Nick Jonas has admitted that things didn’t quite go his way when he tried out for a role in a beloved Disney movie.

The chart-topping singer spoke about the embarrassing moment on the latest edition of the Hey Jonas! Podcast, which he co-hosts with his brothers Joe and Kevin Jonas.

During the conversation, the pop trio were joined by Frozen voice actors Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel and Josh Gad, when Nick revealed he had auditioned to play Kristoff, the rugged iceman voiced by Jonathan Groff, in the animated film and its numerous spin-offs, only to “bomb” in the room.

“I went in and they said, ‘Okay, what are you going to be singing today?’,” he recalled. “I said, ‘Oh, I don’t know’.

“They were like, ‘Do you have your sheet music?’ And I said, ‘No, no one told me I had [to bring any]’, and so I just said, ‘Can you play something from…?’ I don’t know what I said, some musical theatre song.”

Nick joked that as much as he loves Jonathan Groff: “I do think it would have been better to cast me.”

Despite his failed audition, Nick assured his guests he didn’t “spite-watch” Frozen and “did enjoy it” when he saw it for the first time.

Upon its release in 2013, Frozen went on to become a global phenomenon, winning two Oscars, sparking a popular sequel (with two more in the pipeline) and eventually became the fifth highest-grossing film of all time.

Meanwhile, this isn’t the first Nick has admitted he has missed out on a huge film opportunity.

As recently as May, on the band’s podcast, he explained how he messed up a meeting with the producer of a “big movie” after he failed to realise he was also the director.

“I asked him, ‘Oh, and who’s directing?’ and his response was, ‘Well, me.’ I wanted to die inside at that moment,” the Jealous singer explained.

“I think it went really well. I was very happy coming out of the room. I’m a huge fan of the show, and that’s a role I always thought it would be fun to play,” the Jonas Brothers singer admitted.

Fortunately, it’s not all been bad news for Nick’s acting career.

He has starred in recent music drama Power Ballad with Paul Rudd, appeared in Roland Emmerich’s historical war action Midway and had a role in the Jumanji movie Welcome To The Jungle, as well as its sequel The Next Level.

Types of dementia like Alzheimer’s disease have long been linked to a buildup of amyloid plaques and tau tangles in the brain. These are both proteins that have been compared to the “trigger and bullet” in the development of the condition.

But in a new study, researchers focused on a less-investigated protein: GRK2.

This research found that GRK2 has two different forms, with one kind especially plentiful in the minds of those with dementia.

Not only did they identify this problematic protein, but in tests conducted on mice, the scientists seemed to be able to block its effects.

About 20 years ago, the study’s lead author, Professor Ursula Quitterer, was sent brain tissue removed during tumour surgery. These samples came from people both with and without dementia.

There are two forms of GRK2: an active and an inactive kind. During extensive research both on the aforementioned tissue samples and on mice, Prof Quitterer and her team found that the brains of people with dementia had a lot more inactive GRK2 than those without.

During the development of dementia, inactive GRK2 deposits onto brain cells and damages their mitochondria (the energy-generating “powerhouse” of the cell). These “aggregates block the pores of the mitochondria, reducing the amount of energy they can supply and leading to a situation of stress inside the cells,” Prof Quitterer said.

In mouse studies, higher levels of inactive GRK2 were also linked to the accumulation of amyloid plaques. As we mentioned above, these have long been suspected to play a role in the development of dementia.

Worse, the stress amyloid plaques place on brain cells may lead them to form more inactive and clumping GRK2 – potentially creating a vicious cycle.

Prof Quitterer and her colleagues created a variety of chemical compounds to try to stop these inactive GRK2s from having such a negative effect on the brain.

After trials on both mice and human tissue samples, their “Compound 10” creation performed the best. It stopped GRK2 from aggregating, meaning mitochondria could keep doing their job.

And the brain’s nerve cells seemed more able to keep their function and stay alive, too.

Prof Quitterer, who is currently awaiting a patent for Compound 10, added: “Alzheimer’s is a very complex disease. That’s why it’s so important that we’ve now identified a new target protein in the form of GRK2, as well as an active ingredient that operates via GRK2 and therefore via a different mechanism than existing Alzheimer’s drugs.”

Lily Allen has addressed the discourse that has surrounded her ongoing world tour.

Earlier this year, the British star embarked on her Lily Allen Performs West End Girl concert tour, inspired by her critically-acclaimed fifth album.

