Romeo Is A Deadman is very Suda51 (Grasshopper Manufacture)
The creator of No More Heroes is about to release new game Romeo Is A Deadman and we’ve talked to him about modern development and setting his next game in the UK.
The games industry has a number of great characters and Goichi Suda – known to all as Suda51 – is emphatically one of them. The CEO of Grasshopper Manufacture is more than a mere games developer; he’s an auteur, no less, whose extensive and utterly distinctive games catalogue (whose highlights include killer7 and No More Heroes) has earned him comparisons with the likes of Quentin Tarantino.
I caught up with him on a rare visit to London, as part of a tour to drum up interest in his latest game, Romeo Is A Dead Man, due to be released on February 11 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. There’s no mistaking Romeo Is A Dead Man for anything other than a Suda51 game and it’s surely already a shoo-in for 2026’s most bonkers game.
It follows the bizarre exploits of Romeo Stargazer, a small-town American cop who is killed but resurrected, thanks to his boffin granddad, as a lightsaber and gun-wielding operative in the FBI’s Space-Time Department, zipping back and forth in space and time to take down a bunch of time criminals (including his ex-girlfriend in many different guises) who are creating world-destroying anomalies.
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The most immediately striking aspect of Romeo Is A Dead Man is that, in its first hour, it zaps through a welter of different art styles, from a diorama style intro, via comic book style cut scenes, and more conventional third person 3D to a spaceship hub that’s rendered in top-down retro 8-bit graphics (in which homages to both Pong and Pac-Man can be found). Miraculously, what should be a mish-mash of conflicting style coalesces into a highly distinctive whole, with a weird logic of its own.
‘Whenever you’re developing a game, things are going to change at some point,’ explains Suda. ‘There’s always something that gets taken out, put in or tweaked a little bit. And at first, we were going to do the whole game in full polygon, 3D graphics style. We got to some point in the development and realised: ‘OK: this is not only going to take a lot longer than we thought, but it is going to cost a lot more money too.’ Some people think that it must have been really expensive putting all these different visual styles in the game, but actually, it’s the opposite.
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‘One of the things we came up with was the realisation that we have a bunch of people at the studio who are really good at a specific art style, or at a specific aspect of the development. It could be someone who is really good at realistic illustration, somebody who is really good at comic book style stuff, somebody who is really good at video production, somebody who is really good at environments and backgrounds, stuff like that.
‘So what I wanted to do is have the light shone on each of these people who are really specialised in these certain styles. And it took a while to figure out how to get everything to fit together, to make a coherent game out of it. But I feel the end product came out pretty well for the jumble of stuff that it is, you know?’
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Suda51 alludes to a situation which arose at Grasshopper Manufacture, which has been operational since 1998 but in 2021 was bought by Chinese publisher NetEase, when it was on a massive acquisition spree. In early 2025, NetEase announced its desire to sell most of the international game developers it had acquired.
Although it still owns Grasshopper, Suda51 says: ‘When we started out, I was kind of hoping that this would be the sort of game that we would be able to take our time on and relax while we put it together. But it ended up being the opposite. It ended up pretty much from the earlier stages of development, both as a studio and also for me personally being: ‘OK, we’ve got to do something about this, or this has to be worked out somehow’.
‘Every time I make a game, I figure: ‘Oh wow, that was rougher than I thought it would be.’ But it was the first time in a long time that I’ve thought: ‘OK, making games is not as simple as a lot of people who don’t make them think it is’.’
Suda51 loves big guns (Grasshopper Manufacture)
Luckily, improvisation is Suda51’s superpower. He has always been regarded as a maverick in the world of games development, so I ask him whether he thinks that is fair enough, and whether he embraces the term: ‘I feel like maybe one of the reasons I get called something like that is obviously because of the games I make and the way I make games. But, specifically, I have learned how to improvise, and figure out how to make things work that normally wouldn’t work in a certain way.
‘When I started out at a company called Human, in my first job in the games industry, I began writing for games, then ended up as director, and I’ve been doing both of those things ever since. Especially back in the day, when game specs were a lot lower than they are now, and you couldn’t do nearly as much stuff in a video game as you can now; if there was something that you wanted to express visually or story-wise, you had to figure out: ‘Yeah, OK, this is what I want to show, but we simply don’t have the technology to actually show it, so how can I express this either a different way visually or in literary terms, or thematically?’
