Politics
The invention of Zack Polanski
As the Jason Arday affair continues to dominate our social-media feeds, it’s worth remembering that he’s far from the only figure who may have sprinkled his life story with space dust.
Zack Polanski – leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, who was quick to defend Arday against allegations of plagiarism and fabulism – instantly comes to mind. Polanski once claimed to have ‘worked’ for the Ministry of Justice. This ‘work’, we now know, consisted of performing as an actor in an occasional DEI workshop. As for Polanski’s claim to have been a spokesman for the Red Cross, he has apologised, stating he ‘did not use the right word’ when describing his role. Much as I would not be using the ‘right word’ if I said I was once an astronaut.
When it comes to his previous career high of offering to increase the size of women’s breasts using hypnosis, Polanski has told so many whoppers about that – including falsely presenting himself as a full member of the National Council of Hypnotherapy – that he has now earned the nickname ‘Walter Titty’. Yet here’s the thing. Polanski’s delusional character may have been staring us in the face all along. Just look at the name he chose for himself.
Polanski has never made a secret of the fact he changed his name when he was 18. Born David Paulden, he has often said he changed his surname to honour his Jewish ancestors who had adopted an anglicised version of Polanski (or Polinski) after emigrating to the UK. Which sounds fair enough.
However, Howard Jacobson, who grew up alongside Polanski’s family in Manchester, has suggested Polanski’s performative change of name may have been less about honouring his grandparents and more about throwing shade on his existing family. As Jacobson points out, Polanski’s grandparents – who were buried close to his own relatives – went to their graves happy to bear the name Paulden:
‘Modest, generous business people with a sense of humour, relaxedly Jewish. The Pauldens. A nice name, I think, every time I pause before their graves, on the way to visit my parents.’
More intriguing is Polanski’s choice of first name. David is a perfectly good Jewish name, after all – as the Bible will attest. Polanski claims he dropped it because it was also the name of his stepfather with whom he didn’t get on. So then why did he not use his own perfectly good middle name of Stephen? Perhaps that would have been too mundane for a man who claims his first kiss was with ‘a young Muslim man called Jihad’.
It turns out that Polanski named himself after a fictional character in a children’s book. He was inspired to call himself Zack after Zacharias or Zach Wrench, an eight-year-old boy from Michelle Magorian’s novel, Goodnight Mister Tom. The fictional Zach, you may be unsurprised to learn, exerts an almost magical influence on other characters. You might even say a hypnotic one.
The young David Paulden may have seen other parallels between his own life and that of the fictional Zach. Zach dreams of becoming an actor. So too did young David, who went to acting school. Zach is also Jewish.
There may be a more compelling reason that Zacharias Wrench seared himself into the imagination of David Paulden. Much has been made by fans of Goodnight Mister Tom of how the story of Zach echoes that of Jesus. He helps his friend, William, a fellow evacuee who was abused by his family, put the trauma of the past behind him, teaching him to love the world and other people. Zach then dies tragically. When he is killed in an air raid, William is inconsolable. Or he is until Zach returns from the dead, in a manner of speaking.
When he rides a bike Zach left behind, William is overwhelmed by a deep spiritual experience: ‘As he rode, his coat flapping behind him, the crisp wind cooling his face, he suddenly felt that Zach was no longer beside him, he was inside him and very much alive. The numbness in his body had dissolved into exhilaration.’
Death, it seems, has been unable to conquer the redemptive power of little Zach. His goodness lives on, healing William from within. Might Zack Polanski have identified with this mini-me Messiah?
Whatever drove him to adopt the name, it seems that Polanski, like little Zach, believes he has a special, sacral role to play. It is our misfortune that millions of deluded young people seem to agree with him.
Malcolm Clark was LGB Alliance’s head of research from 2019 to 2022. Visit his Substack, The Secret Gender Files, here.
You know what? I’m starting to wonder if this Jason Arday fella isn’t quite on the up and up. Call me a cynic, or a racist. Perhaps I’ve finally succumbed to the pull of my ‘toxic whiteness’. But the evidence that the lauded critical race theorist and Cambridge professor is a fabulist, a plagiarist and an authoritarian is now hard to hand-wave away, despite his defenders’ valiant attempts to reduce the scandal engulfing The Not-So Talented Mr Arday to nothing more than a racially motivated witch-hunt.
