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Comics and graphic novels This article is more than 12 years oldBatgirl back on her feet after 23 years in DC comics rebootThis article is more than 12 years oldFans lament end of paraplegic storyline as DC Comics announces all 52 of its series are to revert to issue number oneHoly broken bones! Barbara Gordon, the original Batgirl character paralysed from the waist down in a dastardly deed by the Joker, is to rise again - 23 years after she lost the ability to walk. [Read More]

Crossword blogCrosswordsCrossword blog: three-dimensional cryptic crosswordsAlan Connor has his mind fried by Eric Westbrook, who devises 3D crosswords with clues by Guardian settersI suppose someone was always going to do it. Consider Dr Ferdinand Maack, a 19th-century German eccentric who decided that chess was (a) insufficiently difficult and (b) insufficiently like warfare, so added a third dimension and devised "Raumschach", not unlike the tri-dimensional chess they play on the USS Enterprise. [Read More]

History books This article is more than 8 years oldHenry VIII voted worst monarch in historyThis article is more than 8 years old‘Self-indulgent wife murderer and tyrant’ tops poll of historical writers, ahead of Edward VIII and Charles I King John I may forever be known as a Bad King following that seminal history textbook 1066 and All That, but according to history authors, it is Henry VIII who should bear the title of the worst monarch in history. [Read More]

Horatio Nelson This article is more than 6 years oldLord Nelson’s rotating gems recreated decades after original was stolenThis article is more than 6 years oldRoyal Navy museum in Portsmouth to display replica of admiral’s ‘bizarre’ diamond-laden plume on Trafalgar Day One of Admiral Lord Nelson’s most treasured possessions, which must have provoked stifled giggles when he switched on the clockwork mechanism and the great diamond in his hat rotated, has been recreated from the original designs more than half a century after it was stolen. [Read More]

Doctor WhoRichard Franklin: Doctor Who and Emmerdale actor dies aged 87Family say actor died in his sleep on Christmas morning after a long-term illness Richard Franklin, the actor best known for his roles in Doctor Who and Emmerdale, has died on Christmas Day at the age of 87. Franklin died “in his sleep” on Christmas morning after a long-term illness, a spokesperson for his family said. The spokesperson added: “We are deeply saddened by his loss, we will fondly remember him for his generosity, creative spirit and fantastic story telling. [Read More]

MoviesRollerblading porn starlet in Boogie Nights and serial shag-nymph in Austin Powers, Heather Graham is now testing the bedsprings in Bowfinger. So how did a good Catholic girl from the suburbs find fortune as a sexually wayward minx? We blame the parents. Or we might if she were willing to talk about them...Heather Graham sits at a Columbus Avenue pavement table on New York's Upper West Side, drinks through a straw from a plastic cup of something which appears to be cold, creamy and caffeinated, and answers questions, laughing a lot, pretending to enjoy it. [Read More]

BooksYoung TikTok users are sharing their passion for books with millions – bringing titles they love to life online and reshaping the publishing world, all in under a minute In August 2020, Kate Wilson, a 16-year-old from Shrewsbury, posted on the social media video platform TikTok a series of quotes from books she had read, “that say I love you, without actually saying I love you”. Set to a melancholy soundtrack, the short video plays out as Wilson, an A-level student, holds up copies of the books with the quotes superimposed over them. [Read More]

ThrillersReviewThe White Lotus breakout Sydney Sweeney stars in a Rear Window homage that provides a certain kind of lurid, twisty entertainment that’s been missing for so long Remember sex at the movies? It wasn’t all that long ago – the 90s, maybe even the early aughts – that studios believed in the narrative utility and simple entertainment value of watching professionally good-looking people engaged in acts of intimacy. Decades of chastened blockbuster heroes, their ascent at the expense of the mid-budget character pieces for grownups that have all but gone extinct, have estranged the public from the combination of maturity and libidinous fun that once made the erotic thriller a dominant industry force in Hollywood. [Read More]

BooksIn An Inconvenient Apocalypse, authors Wes Jackson and Robert Jensen write that society needs to be better prepared for an inevitable collapse In An Inconvenient Apocalypse, authors Wes Jackson and Robert Jensen style themselves as heralds of some very bad news: societal collapse on a global scale is inevitable, and those who manage to survive the mass death and crumbling of the world as we know it will have to live in drastically transformed circumstances. [Read More]

Life and styleBarbara Weed's son Tom, 18, cut himself off from his family after getting drawn into a controversial online community. She has not seen him since. Kate Hilpern reportsOne Wednesday afternoon in May, when Barbara Weed's 18-year-old son, Tom, was right in the middle of his A-levels, he abruptly left home. "Dear Family," said the note he left on the doormat. "I need to take an indefinite amount of time away from the family, so I've moved in with a friend. [Read More]