From Aberdeen to St Ives, it seems nowhere is safe from supersized swooping scavengers. But you must not fight back

Name: XL gullies.

Age: First identified in March.

For eagle-eyed viewers, a clutch of cookbooks by Australian chefs and authors such as Peter Gilmore feature in the series – and one is selling for $900 online

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Ever since The Bear debuted in 2022, the show has induced a level of obsession from fans. Interest in Carmy’s patchwork jacket from season one led to the discontinued design being resurrected, and audiences struck by the Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross song from season three’s premiere sparked a streaming spike for an obscure Nine Inch Nails album.

Then there’s the food, which has seen fans attempt Sydney’s potato-chip omelette and Marcus’s chocolate cake. And for eagle-eyed viewers, there are the cookbooks that appear throughout the show: alongside influential titles by René Redzepi and Julia Child are a clutch of Australian cookbooks that have made their way into Carmy’s apartment and the shelves of his restaurant.

After being together for so many years, how do Natalia and Juan Luís negotiate the big differences in their sex drives?

He really tries to make me feel good and arouse me

Maybe I tire her out, because I try it on every day

Games allow players to rack up points for ‘Portillo moments’ and D:Ream plays as Labour landslide projected

Eyes down for a full house on Thursday night: a “Portillo moment” at this election could cause viewers across the country to leap out of their seats crying “Bingo!” as a range of games and wallcharts have been released designed to celebrate a potential Conservative wipeout.

Merchandise available on Etsy includes a Tory 2024 Meltdown Wallchart, which gives bonus points for any losing MP who has been previously made a sir or dame by their party. It has several lines of Conservative candidates ranked from “the inevitable”, including Jonathan Gullis, to “there is a God”, including Suella Braverman and Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg.

They never know what they will find – from fleas to Picassos to Soviet missiles beneath the stairs. But what they do is crucial and cathartic

A soup of stuff sits on the desk in front of me: remote controls, spectacles, a fly swatter, a medication box, a pebble paperweight inscribed with the owner’s name. Even false teeth, lying where they were discarded. This is personal yet familiar clutter: we all have our own version.

I am in the front bedroom turned office and music studio of a stranger. Every conceivable object seems to have migrated here, creating shaky piles of paraphernalia that encapsulate a life’s passion. There is some impressive retro recording equipment, keyboards, a horn, all coated with a thick layer of dust.

Sexualising my lower digits was bad enough. To be given the equivalent of a pat on the head and told ‘nice try’ was an indignity too far

Like most people, I’ve never had a particularly intimate relationship with my feet. They get me places and occasionally give me blisters, and that’s about it. I regard them as roughly on a par with my elbows – un-glamorous but mainly functional. That is, until I discovered them on Wikifeet.

If you’re not already familiar with Wikifeet, think of it as an online directory of celebrity foot pictures, lovingly maintained by a volunteer army of foot fetishists. I stumbled across it in 2022 while trying to Google a photo that somebody had taken of me at a fashion industry event. There I was, or rather there were my feet: on a kink website that gets 20m views a month. I had naturally assumed that journalists were not the target focus of a celebrity fetish website, given that I have yet to star in a James Bond film or become an Estée Lauder brand ambassador. Unfortunately, it seems like anybody who does a mildly public-facing job is considered fair game, and a few podcasts and brief TV appearances were enough for me to qualify.

By 2021, women around the world were 6% angrier than men, a gap that widened during the pandemic. Dr Jennifer Cox says it is time to let it all out

“Oh my God, I love a scream,” says Dr Jennifer Cox, her face lighting up. “Screaming underwater, I recommend. It’s amazing. It’s so liberating and no one can hear.”

The same is true for standing on a motorway bridge and venting your pent-up rage and frustration into the roar of the traffic underneath. Or, at a pinch, for yelling under the noise of the shower, she says. “Women are like: ‘Oh, I can’t be seen to do this stuff.’ OK, don’t be seen. But let it out.”

If you’ve come to regret your past brow decisions, we would like to hear about it

Over the last couple of decades, brows have been big news the world of beauty – but shapes and styles have shifted dramatically. Now, TikTokkers are sharing throwback photos of what the internet has dubbed #eyebrowblindness – an apparent inability to see how terrible certain brow trends looked at the time.

Have you experienced so-called “eyebrow blindness”? Perhaps you over-plucked in the nineties, or opted for the super-heavy “slug” brows of the 2010’s? If you’ve come to regret your past brow decisions, we’d love to hear about it – and see your photos! – below.

Rise in sales of ranges in six to 10 suggests retailer has been successful in appealing to younger demographic

• M&S gets it right (finally) on AGMs. Others should make an effort

Marks & Spencer is increasing its stocks of smaller sizes in womenswear after a surge in demand left gaps on shelves.

Stuart Machin, the chief executive of the high street stalwart, said that three years ago about a fifth (21%) of the items sold from its main seasonal collection were size six to 10 and that had now risen to 35% as its “fashion and style ranges [were] resonating with a different customer group”.

Whether you prefer to pop the cork on prosecco, English fizz or alcohol-free, these sparkling wines should get your vote, says Sophia Longhi

If the polls are right, we’re (probably) about to see the end of 14 years of Tory rule – so it’s time to get the bubbly in for election night.

From cava to champagne, prosecco to English sparkling wine, here is a selection of the best fizz for every palate and budget. And if things don’t go your way on Thursday night, there’s always the England team to cheer on on Saturday. Bottoms up!

