G2

In the strange world of short-form video, no one can take a breath

It’s not the worst thing about social media, but something dreadful is happening in short-form videos. At first I thought my phone was on the blink. Then I assumed I was just unlucky, that this aberration was practised only by the creators of the very...

The age of extreme job anxiety is upon us

The personal experience of longterm unemployment is one people rarely share, for completely understandable reasons. There’s a bit of superstition that saying it out loud will bed it in. Even if they’re clearly in the grip of superstitions of their own...

Swoon with a view!

Robyn’s greatest songs

See the full list of 20 at theguardian.com/music 1 Dancing on My Own (2010) There’s a reason why Dancing on My Own is regularly listed as not just Robyn’s greatest song, but the best single of the 2010s full stop: it has a lightning-in-a-bottle...

Who cares who wins? I’m cheering for the World Cup referees

I’ve found another way of ruining sport for myself. I thought I’d explored every means of turning the stress dial up to 11, but now I’ve chanced on a new method. I must need the anxiety to feel alive. I go back a long way with this kind of thing. I’ve...

‘I thought of her as a volcano’

John Cusack films

1 Being John Malkovich (1999) John Cusack asked his agent for the “craziest, most unproduceable script you can find”, and the result was Spike Jonze’s feature-directing debut. Cusack, with the saddest hair imaginable, has a ball exploring his dark...

Alicia Keys’ greatest songs

1 If I Ain’t Got You (2003) Ostensibly a love song, but actually inspired by the death of Aaliyah and the 9/11 attacks that happened a few weeks after the singer’s passing, If I Ain’t Got You is Alicia Keys’ most popular song – over 1.5bn streams on...

I’m an only child, and so is my son. We are not weirdos!

Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me ... must be a saying thought up by somebody extremely privileged. For everyone else, words wound, and there are certain groups that are seemingly, bafflingly, forever considered fair...

A WhatsApp message about a little-known sport made me briefly famous in Japan

It was December 2023 and I was searching in the attic for Christmas decorations when my phone pinged. I pulled it out of my pocket and found a WhatsApp message from my son who was backpacking in Australia. The message read, simply: “You might want to...

This World Cup is the perfect opportunity to tackle extremism

Whenever my kids and I are stationary in the same room, within five minutes they will have started talking about football. Every now and then, a name will float out that I recognise – Jude Bellingham, say – but most of the time it lacks the dramatic...

‘My life is about beauty’

The best songs about football

1 The Fall – Kicker Conspiracy (1983) Not just the best song about football, but one of the very best Fall songs: a memorable chorus hook over a massive riff, and rackety verses that refracted English football in the early 80s through the prism of...

My year with the robots

I became an uncle – and it helped me heal from childhood bullying

When I found out I had become an uncle, I was 22 and on a year abroad as part of a languages degree, living in Madrid. I’d spent much of my time there having raucous fun on the city’s gay scene, dancing till the early hours then sloping off with...

I devoured classic novels as a teenager. Can I relearn how to read them?

‘I felt I could smash my past up through sex’

‘Music was segregated until disco came out’

You have been an active contributor to an astounding canon of music. What was the essential ingredient that made it all happen? eamonmcc The first word that comes to mind is passion – for the music, for what I do. If you get to be the voice of a song...

I love baseball, but it’s a lonely, left-field passion in the UK

When you’re happy about something, it’s good to share it. And when you’re unhappy about something, it’s also good to share it. But if that something is the performance of your baseball team, and you live in the UK, you’ll have your work cut out finding...

Who gets the sofa?

Turned out nice again!

I couldn’t get anything done – until a kitchen timer pushed me into action

Long before I knew what a 9 to 5 was, I struggled to get things done. When I was a child, I avoided showers for as long as possible and put off brushing my waist-length hair. My mum ended up cutting it into a bob to help me manage it. During my...

Laurie Anderson songs

10 Flying at Night (2024) The best moments of Amelia, Laurie Anderson’s concept album about pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart, come when the songs delve into her internal world. Flying at Night is a case in point. The lyrics are ambiguous – “top speed...

Sorry about the yelling and swearing, but my corn’s playing up again

They really bloody hurt, I tell you. Corns, that is. Or rather, in my case, corn singular. One is enough, trust me. One is enough to have me wincing, limping, yelping, swearing. One is agony. One is plenty. My one is on the lateral side of my left...

I thought doctors had given me a death sentence – but that was 40 years ago

On 21 February 1986, I was diagnosed HIV positive. I was 22. It was the day of my sister’s 21st birthday. That afternoon, my life changed for ever. We had planned a surprise party later that night. My sister was seven months pregnant, and I had gone to...

Where do dogs belong?

