Locals claim that a road that has “over 100 potholes” is “crumbling apart” – and it is causing a danger to drivers. People from St Neots and on the Cambridgeshire border are using Barford Road daily as an alternative to avoid roadworks on the A1 at the Black Cat roundabout.

However, this road is filled with potholes. Cristian Lambourne said there is an “epidemic” of potholes along this road.

“Someone said on Facebook they counted over 100 potholes along the road – it’s ridiculous,” said Cristian. He added: “When you travel down that road, you see a lot of people swerve.

“They are facing oncoming traffic, which isn’t good. I had one incident the other day when I was travelling around 50mph and it sounded like something physically smashed in my car.

“It seems crazy there are so many.” Cristian said potholes are temporarily fixed, but they are not “fixed properly”.

He added: “We are expected to have an MOT done on our cars, but the roads are damaging our cars.”

Lynne Otto travelled down the road daily to visit her husband in a hospice. During the last two weeks, her tyre blew and it cost £140 to repair. “It was a cost I didn’t need,” said Lynne.

She added: “I am not working as I’m visiting my husband daily.” Lynne used the road as a way to avoid the Black Cat Roundabout works. However, she is now enduring a longer journey on the A1 to avoid other problems.

She said: “I can’t risk getting another problem. When my tyre blew, I was in a stream of traffic and I couldn’t stop.

“It’s shocking. In the day you can swerve, but in the dark you can’t. The road has gotten that bad because everyone uses the road rather than the A1. It should be a priority.”

Steven Ellmers said the road is “dangerous”. He has experienced some “near misses” along the road. Steven said: “The whole road needs resurfacing. It’s especially bad when it’s dark and raining.”

Leah Martin lives in Tempsford and has “no choice” but to travel on the road daily. She said: “In January, the top mount of my front wheel collapsed after hitting one [pothole] and that then caused my brake caliper to lock onto my brake disk. I was £640 out of my pocket, caused by the state of the stretch of road.”

Leah said it is an “accident waiting to happen” along the road. Leah added: “I’m pretty angry at having to fix my van due to the neglect of this road.

“The Black Cat Roundabout roadworks have had numerous detour routes along this road the last couple of months. The sheer amount of traffic and lorries have had to use it has contributed hugely to the state of it.

“It simply can’t handle the amount of traffic.” Jay Tucker said driving along the road in the morning is a “nightmare”.

He said: “You have to weave around them [potholes] which sometimes mean going into the other lane. It always worries me that if I hit one, I’ll damage my car.”

David Watson claims there is a pothole “every few yards” and drivers need to weave around potholes. “I have to drive along it at night to get to my evening job and I dread it”.

Central Bedfordshire Council oversees the stretch of road. Councillor John Baker, executive member for finance and highways at the council said: ‘We are currently undertaking carriageway resurfacing and patching works on this road, which are scheduled to be completed by close of play Monday (February 23). We also carried out emergency repairs a few weeks ago to ensure the road remained safe for all users.”

A North Belfast councillor said recent funding to bring an iconic site back into use after decades of dereliction is great news for the area and further afield.

The Floral Hall first opened in 1936, two years after the opening of Belfast’s zoological gardens, starting life as a dance hall and over the years having a cafe and even roller skating facilities inside.

It also operated as a concert venue, with renowned musicians such as Pink Floyd, Small Faces, and Gene Vincent gracing its stage over the years. The hall closed as a concert venue in 1972, and was last in use in 1973 as a count centre for the Northern Ireland referendum on a border poll.

READ MORE: Floral Hall Belfast £500k funding first step to bringing iconic site back into useREAD MORE: Former Belfast dance hall one of UK’s ‘most celebrated’ historic music venues

Belfast City Council has now approved £500,000 in funding to install a new roof on the iconic building, sparking hopes of regeneration. As part of the first stage of the building’s restoration, an extensive asbestos removal operation has also been completed.

Speaking to Belfast Live, local councillor Carl Whyte said since he was elected in 2019, he has been “constantly contacted” by people who want to see the restoration of the Floral Hall to bring the once-great building back to its former glory. He said the asbestos removal and new roof are the first steps to redeveloping the building.