The fortysomething Arday, Cambridge’s youngest black professor, stands accused of pilfering much of his PhD – the Telegraph found more than 100 passages that are identical or near-identical to those in another student’s thesis. Since then, questions have been raised about his apparently Herculean feats in the worlds of sport and charity fundraising – not to mention his claims he was threatened at work by a masked knife man and his parents had a pig’s head left on their doorstep. Maybe, just maybe, Britain’s most accomplished and menaced academic wasn’t all he made himself out to be.
Now we are learning of the consequences which greeted the academics and journalists who dared to raise questions about the DEI princeling’s work and backstory. And I’m not just talking about the public smears of racism, made in an open letter signed by such intellectual titans as Zack ‘Hypnotits’ Polanski. Jack Grove, a reporter for Times Higher Education (THE), was accused of harassing Arday (Grove had emailed him a list of questions about his thesis). A Metropolitan Police officer later called Grove to say no further action would be taken, while also warning him to stop emailing Arday, lest it further damage the prof’s ‘mental health’.
Grove wasn’t the only one. David Harris, professor emeritus at Plymouth Marjon University, began contacting Cambridge and academic journals about Arday’s alleged academic malpractice back in 2023. For his trouble, he was also reported to the police for ‘harassing’ Arday. Thankfully, Devon and Cornwall Police declined to pursue it. Legal letters were also sent to Grove’s bosses at THE, in a successful attempt to kill the story, suggesting its ‘apparent attack’ on Arday’s good name ‘may be… racially motivated’. Remarkably, Cambridge is still standing by its man, against what it calls a ‘vile campaign to undermine his credibility’.
But of course. Who but a flaming bigot could take issue with a celebrity professor allegedly gaining his academic credentials on false pretences, or cock a raised eyebrow at his truly incredible list of achievements? Only a racist would question Arday’s (since-qualified) claims that he once ran 30 marathons in 35 days (some with a broken leg), raised £5million for charity (as part of a consortium, he has since ‘clarified’) and played football at a semi-professional level? Shockingly, even the Guardian has joined this modern-day lynchmob. Its report gingerly casts doubt on Arday’s stories of harassment and intimidation. The pig’s head that was supposedly left outside of his parents’ south London home? The Met ‘categorically deny’ ever investigating it. As for him being threatened at his place of work, not once but twice, the second time with a knife? The Guardian notes that ‘the intruder was not picked up by CCTV on either occasion and no one in the faculty reported seeing anyone suspicious’. Nor did Arday ‘inform colleagues that a masked man with a knife was in the faculty building’.
Should the holes in Arday’s story turn out to be as real and as gaping as they appear, questions would need to be asked about why it took so long for his cascade of bullshit to collide with reality. How did he manage to get a plum job at Cambridge, guest-edit the Today programme and enjoy endless gushing media coverage before anyone caught so much as a whiff of it? After all, plagiarists and fabulists crop up from time to time. That wouldn’t explain why some of the top academic and journalistic institutions in the land failed to realise Mr Arday was a cross between Ibram X Kendi and Jay from The Inbetweeners. At least in The Inbetweeners no one believed Jay’s tall tales about getting noshed off at the school play and knocking out a cow with one punch. Apart from the hapless, gangly Neil. Is that who Cambridge University is styling itself after now?
Perhaps Arday’s story was just too irresistible. On top of his supposed experiences of racism, there is his neurodivergent origin story – which, as of yet, hasn’t been called into question. Diagnosed with autism and global development delay aged three, Arday says he was unable to speak until he was 11 and couldn’t read or write until he was 18. Remarkably, he went to university two years later, before swiftly ascending the academic ranks. Here was the great hero-victim of the age, who furnished fashionable narratives about rampant racism and ableism, while allowing those who embraced him to pose as on the side of the angels.
But it’s deeper than that. The identitarian capture of elite institutions, supercharged by the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020, has entailed the suspension of the values which once defined them – the displacement of truth, merit and excellence in pursuit of a mystical racial reckoning. When Arday was appointed by Cambridge in 2023, as professor of sociology of education, he was hailed more as a totem than a scholar. ‘His experiences highlight the barriers faced by many under-represented groups across higher education’, read a doe-eyed statement, noting Cambridge’s commitment to ‘creating academic spaces where everyone feels they belong’.
