Keyword – Music
Trefwoorden – Jazz, Music, Culture, South Africa
Title – From the pain of apartheid to luscious beauty: 10 of the best recordings by jazz legend Abdullah Ibrahim | Jazz | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/ammar-kalia
Link – From the pain of apartheid to luscious beauty: 10 of the best recordings by jazz legend Abdullah Ibrahim | Jazz | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T13:15:10.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/jun/16/from-the-pain-of-apartheid-to-luscious-beauty-10-of-the-best-recordings-by-jazz-legend-abdullah-ibrahim

Scullery Department (from Jazz Epistle Verse 1, 1960)

Born Adolph Johannes Brand in Cape Town in 1934, Abdullah Ibrahim spent his six-decade career defining the heartfelt sound of South African jazz. Making his professional debut as a pianist at 15 under the name Dollar Brand, it was his co-founding of the group the Jazz Epistles in 1959 that laid the groundwork for his journeying career. South Africa’s first Black jazz group, featuring trumpeter Hugh Masekela who would go on to become a star bandleader in his own right, the Jazz Epistles’ first and only album Jazz Epistle Verse 1 is a sprightly document of the South African take on bebop. Although album opener Dollar’s Moods is named for Ibrahim, it’s the record’s closing number Scullery Department that highlights his nascent skills. Heavy-swinging over a bluesy motif, Ibrahim’s playing artfully skips through an opening polyrhythm before taking a solo that refigures Thelonious Monk’s wonky melodic motifs into an earthy sense of groove that would go on to feature throughout his hundreds of recordings to come.

Jumping Rope (from Duke Ellington Presents the Dollar Brand Trio, 1964)

Although the Jazz Epistles never recorded overtly political music, the arrival of the 1960s brought vicious repression (including the Sharpeville massacre), and the apartheid regime placed Black artists under greater scrutiny, leading Ibrahim to flee his home country for Europe. In Zurich, Ibrahim’s future wife Sathima Bea Benjamin encouraged big band luminary Duke Ellington to watch Ibrahim play with his trio. Sure enough, Ellington set up a recording session. The resulting album is a gem, displaying Ibrahim’s fast-developing chops. Tracks such as Dollar’s Dance showcase his gospel influence in its jubilant phrasing but it’s Jumping Rope that explores his virtuosity, speeding up the melodic Monkisms into modernist bursts of fire. A fragmentary delight on an album which benefited from a wider release in the 1990s.

Mannenberg (Mannenberg – Is Where It’s Happening, 1974)

From the late 1960s, Ibrahim began regular visits back to Cape Town, converting to Islam and changing his name in 1968, before making the hajj pilgrimage in 1970. It was during a trip to an increasingly fractious Apartheid-era Cape Town that Ibrahim would write what has become his most well-known composition, Mannenberg. Named after a Cape Town township to which low-income Black families were forcibly relocated, the song finds its resistance in a persistent mood of joy, featuring Ibrahim’s ear worming, ebullient top-line melody and a roaring solo from tenor saxophonist Basil Coetzee. The song was recorded in a single take but soon became an unofficial civil rights anthem, often played at rallies and becoming a favourite of Nelson Mandela’s, who reportedly listened to a smuggled version during his imprisonment on Robben Island.

Jabulani (Joy) (The Journey, 1977)

Ibrahim’s friendship with jazz fusion trumpeter Don Cherry throughout the 1970s encouraged the pianist to turn further towards the avant garde. For 1977’s album The Journey, Ibrahim enlisted one of his largest ensembles to date – a nine-piece – to produce three tracks of upbeat melody anchored in hard-blowing, free tempo improvisations. Seventeen-minute suite Jabulani (Joy) is a highlight, opening with a typically cheerful Ibrahim lead line before a barrage of penetrating free improvisation. Cherry and alto saxophone player Carlos Ward soar upward but Ibrahim’s tender phrases just about keep us grounded.

Just You, Just Me (African Dawn, 1982)

From the maximal invocations of The Journey and Ibrahim’s late 1970s experimentalism comes a delightfully delicate solo outing on 1982’s African Dawn. Featuring tributes to jazz forebears such as Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and Duke Ellington collaborator Billy Strayhorn, it’s Ibrahim’s interpretation of the rollicking 1929 musical number Just You, Just Me that stands out. Employing a heavy left hand bass drone to give the tune’s floating melody added weight, Ibrahim masterfully employs everything from stride rhythm to gospel phrasing and bluesy improvisation, turning his 88 keys into a symphony of sound.

Mandela (Water from An Ancient Well, 1985)

Ibrahim’s septet Ekaya would prove to be one of his most enduring bands after its formation in 1983. Featuring the unusual format of three saxophones, trombone, bass and drums, the expanded horn section allowed Ibrahim to write compositions with a big-band feel and a driving small format rhythm section. This combination is deeply felt on the opening track Mandela from Ekaya’s 1985 album Water from An Ancient Well. Featuring one of the deepest swinging feels in modern jazz, the composition features joyous solos from each member of the horn section while Ibrahim himself keeps to the background, gently pushing the rhythm on with his well-placed right hand phrases.

The Wedding (African Suite, 1998)

On 1998’s African Suite, Ibrahim paired his piano trio with a 17-piece string section, showcasing the melodic depth of many of his most enduring compositions. One of his standards to be given the luscious orchestral treatment is the yearning love song The Wedding, which was initially recorded on the 1980 record African Marketplace. Melismatic strings sweep through an opening overture before Ibrahim’s precision piano notes enter the frame with their inimitable swing, containing as much wistful emotion as a lead vocal line. Ibrahim also uses orchestral settings in his skilful film scoring work, which included the Claire Denis features Chocolat and No Fear, No Die.