“It holds a lot of fond memories for people as a dance hall and venue for concerts. Even today in the building, you can see the old dressing rooms, the ticket booth, and you can get a sense of the history and what people loved about the Floral Hall,” he said.

“But unfortunately, in the mid to late 1970s, the door was literally locked and the key was thrown away, and the building was forgotten about. What we have here is a building which has been negleced for over four decades, which was full of asbestos which has now been cleared. The talk of redevelopment was not going to go anywhere.

“Builders wouldn’t even look at it because it was riddled with asbestos, so stage one was getting rid of that, and that’s completed. The next stage is to put a roof on the building, which is going to cost £500,000.

“So the half a million pounds secured from council funds is to preserve this building, so those who enjoyed it over the past few decades prior to its closure, we can now bring it back so people can enjoy it up here in the Cavehill for the next couple of decades.”

Carl said the next stage in the process will be a tender process to appoint a contractor to fix the roof, with hopes for works to begin within the next year.

As well as this, there will be engagement with people across Belfast to see how the building can be brought back into public use to benefit the community.

He said: “We want to hear from people across Belfast on what they want to see in the Floral Hall. Is it going to go back to a dance venue? I’m not sure we’ll have the show bands of the sixties back ehre, but the roof’s going to be on the building, the building’s on the path to being fully restored back into use.

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“But the question is – what should we put in it? I have my ideas, other people will have their ideas, and we want to know what these suggestions are.

“When we come to the stage where we’re actually bringing the building back into use, and that is a commitment from the council as they’ve spent this money, then it’s the people of Belfast that will be deciding what goes back into the Floral Hall and what it’s used for.”

As for what he would like to see the Floral Hall become, Carl said: “I think there’s an educational role the zoo can play across Belfast, across Northern Ireland, and further afield.

“The Floral Hall needs to play some role in that, but I also don’t see why we couldn’t have gigs and concerts here, similar to what we had many years ago. I think it’s a combination of that, a music venue with an educational purpose to it.”

Looking to the future of the site and the long road to get here, he added: “It’s a long process and it has taken too long, but it’s better than it was three or four years ago when there was nothing happening here.

“We’re now seeing a building that has been stripped of asbestos which basically made it a no go area, and now we’ll have a roof back on it, and we’re going to take it from there.”

Video by Belfast Live videographer Justin Kernoghan.

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Vitali Klitschko has urged Donald Trump “to be on the side of Ukraine” during peace talks with Russia – but the mayor of Kyiv admitted to Sky News he sometimes finds the president’s messaging hard to understand.

Speaking to Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips, the former world heavyweight boxing champion said it was “critically important” to have Washington on his country’s side in its battle against Russia.

Asked if he is confident the US president will support Ukraine‘s attempts to hold as much of its territory as possible during peace negotiations, Mr Klitschko said: “It’s the United States, it’s very important. It’s critically important.”

He argued the US could secure wider stability by supporting Kyiv, adding: “If we defend our national interest, if we’re talking about the peace, if we’re talking about democracy, the Trump administration has to be on the side of Ukraine.

“Ukraine is the largest country in Europe and the stability in the largest countries in Europe can bring the stability of the whole region.”

But asked if he trusts Mr Trump, Mr Klitschko – who has been mayor of the capital since 2014 – had to take a lengthy pause before saying: “I try to trust him, but sometimes I don’t understand clearly the messages from President Trump regarding peace in Ukraine. Peace in Ukraine is very important.”

The state of peace talks

US-brokered peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv are ongoing, and the latest round took place in Geneva earlier this week.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday that “meaningful progress” had been made – but speaking in his nightly address, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was dissatisfied with the talks.

“As of today, we cannot say that the result is sufficient,” the Ukrainian president said. “The military discussed certain issues seriously ‌and substantively.

“Sensitive political matters, possible compromises and the necessary meeting of leaders have not yet been sufficiently addressed.”

Mr Klitschko told Sky News any peace deal should not be a “capitulation agreement”.

Read more:
Russian detained over shooting of general
Ukraine battles to keep Russia banned from football

Speaking to Reuters news agency on the condition of anonymity, five of Europe’s intelligence chiefs this week said they believe Russia does not want to end the war quickly.