Thus, a warped notion of ‘inclusion’ conquers all before it, even at the expense of academic standards. Indeed, were Cambridge still the unimpeachable intellectual powerhouse it claims to be, Arday would be nowhere near it – plagiarism or no plagiarism. As Kathleen Stock has witheringly documented, his scholarship amounts to a lot of sub-Teen Vogue waffle about the racism of Britpop and the culturally appropriative crimes of Paul Simon. This is critical race theory, a bunk discipline, done badly. But it propelled Arday to the very top.
Jason Arday is right about one thing. Academia is riddled with an ugly ideology that treats minorities with contempt. Only it isn’t to be found in ‘structural racism’, or ‘ableism’, or a blinkered deference to the work of Noel Gallagher. It’s a paternalistic ideology that privileges identity over merit, that insists rigour is a barrier to black and brown success, that would rather indulge charlatans than reward the brightest of minds, of whatever race or background, for their brilliance and achievements. Not that I’m calling Arday a charlatan, if his lawyers – or the police – happen to be reading. I wouldn’t dare.
Tom Slater is editor of spiked. Follow him on X: @Tom_Slater_.
Comedian Jimmy Cricket, born James Joseph Mulgrew, died on Monday aged 80.
In a statement, his family said: “Our beloved Jimmy passed away this morning after a short illness.
“He spent his last few days surrounded by his family, love, laughter and songs. Jimmy brought so much laughter and happiness to countless audiences in his career over the years.”
“Whether on stage, screen or radio, or if you met him in person as well.
“But that was nothing to the happiness he gave to his family. A devoted husband to May for fifty-two years.
“A wonderful dad to his four children and very silly grandad indeed to his four grandchildren. He was our greatest champion and loved us all loudly. He also just loved people and he absolutely loved being a stand-up comedian. What a life he lived.”
“Forever our clown, he was cracking jokes to the wonderful NHS staff and to us all, right until the end. His courage, dignity and positivity through all he endured was inspirational,” the statement continued.
“A force for joy, we are just all very sad that the world is a far less sillier place today. We were going to end by using his famous catchphrase and say, ‘There’s no more’.
“But Jimmy was a man of great faith and a Papal Knight of the Catholic Church. He believed that death is not the end and was looking forward to eternity, so really… And there’s more.”
The Northern Irish comic was born in Cookstown in county Tyrone in 1945.
After getting into comedy in the ’70s and ’80s, he went on to win LWT’s Search for a Star talent contest and later got his own TV and radio shows.
Known for his catchphrases and iconic bowler hat and wellies, labelled “L” and “R” respectively, Jimmy’s persona was developed early in his career.
Comedian Tim Vine has responded to the news of his death on X, writing: “Ah Jimmy Cricket…what a lovely, inspiring, funny man. I have a great memory being at his home and he said ‘Do you want to hear my new song?’ I said ‘of course’. He then sang it to me live while dancing about in front of me. I thought ‘I hope I’m like this when I’m older’. RIP.”
Jimmy had previously said he was taking a “little sabbatical for health reasons”.
A GP is urging people to jump off the ‘maxxing’ bandwagon that’s taken the internet by storm these past few years.
For those who aren’t chronically online, the trend was born from ‘looksmaxxing’ – which describes maximising your physical appearance – which took off via online manosphere forums in the 2010s. (One online streamer known as Clavicular claims to have “looksmaxxed” himself from the age of 14 through a combination of exercise, steroids, surgery and taking a hammer to his face.)
Fast forward to 2026 and we’ve seen interest in sleepmaxxing, fibremaxxing, tanmaxxing, jestermaxxing and even proteinmaxxing gather momentum on social media.
Per The Times, the ‘maxxing’ suffix describes “the act of maximising your time, effort and focus on a particular thing”.
With looksmaxxing it was about optimising your looks; with fibre- and proteinmaxxing, it’s about upping your respective intakes; while with sleepmaxxing, it’s about maximising quantity and quality of sleep. You get the gist.