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‘I feel like one of the strengths that I’ve gained over the years is being able to figure out ways of creative problem-solving. Nowadays, when things are a lot more advanced than they were before, you’ve got a lot more technical freedom of expression, and there’s more stuff that you actually can show, and things that you actually can do with a game than you could 20, 30 years ago.
‘So there aren’t as many limitations as there were before, but conversely, since there is so much more stuff that you can do, I keep trying to find new ways to use these new means of expression, and new ways to come up with on-the-spot ideas.
‘A lot of the development we do, I kind of view as ad-lib development, as tossing ideas back and forth – it’s kind of like jazz-jamming: ‘This guy’s doing this, and if I do this, it’s going to match in some cool way.’ While the other guy is like: ‘Actually, no, I think I’m going to add this in.’ And when you get a really good bunch of improvisers together, then you have a really good jazz jam band, you know?
‘I feel like that’s probably a reason that I get thought of as something like a maverick – not necessarily because I’m trying to break rules on purpose. To answer your question of how I feel about being called a maverick, honestly I’m happy, because it feels kind of cool, like a pro wrestler nickname or something like that, so I dig it.’
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Romeo Is A Dead Man will be the 28th game that Suda51 has helmed at Grasshopper. During that non-stop burst of creativity, he has collaborated with some other legends of the games industry, but one creative partner stands out for him: Shinji Mikami, originator of Resident Evil and co-founder of Clover Studio, PlatinumGames, and Tango Gameworks.
Suda51 says: ‘We worked together both on killer7 and Shadows Of The Damned, as a kind of producer-director tag team. I’ve learned so much from him over the years, especially back in the day, when we started working together. When it comes to action games, he’s done so much and he’s taught me so much – I truly consider him to be a mentor of sorts. And he’s even given me permission to call him that.
‘He’s had the biggest impact, not only on myself, but on Grasshopper Manufacture as a studio, as far as the way we make games is concerned, and specifically regarding how to make action games work. It’s not necessarily that he sat there and gave me these lessons and told me verbally: ‘This is how you make an action game.’ It’s hard to explain, but it’s almost as though I learned it through feeling and sensing and working with him.’
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Suda51 has been around for a long while (Daniel C. Griliopoulos – Hot Grill)
With his career spanning over 30 years, Suda51 is ideally placed to pinpoint how the art of games development has altered, as the technology underpinning it has exploded in complexity: ‘It’s hard to say whether this is a good thing or a bad thing – it’s both good and bad at the same time, for different reasons. But as the general scale of games got bigger and bigger, over the past 30 years, the amount of work that goes into a game, the amount of people that you need working on a game, and the number of types of specialists and professionals you need working on a game has also expanded.
‘For example, back in the day, there weren’t level designers. One of the planning guys would draw the map on a piece of paper, and the graphics guys would turn that into a level, and there you go. But now you have to have somebody planning this stuff out, and somebody actually designing the level itself, then people adding graphics to that, plus backgrounds and so on.
‘So while it’s a good thing in that it provides more work for more people, it also means that things take more time and cost more money. Also, there are less and less people these days who are able to do multiple types of development, multiple jobs. Again, it’s a good thing, because you get people who are really specialised, who get really good at doing a specific part of game development.
‘Personally, I was always worried about not being able to maintain my career and my lifestyle if I was only able to do one thing, so I started out in game design as a scenario writer and tried to work out how to do things like backgrounds, direction, and game design. Ever since I started working in the industry, I’ve been trying to spread out as much as possible, to at least be somewhat proficient, or have usable skills, in multiple areas of game development, just because, again, I never thought that one person would be able to make a career in game development only focusing on one thing.’
This is a game of many art styles (Grasshopper Manufacture)
So now that Romeo Is A Dead Man is ready for release, what’s next for Suda51? You might expect that after that game’s fraught development, he would be looking forward to holing out on a southern hemisphere beach. But that isn’t Suda51’s style: ‘No: I’m going right back into work, work, work mode, basically. I’m actually at the point where I’m planning on taking some time to sit down and put some thought into what kind of projects I should come up with next.’
