee) that is is the Slush Puppie’s distinguished aunt. The ultimate refreshers on a sunny day at any time of the year.
Briton tries to remain relaxed despite his usual ‘vocal’ approach after staying in contention on day two at Portrush
First Tyrrell Hatton effed, jeffed and played his way into Open contention. Then he revealed he was off for three pints of Guinness to relax and ready himself for the business end of this championship.
It sounds like a distinctly old-school approach. But the fact Hatton was smiling as he talked, spoke volumes. He is clearly happy and relaxed. And, just as importantly, now appears far better at flushing out the anger that erupts when he falls short of perfection or gets a bad break. And that makes him a live danger in Portrush.
The New York mayoral candidate has piqued the interest of South Asian Americans and Muslims – not only because of his identity, but his platform, too
Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York City’s Democratic primary for mayor has a group of Pakistani American aunties and uncles so excited that they are wondering if they should have given their own children more freedom in choosing their careers. “What if we let our kids become politicians, and not just doctors and engineers?” a member of the grassroots political organizing group, DRUM Beats, asked at a small celebration held at an Islamic school last month in south Brooklyn.
DRUM Beats, which represents New York City’s working class South Asian and Indo-Caribbean populations, was one of the first grassroots groups to endorse Mamdani, when he launched his campaign in October – long before he became a household name. More than 300 volunteers, who spoke near a dozen languages, knocked on at least 10,000 doors to support him. DRUM Beats says these efforts helped increase voter turnout by almost 90% among Indo Caribbean and South Asians in some neighborhoods.
When he left the Soviet Union for a new life in America, the novelist never imagined he would live under another authoritarian regime. Then Trump got back into power ... Is it time to move again?
Oh, to have been born in a small, stylish country with good food and favourable sea breezes. No empire, no holy faith, no condescension, no fatal ideologies. The fish is grilled, the extended family roll in on their scooters, the wine looks amber in its glass as the socially democratic sun begins its plunge into the sparkling waters below.
This was not my fortune. I was born to one dying superpower and am now living in another. I was born to an ideology pasted all over enormous granite buildings in enormous Slavic letters and now live in one where the same happens in bold caps on what was once Twitter and what purports to be Truth (Pravda?) Social. America, Russia. Russia, America. Together they were kind enough to give me the material from which I made a decent living as a writer, but they took away any sense of normality, any faith that societies can provide lives without bold-faced slogans, bald-faced lies, leaders with steely set jaws, and crusades against phantom menaces, whether Venezuelan or Ukrainian.
UK government will give £35m to help push for event
Previous successes leave city in strong position for bid
London is in prime position to stage the 2029 World Athletics Championships after finally securing a substantial government funding commitment for the bid.
It is understood the UK government has agreed to give £35m to help bid for the championships, which would be the first to be staged in London since 2017, with the mayor’s office expected to commit about £10m.
In a social media trend, the airline’s joyful advert jingle is being played over cheerless summer holiday footage
You’re the boss of a travel company, it’s early summer and your brand is going viral. Millions of people are watching and sharing social media clips of people on holiday, the soundtrack to which is your company jingle.
The Swedish striker has become more meme than man but he is the very good thing fans asked for, on a tray, ready to go
The current edition of France Football magazine has a photo of Viktor Gyökeres on the cover. Not that I’ve looked at it much, or pored over its details searching for meaning, but the photo shows Gyökeres half in shade, half in sun, displaying his famously shredded physique, not so much the standard male musculature, more a selection of lines and bulges, like he’s made entirely from giant walnuts, like a perfect human challah loaf designed by a robot.
In the photo Gyökeres is smiling with a kind of fervour, as though he’s about to sell you a miracle muscle powder. And I for one would buy this powder. Make me into a cyborg, Viktor. Maximise my hidden hyper-potential. Basically, I want Viktor Gyökeres to hold me brusquely in his arms while he talks about good proteins and explains the blockchain, in a way that isn’t sexual. Not for me anyway, but that definitely is for him.
The foam footwear is selling fast at the high-end store in London but the price remains controversial
Rounded, cushioned and with a thick strap, foam sliders have been a familiar sight on feet this summer. While they are available for £30 from Adidas or £3.49 on the online marketplace Temu, a high-fashion version is now also on offer. The Ama sliders, in a choice of black, red or white, were launched by the American fashion brand The Row this week. They cost £600.
Laura Reilly, the writer of the influential fashion newsletter Magasin, called them “The Row’s latest rage bait”, using the name for posts online designed to provoke anger, and go viral in the process.
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