Joan Capetown Flower (Emerald Bay) (Sotho Blue, 2010 )

Sotho Blue features a welcome return to the Ekaya format and updated versions of standards from Ibrahim’s repertoire such as The Wedding and 1978’s Nisa. On the group’s take on his 1997 composition Joan Capetown Flower (Emerald Bay), a down tempo, swaying melody sets up an interweaving duet between tenor saxophonist Keith Loftis and Ibrahim, trading finely-woven lines that move beyond a question-and-answer format into a complex, nuanced dialogue of its own.

Dreamtime (The Balance, 2019)

In 2019, at 85 years old, Ibrahim delivered a late-career surge of new music spanning the Ekaya record The Balance, as well as the solo piano albums Dream Time and Solotude, and the live trio recording 3. The new opening composition for The Balance highlights Ibrahim’s constant capacity for creative journeying, featuring longtime collaborator Cleave Guyton on flute. Eschewing his typically upbeat tone, the track moves through a breathy, surprisingly mysterious mood with Ibrahim delivering short, precision-engineered improvised lines to complement Guyton’s emotive vibrato. An unexpected foray into new territory.

Nisa (Solotude, 2020)

On one of Ibrahim’s final solo piano recordings, 2020’s Solotude, the octogenarian embraced the limits of his physicality to create a sprawling 20-track suite that replaces the frenetic energy of early work with the likes of the Jazz Epistles and Don Cherry for something altogether more ruminative, introspective and moving. His version of Nisa, which has appeared in recordings since the 1970s, is particularly affecting, taking ample time to move from phrase to phrase as if Ibrahim is recounting the story of his life’s experience as it comes to him in the moment. Still, the swinging feel, the blue notes and the aching melody are all unmistakably his – a pianist’s touch that will never be fully imitated.

Keyword – Stage
Trefwoorden – Stage, Acting, Dance, Theatre, Culture, Drama and dance, Education, Noel Coward, Schools
Title – ‘In the past, there was lots of swearing and saying you were crap’: my day at the all-new Italia Conti stage school | Stage | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/lyndseywinship
Link – ‘In the past, there was lots of swearing and saying you were crap’: my day at the all-new Italia Conti stage school | Stage | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T04:00:21.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/jun/17/italia-conti-stage-school-noel-coward-martine-mccutcheon

W hen I walk into renowned stage school Italia Conti, in the smart building in Woking that has been its home since 2022, the first thing that hits me is the quiet. Where are the students dancing on tables? Rehearsing scenes in the hallways? Some are offsite, it turns out, rehearsing for a show, but those I see are busy on their phones in the corridors, like any other young adults.

Life has changed at Italia Conti since its earliest days. The school celebrates its 115th anniversary this year. It was founded in London in 1911 by English actor Italia Conti to teach a group of children appearing in the play Where the Rainbow Ends at the Savoy theatre. Noël Coward was among the young performers. By the 1930s the school was advertising lessons in elocution, acting, singing, fencing and dance (ballroom, “operatic, Greek and stage dancing”).

These days, it’s commercial dance, aerial circus skills and getting advice on your social media presence. There have been some big shifts during the last decade. The financial strain of Covid forced the closure in 2021 of the junior school for ages 11-16, the alma mater of Bonnie Langford, Louise Redknapp and Martine McCutcheon. (They are looking at how they could bring it back, “but it’s a 10-year plan rather than a two-year plan” as CEO Hayley Newton-Jarvis puts it.)

Italia Conti’s junior school wasn’t the only closure. Redroofs theatre school in Maidenhead stopped providing its full-time course, and the Barbara Speake stage school in Acton closed. When classes paused or went online during Covid, enough parents stopped paying fees that the schools couldn’t survive. In the state sector, Liverpool’s Lipa has announced it is closing its primary and secondary schools at the end of this summer term (its sixth form and degree courses, which are run separately, remain open).

Italia Conti alumna Claire Sweeney, who is currently starring in the musical Annie, tells me she has just signed a petition to save Lipa. “I love stage schools,” she says, especially for “kids who don’t thrive academically, to find their tribe and get that wonderful coaching”. And especially now there’s less arts provision in schools since the shift in focus to Stem subjects.

It’s not that there aren’t other ways into the industry, says Sweeney. “Now you can stay in your bedroom, do some recordings and get a record deal. There’s Britain’s Got Talent, YouTube.” But to have any sort of sustainable career you have to hone your skills. “In theatre, if you can’t do it you’ll be found out, you won’t last long.” Sweeney learned her craft singing in social clubs from the age of 14, but a two-year grant to send her to Italia Conti pushed her further. Amid frequent reports that fewer working-class people are entering the arts , Italia Conti is marking its anniversary with the launch of new bursaries for low-income students.

The school now takes students from 16 for dance and musical theatre courses, and 18 for acting. It has consolidated its previous three sites into one state-of-the-art building, with recording studios, a wellness suite and wardrobe department stuffed full of spangly outfits (they get hand-me-downs from Strictly). It’s on the edge of a shopping centre in Woking, with big windows inspired by New York’s Juilliard school, so you can see synchronised legs in ballet tights doing grands battements when you come out of the big Boots.

Ducking into the studios, I watch singers doing tongue-twisting warm-ups (“Thirty, flirty and thriving!”), and a dance break from Anything Goes. “I know we’re fighting for dear life but our faces don’t need to show that!” warns the teacher. I see theatre students being told “Have a little explore and let’s get it wrong” in Macbeth, and getting advice against “middle-distance acting” in Chekhov.

The manner of teaching has changed over the years, particularly in acting, says Harriet Whitbread, head of acting at the school. “In the past there was lots of swearing. Lots of telling you that you were crap. And you’d just have to cope with that. That was the training of old,” she says. “It used to be that they would deconstruct you, and if they put you back together again, you were lucky. Now we have a responsibility to ensure that the young person who travels through the training is intact all the way through, and is robust and resilient for when they leave.”