Jokingly, he dangles what would be a delicious prospect indeed: ‘While we’re on this promotional tour, I’m just constantly trying to work out what the next thing is going to be. Maybe the setting is going to be in the UK. You feel like there should be lots of games set in London, but when you think about it, there aren’t that many. Recently I was watching that show MobLand, and it made me think, oh man, the UK would be a really cool place to set a game.’
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Suda51 was laughing while he said that, but his brand of hard bitten, off-the-wall, literary-infused action would work gloriously well in a British setting. Who knows what he may come up with next?
Come with him if you want to not die (Grasshopper Manufacture)
BEIRUT (AP) — A 10-day truce appeared to be holding in Lebanon early Friday, promising a pause in fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group and possibly clearing one major obstacle to a deal between Iran and the United States and Israel to end weeks of devastating war.
But it remained unclear whether Israel would completely stop strikes on Hezbollah, and whether the militant group would recognize a deal it did not play a role in negotiating and which will leave Israeli troops occupying a stretch of southern Lebanon.
Barrages of gunshots rang out across Beirut as residents fired into the air just after midnight to celebrate the beginning of the truce, and displaced families began moving toward southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs despite warnings by officials not to attempt to return to their homes until it became clear whether the ceasefire would hold.
U.S. President Donald Trump heralded the deal a “historic day for Lebanon,” even as he expressed confidence that the war with Iran would soon end in a Las Vegas speech.
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“I will say the war in Iran is going along swimmingly,” Trump said. “It should be ending pretty soon.”
An end to Israel’s war with Hezbollah was a key demand of Iranian negotiators, who previously accused Israel of breaking the current ceasefire deal with strikes on Lebanon. Israel said that deal did not cover Lebanon.
Pakistan’s army chief met Thursday with Iran’s parliament speaker as part of international efforts to press for an extension of the ceasefire.
While oil prices fell on hopes of a deal, the head of the International Energy Agency warned that energy shocks could get worse if the Strait of Hormuz doesn’t reopen soon. Iran closed the crucial waterway, through which a fifth of the world’s oil normally passes, shortly after the war began. Europe has “maybe six weeks or so” of jet fuel left and broader economic consequences will grow the longer the strait is closed, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol told The Associated Press on Thursday.
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The leaders of France and the U.K. will gather dozens of countries — but not the United States — on Friday to push forward plans to reopen the strait.
The fighting has killed at least 3,000 people in Iran, more than 2,100 in Lebanon, 23 in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. Thirteen U.S. service members have also been killed.
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Israel says it will keep troops in Lebanon
Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he agreed to the ceasefire “to advance” peace efforts with Lebanon, but he said Israeli troops would not withdraw.
Israeli forces have engaged in fierce battles with Hezbollah in the border area as they pushed into southern Lebanon to create what officials have called a “security zone.” Netanyahu, in his video address, said it will extend 10 kilometers (6 miles) into Lebanon.
“That is where we are, and we are not leaving,” he said.
Hezbollah has said that Lebanese people have “the right to resist” Israeli occupation of their land and that their actions “will be determined based on how developments unfold.”
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The U.S. State Department said that according to the agreement, Israel reserves the right to defend itself “at any time, against planned, imminent or ongoing attacks.” But otherwise, Israel “will not carry out any offensive military operations against Lebanese targets, including civilian, military, and other state targets.”
Trump announced the agreement as a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, but a Hezbollah official said the ceasefire was a result of negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
Israel and Hezbollah have fought several wars and have been fighting on and off since the day after the start of the Gaza war. Israel and Lebanon reached a deal to end that war in November 2024, but Israel has kept up near-daily strikes in what it says is an effort to prevent the Iran-backed militant group from regrouping. That escalated into another invasion after Hezbollah again began firing missiles at Israel in response to its war on Iran.
Flurry of diplomacy led up to Lebanon ceasefire
The agreement came after a meeting between Israel’s and Lebanon’s ambassadors in Washington and a flurry of subsequent phone calls from Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to a White House official.
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They were the first direct diplomatic talks between the two countries in decades. Hezbollah had opposed direct talks between Lebanon and Israel.
Trump spoke Wednesday evening with Netanyahu, who agreed to a ceasefire with certain terms, according to the official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Rubio then called Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, who got on board. Trump then spoke with Aoun, and again with Netanyahu.
