Dear fellow fans of Lee Child’s inimitable creation: all you need to know about Reacher (Amazon Prime Video), the new television series based on the books, is that for the first six and half minutes of the opening episode, Reacher says nothing. This, for the uninitiated, is both the defining feature of Jack Reacher – our ex-military police, lone-wolf hero and man-with-virtually-no-name – and a...
Lynda Baron, who has died aged 82, was well known to television viewers spanning the generations, but her comforting presence in comedy and children’s fare belied the fact that in reality she was a multi-talented grafter who excelled in every discipline. Between 1976 and 1985 Baron played the formidable Nurse Gladys Emmanuel in Roy Clarke’s popular sitcom Open All Hours, continually spurning the...
‘That makes you the Scarlet Witch’“When I sensed this place, the afterglow of so many spells cast all at once …” Agatha’s Exposition Hour drops most of the WandaVision puzzle pieces into place,not least the clarification that the show we’ve been watching really was Wanda’s creation all along. The big jump here, though it might not feel like it, is the acknowledgment that this is magic. In the...
The Wheel of Time, the new fantasy series on Amazon Prime, is what happens when Jeff Bezos orders you to come up with a Game of Thrones-type hit. This adaptation of Robert Jordan’s 11-novel series also functions as a stopgap while fans await Amazon’s Lord of the Rings prequel – Telling “Unexplored Stories” Based on JRR’s Works But With Creative Restrictions Imposed By the Estate! – which is...
Even as she gave speeches about her work at the tech company, a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) she signed forbade her to share the reason for quitting her role as a public policy manager, where she engaged with press, elected officials and health experts. But on 15 June 2020, Ozoma reached a breaking point. Amid national unrest and protests for racial justice, Pinterest had joined other tech...
Over early morning coffee at his Oxfordshire farmhouse, Jeremy Clarkson is talking about his new nemesis, badgers, and the fact that they constantly urinate, usually on his grass. “If they’ve got TB and a cow eats that bit of grass, then you, the taxpayer, pay for that cow to be killed. A quarter of the world’s badgers live in the UK, causing chaos. But if you say, ‘I’m going to shoot a badger’...
Warm water rushed up the sand and fizzed over our feet like soda. Screaming with a combination of joy and nerves, my two-year-old scrambled on to my back as the next wave washed around my waist, draping ribbons of seaweed over us both. Just nine months old when the first lockdown struck, she had never seen the sea and didn’t quite know what to do. Soaked, she threw herself on to the hot, camel...
etween the travel restrictions, social distancing, badly ventilated spaces indoors and weather outdoors, we are not exactly shaping up for a great British summer. The silver lining you seek could be the silver screen. Drive-in and outdoor cinemas are looking like the best of several worlds: you’re getting out of the house but not necessarily out of your car, you’re together with other people yet...
Channel 4’s new drama Before We Die is based on a Swedish series of the same name. It figures: viewing it felt exactly like watching something where all the important things had been lost in translation. A pace that might perhaps have fostered a sense of dread in the original here tips over into simple slowness. The story – shifted from Stockholm to Bristol – follows senior police detective...
The City watchdog has raised concerns about a deal to give the cryptocurrency platform Binance access to the UK payments network just months after it ordered the company to stop all regulated activities in Britain. The Financial Conduct Authority said it had limited powers to object to the arrangement with Paysafe, a London-based payments provider, despite its concerns about Binance offering...