Resilience is a word that crops up again and again. It is a necessity in a profession in which rejection is part of the game. So how do you build it? “Is resilience built by students being challenged and being constantly given obstacles and barriers?” asks Michael Vickers, deputy head of musical theatre and dance. “Or is resilience built in the good times when you’re supported and feel safe in your education?” He leans towards the latter.

Newton-Jarvis is thinking about resilience too. “I do feel the mental health is much worse than it was when we were training. I feel like they genuinely do struggle,” she says. “There is a lot of anxiety.” She has seen students less able to cope with part-time jobs as well as studying and, of course, costs are rising. The school has its own food bank.

“One thing that’s getting harder to teach is the reality of what’s going to happen out there,” says Newton-Jarvis. When she was a student here, teachers had the same expectations as in the professional world, she says. Now, the feel is more “I’m paying to be in an educational establishment”, and student feedback is increasingly important. “The training is not as intense as it used to be,” she says. “I don’t know whether that’s good or bad. Now we try to nurture more.” Her concern is how well prepared they are for the real world. “It’s like the expectations are too high for them to comprehend, which always worries me because when they leave I always feel they’re in absolute shock.”

The students certainly aren’t getting an easy ride in Lawrence Parsons’ commercial dance class. They quickly swap ballet shoes for heels as Parsons leads with dynamite energy, expecting quick-fire learning and attention to specifics. “Style. Detail. Dynamics. Performance.” That’s what’ll get you a job, he tells his charges.

A lot of performing arts training, in dance and music especially, is repetitive graft – something Newton-Jarvis says students are finding tougher, which she puts down to smartphones. Not just the distraction from practising but the dopamine addiction, the instant gratification. “It’s like their brains can’t deal with the repetitiveness of what you need to do,” she says.

But, she concedes, her students are just keeping up with the world they’re going to enter into. They’re going into a very public profession, they will have to market themselves, they’ll need a social media presence – people get jobs that way. Some students are already making money out of TikTok content.

Sophia Oram, a 19-year-old third-year musical theatre student, is already curating her feed. She tells me she puts dance on TikTok and uses Insta for acting. But she is very committed to the graft, too. She wants to get into film and TV but chose to come to Italia Conti at 16. “I wanted the training in musical theatre, I wanted the discipline that comes from it.” She got a full government Dance and Drama Award grant: “Otherwise I probably wouldn’t have been able to come.”

On that other great tech question, AI, Newton-Jarvis says that of course the school is always thinking how new technology might affect students, but she can’t imagine it replacing the human element of live performance. “There’s nothing like the risk of a human going wrong!” But Vickers says his session singer friends are concerned they could be replaced on recordings. “Currently it still requires so much work to make AI sound human, so humans are cheaper. But we might see that change over the next five years or so.”

The students I speak to have a certain amount of trepidation about their futures, but mainly they’re excited. Excited to be here, to be pursuing their passions. They are flush with the possibilities of youth and the drive to make their dreams come true, just as all the generations before them were. “It’s not just going to be given to you,” says Oram, “but if you really fight for what you want and put the work in to reach your goals, you will succeed.”

Keyword – Games
Trefwoorden – Games, Culture, Xbox, Microsoft, Technology, Computing
Title – Fears for Xbox as it puts its developers on the chopping block once again | Games | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/keithstuart
Link – Fears for Xbox as it puts its developers on the chopping block once again | Games | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T14:00:33.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/games/2026/jun/17/xbox-games-studios-developers-firing-line

I n March 2000, Bill Gates stood onstage at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco and, to a packed crowd, officially announced the company’s long-anticipated video game console. “We want Xbox to be the platform of choice for the best and most creative game developers in the world,” he told attenders – and that was indeed the intention of the small, dedicated team who put together the blueprints of that first machine.

The Xbox landscape seems very different 25 years later. Last week, mere days after a bullish summer showcase full of Gears of War revivals and promises of a renewed focus on Xbox’s gaming strengths, new CEO, Asha Sharma, and chief content officer, Matt Booty, wrote a memo to Xbox staff inviting them to brace for “hard truths”. “Excluding Activision Blizzard King, over the past five years, we have spent over $20bn on ongoing investments in our content, platform and hardware subsidy, but our annual revenue has declined nearly half a billion during that time. Going forward, this cannot continue,” it read.

With grim inevitability, Bloomberg and Kotaku reported that Xbox is planning to cut costs by shutting three studios: Ninja Theory, Double Fine and Compulsion Games. All three are said to be in the process of negotiating with Xbox in order to buy their independence and avoid closure.

None of this has yet been confirmed by Microsoft , but several members of staff at the affected studios have publicly posted that they are available for work. Sharma and Booty’s memo warned that Xbox would need to “reset” in order to meet the challenges of the modern industry. “We expanded our studio system when we needed a pipeline of content to meet multiple strategies across subscription, streaming and devices,” the memo said. “In the process, we have found ourselves overextended.”

Microsoft also cites the “hardware component crisis” as a motivator for change – a components crisis that Microsoft itself has driven, along with every other company that has powered the AI boom. A reminder here that Microsoft overall posted profits of $217.4bn in the most recent financial year.

Craig Duncan, the head of Xbox Games Studios, and the chief of staff, Louise O’Connor, have both resigned from their positions, perhaps after discovering how the company planned to correct its over-extension: by shutting the sorts of talented studios that Microsoft once relentlessly pursued and purchased. Ninja Theory and Double Fine are both multiple award winners, responsible for some of the most fascinating, boundary-pushing games of the past two decades, from the gruelling mythological psychodrama Hellblade to the wacky cartoon adventure Psychonauts . Compulsion, meanwhile, produced South of Midnight, a truly original southern gothic thriller and Peabody award winner. Now they are to be jettisoned in favour of more Halo and more Gears of War – two ageing franchises that have almost certainly left their best years behind.

