Two grooming gang survivors quit national inquiry panel
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Its deranged antagonist might be an Anton Chigurh rip-off, but some fantastically flailing fight scenes almost lift this otherwise humdrum action romp
No Country for Old Men’s Anton Chigurh was the scariest thing to come out of Latin America since Argentinian inflation. So it’s taken a surprisingly long time to see a direct imitator: the dark-clad avenger El Corvo, played here by Marko Zaror. Not only does he have the gauche coiffuring (bald on top this time), but also the philosophical penchant, asking imminent victims if they’ve given themselves a present recently. If the Cormac McCarthy rip-off wasn’t enough, Ernesto Díaz Espinoza’s ponderous thriller also gives El Corvo a couple of scenes lifted from The Terminator, and the villain from Enter the Dragon’s blade-hand for good measure.
Diablo isn’t all cliches though: martial arts multitool Scott Adkins has a potentially interesting role inverting the usual over-the-border revenge mission. He plays former bank robber Kris, who’s been charged with entering Colombia and kidnapping Elisa (Alanna De La Rossa), the daughter of drug baron Vicente (Lucho Velasco). Making good on a promise to her dead mother to extract her from the kingpin’s clutches, he bundles her into a car boot – and soon he not only has Vicente and assorted ne’er-do-wells on his six, but El Corvo too, hoping to cut in on the bounty.
Continue reading...Tommy Robinson is said to be going to Villa Park as a Maccabi Tel Aviv fan. Do the politicians jumping on this bandwagon care what they are doing
Continue reading...Family of Robert Baker call for change of healthcare policies that limit NHS access to 10 BOT citizens a year
Friends and family of a British overseas territory (BOT) citizen who died after the UK refused him medical assistance have called for reform of “flawed” policies governing healthcare for the territories.
Robert Baker, a 63-year-old dual citizen of Jamaica and Montserrat, died on Friday, after travelling to Jamaica to receive treatment for blackouts that was unavailable in the British overseas territory of Montserrat.
Continue reading...Davies, who died in 2023, was the director of masterworks such as The Long Day Closes, The House of Mirth, and Distant Voices, Still Lives. As the BFI mounts a full retrospective, we go behind the scenes of some of his acclaimed films
Continue reading...Powered by fruit cake and fresh fish, our writer takes in the spectacular cliffs, coves and villages along a new seafood trail
In all human endeavours undertaken within Britiain’s isles, the provision of tea and cake is the most vital consideration. When a walker or cyclist delivers the damning judgment “there’s no decent caff” to a group of friends, the ghastly silence is followed by everyone crossing the accursed region off their map. The sheer importance of this staple dietary ingredient is obvious from our island geography: Dundee, Eccles, Bakewell, Chelsea …
So it was with some trepidation that I set out to walk around the Llŷn peninsula in Gwynedd, Wales, on part of what is called the Seafood Trail. I mean, I love a lobster, but what about the fruit scones? Bangor University’s school of ocean sciences has produced a map of seafood producers and outlets to encourage hikers as they stride along the coastal path. Fine, but it’s the late afternoon sugar lull that I worry about.
Continue reading...Top adventure watch upgraded with 4G calls, messages, live tracking, satellite texts and SOS for going off the grid
The latest update to Garmin’s class-leading Fenix adventure watch adds something that could save your life: phone-free communications and emergency messaging on 4G or via satellite.
The Fenix 8 Pro takes the already fantastic Fenix 8 and adds in the new cellular tech, plus the option of a cutting-edge microLED screen in a special edition of the watch. It is Garmin’s top model and designed to be the only tool you need to more-or-less go anywhere and track anything.
Continue reading...If we regard this book as literature, it is an unqualified failure. But these juvenile stories and essays shed fascinating light on the repression of Lee’s early life
When a new book is published by a writer dead for a decade, there is always some suspicion that the bottom of the barrel is being scraped. When the writer is Harper Lee, there is also the unpleasant aftertaste of the release of her second novel, 2015’s Go Set a Watchman, which was promoted as a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, when in fact it was a formless early draft. The publication was also surrounded by controversy over whether the aged Lee, by then seriously disabled, had really consented to its publication.
This new book, The Land of Sweet Forever, is a much more conventional enterprise: a collection of Lee’s unpublished short stories and previously uncollected essays. No deception is being practised here, and if people want to read the lesser scribblings of a favourite author, it is surely a victimless crime. However, like most such books, it has little to offer to those who aren’t diehard fans.
Continue reading...This fascinating documentary will linger in the mind after watching. Plus: Aimee Lou Wood’s will-they-won’t-they drama concludes. Here’s what to watch this evening
10pm, BBC Four
A remarkable film recorded over the course of a summer at Kuyalnik sanatorium in Odesa. Despite the conflict in Ukraine, the war is a background presence. Instead, this has the feel of a Wes Anderson film: a vast, sprawling, anachronistic Soviet relic surrounded by allegedly life-giving mud, and boasting the kind of equipment that would have been state of the art 100 years ago. An atmospheric piece that will linger in the memory. Phil Harrison
Sanae Takaichi has made history but will have little time to settle in before negotiating the pitfalls of rising prices, power struggles and a mercurial US president
It is hard to overstate the symbolism of Sanae Takaichi’s achievement on Tuesday in becoming the first female prime minister of Japan, a country that consistently ranks poorly in global gender equality comparisons, not least in politics and business.
However, she will have precious little time to savour her historic appointment.
Continue reading...Take Me Somewhere tucks audiences up in bed, takes them to a last supper and delights with a paddling-pool comedy-tragedy
A nurse puts a steadying hand on my back and guides me to bed. She takes off my shoes, dresses me in soft pyjamas and hands me a VR headset. Mum will be along soon to read a bedtime story, she says. ZU-UK’s tender encounter Within Touching Distance is part of Take Me Somewhere, Glasgow’s biennial festival of wild-hearted international performance. With a teddy bear pressed into my hands, this is a deceptively gentle start to my day, which ends with a queering of the Apostles and a greased-up naked man being hand-fed fish.
Within Touching Distance is a slow act of care-taking, walking one audience member at a time through the course of a life, from being read a story as a child to clutching a walking frame in old age. Blending the physical with the digital, this smartly choreographed piece fights against technology’s lack of intimacy; when I’m watching “Mum” squeeze my shoulder in my VR goggles, I feel my shoulder squeezed for real. When she wiggles my toes, I feel each one pinched in perfect time with the image. I’d have thought being caressed by a stranger would be disorienting, but I’m so snug in bed that the contact only feels comforting and safe.
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