Four claimed Moscow is using the peace talks to push for sanctions relief and business deals, with one stating: “Russia is not seeking a peace agreement. They are seeking their strategic goals, and those have not changed.”

Russia and Ukraine launch overnight strikes

Mr Klitschko’s comments came after Kyiv said on Saturday morning that it had struck an industrial site deep inside Russia.

Ukraine said it hit a Russian plant manufacturing ballistic missiles in the remote Udmurtia region.

Alexander Brechalov, the region’s governor, ​said there had been “damage and injuries” after a site was attacked overnight with drones.

Russia also attacked Ukraine overnight into Saturday, launching 120 drones and one ballistic missile, Ukraine’s air force said.

Oleh Kiper, the head of the Odesa region, said drones had damaged civilian and energy infrastructure facilities, including a secondary school and an energy company’s warehouses.

Two people were injured, he said in a statement on Telegram.

Watch the full interview with Vitali Klitschko on Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips at 8.30am.

Rose Byrne won a Golden Globe and is nominated for an Oscar for her performance in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. It’s a film about frayed mother Linda (Byrne) coping with her daughter’s strange, unspecified feeding disorder.

In director Mary Bronstein’s words, the film is “a surreal, horrifying, blackly funny portrait of a mother simultaneously kicking against and coming to terms with her maternal instincts”. Bronstein has drawn from her experiences with her own child’s illness, responding to what she sees as a gap in film and TV of authentic depictions of motherhood – or as she puts it: “Fully dimensional portraits of women who feel they can’t do it [and] are traumatised by expectations and circumstances.”

Representations of psychotherapy are foregrounded in the film. It opens in a counselling session with a paediatric specialist. An intense close-up holds on Byrne’s face as she defends herself from accusations that as a mother, she lacks boundaries and discipline. According to her daughter (Delaney Quinn): “Mommy is like putty [while] Daddy is hard.” When Linda crossly refutes the comment, the doctor tells her that “perception is reality”.

The film goes on to present the reality of Linda’s perception, as she becomes increasingly exhausted and overwhelmed, experiencing wild supernatural visions. The camera interrogates her psychologically, rarely disengaging from Byrne’s face and mostly shooting her fraught reactions in extreme close-up.

This makes for an extraordinarily intense, probing experience that requires an actor of Byrne’s level: every gesture, facial tick and shift in expression is finely calibrated. It is an unsettling choice that we are not shown her daughter’s face – the film is entirely focused on the mother’s reactions to her suffering child.

Linda is a psychotherapist who has her own psychotherapy sessions with a colleague, played superbly for comic effect by US talkshow host Conan O’Brien – who drops the charm of his host persona for a performance of harassed awkwardness.

In the tradition of TV and film psychology professionals – think Frasier Crane from Cheers! and Frasier, Robbie Coltrane’s Fitz from Cracker, Jimmy Laird from Shrinking – the film plays wholesale into the trope of therapists who appear to need therapy more urgently than their patients.

Frustrated by the apparent lack of progress in her weekly session, Linda responds to her therapist’s assurance that a line of conversation can be continued at the next session: “We won’t talk about it next time. There’s no thread, there’s no thread at all!”

Psychotherapy is a fragmentary process. As anyone who (like me) has embarked on long-term talking therapy will recognise, it is in the nature of the experience that continuity between weekly sessions is elusive. Each conversation will follow its own unexpected twists and turns, despite any concerted intention by the patient or therapist to maintain control and return to where the last session finished.

If I had Legs I’d Kick You echoes this. It becomes rambling and disjointed by design, picking up and dropping threads like the human mind in freefall.

The film trades on the cliches of how psychotherapy is commonly portrayed. Navel-gazing narcissists make unhealthy demands on Linda’s time and she has limited ability to maintain boundaries. Her own therapy sessions are fraught, combative and unhelpful, and her self-involved patients are mined for comedy and ridicule rather than sympathy and compassion.

These broad representations may be recognisable as truisms of the profession for therapists themselves, but the film shows little optimism towards talking therapy’s ultimate value.

A therapy horror film

The film deploys several conventions of the horror film in its depiction of Linda’s maternal guilt and mental unravelling. There is something of the eerie discomfort of Repulsion (1965) and Rosemary’s Baby (1968) in uncanny scenes where the world around her starts to shift and contort.

