'If people are fighting over toilet rolls instead of booze, there's something wrong,' laughed the comedian

Cornwall was considered as a new location for the 2020 series

The 'IT Crowd' star did not agree with Fox's comments on 'Question Time' and ignored Fox's pleas to support him on social media

Episode has been hailed the 'absolute best part' of lockdown

Actor said she did not make her accusations public at first for fear of being labelled a 'troublemaker'

Comedian said he got 'such s***' for suggesting tiger trader deserves his prison sentence

Lion says she meant it as 'light entertainment for fans during these difficult times'

'Joe may have started with good intentions but he lost his way'

The show ran for nine seasons from 2005 to 2014

Archive footage shows Jordan tell Bryant 'I'll see you down the road' after first match together

Cat trader previously said he wanted Brad Pitt to portray him

'I'd love to do a millennium one'

Writer also said he has no plans for further episodes of 'Black Mirror'

US president had previously suggested he would 'take a look' at the scandalous case

Comedian made the off-colour quip after the veteran actor starred in 'Cats'

'Is there anyone on Earth who enjoys the ending?'

Ninety minutes in the company of the former first lady is like an inspirational infomercial, says Annie Lord

Brad Pitt and Tom Hanks have contributed to the programme remotely

Davidson is currently quarantining in his mother's basement

In celebration of his 94th birthday

Show promises a 'funny and hopeful look at the search for love, sex and connection during this time of social distancing'

Holmes came under fire for giving validity to a conspiracy theory linking 5G to coronavirus

Scott was best known for playing Moriarty opposite Benedict Cumberbatch in 'Sherlock'

Director's new series stars Andre Holland as a once-famous American jazz pianist who has been unable to play since his son died

Joseph Maldonado-Passage was sentenced in January to 22 years in prison

TV presenter, wife Stephanie and their daughters played a game of Murder Mystery

Actor is famous for making her opinions known during interviews

(Matador)
The indie maverick is a purveyor of all styles on his studiously eclectic 12th album

There’s a strange psychological cross-pollination going on behind the mask that Will Toledo, the artist mostly known as Car Seat Headrest, sports on the cover of his 12th album. Indulging an alter ego called Trait, Making a Door Less Open seeks out deliberately eclectic hybrids of his wry, lo-fi indie rock style (heir to the likes of Beck, Lou Barlow and Eels) and the satirical EDM he and his drummer Andrew Katz make as 1 Trait Danger. The result is much better than anyone who’s heard the latter, who often veer perilously close to a Bloodhound Gang remix project, might expect: Can’t Cool Me Down has a sultry 80s electropop feel, while the roil of self-deprecation and naked emotion on There Must Be More Than Blood underlines Toledo’s debt to LCD Soundsystem.

The new styles don’t all gel. The sleazy, fuzzy synth-rocker Hollywood is pleasingly punchy, but brought down by facile lyrics (apparently Tinsel Town isn’t the dreamland it’s cracked up to be – who knew?). Two sister songs – the lumpen alt-rock Deadlines (Hostile) and the Hot Chip-with-extra-dour Deadlines (Thoughtful) – fail to charm, while What’s With You Lately is a wan, mopey strum that seems to have wandered in from an entirely different, very bad record. But on the likes of the pulsing, uplifting Famous and Life Worth Missing, Toledo finds new energy.

Continue reading...

The keyboardist, who has died aged 71 of coronavirus, upended the rules of punk with organ arpeggios and a moustache – and pointed the way to post-punk

Music writer Pete Paphides’ recent memoir, Broken Greek, contains a vivid description of its seven-year-old author encountering the Stranglers for the first time, during a 1977 Top of the Pops appearance. “They landed in the living room while I was totally unsupervised,” he writes, “and scared the shit [out] of me. By now I would have seen images of punk rockers … but they looked like circus entertainers compared to [the Stranglers]. They looked too old to be punk. They looked like the sort of people you pass in the street and your mother puts her arm round you, stares at the pavement and doubles her walking speed … The point at which it all got too much was when the camera cut to Dave Greenfield – who has died from Covid-19 aged 71 – jabbing his keyboard while looking straight ahead with what seemed, beyond doubt, to be the eyes of a murderer, an effect somehow compounded by the army-surplus boiler suit he had decided to wear. Just like that, my list of phobias had got a little longer: worms, biting into mushrooms, insects, the fibreglass King Kong which stood next to a ring road in Birmingham city centre and, now, Dave Greenfield from the Stranglers.”