It is all the more frustrating when you consider how recently Xbox was grandstanding these studios as creative giants. During the Xbox Showcase in early June, the third Hellblade instalment, Senua, was given its world premiere followed by a glowing feature on the Xbox Wire site. Now Ninja Theory will need to gather whatever funds it can manage to survive and continue its project. In April, Sharma and Booty sent out a different message to staff – a sort of Jerry Maguire-style vision statement containing a list of 10 commandments for the business. One was “Makers over managers”, another was “Clarity is kindness”. How much clarity was extended to the team at Ninja Theory in this case?

It is, after all, not the first time Xbox has been here. In 2024, the company shut Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks, the latter after delivering unexpected hit HiFi Rush. In 2025, Microsoft made 9,000 staff redundant and cancelled high-profile game projects including a Perfect Dark reboot and new title Everwild from Rare. This was all after billions were found to purchase Bethesda and Activision. (Going further back, Microsoft is also responsible for purchasing and then closing legendary British studio Lionhead.)

The newest whispers are that Xbox plans to spend cash to speed up development on new Halo, Fallout and Elder Scrolls titles. There are even reports that Xbox itself may be spun off into a separate company by Microsoft. It is an enormously disappointing situation for anyone who has spent two decades buying, playing and adoring Xbox games. It’s true that many of the market conditions the company is now facing could not have been predicted when Seamus Blackley, Kevin Bachus and the rest got together to put the original console together 25 years ago – the industry has been through massive technological changes and now faces ceaseless competition for consumer attention.

But a division founded on a love of games, a division that brought us Halo: Combat Evolved, Xbox Live, Forza, Fable, Sea of Thieves and hundreds of other wonderful titles and experiences, now appears to be in danger of being finally, fatally overcome by its corporate owner, intent on undoing decades’ worth of work to build a portfolio of diverse studios full of talented developers making interesting art. For developers as well as fans, the future has got to be brighter and broader than this.

What to play

Hot on the heels of last month’s brilliant Mina the Hollower, comes a second piece of playable Zelda worship : The Adventures of Elliot . Says our reviewer Tom Regan:

“Created by the makers of Octopath Traveller, this Square Enix published Link-a-like swaps Mina’s swear-inducing sadism for a breezy, big budget take on top down Zelda. Rendered in glorious 2D-HD, it reimagines Link’s Gameboy-era time-travelling adventures as a sprawling, narrative-driven modern adventure, part Chrono Trigger, part Oracle of Seasons. Our obnoxiously upbeat hero journeys through the ages in order to solve puzzles, uncover lost magic and of course, save the princess. With Breath of the Wild-esque temples hidden across the map, fast travel, and constant hints about your next destination, Team Asano sacrifices retro mystique for satisfying forward-momentum.”

Available on: Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox, PS5, PC Estimated playtime: 30-50 hours

What to read

There is much more to be written about this when we have more information, but the UK government announced an “Australia-plus” social media ban for under-16s this week. It seems the ban will not target online gaming spaces, but will make it mandatory to prevent under-16s from talking to strangers on voice chat and messages (functionality that already exists on all games consoles). The real effect here will be on the spaces where teen gamers gather: Discord, YouTube, and Twitch. What will Twitch even look like without teenagers?

For more video games and politics , a new book from George Osborn (not that one, promise) shows how rightwing and authoritarian governments from the US to Russia to Saudi Arabia are way ahead on using games as third spaces to build political influence. It’s called Power Play, and it’s out this week .

Vintage UK computer brand Commodore has announced a new electronics product … a flip-phone. “Welcome to the Internot,” promises the Commodore Callback . This extremely Y2k-looking device blocks browsers and social media but still runs other useful apps, though honestly I don’t fancy going back to typing messages without a touchscreen.

What to click

‘Streaming gave me a space to be myself’: Twitch creators on what it’s like to grow up on the platform

Mr Monopoly vs Mr Burns: The Simpsons take over Monopoly Go

UFC 6: a bloody, brilliant MMA fighting game | ★★★★☆

The 7th Guest Remake – a spirited reboot of a ghost story classic | ★★★☆☆

Question Block

This week’s Question Block is a question for you , readers:

“What are the best games of 2026 so far?”

We published our favourites last week : unfortunately (or fortunately, for one other game that would have gotten knocked off the list), these were compiled a couple of days before Keza discovered Ribbit . Titanium Court (pictured above) ranked highly for both of us, and Pokopia , Pragmata and Forbidden Solitaire also feature.

What did we miss? Have you already played something you’re sure will be a favourite by the time December comes around? Write in a paragraph about it and we’ll round up some reader recommendations in a couple of weeks.

If you’ve got a question for Question Block – or anything else to say about the newsletter – hit reply or email us on pushingbuttons@theguardian.com .

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – World Cup 2026, World Cup, France, Kylian Mbappé, Football, Sport, Senegal football team
Title – Does Ousmane Dembélé fit in a France attack led by Mbappé and Olise? | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Author – Luke Entwistle
Link – Does Ousmane Dembélé fit in a France attack led by Mbappé and Olise? | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T12:52:54.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jun/17/ousmane-dembele-france-attack-mbappe-olise-didier-deschamps-ballon-dor

“I f I start playing just to prove all of my critics wrong and to shut them up, I think I’d have to keep playing until I was 80,” said Kylian Mbappé as he wrote his name in the history books, surpassing Olivier Giroud as France’s all-time top scorer. He insists that his 57th and 58th goals for the national team – which secured a 3-1 win over Senegal in their World Cup opener – were not about “revenge”. But they were at least a response.

Mbappé is not someone who does all his talking on the pitch. Speaking before Euro 2024, he referred to himself in the third person as he announced his opposition to far-right politicians. “Kylian Mbappé is against extreme views and against ideas that divide people,” he said two years ago . I want to be proud to represent France. I don’t want to represent a country that doesn’t correspond to my values, or our values.”

