The UK’s Eurovision 2026 entrant has shared his take after failing to secure any votes from viewers at this year’s contest.

On Saturday night, Look Mum No Computer – the stage name of musician and YouTube personality Sam Battle – represented the UK at the contest in Vienna, Austria with his song Eins, Zwei, Drei.

In the end, the UK landed at the bottom of the leaderboard and, for the third year in a row, didn’t earn any points from viewers in the televote, meaning no competing countries had us in their top 10 acts.

Fortunately, Look Mum No Computer was spared the dreaded “nul points” as he secured one single point in the jury vote from Ukraine.

During the announcement over the weekend, the UK’s act seemed to take the blow in his stride and laughed it off, and later posted about the result on Instagram on Sunday.

After celebrating that the “deserved winner” had ended up lifting the Eurovision trophy on the night, Look Mum No Computer said he’d “met a lot of amazing folk” during his experience at the contest, adding: “The most important thing is we all tried our hardest. Regardless of what is against us. Whatever it may be.

“Gotta keep trying your hardest regardless of the foooookennnn outcome!!!”

This year’s Eurovision was once again blighted with controversy due to Israel’s continued participation, despite the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, with five participating nations withdrawing from the 2026 contest in solidarity with Palestine.

For the second year in a row, Israel’s participant finished in the runner up position during the live final, but it was Bulgaria’s Dara who came out on top by more than 170 points with her musical offering Bangaranga.

Bulgaria returned to Eurovision after a five-year absence in 2026, with Dara’s victory representing the country’s first ever win.

According to The Guardian, the applause following Pillion’s screening at last year’s Cannes Film Festival “lasted several minutes, with the inevitable awkwardness of seeming dutiful”.

The Alexander Skarsgård film is the norm, not the exception.

In 2024, Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis reportedly got seven callous-inducing minutes of standing ovation. Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth managed to elicit a record-breaking 22 mins in 2006.

And Joachim Trier’s 2025 follow-up to The Worst Person In The World rivalled that, with the ovation for his latest film clocking in at almost 20 minutes.

GQ has said in the past that, when it comes to applause at Cannes, “anything five minutes or less is a tepid – or worse – appraisal”.

But how did this palm prison get built, and what is its purpose?

According to The Atlantic (who, like The Guardian, call the custom “awkward”), clapping at Cannes is part of the spectacle.

At the French festival in particular, the length and enthusiasm of the clapping is seen as a sign of who thinks which film will be the next “hit”.

But the “pageantry” of standing ovations is fallible at best and unfairly, performatively biased at worst – for what it’s worth, Megalopolis was both critically panned and a box office flop.

Speaking to The Atlantic, professor Scott Page, who’s studied clapping as a form of social behaviour, said: “There is a real asymmetry to who has influence”.

You might be more inclined to partake in a quarter-hour of palm-smashing if someone you really respect and admire is doing so beside you, he suggested.

He added that “if you’re not sure” about a film, and “you think the other people [around you] are smarter than you, then you are going to stand… I imagine Cannes to be a place [where if I ask myself,] ‘How confident am I, sitting near movie stars and directors?’”

The answer, he says, is likely to be “not very”.

Also, I can’t imagine the panic of being the first person to stop applauding, say, a Del Toro film in front of the man himself – peer pressure and etiquette pile up.

Speaking to Screen Daily, Barry Hertz, film editor and critic for Canadian national newspaper The Globe and Mail, says that the length of applause a film got at Cannes can sometimes be seen as an interim star rating system until its release.

“Instead of a film getting four stars, it got a ’10-minute standing ovation,’” he says.

But though an anonymous film PR told the publication that “nobody is taking it seriously,” Kent Sanderson, president of indie film distributor Bleecker Street, doesn’t think Cannes’ applause sessions are going anywhere fast.

“It’s a self-perpetuating machine between the festival, the trades and the audiences,” they commented.

The more the Cannes audience claps, the more it’s noted that they clap, the more expected long clapping sessions become; so, it becomes both a sign of disdain and proof of not being “in on” the festival’s culture not to do so.