The State Department worked with both governments to formulate a memorandum of understanding for the truce.
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Pakistan army chief meets with Iranian parliament speaker
Pakistan’s army chief met Thursday with Iran’s parliament speaker as part of efforts to press for an extension to a ceasefire that has paused almost seven weeks of war between Israel, the U.S. and Iran.
Even as the U.S. blockade on Iranian ports and renewed Iranian threats strained the ceasefire, regional officials reported progress, telling AP the United States and Iran had an “in-principle agreement” to extend it to allow for more diplomacy. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations.
Mediators are pushing for a compromise on three main sticking points: Iran’s nuclear program, the Strait of Hormuz and compensation for wartime damages, according to a regional official involved in the mediation efforts.
Trump suggested the ceasefire could be extended.
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“If we’re close to a deal, would I extend?” Trump said in an exchange with reporters. “Yeah, I would do that.”
___
Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. AP journalists Matthew Lee and Ben Finley in Washington, Samy Magdy in Cairo and Munir Ahmed in Islamabad contributed to this report.
Wrestlemania is finally here! (Picture: Andrew Timms/WWE via Getty Images)
WrestleMania week is here, and it’s almost time for the 2026 WWE Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
Metro is already on the ground in Las Vegas with fans looking forward to seeing the likes of Oba Femi, CM Punk, Cody Rhodes, Rhea Ripley and more in action, but there are a couple more stops before the Showcase of the Immortals lands in Sin City.
Every year, the company honours legends of the past to truly kick off the festivities, and this year’s class looks to be a special one with the likes of Stephanie McMahon and AJ Styles getting recognised.
Although it used to be a standalone event a couple of nights before, more recently, the ceremony has been held after SmackDown, and this is set to continue.
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We’re still waiting to find out exactly who will induct each legend, but The Undertaker appears set to honour McMahon, while John Cena is hosting WrestleMania 42 and would be a perfect fit for Styles.
Here’s everything you need to know.
You’ll have to be up at the crack of dawn to watch the show live (Picture: WWE/WWE via Getty Images)
When is WWE Hall of Fame 2026?
The 2026 WWE Hall of Fame ceremony airs Saturday morning, April 18 at 5am for fans in the UK.
Once again, the event will be held after SmackDown, but it won’t be returning to Fontainebleau Las Vegas.
This time, it’s being moved to Dolby Live at Park MGM, which is just across the road from where SmackDown will take place at the T-Mobile Arena.
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Where can you watch WWE Hall of Fame 2026?
Fans in the UK can tune into the 2026 Hall of Fame induction ceremony either live or on demand for free via YouTube. Simply click the link here.
The show won’t be shown on Netflix(Picture: WWE/Getty Images)
Why isn’t the WWE Hall of Fame 2026 on Netflix?
Since January 2025, Netflix has been the official home of WWE in the UK, but there have been some exceptions for certain shows.
Some broadcasts, like Saturday Night’s Main Event and Lucha Libre AAA shows, have been streamed on YouTube, as they fall outside of the Netflix deal.
The Hall of Fame falls under that arrangement too, meaning international fans will be able to stream for free on the platform.
Ax and Smash are being inducted (Picture: WWE/WWE via Getty Images)
Immortal Moment: Hulk Hogan vs. Andre The Giant from WrestleMania III
What’s the deal with AJ Styles? (Picture: Michael Marques/WWE via Getty Images)
When did AJ Styles retire from WWE?
AJ Styles retired from WWE after losing to GUNTHER at the Royal Rumble in January.
The Phenomenal One has since confirmed his in-ring career is officially over, and he has no plans to wrestle again besides a potential tag match with his son in the distant future.
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He made it clear over the last couple of years that he was winding down, telling Metro before WrestleMania 40 in 2024 that his body was essentially begging him to quit.
‘I don’t want to do it anymore. And it’s not because – of course I want to wrestle,’ he admitted at the time. ‘But my body, it’s like, “Please stop. Please stop.” I think this would be a good place to end my career, in the WWE.’
Styles kept going a little longer than that, but eventually decided to end his career at the Rumble, the same premium live event where he made his WWE debut in January 2016.