In one scene, the ceiling of Linda’s apartment caves in, leaving a huge hole. As the film progresses, she returns to scrutinise it: each time the hole becomes wider, stranger and more livid. It is unclear whether this is a symbolic fantasy of Linda’s dissociative mind, or signals something more sinister and supernatural.

With its supernatural ambiguity, the film shares themes and style with last year’s Nightbitch, adapted from Rachel Yoder’s novel, which featured a brittle, vulnerable and very funny performance from Amy Adams as the struggling mother of a toddler.

À lire aussi :
A new wave of filmmakers are exploring motherhood’s discontents. Nightbitch makes this monstrous

The mothers in both films find solace in the suburban streets at night, away from public scrutiny, where they are unguarded and free to express their unvarnished selves. While Adams’s character in Nightbitch morphs into a predatory hound prowling the neighbourhood, Linda seeks escape through late-night drinking. She attempts to relive her carefree youth by taking drugs with her neighbour James, played sympathetically and with nuance by American rapper A$AP Rocky.

A series of cameos by instantly recognisable male actors is distracting and derails the film rather than aiding it. It is jarring to watch Danny Devito as a parody of an officious parking lot attendant, and a curious choice to feature the instantly identifiable voice of Christian Slater as Linda’s absent husband Charles. The comic effect of these intrusions took me out of the moment and jarred with the emotional intensity the film strives for.

Bronstein sets out to establish mood and ratchet tension to often unbearable levels. As the film reaches its crescendo, it becomes increasingly fraught and formless.

While Nightbitch suffered from an over-neat tying together of plot strands in its final minutes, here the opposite may be true. Perhaps that’s why, though Byrne is deserving of her best actress nomination, the film has not received Oscar nominations in any other category.

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One act left the judges stunned with their unique audition on Saturday night’s opening episode

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Viewers of Britain’s Got Talent reckon they’ve identified this year’s champion within moments of the new series beginning.

The popular ITV programme made its comeback on Saturday (February 21) evening, with Ant and Dec presenting the nationwide search for talent. The much-loved show features diverse acts vying for a £250,000 prize and a prized performance spot at the Royal Variety Performance.

Musician and YouTuber KSI takes over from Bruno Tonioli on the judging panel this series, sitting alongside Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden, and Alesha Dixon for the opening auditions at Blackpool’s Winter Gardens.

During tonight’s programme, the panel witnessed a performance from Liverpool dance collective LMA, whose distinctive synchronised routine left spectators speechless, reports Belfast Live.

READ MORE: ITV Britain’s Got Talent fans left divided minutes in as many ‘switch off’READ MORE: Britain’s Got Talent chaos as judges left gobsmacked in dangerous show first

An amazed Simon remarked: “Wow, wow, wow. I loved that audition.”

Amanda stated: “We have so many dance groups that come onto the show that promise us difference, and they never are. That was as different and exceptional as it gets. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Alesha observed: “I thought that it was beautiful, really, really beautiful. The way you commanded it was just so strong and central to all of it. Sensational.”

KSI continued: “Visually, my eyes loved it. This is a good watch and it’s the type where you can’t make a mistake. You were all on point and killed it.”

Simon subsequently commended the choreographer for his “on-point” routine, stating: “What you do is incredible.”

For the latest showbiz, TV, movie and streaming news, go to the new Everything Gossip website

Viewers were equally impressed, with many suggesting the group could potentially claim victory in the competition due to their distinctive performance.

“Ooo, have we just seen this year’s winner?” one viewer posted on X (formerly Twitter). Another commented: “Defo finalists, they were so good.”

A third remarked: “Finally a dance act bringing something different to the table,” whilst another similarly wrote: “LMA wow indeed all in sync All in time well done to every single person Liverpool should be so proud!”

Britain’s Got Talent airs on ITV1 and ITVX

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Lawyers for imprisoned British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell are fighting the requested release of 90,000 pages related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and Maxwell, saying a law used to force the public release of millions of documents is unconstitutional.

The lawyers filed papers late Friday in Manhattan federal court to try to block the release of documents from a since-settled civil defamation lawsuit brought a decade ago by the late Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre against Maxwell. The Justice Department recently asked a judge to lift secrecy requirements on the files.