It’s funny writing, but it’s also very incisive about the Stranglers: in real life Greenfield was, by all accounts, the band’s most approachable and charming member, but otherwise Paphides has it spot-on. The Stranglers complained relentlessly about not being accepted by the punk cognoscenti, but what did they expect? They didn’t look like punks, particularly Greenfield, who defiantly sported that least punk of facial accoutrements, a moustache. They were old, at least by the standards of the day, old enough to have the kind of musical pasts it was wise to keep your mouth shut about in the scorched-earth environment created by the Sex Pistols: Hugh Cornwell had played bass in a band with Richard Thompson, later of Fairport Convention; Greenfield had been in a prog rock band called Rusty Butler.

(Pias)
Since his last outing, the south London musician and producer has eased up and moved to Margate. Yet this atmospheric return still carries the weight of the world

Ghostpoet – the brooding alias of south London-born Obaro Ejimiwe – is roughly a decade old this year. This dour bard has long been an artist ahead of his time. A track such as Cash and Carry Me Home, one of the highlights of his eclectic, jazz-inflected debut album – 2011’s Peanut Butter Blue and Melancholy Jam – defied genre as it mourned the self-inflicted pain of one drink too many. It now locates Ghostpoet as roughly adjacent to the south London jazz renaissance of the past few years – a multi-hyphenate scene in which most things go. Were it to be released today, its languorous, self-aware aperçus would find an even more receptive audience.

(Family Hour/Thirty Tigers)
Sean and Sara Watkins are back and in reflective mood

California’s Sean and Sara Watkins are akin to royalty in American folk circles, firstly as founding members of the hugely successful Nickel Creek, and secondly as hosts of an 18-year residency at LA’s Largo club, where they perform alongside invited guests. Brother Sister draws on both strands of their history. Like its self-titled 2015 predecessor, the album sets aside the pizzazz of Nickel Creek for a down-home approach, but instead of boisterous, star-studded cover versions come five original songs and a minimal musical palette.

Alternating on lead, the pair’s vocals remain a model of sibling harmony, while the interplay between Sean’s intricate guitar picking and Sara’s elegant fiddle is similarly impressive – the breakneck bluegrass instrumental Bella and Ivan is a case in point. Mostly, however, the mood is reflective. Lafayette and Miles of Desert Sand chronicle the search for a better life, and Fake Badge, Real Gun is an artful snipe at Trump – “Throw your tantrums but the truth will be waiting”. Warren Zevon’s forlorn Accidentally Like a Martyr fits in neatly, while Charley Jordan’s ribald Keep It Clean is a gleeful example of a Largo session.

The Welsh nurse-turned-indie rocker is now one of electronic music’s best exponents. She talks proving herself, the NHS and climate-crisis bangers

Kelly Lee Owens is showing me her crumpled bed, pixelated on the screen. It is five weeks into quarantine and this has quickly become the norm: an interview with an artist in their close quarters; ambivalent levels of grooming. Neither of us is wearing makeup, and neither of us care. “You know what I read?” begins the electronic musician, incredulously. “This is bullshit. There’s a [Daily Mail] headline saying that women’s breasts will be sagging because they’re not going to be wearing bras during this lockdown. So what?! Leave me to my saggy breasts.”

Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips

• Comment has followed superstar throughout his life
• Jordan addresses issue during ESPN’s The Last Dance

Michael Jordan has discussed the quote that has come to define what many see as his willingness to put profit over principles.

During a 1990 Senate race in his home state of North Carolina, Jordan refused to endorse Democrat Harvey Gantt, an African American who was running against the incumbent Republican Jesse Helms, a notorious racist. Jordan, who at the time had already won the first of his five NBA MVP awards, explained away his refusal to take a stance by saying “Republicans buy sneakers, too”.