Now, he’s helping the company behind the scenes as a talent scout of sorts, helping identify and prepare the next generation of stars to keep the business strong.
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If you’ve got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we’d love to hear from you.
Baye Bireme Fall died from a single stab wound, a post-mortem found
Sam Russell, Press Association and Cait Findlay Content Editor
16:05, 16 Apr 2026Updated 16:06, 16 Apr 2026
Two teenagers have appeared in court charged with the murder of a 16-year-old boy who was stabbed to death. Baye Bireme Fall was attacked near the Orton Centre shopping centre in Peterborough on Sunday, April 12, Cambridgeshire Police said.
A post-mortem examination found that he died from a single stab wound, the force said. Two teenagers were charged with his murder. They appeared before Huntingdon Magistrates’ Court in separate hearings on Thursday, April 16.
A 15-year-old boy, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, spoke only to confirm his name, date of birth, and address. No details about the case were opened and there was no application for bail.
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The boy was not asked to enter a plea. He was remanded into youth detention accommodation until an appearance before Cambridge Crown Court on Friday, April 17.
The boy’s parents sat in the well of the court, close to the secure dock. His mother said “love you” as her son was led away by three security officers.
The second defendant, 18-year-old Emidas Krutkevicius, appeared before Huntingdon Magistrates’ Court separately later in the day. Krutkevicius, of Garton End Road, Peterborough, spoke only to confirm his personal details.
He was not asked to enter a plea. He has been remanded in custody until an appearance before Cambridge Crown Court on Friday.
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Cambridgeshire Police said officers were called just before 7pm on Sunday. Baye died in hospital just before 9.30pm that evening.
Baye’s family said in a tribute released through police earlier this week that he was “an amazing boy and son whose heart is pure and kind towards other people”.
In 2025, some 1,032 excess deaths were associated with waits of 12 or more hours in EDs while awaiting admission.
Rebecca Black Press Association
07:15, 17 Apr 2026
Stormont has been urged to address the “catastrophe” unfolding in Northern Ireland’s hospital emergency departments (EDs).
A report by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) stated that, in 2025, some 1,032 excess deaths were associated with waits of 12 or more hours in EDs while awaiting admission.
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The body’s State of Emergency Medicine in Northern Ireland report found that, while the overall death figure for 2025 is slightly lower than in 2024 (1,122) and 2023 (1,063), the estimated mortality figure has more than doubled over five years.
In 2020, the estimated mortality figure was less than half of what it was in 2025 – at 461. A decade ago, in 2016, there were 60 excess deaths attributed to long waits.
The report also contends that overcrowding and long waits in EDs are not the result of an increase in demand, and that the numbers attending departments has “barely changed”, while the number of long waits, and deaths, have “skyrocketed”.
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It found that in 2025, one in 12 (8.3%) patients waited 24 hours or longer, while a RCEM survey conducted in December 2025 found that one ED recorded a wait time of over 124 hours – more than three days.
These include ending corridor care and mortality associated with long waits in ED by the end of the decade, adopting a “whole-system approach to ending ED overcrowding”, with responsibility for performance spread across the entire patient pathway.
The recommendations also include ensuring accountability for ending overcrowding and to implement measures to make excess deaths associated with long waits in ED to be treated with the same seriousness as deaths in other medical specialties.
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Dr Michael Perry, Northern Ireland vice president for the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, urged that the situation is treated like the “catastrophe in need of redress that it is”.
“Behind these numbers are stories of families ripped apart by avoidable deaths which have happened because successive governments have failed to grab the ED crisis by the horns,” he said.
“We must not let the slight reduction on the previous year give us false assurance that the problem is being fixed. Such a glacial pace of progress is not good enough.
“Our health service has the highest rates of long waits in EDs, and deaths per capita resulting from them, of any UK nation. That statement should shock our policymakers to the core.
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“Politicians and system leaders need to treat this like the catastrophe in need of redress that it is.”
Dr Perry said it is a “fixable problem”.
“While, sadly, we cannot help the loved ones who have already experienced a bereavement at the hands of a broken system, we know what measures can prevent future heartbreak,” he said.
“Our report contains the answers. Accountability, a whole-system approach to patient flow and targets to ending corridor care and deaths associated with long waits will make the difference.