Maxwell’s attorneys said the Justice Department obtained the documents — otherwise subject to secrecy orders — improperly during its criminal probe of Maxwell. They said the documents include transcripts of over 30 depositions and private information regarding financial and sexual matters related to Maxwell and others.

Some records from the year-long exchange of evidence in the lawsuit battle were already released publicly in response to a federal appeals court order.

Maxwell’s lawyers say a law Congress passed in December to force the release of millions of Epstein-related documents violates the Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine.

“Congress cannot, by statute, strip this Court of the power or relieve it of the responsibility to protect its files from misuse. To do so violates the separation of powers,” wrote the lawyers, Laura Menninger and Jeffrey Pagliuca about the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

“Under the Constitution’s separation of powers, neither Congress nor the Executive Branch may intrude on the judicial power. That power includes the power to definitively and finally resolve cases and disputes,” the lawyers added.

The release of Epstein-related documents from criminal probes that began weeks ago has resulted in new revelations about Epstein’s decades-long sexual abuse of women and teenage girls. Some victims have complained that their names and personal information were revealed in documents while the names of their abusers were blacked out.

Members of Congress have complained that only about half of existing documents, many with redactions, have been made public even as Justice Department officials have said everything has been released, except for some files that can’t be made public until a judge gives the go-ahead.

Giuffre said Epstein had trafficked her to other men, including the former Prince Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. She sued Mountbatten-Windsor in 2021, claiming that they had sex when she was 17.

He denied her claims and the two settled the lawsuit in 2022. Days ago, he was arrested and held in custody for nearly 11 hours on suspicion of misconduct in having shared confidential trade information with Epstein.

In a memoir published after she killed herself last year, Giuffre wrote that prosecutors told her they didn’t include her in the sex trafficking prosecution of Maxwell because they didn’t want her allegations to distract the jury.

Maxwell, 64, was convicted in December 2021 and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Epstein took his own life in a federal lockup in August 2019 as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges. Maxwell was moved from a federal prison in Florida to a low-security prison camp in Texas last summer after she participated in two days of interviews with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

Two weeks ago, she declined to answer questions from House Oversight Committee lawmakers in a deposition conducted in a a video call to her federal prison camp, though she indicated through a statement from her lawyer that she was “prepared to speak fully and honestly” if granted clemency.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.

Thousands of people were hoping to impress the judges with their talents and get that all-important golden buzzer.

Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Alesha Dixon were back on the judging panel with KSI, who has become a permanent judge following Bruno Tonioli’s exit.

However, viewers seemed somewhat worried about Mr Mean himself, Simon Cowell.

Watch these top Golden Buzzer moments on BGT

One viewer posted on X, formerly known as Twitter: “Seriously, what is going on with Simon Cowell? Looking like Tom Hanks in Philadelphia. Also what’s with the Bono glasses… #BGT”

Another said: “Genuine Question, with all the people who have been knighted in the UK some for ridiculous reasons. How the **** has Simon Cowell not been knighted? #BGT #Britiansgottalent”

Someone else noticed Cowell’s now signature glasses: “Simon Cowell makes me laugh in his Anastacia glasses”

The media mogul, 66, is one of the most famous faces on telly.

The dad-of-one has battled several health woes, including a bike crash, which nearly killed him and left him doubting if he would ever walk again.

Then last year, the star was forced to miss some of BGT’s auditions after falling ill when filming started in Birmingham, and he needed Stacey Solomon to step in for him.

How much do you know about Simon Cowell’s career?

Recommended reading:

Bruno Tonioli quits Britain’s Got Talent

In September, Bruno said in a statement: “After three incredible series, I’ve sadly had to walk away from a job which has opened my eyes to so much incredible talent and step down as a judge on BGT.

“And whilst I look forward to filming a new series of Dancing With The Stars in the US, I will miss the chaos and joy that BGT brings, as well as all the wonderful people I’ve had the privilege of working with.

“They truly are a brilliant team who make brilliant television, and I know KSI will be a fantastic judge too, as he’s already proven this year.”

Due to this, musician, YouTuber and boxer KSI was announced as Bruno’s permanent replacement as a judge on BGT, which will once again be hosted by Geordie duo Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly.