When promoting the release in 2025, the Brit Award winner described it as a work of “autofiction” inspired by the breakdown of her relationship with her ex-husband David Harbour, encouraging fans to listen to it straight through without a break, rather than cherry-picking their favourite tracks.

She also took this approach when putting together the album’s accompanying tour, which saw her performing the album in its entirety, without including any other tracks on the setlist or speaking to the audience.

Fans were near-unanimous with their praise for the unconventional concerts, although some critics raised questions about its short runtime and her decision not to play hits or address the crowd from the stage.

Lily – who is currently on a break from her tour, which she’ll take across the pond next month – reflected on this while speaking to Perfect magazine for a recent cover piece.

During the interview, Lily explained that she feels like she’s playing a character when she’s on stage for her shows, saying: “I’m literally not looking for a response! And I can’t hear because my in-ears are so fucking loud. I can’t really see anything.

“I want people to enjoy themselves, for sure. But it’s interesting. Because I’m not being me, or me at the moment, I can’t manipulate them [with flattery, as singers often do during concerts].”

Lily continued: “I couldn’t possibly [do that]. Because then I’d have to come out of character and it would ruin the performance. I’m not saying what other people do, or what I’ve done in the past, is bad. It’s just not what’s happening here.”

“People have commented [about this tour]: ‘She doesn’t interact with the audience. Blah, blah, blah.’ I’d say to them: give me your top five audience interactions you’ve ever seen at a gig,” she added with a laugh.

Back in May, after Lily kicked off the arena leg of her tour, one journalist for the Spectator wrote on X that the star was on stage for 50 minutes, had “no support act”, spoke “not one word to the audience” and charged “£86 [for a seat] in the gods”.

At the time, Lily responded to point out that there is a support act – a string orchestra who play instrumental versions of her hits, with the audience invited to sing along in karaoke style. She also insisted the show has “always been advertised as Lily Allen Performs West End Girl”.

“I was a few [minutes] late as my tights were laddered and I had to change them,” the chart-topping star wrote on X. “The show is just over an hour as it’s just the album in its entirety. It’s my artistic choice not to talk to the audience, the fourth wall helps with the storytelling. Most people find it to be effective.”

Lily added: “I don’t want anyone to feel ripped off, everyone on this tour is really working very hard to give people the best show we possibly can, and I’m extremely proud of it.”

Months earlier, Lily addressed her critics after one fan claimed that the performer had become the subject of a “smear campaign” that had come “out of nowhere”.

She wrote back: “Oh it’s coming from somewhere, but we move!”

A subsequent social media post also saw Lily speculating that “bots” could be behind some of the negative comments being shared about her online.

Read Lily Allen’s full interview in Perfect magazine.

Sam Smith has voiced their admiration for Madonna, after she helped them through a particularly turbulent time in their career.

Back in 2022, the British musician released the Kim Petras collaboration Unholy, which hit number one in the UK upon its release.

However, despite the song’s popularity, it didn’t sit well with everyone, with certain right-wing commentators taking issue with its accompanying music video and a subsequent performance at the Grammys.

In the ensuing moral panic, some conservatives even went as far as accusing the singer of being “satanic”, after they sported an all-red ensemble complete with a top hat adorned with devil horns on stage (this crossed over into the real world when, in one TikTok clip, they were seen being heckled while out in public by someone branding them “demonic” and “sick”).

During a new interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music, Sam described Madonna as the “most important artist in my life”.

“I got the chance to get to know her and communicate with her,” they enthused, describing the Queen of Pop as “my mother” and “un-fucking-real”.

“When I had the controversy happen around me with Unholy, and the stuff in the press, and the heaviness that came with that for me… I talk to current artists right now, if I meet them, and they don’t even know it happened,” Sam said.

“[But] the minute it happened, she made sure that she got through to me. She’s so aware of queer news, and what’s happening to the community, and to artists within the community. And you feel that in her music.”

They continued: “I feel like her music is a lifeline to queer people, and all of the eras of her, and her stamina, and how she’s always carried on and on and on, I just find it very inspiring, and I think a lot of queer people find it inspiring.”

Madonna introduced Sam and Kim on stage at the 2022 Grammys, describing them as “two incredibly talented artists” who were “forging a new path and taking the heat for all of it”.

“All you troublemakers out there, you need to know that your fearlessness does not go unnoticed,” she said. “You are seen, you are heard and, most of all, you are appreciated.”