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“We look forward to hearing from policymakers eager to put these measures in place.”
A Department of Health spokesperson said: “The minister and department acknowledge the continued pressures on our emergency departments.
“This is a complex problem with no quick fix but the only medium to long term solution is to reduce demand and manage demand differently.
“That means reducing the number of people coming through ED doors, as well as getting people out of hospital as soon as they are fit for discharge to free up beds.
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“Our reset plan is attempting, over the next three years, to refocus our work towards earlier support and intervention, prevention, providing neighbourhood-based care and encouraging people to take more responsibility for their own health on a routine basis.
“We are also looking at how we can care for our frail elderly patients better by providing more care closer to home and preventing avoidable admissions to hospital.
“However, we recognise that this will take time to have an impact and it is not helped by the very challenging financial position.
“In the interim, we will continue to manage the quality of care we are able to provide to the best effect ensuring the needs of our patients and staff remain our priority.
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“The minister has discussed patient flow and hospital discharge issues with HSC chief executives, and all agreed the need to increase community capacity was the most important single change that is required.
“This is consistent with the reset plan towards a neighbourhood model of delivery.”
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The tree in question is location outside 26 Lostock Junction Lane, Lostock.
It is Mrs Beaumont, who lives at number 26, who applied to have the preservation order repealed.
A preservation order prevents a tree being chopped down, uprooted, felled, or in any way altered without specific, written council permission.
Permission has been sought in this case because the tree is located on a public footpath and is causing a ‘physical obstruction’.
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The pavement has been reduced to a width of around 90cm due to encroachment from the tree, from a starting width of 2.2m.
The oak outside of 26 Lostock Junction Lane (Image: Google Maps)
The application notes that the UK standard for a minimum pavement width is between 1.5m and 2m, meaning the path is now under that.
This is causing a ‘substantial obstruction and trip hazard’ for anyone walking on the ‘narrow passage’, according to the application.
The tree is not only a hazard for pedestrians, according to Mrs Beaumont, but hazardous to drivers as well.
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This is because the oak blocks the Beaumonts’ view as they they pull out of their driveway, making it difficult to see if traffic is coming towards them.
The application form also notes that the tree is of ‘low quality and value in the landscape’, with some parts in ‘advanced decay’.
Bolton Council‘s planning department will now decide on whether the tree preservation order will be upheld or whether the tree can be chopped down.
HOW would we manage without frozen chips? Easy, quick and convenient, they are a staple freezer item in most homes. Simply pop them on a baking tray, stick them in the oven, and, 20-or-so minutes later, your tea is ready.
The market is thriving, with supermarkets now competing with big brands like McCain, which pioneered what became known as oven chips in Canada, and introduced them to the UK in 1979.
By the 1990s and early 2000s oven chips became increasingly popular, leading to a significant drop in chip pan fires and offering a healthier option with roughly half the fat of deep-fried chips.
They can be teamed up with almost anything, from a basic bowl of chips with tomato sauce, to British favourite fish and chips, chicken and chips and pie and chips. And, of course, with bread and butter for a chip sandwich. Most varieties can also be grilled or air-fried.
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I tried eight varieties of chips from leading supermarkets. I oven-cooked them. Here’s what I thought.
These were quite small in length compared with some others, but had a decent potato taste. They crisped up nicely on the outside – not too crisp, just enough – to an appetising colour and were soft and fluffy inside. Good price, if you like them.
Hearty Food Company oven chips from Tesco.jpeg (Image: Supplied)
Like Morrisons and Sainsbury’s, there were a lot of quite small chips in this bag, among the chips of acceptable size, Cooked to a good colour. The outside was nice and lightly crisps, the inside fluffy. They had a good, fairy natural potato taste. Quite nice, but let down by the size issue. Good price, if you like them.
Like Tesco and Sainsbury’s, there were a lot of small chips mixed within this bag. The chips crisped up well, with a decent colour, and the texture inside was light, but they tasted very bland, rather floury. Good price, if you like them.
Pros: crisped up well, good texture.
Cons: floury taste.
Mark: 2/5
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*M&S Food Straight Cut Chips, 1.5kg, £2.50
The front of the bag says these are made using only British potatoes, which is a plus point.