The France captain made similar comments in the buildup to this World Cup. This time, his objection to the far right drew criticism from Michel Platini , who told Mbappé to remain politically neutral. “You are playing for all French people,” Platini said. “Once you take a stand, you fall out with half of the world.”

Deschamps says that when Mbappé speaks, he knows he does so “for all the players” and his viewpoint is shared by the dressing room. It doesn’t make him popular, however. Polling shows that Mbappé’s popularity is on the slide and has been since his exit from Paris Saint-Germain two years ago. He is acutely aware of public perception. “I am hated enough as it is,” he replied when asked about becoming the president of his country.

Before he even considers a political career, he has a World Cup to win. France’s dual-executive, semi-presidential system nicely encapsulates Mbappé’s predicament on the pitch: he needs a prime minister who will support rather than stymie him. An Mbappé-Ousmane Dembélé government would be an awkward cohabitation. Dembélé has excelled since moving into the No 9 position at PSG under Luis Enrique, winning the Champions League twice and the Ballon d’Or. At international level, though, that position is already taken.

Having previously been picked on the wing, Dembélé has been given a run through the middle in recent games, albeit in a No 10 role. He was ineffective in the position in France’s warm-up match against Northern Ireland and again against Senegal in their opener . Only Mbappé (37) had fewer touches than the PSG forward (40). The failure, granted, was a collective one; France failed to muster a single shot on target in the first half. Dembélé’s blocked long-range effort was their only shot at all.

At club level, Mbappé, Dembélé, Michael Olise and Désiré Doué scored 97 goals between them last season and, including assists, were involved in 157 goals. Given the attacking potential in the team, there was clearly a bug in the system against Senegal.

Deschamps identified it at half-time. Dembélé was moved out to the right and Olise brought into the middle. The manager explained his decision: “We were a lot better when Michael was positioned in the middle. I did it because I thought it would provide more of a link. Michael can play on both sides, but the more he gets on the ball, the better.”

Specifically, it is better for Mbappé. Olise would be the candidate of choice in Mbappé’s hypothetical government. To borrow an American perspective, Olise is the quarter-back and Mbappé is the runner, frequently found. As the Bayern Munich forward threaded the ball through for Mbappé to open the scoring, Dembélé could be seen advising a more conservative backwards pass. But Mbappé knew the pass would come and Olise knew the run would be made.

While different in profile, Olise is essentially the replacement for Antoine Griezmann. The former Atlético Madrid forward is the player with whom Mbappé has played most at international level (83 times). No player has provided Mbappé more assists than Griezmann. His retirement from international football left a void but it is now being filled.

Their combination was key to unlocking a game that, for more than an hour, provided plenty of cause for concern for Deschamps. France lacked creativity in midfield and variety in attack. Dembélé, Olise and Doué all wanted to occupy the same areas and there was a lack of forward runs from the wide players. Deschamps opted to start Doué, more technically gifted, rather than Bradley Barcola, a direct runner who stretches defences. Barcola’s goal from off the bench could provide Deschamps with food for thought before the Iraq game next Monday.

More conclusive, however, was the evidence that the Dembélé experiment should not be repeated. The forgiving nature of the group stage made starting Dembélé in the No 10 role, despite his struggles in the warm-up game, a worthwhile venture. France should use the Iraq game to build the Mbappé-Olise connection.

This is a team built around Mbappé and the win against Senegal justifies his stature as the centrepiece of a highly talented attacking armada. At 27, he has already made history. He is not only France’s all-time leading scorer but, with 14 goals at World Cups, he has also surpassed Just Fontaine’s record for goals at the tournament. As he prepares to win his 100th cap, he provides assurances that others simply do not, as talented as they may be.

“Even if he can’t have a great game, in one action he can make his team win,” said Deschamps after the Senegal win. Mbappé is the exclamation mark at the end of moves; his long-range finish to seal the game was just his fourth from outside the box in a France shirt. He is gradually becoming the traditional No 9 that France have lacked since Giroud’s retirement – a fox in the box.

As a result, he needs service and Olise is the one who provides it. It leaves difficult questions about Dembélé’s position and, perhaps, even his place in the team. The reality may be uncomfortable but the decision is being taken out of Deschamps’ hands. It is France’s dual-executives, Mbappé and Olise, who will be the difference between success and failure.

This is an article by Get French Football News

Keyword – Sport
Trefwoorden – UFC, MMA, US sports, Sport
Title – Alex Pereira blasts Ciryl Gane for ‘illegal shots’ during White House UFC fight | UFC | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/guardian-sport
Link – Alex Pereira blasts Ciryl Gane for ‘illegal shots’ during White House UFC fight | UFC | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T12:02:12.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jun/17/alex-pereira-ciryl-gane-ufc-white-house

Mixed martial arts star Alex Pereira of Brazil has accused Frenchman Ciryl Gane of landing multiple “illegal shots” during their fight for the interim UFC heavyweight title at the White House.

Gane finished off Pereira in the second round to win the title on Sunday after sending him stumbling with a right jab followed by a hammer fist. The referee then stopped the fight 1min 27sec into the round after a left to the chin.

After hitting Pereira with a jab, Gane launched a brutal floor sequence that included elbows to the back of the head. Strikes to the back of the head are illegal in MMA .

Pereira said on his social media it was difficult for him to recover from those “illegal shots” and criticized referee Herb Dean, saying he should not have been picked for their fight.

“I think if it weren’t for those punches, I wouldn’t be in that situation,” Pereira said in Portuguese in an Instagram video. “When the jab landed, I fell and grabbed his legs. Throwing elbows and punches, the guy was desperate. He landed a punch that he couldn’t even believe, and then he wanted to end the fight no matter what. The ref was there watching. The guy hits me, I fall, and he starts throwing punches. The guy sees it’s an illegal hit, but he’s there thinking, ‘Bro, how can I stop this fight?’