But health experts are increasingly saying: enough.
Dr Ahmed El Muntasar, an NHS GP who is also a cosmetic doctor, thinks it’s time to stop treating “maxxing” as though more is automatically better.
“It turns sensible health advice into a competition,” he said of the trend, “and encourages people to chase an extreme rather than asking what is appropriate for their own body, skin or lifestyle.”
The expert said he has noticed patients turning up to clinic with burning, redness and breakouts after stacking retinoids, acids, vitamin C and at-home devices in the same week.
Others have been taking long lists of supplements with no clear deficiency or reason, unable to say what half of them are for beyond a vague promise to “maximise” energy, hormones or longevity.
Even protein is getting pushed so hard that shakes are replacing proper meals altogether, he noted.
Olga Rolenko via Getty Images
“The common theme,” said the doctor, “is that the person is no longer responding to what their body needs. They are responding to a number or trend.”
He’s not alone in his concerns. Psychotherapist Billie Dunlevy warned that doing anything to an extreme degree is often “a detriment to other areas of your life”.
Discussing the prevailing ‘maxxing’ trends with CNBC, he said: “[That] obviously isn’t healthy, and that isn’t something that any licensed mental health professional would advocate for.”
Meanwhile clinical psychologist Jennifer Hartstein told the publication maxxing could even “feed people’s anxiety and depression … if it doesn’t work the way they want, or if they fail”.
Some of these trends are physically dangerous, too. Taking a hammer to your face? Not advised. Similarly, tanmaxxing – which sees people try to achieve the most optimal tan possible – has skin cancer experts worried.
Dr Zainab Laftah, consultant dermatologist and British Skin Foundation spokesperson, previously told HuffPost UK: “The ‘tanmaxxing’ trend is concerning because there is no such thing as a safe tan.”
Dr El Muntasar reasons that consuming fibre, protein and taking pride in your appearance are not necessarily bad endeavours. But there’s usually an effective range – and beyond that, the doctor said “the benefits plateau and the risks begin to rise”.
He wants to see better language used on social media, not less ambition. This might look like fibre added gradually as part of a varied diet (rather than ploughing ahead with eating as much fibre as possible and ending up toilet-bound as a result), protein at a level appropriate to your age and activity, and “barrier-conscious routines” instead of a race to stack the most active skincare ingredients.
They say ‘everything in moderation’ for a reason. Fibremodding, anyone?
That means that after her final London date in her Eternal Sunshine Tour next month, Grande will step back from the limelight. She will also miss Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George, which the Sweetener singer was set to co-star in alongside Jonathan Bailey as part of a 2027 Barbican production.
Since that announcement, the Wicked actor has clarified that the move was planned.
During a tour performance in Chicago’s United Centre last night, the singer took a moment to explain her decision to her fans.
She said: “Sometimes when a story comes out that’s not directly from me, things can get a little blown out of proportion. So I just wanted to speak to my fans directly tonight because I love you so much. The announcement that was made yesterday was not a reactive or impulsive thing.
“It is something that I had decided to plan that I had quietly made a long time ago and it’s a decision that was made from a thoughtful and empowered place. And I want you to know many things can be true at the same time. I want to share this because I heard that my fans were worried that negativity was ruining things for me, but I just have to say that could not be more the fuck opposite.
“Honestly, this is not what that is. And I just want to be very, very clear: Multiple things can be true at the same time. Yes, boundaries, they need to be set. Human beings can need a break sometimes. And also, this can be and will continue to be the greatest experience of my professional and creative life.
“No matter what noises exist out there, nothing will ever be able to distort my reality or be more real to me or elaborate to me than this love that we share.
“The rest of that shit is not mine to carry, so I don’t carry it. I need to get out here and differentiate that from my truth for you all because I love you and this tour has been the most healing, beautiful, corrective, magnificent, special experience of my life.”
Ariana’s exit from the public eye came days after the release of her new album Petal, in which Ariana plays a performer who is told she’s “not good enough” and alternately informed she’s had too little or too much work done.
Since the album came out, many have criticised or expressed “concern” about Ariana’s physical appearance, despite the singer’s previous objections to similar critiques.
