Shriver’s contentious views on diversity thread through the story of a couple’s strained relationship with exercise

Lionel Shriver’s scabrously funny 15th novel presents a dyspeptic view of people in thrall to exercise. In 2013 Shriver’s own daily regime involved “130 press-ups, 200 side crunches, 500 sit-ups and 3,000 star jumps … The jumps take 32½ minutes, or three every two seconds”. The Motion Of The Body Through Space was written, she recently revealed, after she realised that she may be more dedicated to her exercise than to her writing.

The protagonist, Serenata Terpsichore (“rhymes with chicory”), is a 60-year-old woman from upstate New York with a beguiling voice and ruined knees. The former she puts to lucrative use as a voiceover artist and narrator of audiobooks. The latter are the result of a lifetime’s adherence to the doctrine of working out; in particular the belief that 10-mile runs are the key to longevity and good health.

The Doc Martin actor appeared via videolink from his Dorset home

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Messaging from app was different story than what consumers saw. Many turned to Twitter and App Store reviews to vent their rage

Happy Mum, Happy Baby's Giovanna Fletcher on how she's keeping three boys under six entertained during lockdown and her anxiety about the now-famous interview with the Duchess of Cambridge

On the launch of the new collection, AMALFI, we chat to ALINKA's designer about her love of the namesake Italian coastline

She and Prince William dialled in from their Norfolk home

Megha-bling

Finding humour and humanity in the ordinary

Quarantine just got a whole lot more fun

We need to talk about exercise, race and gender

Glimpsing the horrors in Stephen King's mind

A daughter's poignant homage to her father's legacy

Networking and expanding job opportunities during lockdown is easier than you think. Laura Hampson speaks to career coach and consultant, Hannah Salton to see how it's done

If only everyone was kinder we would all reap rewards

A widow, a millennial and a cup of Lapsang tea

On losing a little sister and having a junkie as a dad

Fairfield Halls, London
In his show Taxi Tour, the comic from last year’s Britain’s Got Talent offers only standard-issue middle-aged standup

Kojo Anim was a star of the black standup circuit for years, but “Britain’s Got Talent changed my life,” he tells his Croydon crowd. The Londoner has booked his Taxi Tour off the back of an appearance in last year’s final, and recounts how that brush with fame – and his Christian faith, and new fatherhood – picked him back up after a grim period in his life. The emotional honesty is refreshing, but plays only a cameo role in an otherwise unadventurous show. Anim certainly does have talent, but – on this evidence – it’s for performing, not for writing distinctive material.

The show opens with a justification for appearing on BGT, and an account of his experience of overnight celebrity. But it soon devolves into standard issue middle-aged standup comparing his unglamorous childhood with that of today’s pampered youth. His parents play their expected role, giving their son broad accents to mimic when not walloping him for the slightest impertinence. “Only an African parent,” reports our host ruefully, “will beat their own child when they see another child doing something.”

Netflix is cutting down traffic to ease internet capacity as more people work from home. Here’s what it means for Australians’ streaming experience

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Netflix has agreed to reduce the data it uses to stream movies and TV shows across Australia as more and more people are working from home due to the coronavirus shutdown. But what will it mean for your viewing habits while you’re staying at home?

Related: Australian government asks Netflix and Stan to reduce data to avoid broadband overload

Related: As cinemas go dark, the film industry may go straight to Netflix

BBC One’s star-filled charity appeal needed imagination and technical skill to get round distancing rules

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Socially distanced presenters, a skeleton crew, no live audience and automated phonelines only – this is national telethonning, lockdown-style. Comic Relief and Children in Need have joined forces to create The Big Night In on BBC One and raise money for the charities and projects who need more support than ever as Covid-19 strains resources everywhere.

First shift is taken, as is traditional, by Lenny Henry and Davina McCall – joined, not too closely of course, by Matt Baker this time – whose recreation of normality for the viewer in what must, in the studio, be an absolutely bizarre set-up is unimpeachable proof of their professional talents.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

An interview with former Leicester City manager Claudio Ranieri encountered a rather odd technical difficulty on Thursday - with the feed cutting to his unsuspecting wife Rosanna.

Football fans will finally have some live action to watch on Friday, when the South Korean K-League returns from its coronavirus shutdown.

Only government action will preserve the clearer, bluer skies gifted to us by the coronavirus lockdown

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Many of us will have noticed differences in traffic noise and air pollution during the lockdown. Startling images have come from India where, for the first time in a generation, the Himalayas have been visible more than a hundred miles away. Something similar happened in the UK in 1921 when coal shortages during a miner’s strike led to newspaper reports of distant landmarks being visible as never before. In the UK we too have been able to look up at clearer blue skies, less impeded by air pollution and not crisscrossed by aircraft contrails. This helped Germany to break a solar power record.