He has written hit films like 24 Hour Party People and cooked up the Queen’s Olympic skydive. But now, having been crowned Children’s Laureate, he’s on a mission to show kids that books will change their lives

Frank Cottrell-Boyce doesn’t believe in pessimism. Even being announced as the UK’s brand-new children’s laureate in the week when all eyes are focused on Westminster and the polling booths makes him hopeful that people will turn to a cheerier story in search of relief, meaning he can leap into the classic “and finally” spot on news bulletins. “I’m happy to be that skateboarding duck,” he grins as he chats over Zoom from his home on Merseyside.

But to be chipper is not merely a function of his temperament, as his speech at the acceptance of the title made clear. Quoting William Beveridge, whose groundbreaking report laid the foundations for the modern welfare state, Cottrell-Boyce insisted that “scratch a pessimist and you’ll find a defender of privilege”; and it’s his intention, during his two-year tenure, to demonstrate that making children’s lives better by increasing their access to books, reading and what he calls “the apparatus of happiness” is critical to the prospects of the generations to come – and that the cost of ignoring that is unthinkable.

In Lagos, where homosexuality is illegal, Chibuzo and Ekele reveal how risky it is for them to get together

We only touch behind closed doors

I miss the intimacy of sharing living space, and being together, day and night

It takes time and attention to look after other people – and ourselves. And there are so many distractions to overcome

Years ago I was sitting in a cafe before work when an exhausted-looking man and his toddler son came in. A “One cappuccino and one babyccino please” later, they sat at the table next to mine. The boy was a bit snotty and whiny, and I could see his dad was working hard to keep him entertained, to give him the time and attention he needed. And then I saw the moment where that time and attention ran out. The man’s focus slipped away, his hand dropping down to his pocket, his tired eyes sliding across to the screen as he eased out his phone …

And then I saw the scream. I saw it before I heard it, because the very loud scream was preceded by a terrifying silent scream (my own child also does a very potent silent scream, so I recognise this retrospectively). The father realised at this point that the game was up, shoved his phone back in his pocket and, defeated, carried his child out of the cafe in one arm, his other hand steering the empty pushchair.

A hearty, spicy, meaty treat

Cut a 125g piece of pancetta into small, thick pieces roughly 3cm x 2cm. Put them into a large, shallow pan with a good glug of olive oil and let them cook over a low to moderate heat. As the fat starts to melt and the pancetta becomes golden, peel and thinly slice 2 cloves of garlic and stir them into the pan. Roughly chop 2 spring onions and scatter them among the pancetta.

Thickly slice 250g of courgettes, add them to the pan and stir them among the pancetta and aromatics. Leave them to cook for about 8-10 minutes, stirring them regularly. Trim 150g of broccoli (I use the long-stemmed variety) and add to the pan. Cover with a lid and continue cooking for a few minutes until the broccoli has softened a little and is rich, deep green in colour.

Janelle Monáe’s trousers do not represent a vagina. They represent a vulva. Have some respect!

I have a stick up my arse about the difference between “less” and “fewer”, and women in the generations below have the same about “vagina” and “vulva”, and even though the principle is the same – why not just use the right word, instead of the wrong one? – I have never been able to see their problem. Everyone’s got the gist. Why make a scene?

It happened that I recently spent some hallowed time with millennials and also saw Janelle Monáe, live, and this all coincided at a festival that it would be crass to mention for the 91st time – but suffice it to say, I have finally come round to their point of view.

As pornography use soars, some men feel their behaviour is moving from a compulsion to an addiction. They describe how this affects their health, happiness and relationships

Tony is in his 50s and recently did a rough calculation of how much of his life he has spent looking at pornography. “The result was horrifying,” he says. It was eight years. “I can barely think about it. The sense of failure is intense.”

Tony saw his first “hardcore” film on VHS in the 1980s when he was 12. In his 20s, he connected to the internet for the first time, which turned his habit into a “full-blown addiction”. Over the past 30 years, he has just about managed to maintain a double life: he works in a caring profession, is friends with men and women, has had relationships. But there is a part of him he keeps entirely hidden.

Allan Mustafa joins Grace to share the dish he turns to for comfort food. Allan shot to fame playing MC Grindah in People Just Do Nothing, his Bafta award-winning, semi-autobiographical mockumentary, which was inspired by his early life in south-west London. Allan talks about growing up with his Czech mum and Kurdish dad and eating the ultimate fusion cuisine. He dishes the dirt on his teenage life as a graffiti artist, how he met and bonded with his People just Do Nothing co-stars on a beach in Thailand and how he turned what looked like a life of doing nothing into a life of awesome comedic success.

New episodes of Comfort Eating with Grace Dent will be released every Tuesday

If a pet has ever caused tension or ruptures in a human relationship in your life, we want to hear from you

Has a pet ever got in the way of your relationship or friendship? Did you not take the death of your friend’s cat seriously enough and, as a result, fell out? Did you break up with a partner because they refused to kick the dog out of your bed? Did your best friend cancel a holiday with you because her rabbit fell ill? Did it all get too much with a housemate when they decided to move in their terrifying pet snake?

If a pet has ever caused tension or ruptures in a human relationship in your life, we want to hear from you.

When Naissa tells his mother Daniela that he identifies as a trans man she struggles to understand. Through candid personal letters exchanged over three years, Dear Mamma follows Naissa as he stands firmly for his independence and identity, and Daniela as she wrestles with her fear of losing a child. As Naissa embarks on his professional dance career and proudly embodies his gender, his mother also embarks on a journey of understanding and acceptance of her son’s choices

Style, with substance: what’s really trending this week, a roundup of the best fashion journalism and your wardrobe dilemmas solved, direct to your inbox every Thursday

Style, with substance: what’s really trending this week, a roundup of the best fashion journalism and your wardrobe dilemmas solved, delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday

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