In 2024’s Yes, And? she sang, “Don’t comment on my body, do not reply”, for instance.
And in a 2023 TikTok, she said: “There are many different ways to look healthy and beautiful. I know personally, for me, the body that you’ve been comparing my current body to was the unhealthiest version of my body.
“I was on a lot of antidepressants and drinking on them and eating poorly, and at the lowest point of my life when I looked the way you consider my healthy. That, in fact, wasn’t my healthy…
“If you think you’re saying something good or well-intentioned, whatever it is, healthy, unhealthy, big, small, this, that, sexy, not sexy. We just shouldn’t. We should really work towards not doing that as much.”
Kemi Badenoch has been slammed after a former neo-Nazi was selected as a Tory council election candidate.
Joshua Bonehill-Paine is due to stand for election to Somerset Council, despite previously describing himself as a “nationalist, fascist, theorist and supporter of white rights”.
The row comes after Badenoch announced that former Tory MPs who back net zero will not be able to stand as candidates at the next election.
According to The Guardian, Bonehill-Paine was convicted in 2014 of malicious communications over an anti-Islam hoax that led to death threats against the owners of a pub in Leicester.
Bonehill-Paine – the creator of the online satirical publication the Crewkerne Gazette – was jailed for more than three years in 2015 after posting anti-semitic material online ahead of a planned neo-Nazi rally.
The following year, he was found guilty of racially aggravated harassment of the Jewish Labour MP Luciana Berger.
He was also the founder and leader of the far-right National British Resistance.
Despite that, the Conservatives chose him as a council candidate in Crewkerne South.
Defending the decision, Badenoch said “the Conservative Party believes in second chances”.
She added: “Joshua Bonehill-Paine is someone who actually has been certified by the Home Office to train police officers on anti-semitism and on countering extremism.
“Yes, he is somebody who had been previously convicted for this, but he is someone has shown contrition for his crimes, has been rehabilitated and is spending every day working to solve the very problem which he knew he had caused previously.”
Luciana Berger, who is now a Labour peer, hit out at the Tory leader and said she is “still haunted” by Bonehill-Paine’s actions.
She posted on X: “For the avoidance of doubt I don’t believe this man should have any role in public life – because of both his racism and his view of women.
“Kemi Badenoch, you’ve got this very, very wrong.”
A Labour Party spokesperson said: “Kemi Badenoch is selecting a former neo-Nazi who was convicted for harassing a Jewish MP, while boasting about kicking out moderate Tories who back net zero. It’s a total disgrace.
“This tells you everything you need to know about the modern Conservative Party. They haven’t just failed to learn the lessons of their worst ever defeat – under Kemi Badenoch they’re becoming more extreme and more out of touch with Britain.”
A spokesman for the Jewish Labour Movement said: “It is truly appalling that the Conservative Party has picked Joshua Bonehill-Paine as a council candidate. This is a former neo-Nazi who was sent to prison for racially abusing a Jewish politician.”
Karen Newman, vice-president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said: “It beggars belief that any party would select as a candidate a multiply convicted felon and the founder of a far-right group called National British Resistance.
“We have contacted the Conservative Party to set out our concerns and call on them to rescind his selection and review their vetting processes.”
Lord Mann, the former Labour MP who is the government’s independent adviser on anti-semitism, posted on X:”This convicted criminal should have no platform from a Parliamentary Party.
“His anti-semitism is as extreme as anyone I have ever seen.”
A Reform UK spokesperson said: “Kemi claims the Tories have changed and they will have a new generation of candidates – it’s now clear what calibre of candidates they will be.
“Kemi claims to support the fight against anti-semitism yet selects a convicted anti-semite Nazi as a candidate. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.”
Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
Still hate Twilight? Well, Robert Pattinson, who played co-lead Edward in the late ’00s and early ’10s flicks, reckons you need to get your priorities straight.
Last year, the The Odyssey actor said he still heard people talking about how the Stephanie Meyer series “ruined” the vampire genre – to which he replied, “Are you still stuck on that shit? How can you be sad about something that happened almost 20 years ago? It’s crazy.”