I’d call it a vicious cycle, but it’s literally already a shoulder-aching, barbed, endless round…

Many will know that exercise seems to reduce dementia risk (a 2022 paper found that walking 3,800 steps a day may lower your likelihood of developing dementia by 25%, with increasing benefits up to 9,800 steps).

Even when it’s not directly dementia-related, movement appears to improve memory and thinking skills which become more vital in later life.

A recent paper, published in Brain Communications, has found that 20 minutes of cycling a day can create “ripples” in the brain that might help us to process and store information more efficiently.

The research involved 14 participants aged from 17-50. They tracked their brain activity before and after 20-minute stationary cycling sessions through an intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG).

The iEEG measures electrical activity in the brain, which provides an added layer of detail.

Previously, scientists had noticed “ripples” in the minds of rats, which were believed to improve their memories after exercise, though these had not been seen in humans before.

But the iEEGs in this research saw similar results after the participants completed their exercise.

Speaking to Medical News Today, study author Dr Juan Ramirez-Villegas said, “Ripples are very brief bursts of highly synchronised electrical activity in the brain’s memory centre, the hippocampus.

“In animals, they are known to play a key role in stabilising memories after an experience. You can think of them as moments when the brain rapidly ‘reviews’ information, helping convert recent experiences into lasting memories.”

They might also help to regulate blood sugar in animals, the study added.

The study found that the higher someone’s heart rate got during the cycling session, the stronger those “ripples” seemed to be.

“This suggests that the intensity of physical activity may influence how strongly the brain’s memory circuits respond,” stated Dr Ramirez-Villegas.

Aside from the “ripple” effect, this research also seemed to help different parts of the brain communicate better, potentially leading to improved memory.

“It is surprising how after a session of acute exercise, hippocampal-cortical communication seems to be enhanced, a phenomenon thought to be strongly linked to memory processing,” Dr Ramirez-Villegas said.

“This suggests that even a brief bout of physical activity can influence the neural dynamics involved in learning and memory.”

If you’ve heard your kids talk about looksmaxxing, mewing, jestermaxxing, or more recently, frame mogging, it might be time to gently explore where all this is coming from.

For those who aren’t chronically online and have absolutely no knowledge of these terms, I’ll quickly help fill you in on what they mean – and why you should keep a closer eye on your teen’s behaviour if you hear them discussing these terms.

‘Looksmaxxing’ describes the improvement of physical appearance, commonly through a number of practices which range in intensity – from using skincare to undergoing surgery.

While there’s nothing wrong in wanting to take pride in your appearance – indeed, having a skincare routine and using SPF, staying hydrated, eating a balanced diet and exercising are all great ways to look after yourself – looksmaxxing can take things to the extremes.

It’s a phenomenon that’s been catapulted from the manosphere – a collection of websites and forums that typically promote masculinity, some of which amplify misogynistic views – to the mainstream.

One online streamer known as Clavicular claims to have “looksmaxxed” himself from the age of 14 through a combination of exercise, steroids, surgery and taking a hammer to his face (also referred to as “bonesmashing”).

But experts have concerns over how the quest to looksmaxx impacts teens during a crucial period in development – and a time when self-esteem is typically pretty low.

Dr Candice O’Neil, psychologist at Ontic Psychology, previously told Patient looksmaxxing has the potential to “influence young people’s feelings about themselves and behaviours both implicitly and overtly”.

She explained: “This becomes unhealthy when it moves from general self-improvement and wellbeing practices into a preoccupation with their appearance – particularly when that involves constant comparison with others or extreme adjustments to food and exercise. This can also lead to deep feelings of poor self-worth and self-concept.”

Over time, this might begin to impact a person’s mental health and potentially lead to disordered eating, body dysmorphia, obsessive and compulsive behaviours, or self-harm.

Mewing is one of the practices some are trying in the pursuit of looksmaxxing. It involves pressing the tongue firmly against the roof of your mouth, with a view to reshape the jawline.

Does it work? Dr Baldeep Farmah, aesthetic doctor at Dr Aesthetica, said “no credible research supports the jaw restructuring looksmaxxing communities promise”.