When cooked these had an appetising golden colour, lightly crisp surface and a light, fluffy inside. They had a mild, very natural potato flavour which I liked.
Pros: very pleasant, light and fluffy.
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Cons: more expensive.
Mark: 4/5
*Straight Cut Chips by Asda, 1.5kg, £2.67 (these seemed expensive and when I checked online they are now £2.20).
Quite long chips – the longest of the selection. They didn’t crisp up much on heating and had a dry texture. Though they were correctly cooked, they tasted as though they needed longer in the oven – they were floppy and rather cardboardy.
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Pros: more chip for your money.
Cons: dry, with a cardboardy taste. Cost more than the others.
Mark: 2/5
*Iceland Straight Cut Chips, 1.25kg, £2.00
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Winner – these oven chips from Iceland (Image: Supplied)
These were a good-sized chip. Prior to cooking they were the lightest in appearance and looked very unappetising, but they crisped up well, and had a good colour. The potato was light and fluffy. In taste these were the most similar to chip shop chips. I enjoyed them very much..
Pros: good appearance and taste.
Cons: none.
Mark: 5/5
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*Sainsbury’s Stamford Street Chips, 1.5kg, £1.65
Like Morrisons and Tesco, this bag contained quite a lot of small chips among the mix. Having said that, the texture was light and fluffy, and they had a good potato taste.
These were thicker than most, a good size and a nice light golden colour. They had a light consistency and pleasing potato flavour. Not bad at all. Good value.
When Iran began demanding payment in exchange for safe transit through the Strait of Hormuz, it offered the option to pay in cryptocurrency. Likewise, the shadowy network of tankers that have smuggled Russian oil to world markets since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 have often been paid this way.
Illicit actors the world over have increasingly turned to cryptocurrency as a way to conduct business while avoiding the risk of US sanctions. In so doing, countries like Russia and Iran are drawing on a characteristic of money that has been around since at least the bronze age: its ability to facilitate trade between strangers and across political boundaries.
In my book Shell Money (2024), which investigates some of the world’s earliest forms of money, I show how similar dynamics have been at play throughout history.
Cryptocurrency has been Iran’s preferred payment method for safe transit through the Strait of Hormuz. Somkanae Sawatdinak/Shutterstock
Modern currencies like the US dollar and euro are backed by confidence in the financial institutions of nation states – in a similar way to the first metal coins of antiquity, which were issued by Greek city states in order to collect taxes and pay soldiers.
In prehistory, however, there are many examples of monetary systems that developed without state support, such as bronze ingots.
The bronze age (roughly 3300BC to 1200BC) was a time of long-distance voyaging and interregional connectivity. Against this backdrop, having a shared medium of exchange was critical for maintaining trade connections.
Bronze tools were made from copper and tin, which were only available in a few locations in the ancient world. In northern Europe, copper came from sources such as Wales, the Alps, Austria, Sardinia and Iberia, while tin largely came from Cornwall and Devon. This meant that all the copper used in Scandinavia, for example, had to be acquired through long-distance trade.
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Much of this trade was dominated by bronze ingots – rings, bars or axe-heads – that were highly standardised in weight and form across regions. This meant that each ingot was interchangeable – a critical characteristic of money. Bronze objects were also broken down into sizes consistent with market-based trade.
The bronze age need for money
Travel during the bronze age would not have been easy. Long-distance journeys would have been dangerous and could take months to complete.
A travelling merchant would have no way to know if the traders they dealt with on one journey would still be around on the return trip. The reciprocity you could depend on in your home community would no longer hold – exchanges needed to be transactional.
Against this backdrop, bronze became standardised into a medium of exchange. By carrying bronze ingots, a traveller could conduct business across the world, confident that wherever they went their money would be accepted.
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In other parts of the ancient world, shells and shell beads were accepted as money. The Chinese symbol 貝 (bèi) originated as a pictograph of the cowrie shell and is now used in hundreds of finance-related Chinese characters, including those for buy, sell, wealth and profit. Cowrie shells were traded to China from the Indian Ocean and used as money during the Zhou dynasty.
In North America, small shell beads were used as money and circulated throughout the interior of the continent, thousands of miles from the oceans where they were collected and produced. These examples show that trade money was not restricted to metals but could develop from anything that was desirable and scarce.