“Man, it’s the regulations. It’s in the rulebook. You’re wrong if you don’t stop it. That’s in the rules. What makes me more upset is that I warned him beforehand. But [the referee] doesn’t have the guts, man. He’s not a real man.”

Pereira also urged UFC chief executive Dana White to take action against Dean.

“You should set an example with him as it’s done with fighters when they ruin the image of the organization,” Pereira wrote on an Instagram story.

Dean explained his decisions in a video, saying “the rule we’re talking about is the back of the head, and that’s confusing because it’s different in boxing.”

Donald Trump celebrated his 80th birthday and the nation’s 250th anniversary with an unusual UFC show featuring seven fights within an eight-sided, wire-mesh cage on the White House South Lawn.

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – G7, Iran, Trump administration, Europe, Ukraine, Russia, US news, Middle East and north Africa, World news, Donald Trump
Title – I’ll resume bombing if Iran acts up, Trump warns after criticism of deal | G7 | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/patrickwintour
Link – I’ll resume bombing if Iran acts up, Trump warns after criticism of deal | G7 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T13:01:21.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/17/trump-g7-leaders-iran-missile-programme-ukraine

Donald Trump has responded to criticism of his ceasefire deal with Iran, warning at the G7 summit that he was prepared to go back to dropping bombs and insisting the deal did not require the US to pay even 10 cents to Iran.

At the same time, he has backed a G7 leaders’ joint statement that welcomes the deal but says a follow-on agreement is necessary to rein in Iran’s ballistic missile programme, an issue not directly addressed in the memorandum of understanding that is due to be signed on Friday by Iran and the US.

The G7 statement says future negotiations with Iran would benefit from the involvement of a wider group of regional and international actors including the UN nuclear weapons agency, the IAEA.

Trump is under attack, including from some of his domestic supporters, for conducting a war against Iran that has ended in a negotiated deal that has met hardly any of its original objectives.

At a side meeting at the French-hosted G7 meeting in Évian-les-Bains on Wednesday, he promised that if Iran misbehaved he would “go back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head”.

He angrily rejected suggestions that the US would be contributing to a $300bn (£224bn) investment fund for Iran but did not deny its existence, instead saying payouts by Gulf states were likely to be conditional on Iran’s good behaviour.

“Anyone who wants to can invest. What do you expect me to say, no one is allowed to invest? But we’re not investing; we’re not putting up even 10 cents,” he said.

“If they [others] want to, they can make this investment. What should I say, no one can ever invest in this country?” He added: “I don’t think the Gulf countries will do this for a while, until they see Iran’s behaviour; this is a matter of behaviour.”

Praising the deal he had struck and claiming no previous US president had been as tough on Iran as him, he said: “There is nothing as smart as the market and the market loves it.”

Trump said: “The alternative would be a worldwide depression”, arguing that if he had not struck a deal, “the strait [of Hormuz] would never have been opened. They don’t like floating billion-dollar ships up and down the strait when their rockets are flying overhead and there are mines all over the place.”

He claimed the price of oil per barrel had fallen to $72 – Brent crude dipped below $80 on Tuesday – and would soon fall below the level it had been at before the war.

The G7 proposal for further talks involving European leaders about Iran’s ballistic missiles and support for proxy forces is bound to be rejected by Iran. Tehran has been negotiating exclusively with the US and regards Europe as largely irrelevant.

Iran is also likely to reject France and Britain’s plan for a taskforce to escort ships through the strait of Hormuz, a proposal endorsed in the G7 leaders’ statement.

On Ukraine , the G7 leaders hailed the battlefield momentum and called for fresh pressure against Russia through sanctions and additional arms deliveries to Kyiv.

The G7 meeting in Évian-les-Bains, chaired by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, brings together the world’s most powerful economies: the US, France, Germany, Italy, the UK, Canada and Japan.

The joint G7 statement issued on Wednesday morning suggests Trump unusually has been willing to go some way to accommodating concerns of other leaders on issues on which he has been acting unilaterally, particularly in the cases of Iran and Ukraine.

The leaders said: “We consider this the right moment to proceed with additional measures, as President Trump has delivered a deal that we support in reopening the strait of Hormuz.”

The deal reopens the strait and reiterates Iran’s opposition to possessing nuclear weapons but postpones talks on how to dilute or destroy its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. Trump has said he was open to the stockpile being diluted inside Iran under the supervision of the IAEA.

The memorandum agrees to immediately lift US sanctions on Iran’s oil exports and a series of related industries, and to create a $300bn reconstruction fund.

The G7 leaders said the agreement, due to be signed on Friday in Switzerland, provided “an historic opportunity to prevent Iran from acquiring any nuclear weapon and tackling the threats related to its regional and ballistic activities. We support and are ready to contribute to its implementation.”

Reaffirming the right of transit passage without restrictions or tolls as a bedrock of international trade, the leaders said: “The multinational, independent and defensive initiative led by France and the UK can play an important role to facilitate the resumption of maritime traffic in the strait of Hormuz.”

The G7 leaders stated they “strongly support a robust and comprehensive diplomatic follow-on agreement to the memorandum of understanding secured by President Trump that can bring peace and security for all in the region”, implying that the memorandum of understanding was considered too narrow.

Europe has been excluded from the talks the US has conducted with Iran since Trump became president, with some claiming the stretched and relatively small US negotiating team has lacked the expertise to match the Iranian side.

The G7 statement also calls for further economic pressure on Russia , the first time Trump has put his name to a joint G7 statement on the subject – a decision hailed by the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, as a gamechanger revealing a new realism by Trump on Ukraine.

To accelerate new momentum in Ukraine, the G7 agreed “to increase the delivery of air defence capacities, additional systems and interceptors, and long-range capabilities. We are also ready to consider extending to Ukraine the benefit of licences to allow for an increase in Ukraine’s military production.”