Related: Michael Jordan's furious desire to conquer all still burns decades later

• Goodell’s memo outlines protocols for reopening team facilities
• NFL set to release full regular-season schedule on Thursday

The NFL has set protocols for reopening team facilities and has told the 32 teams to have them in place by 15 May.

In a memo sent by league commissioner Roger Goodell and obtained Wednesday night by the Associated Press, several phases of the protocols were laid out. The first phase to deal with the coronavirus pandemic would involve a limited number of non-player personnel, initially 50% of the non-player employees (up to a total of 75) on any single day, being approved to be at the facility. But state or local regulations could require a lower number.

Related: Why is it always the white NFL players who get a second chance?

Related: Eli Manning predicts 'tough' start for Tom Brady with Buccaneers

Local and state government officials must consent to reopening

The team must implement all operational guidelines set by the league to minimize the risk of virus transmission among employees

Each club must acquire adequate amounts of needed supplies as prescribed by the league

An Infection Response Team with a written plan for newly diagnosed coronavirus cases

An Infection Control Officer to oversee all aspects of the implementation of the listed guidelines

Each employee who returns to work at the club facility must receive Covid-19 safety and hygiene training prior to using the facility, and agree to report health information to the ICO

The response team must consist of a local physician with expertise in common infectious disease principles; the team physician can fill that role. Also on the response team will be the infection control officer, the team’s head athletic trainer; the team physician, if he or she is not serving as the local physician; the human resources director; the team’s chief of security; its mental health clinician or someone with equivalent clinical expertise; and a member of the club’s operations staff such as the facility manager

Are these just different names for the same beast or are there subtle differences? We talk with the owner of a Bigfoot museum who's had a close encounter.

A hospital stay can be a stressful experience for anybody, and especially for a child. But a smiling new robot named Robin plays games, tells stories and comforts children in need of a friend.

If you think asphalt is what hot tar roads are made of, you'd be wrong. Asphalt is only one ingredient in the recipe that makes up our roads. And it has a very long, very interesting history.

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 chief prosecutor will seek capture of Jordan Goudreau as well as two US-based advisers to opposition leader Juan Guaidó

• How the plot to invade Venezuela fell apart

Venezuela’s chief prosecutor has ordered the arrest of a former Green Beret and two opposition figures living in the United States for their purported role in a botched operation aimed at removing Nicolás Maduro from power.

Tarek William Saab said Venezuela will seek the capture of Jordan Goudreau, a military veteran who has claimed responsibility for the attack, as well as Juan José Rendón and Sergio Vergara, two US-based advisers to the opposition leader Juan Guaidó.

Shareholder vote in favour of global mining giant adopting binding targets grew sixfold since last year

Shareholders in global miner Rio Tinto have rebuked the company over its climate stance, with 37% voting at a meeting in Australia for a resolution that would require it to set binding emissions targets.

While the resolution did not pass, its sponsor, environmental group Market Forces, said it attracted six times as much support as an identical one put up at the same meeting last year.

NSW Health assessment the cruise ship was ‘low risk’ introduced ‘an unfortunate element’ into his decision-making

• Sign up for Guardian Australia’s daily coronavirus email
• Download the free Guardian app to get the most important news notifications

A New South Wales harbour master has told an inquiry he “did not understand” an email that told him to treat the Ruby Princess “as if it has a positive Covid-19 result” when it came into Sydney Harbour on 18 and 19 March.

Cameron Butchart, who was the duty harbour master on 18 March, said NSW Health’s assessment that the ship was “low risk” introduced “an unfortunate element” into his decision-making.

A 16-year-old Aboriginal boy was forced to remove his shorts and squat during a search, but disciplinary action has not been recommended

A New South Wales police watchdog investigation into seven strip searches including one in which a 16-year-old Aboriginal boy was physically forced to remove his shorts and squat has found that all of them were unlawful.

But the watchdog has been criticised for “not going far enough” in its findings, with Sarah Crellin, a principal solicitor at the Aboriginal Legal Service, saying she was “deeply disappointed that there have been no recommendations for disciplinary action” against individual officers.