The U.S. Olympic team won its record-breaking 11th gold medal of the Winter Games on Saturday, with at least one more good possibility when its men’s hockey team wraps up the action on closing day with the title game against Canada.

The trio of Kaila Kuhn, Connor Curran and Chris Lillis gave the U.S. the record by capturing the American team’s second straight title in mixed aerials.

The 11th gold breaks the country’s mark set at the last Olympics on U.S. soil — in Salt Lake City in 2002, which has long stood out as a turning point for a winter sports program that had struggled over previous decades.

This could end up being another turning point, not so much for the sheer number of medals but the variety of places from which they came: Twelve of the 17 sports disciplines represented in the Winter Games produced medals for the U.S.

“Our focus and our strategy has always been about breadth,” said Sarah Hirshland, the CEO of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. “We want to win in everything. We want to make every sport better. Some could argue there are countries that go a mile deep in certain sports and really dominate. Our goal has been to improve Winter sport across the board.”

The aerials medal, then a bronze in speedskating from Mia Manganello later in the day, lifted the U.S. to 31 overall for the Olympics with one day left.

That’s second to Norway, which had a record 18 gold medals and 40 overall through Saturday evening. Seventy-two percent of the golds came in the endurance sports of cross country, biathlon and Nordic combined. The biggest gold-medal hauls for the U.S. came in four disciplines — two each (18%) in Alpine skiing, freestyle skiing, figure skating and speedskating.

There are 38 more medal events on the program this year than there were in 2002. A lot of the new events have come at the snowpark — halfpipe, slopestyle and big air — which used to be America’s domain but has now been taken over by Japan, which, for instance, won nine medals in snowboarding, compared to two for the U.S.

“We stated we wanted to be a podium nation,” Fin Kirwan, the USOPC‘s chief of Olympic sport, said of the U.S. goal of being top-three on the medals table. “We said it will likely take 30 medals and we got after it. The athletes delivered on their potential and, by turn, we hit the record on gold-medal performance, which shows that our very best were able to execute.”

Here are some looks and links to the rest of the 11 U.S. gold medal winners:

Alex Ferreira, freeskiing

Halfpipe skier rounds out his Olympic collection — gold, silver, bronze. Back home, he’ll keep going with streamer “Hotdog Hans” where he dressed up like an 80-something ski sensation.

Breezy Johnson, Alpine skiing

Her long journey included a knee injury four years ago on the same mountain where she won the gold.

Elizabeth Lemley, moguls

Nicknamed “Lizard,” she joins a long line of great U.S. moguls skiers, including 2010 champion Hannah Kearney and her teammate, Jaelin Kauf, who now has three silver medals.

Alysa Liu, figure skating

The 20-year-old stepped away after the 2022 Beijing Games, rediscovered her love for figure skating and happily claimed the title.

Elena Myers Taylor, bobsled

At her sixth Olympics, she finally broke through, becoming the oldest Winter Olympian to win gold at age 41.

Mikaela Shiffrin, Alpine skiing

The most winning skier of all time cashes in at the Olympics with slalom gold after a tear-stained shutout four years ago.

Jordan Stolz, speedskating (2)

Joined Eric Heiden at Lake Placid in 1980 as only the second man to capture the 500 and 1,000.

US figure skating team

Liu, Amber Glenn and Ilia Malinin are among the members of a team that brings home second straight gold; the last one took two years to capture after a Russian doping saga.

US women’s hockey team

A tense thriller, highlighted by Hilary Knight’s equalizer with 2:04 left, then Megan Keller’s winner in overtime.

___

AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

Ian Murray Erskine’s death still remains a mystery to this day.

Upware is usually a sleepy village in Cambridgeshire. However, the whole county was shocked in 1990 when on Sunday, March 25, two men on the River Cam found a decomposed body wrapped in a black plastic bag floating in the water.

Dental records confirmed that these remains were of a man called Ian Murray Erskine. Ian, 44, had been working as a senior economist at the Bank of England and lived at Norland Square in Notting Hill, miles away from where he was found.

Described by his neighbours as a “very pleasant and quiet” man, Ian would frequently visit the Norland Arms pub close to his home. He often sat with a couple who were regulars at the pub.