Promising to help Ukraine get through next winter, the statement commits to increasing the pressure on the Russian war economy by strengthening sanctions, including those on the oil and gas sectors.

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – Italy, Europe, World news, WhatsApp
Title – Milan tram drivers accused of sharing CCTV images of female passengers’ thighs and breasts | Italy | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/angela-giuffrida
Link – Milan tram drivers accused of sharing CCTV images of female passengers’ thighs and breasts | Italy | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T12:34:17.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/17/milan-tram-drivers-used-whatsapp-for-sexist-chat-about-female-passengers

A group of tram drivers in Milan have been suspended from their jobs amid an investigation into a WhatsApp group in which they allegedly exchanged sexist and vulgar comments about images of female passengers.

Milan prosecutors placed at least one employee of ATM, the city’s public transport firm, under investigation on Tuesday for allegedly accessing an IT system without authorisation and for hacking a CCTV system to obtain images of female passengers.

Searches of the homes of five other male employees and the confiscation of their mobile phones and other devices have been ordered, according to reports in the Italian press.

The drivers allegedly commented on photos taken from CCTV that homed in on the legs, faces, breasts and thighs of female passengers.

The allegations emerged after a woman travelling on the number 15 tram on Saturday noticed an off-duty driver, still wearing his uniform and sitting in front of her, viewing a WhatsApp group chat on his phone allegedly containing such images along with sexist comments and jokes about the women’s bodies.

Realising the images had come from CCTV, which is installed on every tram in Milan for safety purposes, she took a photo of the chat on the off-duty driver’s screen and sent it to a high-profile feminist activist who reported it to ATM.

ATM, which is conducting an internal inquiry, said in a statement: “ATM has acted promptly and ​with the utmost attention to fully clarify the episode, verify the proper use of company tools, protect customers and the thousands of employees who work correctly every day in service of the city.”

It is unclear whether the images came from the CCTV system on just one tram or several, or if they were shared beyond the group chat.

Marco Maria Donzelli, the president in Lombardy for Codacons, the Italian consumer watchdog that filed a formal complaint with Milan prosecutors, said: “This is a very serious incident that requires clarity, because if the facts that have emerged are confirmed, we would be faced with serious offences punishable by our criminal code, which would also pave the way for civil claims for compensation by the victims.”

The leaders of various transport unions said in a joint statement that “respect for human dignity and gender equality are essential values”.

The issue of online misogyny is prevalent in Italy. There was outrage last summer after a pornographic website featuring doctored images of prominent women, including the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, came to light.

Meloni criticised the circulation of AI-generated deepfake images of her in May, including one depicting her in lingerie.

Keyword – UK news
Trefwoorden – Immigration and asylum, Home Office, Refugees, France, Police, UK news, Shabana Mahmood, Keir Starmer, Politics, Europe, World news
Title – French police authorised to use water cannon on asylum seekers in £660m deal with UK | Immigration and asylum | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/rajeev-syal
Link – French police authorised to use water cannon on asylum seekers in £660m deal with UK | Immigration and asylum | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T18:27:23.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jun/17/french-police-in-660m-deal-with-uk-authorised-to-use-water-cannon-on-asylum-seekers

French riot police deployed in northern France under a £660m deal with the UK are authorised to use water cannon against asylum seekers, the Guardian has been told.

Two specialist policing units, including a 50-officer riot squad, have begun working to prevent asylum seekers and people smugglers from launching small boats under the UK-France deal in time for the summer months.

Informed sources said that French riot officers from the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS) are free to request the use of water cannon, CS gas and batons as part of their public order powers.

Use of water cannon, which can fire a high velocity stream powerful enough to knock people off their feet, is prohibited in Great Britain owing to concerns that they are a threat to “policing by consent”. However, they can be deployed in Northern Ireland and were used last week to quell anti-immigration protests.

Any use of water cannon would be “sickening”, a refugee charity said. Steve Smith, the chief executive of Care4Calais, said: “This would be a sickening escalation in the state violence being waged against refugees here in Calais.

“The UK government treats refugees as second-class citizens, and funding these types of indiscriminate, violent tactics against refugees in France would underline that. If the use of water cannon is prohibited in Great Britain, then we shouldn’t have a government backing its use against communities in another country. It’s inhumane and the UK government should be ashamed.”

The announcement that French riot police and 75 officers from the Compagnie de Marche had been deployed on French beaches was made by the prime minister, Keir Starmer , at the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains on Wednesday.

“These elite units are just one element of the landmark deal between our countries that is taking our collaboration to the next level,” Starmer said.

A permanent specialist CRS police unit “specially trained in the use of riot and crowd control tactics” has been deployed to maintain and restore public order, a government statement said. “This team are better equipped to respond to hostile crowds and evolving smuggler tactics and stop illegal migrants in their tracks,” a Home Office statement said.

French riot police have deployed water cannon on many occasions, including earlier this month to quell disorder after Paris Saint-Germain’s victory in the Champions League final.

They were photographed in Calais and Dunkirk last July using CS gas and batons when attempting to stop gang members and asylum seekers from reaching small boats in shallow waters.

The CRS has faced allegations of brutality and racism. In February, nine officers from the force were found guilty of beating peaceful protesters who were sheltering from teargas during the “gilets jaunes” anti-government demonstrations in 2018. Two years ago, leaked WhatsApp messages showed CRS officers had exchanged an image of a sinking small boat laden with migrants.

Water cannon deployment on the British mainland was ruled out by Theresa May , the then home secretary, in 2015. She told MPs they had “the capacity to cause harm”.

Police in Northern Ireland still have access to six water cannon. They were used last week to disperse a crowd of about 300 people who burned a truck and threw bricks and petrol bombs close to the Sandyknowes roundabout near Newtownabbey, 8 miles (13km) north of Belfast.