In Beijing, air pollution controls for the 2014 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting also brought a return to blue skies. The term “APEC blue” emerged in Chinese social media and was nominated as Beijing’s top environmental phrase for the year. Later it took on a tinge of sadness, to mean something wonderful, but brief. One woman posted about love on social media, “He’s not that into you – it’s just an APEC blue!”

President Trump on Thursday did not directly address reports that Attorney General William Barr’s assessment of special counsel Robert Mueller’s...

The current 5.25 per cent interest rate for reverse mortgages under the Government's Pension Loans Scheme has not fallen despite three official cash rate cuts this year.

Researchers uncover long-term patterns in Sydney's underwater ecosystem from illustrated diaries made by a 1950s scuba diver.

It won't shock you to hear that livestreaming services are seeing an upswing in viewership due to the COVID-19 pandemic keeping people at home, but now it's clear just what kind of effect the outbreak has had on viewing habits. Streamlabs and Stream Hatchet have determined that watch hours surged 23 percent between February and March, to just over 1.2 billion. Other services saw increased demand as well, but their gains were relatively slight. Microsoft's Mixer saw a 15.9 percent gain, while YouTube's gaming streams saw a 10.7 percent boost. Facebook Gaming saw a modest 3.8 percent increase.

Gaming on Twitch is largely a one-way affair. You can join a Marbles on Stream race or play a slightly delayed Jackbox Party Pack game, but the service is largely meant for passive viewing. Amazon aims to fix that before long, however. The company tells the New York Times that it's developing games both Twitch streamers and their viewers can play together in "real time." While details are scarce, you should see games become available throughout the summer.

The ladies spilled plenty of tea.

Over the last few years, social networks have instituted slightly stiffer policies against misinformation, but those systems are being pressed to their limit by a fast-spreading new video. The ‘Plandemic’ clip “spreads debunked conspiracy theories ab...

Judging the Surface Go 2 comes down to your expectations. Can you live with slow performance to get a well-designed $400 tablet PC (not including a keyboard)? Or are you OK with spending hundreds extra to get a slightly more capable machine that's as...

Scary stories about Zoombombing and privacy leaks may have you feeling tense about setting up a video call. But under current circumstances there aren’t a lot of other options available, so columnist Violet Blue has some advice on what you should (an...

A Pasadena man found a card tucked away with his Amazon order offering a $20 payment in return for a glowing review — as long as he didn't tell anyone he'd been bribed.

Researchers found a security flaw in Zoom's "Waiting Room" feature that could have allowed users to access a video meeting even if they were not approved to join a call. Zoom said Wednesday it had fixed the issue.

Emmerdale viewers were terrified for little Dottie's life after Arthur and Archie set alight the tent she was asleep in

Coronation Street showed an incredibly tender moment between Nina and Asha after Asha confided in Nina something very personal

Emmerdale viewers took to Twitter to share their concerns that the ITV soap would not be on our screens for much longer after noticing something on Friday's episode

Gogglebox paid tribute to one of its best-loved stars, June Bernicoff, who died earlier this week, bringing viewers to tears

Although the clinical symptoms of SARS, H1N1, MERS, EVALI, and COVID-19 may be nonspecific, some characteristic imaging findings are emerging, says the American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR). Careful evaluation of the distribution, lung zone preference, and symmetry of the abnormalities with an eye for a few unique differentiating imaging features can allow radiologists to offer a narrower differential diagnosis in pediatric patients, leading to optimal patient care.

Boris Johnson will chair a Cabinet meeting on Thursday and is expected to announce a lifting of some measures on Sunday.

It comes as a six-week-old baby was among the 332 deaths announced by NHS England.

The retail giant Cotton On reverses its decision to exclude 200 staff from the JobKeeper program as it faces uproar from casual workers who say they are being unfairly denied the wage subsidy.

UPDATE: HOLDEN will review its sponsorship deal with Collingwood after president Eddie McGuire’s radio attack on female football writer Caroline Wilson.

The world has changed for AFL players — like everybody else — thanks to coronavirus. They're taking a while to process the fact, writes Offsiders' Richard Hinds.

Imagine an Australia where every sporting club in the country had players with autism and intellectual disability playing on teams, serving on committees, and helping run events.

Netflix's new documentary, "Becoming," a companion to Michelle Obama's memoir of the same name, is unlikely to change one's view of its subject.

Rapman moves from YouTube to feature films with "Blue Story," a tale of two South-East London friends living in different neighborhoods torn apart by gang violence.