Similar to looksmaxxing, but the focus is on being funny or hilarious, rather than physical self improvement. While there’s nothing wrong with having a laugh and joking around, some parents are noticing their teens are, once again, taking it to the extremes.

One parent shared on Reddit that their 16-year-old son was ‘jestermaxxing’ at home non-stop: “He’ll just interrupt us at dinner with some loud random joke or impression then stare at everyone waiting for a huge reaction … Family time is exhausting because it’s like he’s performing all the time instead of just talking normally.”

They added: “He used to talk about girls like a normal teenager but now he says things like ‘foids [a derogatory term for women] only respect you if you jestermaxx correctly’ which I had to search and it made me feel sick.”

More recently, kids have been talking about frame mogging, but to understand the meaning of that one, we need to first define mogging, which means outperforming or dominating over someone.

He added frame mogging “comes from a really toxic thought process that is good [for parents] to be aware of”.

When Clavicular was approached to take a photo with a fraternity leader, and the photo was posted online, his followers joked he’d been “frame mogged” as the fraternity leader was bigger built.

So, in short: frame mogging means you’re showing someone up by being more muscular. And in these communities, muscle apparently equals ‘alpha male’.

A lot of these terms stem from incel (involuntary celibate) communities online, made up of men who forge a sense of identity around their perceived inability to form sexual or romantic relationships.

They might say this is because of how they look or because they’re “low status”. Either way, much of their anger is directed at women.

According to Educate Against Hate, boys are drawn to this kind of content because it offers a sense of belonging, simple answers to complex societal problems, and an element of control or empowerment.

Nearly 70% of boys aged 11-14 years old have been exposed to misogynistic content online, per Ofcom, and most primary and secondary school teachers are “extremely concerned” about the influence of the manosphere on children and young people.

While there will be plenty of boys who shun these narratives, over time this content can – and does – subtly shift perceptions.

If you notice your son using these terms, your best bet is to stay curious and keep the lines of communication open.

Staying non-judgemental and asking open-ended questions, like “What do you like about that content?” or “How did you come across that idea?”, is key.

Fiona Yassin, a family psychotherapist and founder and clinical director of The Wave Clinic, previously told HuffPost UK: “It’s important for parents to name what’s happening. For example, acknowledging that there are online spaces where relationships are framed transactionally – where worth is tied to wealth, appearance, or sexual history.”

Parents can show awareness, and therefore signal understanding, without endorsement, she said. You could say something like: “I understand this is something people are talking about right now.”

Teaching and encouraging critical thinking is important, as is reinforcing your family values.

Check out more tips on speaking to kids about misogyny here.

Robert Jenrick’s attack on Andy Burnham’s pro-migration stance has one rather substantial problem: the Reform MP’s own time in office.

Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, is hoping to be selected as Labour’s candidate in the upcoming Makerfield by-election.

If victorious in the selection process and at the Makerfield ballot box, Burnham is expected to try and oust Keir Starmer from No.10.

But Reform won all eight wards in the constituency during the local election earlier this month – and so the party is already trying to demolish the mayor’s reputation.

In a social media video, Jenrick claimed: “If Burnham wins, a million low skilled migrants will be allowed to stay and get British citizenship in the next few years.

“And he won’t stop the boats. Instead he will put them in bedsits on your street. To pay for it all? He’ll have to hike your taxes.”

Burnham has previously criticised the Labour government’s migrants reforms after Shabana Mahmood announced plans to force asylum seekers to wait 20 years to gain permanent residency in Britain instead of five years.

But online critics could not help point out an inconsistency in Jenrick’s line of attack.

Though Reform UK’s Treasury spokesperson now, the Newark MP used to serve as the immigration minister under the Conservatives.

During his tenure – October 2022 until December 2023 – net migration sky-rocketed, peaking at 944,000 in the year ending March 2023.

Jenrick did resign under Rishi Sunak, insisting the Rwanda deportation plan did not go far enough to tackle illegal immigration.

But, social media users have pointed out that Jenrick vowed to procure even more asylum hotels when he first got the job in November – rather undermining his line of attack towards Burnham.

Others were simply exasperated at Reform focusing on migration once again…