Since then, he’s compared his role in Nolan’s blockbuster to Twilight. Robert said his part as Antinous, a would-be suitor for Anne Hathaway’s Penelope, was “kind of like Jacob in Twilight… Penelope just can’t make her mind up between the two guys. And I’m just trying to, like, help her make a decision. It’s like, ‘It’s fine. [Odysseus is] dead, get over it.’”
But it seems that reference would be lost on his wife, musician Suki Waterhouse.
In a recent episode of the podcast In Your Dreams with Owen Thiele, Suki was asked whether she was Team Edward or Team Jacob (Twilight fans split themselves into corresponding camps depending on which of protagonist Bella’s suitors they preferred: Edward, played by Robert Pattinson, or Jacob, portrayed by Taylor Lautner).
Suki, however, admitted she’d never seen any of the five installments in the on-screen Twilight saga.
“I haven’t. I will one day, but obviously I’m Team Edward,” she said after struggling to work out whether her husband played Jacob or Edward.
“I can’t get that wrong.”
She added that she’s not against watching the movies one day, ideally with expert commentary from Robert; “I’m not just going to sit and watch the movie by myself!”
Still, Suki previously shared that both she and her daughter have been enjoying a behind-the-scenes preview of another of Robert’s movies, the upcoming The Batman: Part II.
Explaining that her husband often video calls in full Batman regalia, she said their child has taken to giving him a nickname: “She calls him ‘Daddy Batman’ now because he’s always dressed up like that now for the next seven months whenever he’s on FaceTime”.
You can watch the full episode of In Your Dreams With Owen Thiele here.
Nadia Sawalha, who’s been a member of the Loose Women panel on and off since 1999, hasn’t been seen on the ITV show since April of this year.
Her upload’s caption reads: “Why haven’t I seen you on Loose Women for ages? Can anyone guess? Will tell you if you guessed right on Wednesday here 6pm.”
This paragraph began and ended with a watermelon emoji, a symbol some use online to show solidarity with the people of Palestine.
Her post also ended with the hashtag #solidarityrocks, along with a dove emoji – which can refer to peace or as a way of saying “rest in peace” – and a heart.
In the comments of the post, a site user asked: “Does this mean they won’t have you back?”
To this, the 61-year-old responded: “I will be telling the whole story. It’s pretty unbelievable.”
HuffPost UK has reached out to ITV and Nadia Sawalha’s agent for comment.
Adventurer Bear Grylls has defended his controversial involvement with the baptism of comedian Russell Brand.
Bear helped to baptise the actor in 2024, months after allegations of historic sexual misconduct against Brand were made public in 2023 as part of a joint investigation between The Sunday Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches.
Brand denied the charges at the time and has since pleaded not guilty to a subsequent investigation and charges of rape and sexual assault.
He will face trial this autumn.
At the time, Brand said his baptism as part of a ceremony in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire helped him to “leave the past behind”.
He also shared an X post in May 2024 that read “Me, Bear Grylls, The River Thames and of course, The Holy Spirit.”
Bear has previously stood by his participation, telling The Times in 2025, “I try and live in a way that I never judge and I always try and love. And that principle doesn’t just apply to perfect people with perfect lives”.
In 2024, he told the Daily Mail: “Faith and spiritual moments in our lives are really personal, but it is a privilege to stand beside anyone when they express a humble need for forgiveness and strength from above.
“Friendships when we go through tough times are worth so much.”
Speaking to Metro recently, Bear was asked whether his feelings about the baptism had changed over the years, especially given Brand’s recent admission that he slept with a 16-year-old when he was 30.
The Celebrity Bear Hunt star said: “I think all our faith changes and evolves, and I’d also say I have many doubts as well. I really struggle with so much of it.
“But I don’t know, I think at heart, my faith says we’re connected together and we need each other, and not to judge people and to love people.”
He added that the phrase “What would Christ do?” has remained a mantra throughout his personal and professional life.
“I really try and keep that as that compass in my life. I don’t know. It’s like I say, I’m not super religious, but I do try and just start the day as a discipline on my knees and to say sorry, and to say thank you, and then to say help for the day ahead, and then I crack on with it,” he added.
Speaking on The Megyn Kelly Show in April 2026, Brand said of his previous sexual behaviour: “Consensual sex, actually, with a variety of people when there is a strong power differential, because there is when you’re a famous man that has the ability to attract women that I had at that time, I think involves exploitation.