I dedicated myself to saving soil – and a life of wild adventure began

Sousan Samadani was watching videos on YouTube one day when she came across a post about how the world’s soil was degrading so rapidly that it was in danger of extinction. The video – posted by the Save Soil movement – “was like a shock for me”,...

Cannes’ biggest controversies

1 Lars von Trier’s solidarity with Hitler (2011) What else could it possibly be? During a press conference for his own film Melancholia, Lars von Trier made a string of wilfully provocative announcements. “I understand Hitler” was the most clippable,...

When I want to feel loved, I just go to a hardware store

Let us all rise to acclaim the local shop, the little independent establishment that always seems to have exactly what you went in for. These places are not many in number, so we must be sure to celebrate those that remain with us. Their prices might –...

Slow down!

Almost anyone can be prime minister. But should they be?

In the late 1800s, the boxing and wrestling scene of east and southeast London was going through a transformation, and if you are interested in that, I recommend the work of the historian Sarah Elizabeth Cox. If, on the other hand, you are more...

‘Being offended isn’t the worst thing. Being poor is’

Lizzo’s best tracks

1 Good As Hell (2016) If you had to pinpoint a moment when Lizzo’s career shifted gear, it would be the release of this track from her EP Coconut Oil. Good As Hell amped up the pop aspects of her second album, Big Grrrl Small World, until they became...

The best filing system? Just sweep everything into the nearest bin

How I hate paperwork. Forms to fill, bills to pay, statements to file, receipts to keep, documents documenting things, proving things, explaining things. Keep them all. Up the pile rises until this tower of fear and confusion can no longer support...

Totally grounded?

What is Reform trying to achieve with this latest nastiness?

All parties struggle to invest local elections with meaning, because no party can alter the consequences of what is coming up to two decades of austerity. They can promise they’ll work hard for local people, and many of them will, but they can’t change...

I turned my eye for colour into a new career

Isabel Walker was taking her daughter out for her 36th birthday. She had wanted to do “something unusual and special”, so first Walker accompanied her to get her colours analysed. While the specialist draped swatches over her daughter’s shoulders and...

I couldn’t help but wonder...

What’s my favourite food? Whatever you’re trying to eat

I have identified my worst character trait. In such a crowded field, this has been no easy task. This one wins out because it’s two equally unappealing traits rolled into one. They both concern food, or rather eating. Number one: I cannot stop coveting...

I cried about my cleft lip for the first time in my 60s

At a fundraising event, I looked across the crowded room and saw a woman with a cleft – a gap in the lip (and sometimes the palate) where a baby’s face doesn’t fuse properly during pregnancy. She was standing on her own, and I beckoned her over to join...

Are prime ministers the problem? Or is it the voters?

At what point, as you consider the prime minister’s shortcomings more in sorrow than in anger, as you size up likely successors and try to wonder, idly, whose wallpaper we’re on in Downing Street, do you start to think that you, the electorate, are the...

‘It takes a lot of work to love yourself’

Everything But the Girl songs

See the full list of 20 at theguardian.com/music 10 Come on Home (1986) When their record label suggested making a “big”-sounding album, Everything But the Girl took them at their word. Baby, the Stars Shine Bright was big not in the sense of its 80s...

I tried to do a press-up – and had an existential crisis

I decided to do some pressups. They’re good for you, apparently. A calisthenic classic. This much I picked up in a doomscrolling session. Some algorithm somewhere must have decided I’d be open to the idea and, not for the first time, the algorithm was...

I was always intimidated by landlords - until I met one of mine at a party

After 12 years of renting, I’ve known my fair share of landlords – although “known” is probably the wrong term. I don’t usually meet them in person and rarely speak to them directly, only communicating through a managing estate agent or, if I’m lucky,...

Worried about the May elections? Here’s my tactical voting advice

If there’s one thing I love more than being canvassed at local election time, it’s being canvassed when I’m at someone else’s house. I promise those people the earth. Sure, my friend whose house it is will definitely vote Lib Dem, I tell them; I once...

Abandoned Britain

My gut was telling me to get off the mountain. I’m so glad I listened

I didn’t have a reason for my terrible feeling of dread – and that was part of the problem. From the moment I arrived in Tajikistan with my boyfriend, Tim, to climb two 7,000-metre (23,000ft) peaks, something felt off. It wasn’t a fear I could name: it...

‘My life has become a rollercoaster’

‘It has been a horrendous journey’

Cocteau Twins songs

See the full list of 20 at theguardian.com/music 10 Bluebeard (1993) Bluebeard was a deeply improbable delight in a number of ways. First, who in the 80s could have imagined a Cocteau Twins track audibly influenced by country music? Second, who would...

‘I’ve never been relatable’

‘It’s industrial in scale’

‘Some questions will never be answered’