Following this, Madonna and Sam recorded the duet Vulgar, on which the Vogue singer was heard delivering the immortal line: “If you fuck with Sam tonight you’re fucking with me, so watch what you say or I’ll split your banana.”

Sam then covered Madonna’s Human Nature on their Gloria world tour, while she repaid the favour by including a snippet of Unholy while performing Like A Prayer on her Celebration tour.

Nigel Farage has been accused of misusing Christianity to “channel anti-Muslim feeling” by the former Archbishop of Canterbury.

Life peer Dr Rowan Williams told the New Humanist magazine there was an “inevitable scepticism these days about some claims to religious conviction”.

He said: “I suspect really that Farage and others want to channel anti-Muslim feeling, and it helps to have ‘we’re a Christian society’ to fling back. It gives a sort of ballast.”

Williams, who served as the senior bishop for the Church for England from 2002 to 2012, said he believed there were a lot of possible causes driving Christian nationalism in the UK, including “anxiety about migration, anti-Islamism”.

He said: “In France, that anxiety has a secular aspect, but the St George’s Cross still means something in the English imagination, which still has a Christian aspect.

“The second thing is the globalising of all political discourse. The message given at international Christian conservative gatherings is that self-respecting nationalist movements need a bit of theology injected into them.

“Ironically, for someone like Nigel Farage, it’s about trying to find a presentational strategy that allows him to be taken seriously outside England. He’s often not here, after all.

“Then again, if we’re looking for what animates Christian nationalism, I think it’s in part the very simple search for someone to blame.”

Farage posted on social media at Easter, saying: “The Christian values on which our country is built are something to be proud of.”

In his first election interview back in 2024, he said there were a “growing number of young people in this country who do not subscribe to British values, in fact loathe much of what we stand for”.

He later told Sky News he was talking about Muslims.

The Clacton MP also criticised an iftar – the meal eaten to break Muslims’ daily fast during Ramadan – in Trafalgar Square earlier this year, describing it as an “attempt to overtake, intimidate and dominate our way of life”.

Williams went on to criticise Tommy Robinson, the far-right activist whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon who claims to have taken Bible studies in jail and is now a Christian.

His Unite the Kingdom march in London in May saw demonstrators carry wooden crosses and chanting “Christ is king”.

Williams said: “There’s an inevitable scepticism these days about some claims to religious conviction, and I don’t want to give way to this. If Tommy Robinson is doing his best to lead a life of Christian discipleship, I’m very glad, but I would really want to ask him some awkward questions.

“I would ask him how attempting to lead a life of Christian discipleship squares with public rhetoric designed to produce hostility and violence.”

Reform UK has been approached for comment.

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It probably won’t surprise you to learn that “stealing someone’s thunder” and “spilling the beans” have a pretty unusual relationship to the weather and legumes they describe.

Common phrases like “o’clock” and “pardon my French” have unexpected origins, too.

But what about superstitions like horseshoes? How come an animal’s foot covering came to mean good luck, so much so that you can still find some nailed to the doors of people’s homes?

According to riding wear suppliers at Discount Equestrian, the answer is a little wilder (and darker) than I thought.

One story, the horse experts said, related to 10th-century monk and bishop St Dunstan and the devil (oh!).

“The legend of the horseshoe is closely associated with St Dunstan, today the patron saint of goldsmiths, locksmiths, and jewellers,” they said.

“As the story goes, while living as a hermit in Glastonbury, he was visited by Satan, who asked him to use his blacksmithing skills to shoe the devil’s hoof.”

The legend says that because St Dunstan recognised the visitor for who he was, he nailed a red-hot horseshoe to his hoof.

So, the devil learned to be afraid of the iron symbol and steered clear of houses which displayed them on their doors.

Some also believe that nailing seven holes into a horseshoe attached to your door will add to its luckiness.

The ‘n’ angle, with the heels pointing down, has been believed to pour blessings on visitors, while the “U” shape may be used to keep any good fortune from spilling out.

This is not the only factor that goes into the choice, Discount Equestrian said.

Horsehoes are made from iron, which was once considered a talismanic metal used to keep witches and other supernatural forces at bay.

“The horseshoe is a perfect example of a symbol that has crossed centuries without people really knowing why they use it,” the pros explained.

“It combines practicality that iron was once precious, with deep religious folklore about protecting the home. When people hang one today, they’re unknowingly repeating a thousand-year-old superstition.”