The US dollar diminished
The dominance of government-issued “fiat currencies” (meaning they are not backed by physical commodities such as gold) depends on the trust, liquidity and institutional backing they provide.
International trade is currently dominated by the US dollar. However, as we move into an increasingly multipolar world – with competing centres of gravity in North America, Europe and China – we can expect to see the dollar’s role diminish.
Political fragmentation, however, hardly means the end for international trade. History is rife with periods, from the bronze age on, when political fragmentation coexisted with bustling trade economies. And for those seeking to avoid state control in future, this may mean a growing shift in the type of money that is used.
Video: Bloomberg Television.
New forms of money
There are many differences between cryptocurrency in the modern world and the commodity money of prehistory. Cryptocurrency is still rarely used or accepted in daily transactions, is highly volatile and, as with modern fiat currencies, does not have “use value” in the same way as bronze ingots or even shell beads.
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Nonetheless, both are forms of “bottom-up” (non-state controlled) money that exist outside of the oversight of any single government or large financial actor.
This lack of state control is exactly what drives sanctioned states such as Iran and Russia to request payments in crypto. As US financial leverage weakens, crypto payments become harder to block and sanction, potentially reshaping how future conflicts are financed.
Cryptocurrency may be well positioned for this environment, continuing to provide one of money’s oldest functions: the ability to conduct business with strangers.
This article references a book included for editorial reasons with a link to bookshop.org. If you click on this link and go on to buy something from bookshop.org, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.
PSG were far better than Chelsea in their 8-2 last-16 aggregate win but also vastly more experienced. Chelsea’s second-leg XI had played 137 Champions League matches between them, PSG’s 545. That has to have counted for something. Sunderland and Brentford can attest. Granit Xhaka, 33, and Jordan Henderson, 35, respectively, have added football IQ, not just leadership, to their new teams.
David Alan Kirwan had been visiting the impressive natural beauty at Yellowstone National Park when he rushed into the thermal spring — he would die one day later
Rory Gannon Showbiz Journalist
07:00, 17 Apr 2026
A man endured what is believed to be one of the “worst deaths imaginable” after he dove into a boiling hot thermal lake to save his friend’s dog.
He would end up passing away in hospital due to the severity of his burns just one day later.
In an act of true heroism, Kirwan ignored all warnings about the safety of the spring and jumped in to save her.
However, his actions eventually turned out to be in vain, as Moosie was never rescued — either by Kirwan himself or by investigators over the coming days.
Back in 1981, Kirwan was walking through the impressive natural structures of Yellowstone National Park. He had been walking through the park with good friend Ronald Ratliff and his dog, Moosie, according to JOE.
However, what was meant to be a pleasant walk through the magnificent natural park soon turned into a nightmare as they passed the Celestine Spring, a well-known thermal spring in the park.
With temperatures in the spring reaching well over 200°F (93°C), it is known for being a dangerous lake as it pumps out heat straight from the Earth’s core.
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Moosie, clearly excited at the pool of water jumped into the hot spring, leaving Ronald and David immediately unsure what to do.
David quickly decided, however, that they needed to save the dog and jumped into the spring to rescue Moosie, who was a mixed-breed boxer.
He dove headfirst into the boiling water of the spring, and immediately began to feel the effects of the near-boiling temperatures. The 24-year-old tried to steady himself as he swam to reach the dog, but soon went underwater himself as he tried to bring the dog to safety.
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Ronald, for his part, tried to help haul David out of the water himself, eventually managing to haul him to safety. However, Ronald would go on to suffer serious second-degree burns to his feet as a result.
But David, who dived straight into the hot water, suffered far worse than his friend. The heat of the water had melted David’s skin and when a park ranger tried to take off his shoe, his skin came with it.
The move also left David entirely blinded, as a clearly injured Kirwan screamed out in pain. He could be heard asking: “That was stupid. How bad am I? That was a stupid thing I did.”
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He was taken to a hospital in nearby Salt Lake City, where doctors found third-degree burns across the entirety of his body. David fought for his life but died from his injuries the following day.
In a heartbreaking tribute to his son, dad James Kirwan described David as a kind and caring person. He explained: “He liked dogs and when the dog went in, his friend told him not to go in after her, but David went in.”
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