He started to meet another man there throughout October and November of 1989. A later investigation suggested that Ian met this man through the personals in a gay magazine.

On December 13, 1989, Ian had a friend at his flat for dinner and told him he was meeting another man from the magazine. This unknown man was originally from Zimbabwe and had served in the army before moving to England.

On December 15, two days after the meeting, Ian left for work in the morning and carried out his usual day but never returned home. He disappeared for four months until his body was found miles away from London in Upware.

A police investigation was opened that revealed someone had been using Ian’s credit card and check book throughout December and had bought items including a watch, rented a car, and made several cash withdrawals. The man who had bought the items had been described as a man with a beard and a trimmed moustache.

A transaction was blocked on January 8 when someone tried to used the card to purchase a five-day return ticket to the Netherlands. The police tried to locate several people of interest in the case but were unable to find them and the murder remains unsolved.

Julien Macdonald made a high-shine return to London Fashion Week, staging his autumn/winter 2026 comeback on the interior rooftop of The Shard with a collection that reaffirmed his reputation as fashion’s self-styled “king of glamour”.

Perched high above the capital, guests nursed martinis as the Welsh designer sent out a procession of sequinned, sculpted silhouettes against the glittering night skyline.

Singer Ella Eyre was among those seated front row, watching as Macdonald delivered a show steeped in his signature high-octane energy.

It marked Macdonald’s first London Fashion Week runway since restructuring his business in 2023, and the message was unmistakable: unapologetic, maximalist glamour is back.

Macdonald, 54, who launched his label in 1997 and has previously held high-profile roles at Chanel and Givenchy, has long been synonymous with red-carpet showstoppers. His return leaned fully into that legacy, delivering a collection of high-impact eveningwear designed for drama rather than understatement.

The show opened with fluid, body-skimming gowns in metallic tones, including a liquid gold halter-neck dress that plunged dramatically at the front and twisted into a draped, thigh-split skirt.

The silhouette elongated the body, the fabric catching the light with every step, evoking the kind of paparazzi-ready moment Macdonald’s celebrity clientele – from Beyonce to Jennifer Lopez – have made their own.

Sequins were deployed liberally across the collection. A sharply cut, long-sleeved column dress in burnished bronze shimmered under the spotlights, its structured shoulders lending to Macdonald’s siganture statuesque quality.

Elsewhere, micro silhouettes dominated: a black, crystal-embellished two-piece with sheer shorts and cut-out detailing left little to the imagination, styled with pared-back heels to keep the focus on the body.

Feathers, which have been trending on the runway, gave a theatrical flourish to the collection.

A mint-green, crystal-studded bodysuit was paired with a matching feathered robe that trailed behind the model, its texture softening the overt sensuality of the barely-there base layer.

In another look, a sheer black gown with feathered hem detailing glided down the runway, balancing transparency with movement.

There was little concession to winter in the traditional sense. Despite the autumn/winter billing, Macdonald’s world remains resolutely summer – or at least permanently party-bound.

Backless gowns, plunging necklines and high-cut bodysuits dominated, with sheer panels and strategic cut-outs forming a recurring motif. One pale green, sequin-drenched gown featured a deep V neckline gathered at the waist and a front slit that revealed just enough leg, merging red-carpet polish with beach-club ease.

The setting at The Shard amplified the excitement for this comeback show. With London’s skyline twinkling beyond the glass, the show felt less like a seasonal presentation and more like a celebration – a statement of resilience and return.

If much of this season’s schedule has leaned into restraint then Macdonald offered a fun alternative of high-octane, unapologetic, old-school glamour.

The designer has signalled a shift towards a more accessible luxury ready-to-wear model, focusing on versatile embellished pieces. While the collection remained firmly in the eveningwear sphere, several looks – streamlined sequinned dresses and sharply cut cocktail numbers – suggested a commercial sensibility beneath the glitz.

Macdonald was named British Fashion Designer of the Year in 2001 and appointed chief designer at Givenchy the same year, succeeding Alexander McQueen. More than two decades later, his formula of sequins, skin and skimpy silhouettes remains largely unchanged.

Julien Macdonald’s return delivered something of a jolt of joy above the London skyline.