“I think it is exploitative. I recognize that my sexual conduct in the past was selfish and I did not apply enough consideration, barely any, I suppose, really, to how that sex was affecting other people.”
Olivia Colman’s new film Wicker is set to hit the big screen in October of this year. But if you can’t wait that long to see the Broadchurch star, it might be time to give her highest-rated movie of all time a watch.
The Father, a 2020 psychological drama, has gotten the highest Rotten Tomatoes score of any film Colman has been attached to – it’s earned an impressive 98% on the review aggregation site.
(Her lowest-rated title, if you’re interested, is 2014’s Pudsey The Dog: The Movie with an actually-quite-impressive 0%).
Based on Florian Zeller’s stage play Le Père, The Father follows Anthony (played by Anthony Hopkins), who refuses help from his daughter Anne (Olivia Colman) as he ages.
Anthony’s dementia makes the retired engineer cranky and unpredictable as he wrestles with his future; Anne prepares to go abroad with a new love.
Mark Gatiss and Rufus Sewell also appear in the movie, which swept up six Oscar nominations for the 2021 Academy Awards.
Anthony Hopkins won for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, making him the oldest winner in a competitive acting category, aged 83.
Hopkins wasn’t there to collect the award himself, however. Instead, host Joaquin Phoenix accepted the Oscar on the actor’s behalf in a night that saw Best Actor placed at the end of the ceremony’s telecast, breaking with decades of tradition.
The Guardian described The Father as “superb” and “unbearably heartbreaking,” giving the film five stars.
Roger Ebert’s site dubbed it “some of the absolute best work of Hopkins’ lengthy and storied career”.
And Variety said, “Hopkins is flat-out stunning.”
Meanwhile on Reddit’s r/movies, site user u/pardis said The Father is “one of the best movies I’ve ever seen,” adding it left them and their family “gobsmacked”.
The fan cited its “Exceptional script, direction, concept, cast, production, everything. Can’t fault it for anything. Wall to wall perfection.”
The Father is available to rent or buy on YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, and Sky Store.
We are now around halfway through this scorcher of a summer and what a tough summer it has been for us gardeners with the record-breaking heatwaves and extended periods of dry weather, leading to hosepipe bans
If you’re one of the fortunate gardeners that has managed to keep their garden flourishing during this time, it’s time to start deadheading foliage and planning for next year’s flowering season.
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) advises: “August is usually one of the hottest months of the year, making watering essential. Try to use grey water wherever possible, especially as water butts may be running low if it has been a dry summer. August is traditionally holiday time, so you might need to enlist the help of friends and family to look after the garden while you are away.”
The fruit and vegetables to sow and harvest this August
The gardening experts at Greenhouse Stores say: “August is the month of abundance in UK gardens. Harvest tomatoes, courgettes, runner beans and soft fruit daily to keep plants productive.
“Sow winter salad crops now for autumn and winter cropping: winter lettuce, spinach, pak choi and rocket. Take semi-ripe cuttings of lavender, rosemary and box hedging. Order greenhouse heaters now because they sell out by October every year.”
If you’re falling a little behind on gardening or haven’t bought seeds in time, August is a great time to get back into the habit of gardening and reconnect with your green-fingered side. The experts at GrowVeg advise: “Summer is a great time to be sowing hardier leafy herbs like coriander and parsley, which are less likely to bolt after midsummer.
“If you live somewhere with very mild winters you may also be able to sow other last-minute crops like early or fast-maturing varieties of cucumber, beans and courgettes.”
The flowers to sow and harvest this August
The RHS says: “Towards the end of August sow hardy annuals directly into borders. They will overwinter and flower next summer.”
The society also recommends cutting back the foliage and stems of herbaceous plants that have already died as well as deadheading and watering plants in hanging baskets to make them last through to autumn.
As for what we should be planting this month, Dobies says: “In August the warm ground is perfect for sowing feverfew, field cornflower, calendula, myosotis, Siberian wallflower, cyclamen hederifolium and potentilla.
“You can also start off some pot plant seeds indoors. Why not try a cactus, cyclamen, or coleus?”
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