The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, first announced plans to employ French riot police permanently on Channel beaches last month as part of a set of measures designed to tighten security in northern France. It covers the construction of a detention centre, the expansion of maritime tactics to intercept boats in shallow waters and a 40% increase in officers deployed on French beaches.

Downing Street said 40% of attempted crossings in May had halted due to an increase in joint law enforcement operations. Despite these efforts, 2,726 people still made the crossing to Britain in May, about 1,000 fewer than made the journey over the same month last year.

When approached by the Guardian, Home Office sources said the money that will pay for the French riot squad will come from French government funds, although their deployment was agreed under the £660m deal. “Policing tactics are a matter for the French authorities,” a source said.

The Home Office has been approached for a comment. The CRS has not responded to several requests for a statement.

Keyword – Books
Trefwoorden – Science and nature books, Books, Culture, Health, mind and body books
Title – Morbid by Saul Justin Newman review – why everything you think you know about longevity is wrong | Science and nature books | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/rachel-clarke2
Link – Morbid by Saul Justin Newman review – why everything you think you know about longevity is wrong | Science and nature books | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T06:00:24.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jun/17/morbid-by-saul-justin-newman-review-why-everything-you-think-you-know-about-longevity-is-wrong

T here is a special place in hell reserved for doctors who trade on their authority, status and medical training to monetise public fear and gullibility. Every time I scroll past a qualified physician touting elixirs that promise youthful vigour, cellulite-free thighs or gut microbiome makeovers, I want to poke their fraudulent eyes out. At best, these charlatans have chosen lining their pockets over helping others. At worst, as in the case of the Covid deniers and anti-vaxxers, they are actively dangerous – something I witnessed first-hand on hospital wards in 2021 as unvaccinated patients succumbed to the disease.

Nowhere is human hope monetised more ruthlessly by medical grifters than in the anti-ageing industry. Our inescapable fate – decrepitude and death – makes us ripe for exploitation. Who doesn’t want to pop a pill or hook themselves up to an IV infusion that, for only £99.99 a month, will magically stave off the moment you turn into your grandparents? In Morbid, debut author Saul Justin Newman, a research fellow at the University of Oxford’s Institute of Population Ageing, sets out to topple the whole, sordid house of cards. His central argument is that our fear of frailty and dying has “created an opening for all manner of skullduggery in the science of ageing”, an area of research which is rife, he argues, with “misleading claims, mistaken assumptions, and outright chicanery. The world’s oldest man is a fake, hundreds of thousands of the world’s oldest people are actually dead, and five decades of research on human longevity is moot.”

These are startling allegations, especially when made by someone whose Amazon author page reads as though it was aiming for whimsy, but written on acid. Among other things, Newman has “met a man with walrus-skull book-ends, saved two people from drowning … got run over by a moped, stuck his arm in a giant clam, got hit full in the face with a pavlova.” My unease grew at his publisher, MIT Press, describing the book as a descent “into amusing, if edifying, chaos”. I am a curmudgeon who seeks from nonfiction not chaos, but education and inspiration. MIT Press sells its author short, though – because that is exactly what this intriguing, eccentric book provides.

Take the debunking of the world’s oldest recorded man, Jiroemon Kimura, who died in Japan in 2013 aged 116 years and 54 days. Newman points out that though his age had ostensibly been verified by exhaustive examination of demographic records, Kimura had at least two documented names, two documented birthdays and three documented wives, despite having no documented divorces. The more Newman dug into individual cases of world famous “oldest” people, the more record-keeping inconsistencies he found. A pattern emerged: “An extreme longevity case would be announced, get catapulted into the global press and lauded by everyone, and disappear years later once the evidence was checked.”

More worryingly still, inaccurate ageing of the world’s oldest people appeared to exist at population level. In 2010 in Tokyo, for example, the renowned supercentenarian Sogen Kato, official age 111, was revealed to be a mummified husk in his family’s home – where he’d lain dead for at least 30 years while a relative continued to claim his pension. In the wake of the ensuing scandal, Japan’s ministry of justice investigated everyone allegedly aged over 100. More than 82% of them were discovered to be dead or “missing”. Newman found another population of dead centenarians in Greece. There, in a push to clean up public records in 2012, the government discovered that more than 9,000 people listed as being over 100 were actually dead, with many survivors only existing on paper to enable unscrupulous relatives to draw their pensions.

The islands of Okinawa (Japan) and Ikaria (Greece) happen to be two of six much-hyped “Blue Zones” – areas of outstandingly high late-life survival where centenarians, seemingly, abound. Newman brilliantly skewers Dan Buettner, an American entrepreneur who built a lucrative brand around the trademarked term, setting up the Blue Zones company and selling books, diets and lifestyles that promise the nine “secrets” of longevity. In many ways, Buettner is a precursor to the tech-bro biohackers such as Bryan Johnson, also filleted by Newman, who aims to defy death by infusing himself with his son’s plasma, injecting his penis with Botox and publicly tracking his bowel movements. Needless to say, Johnson’s website promises “personalised longevity insights” when you purchase “Biomarkers membership” for a mere $365 a year.

In an age of incessant online grifting and conspiracy theorist Robert F Kennedy as US secretary of health, Newman’s conclusions are refreshingly simple. Longevity “science” is largely built on nonsense data. So laugh at those promising you a “cure” for ageing or selling trademarked hokum. Give space to reproducible basic research. Value scientific method. Don’t smoke, eat more plants, move more. There is only one target I will not allow him. Newman must not, cannot, in any shape or form, contest the longevity of David Attenborough.

Morbid: Debunking Modern Longevity Science by Saul Justin Newman is published by MIT (£27). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com . Delivery charges may apply.

Keyword – UK news
Trefwoorden – UK news, Russia, Water transport, Military, Europe, World news, Ministry of Defence
Title – ‘We don’t want world war three’: yacht couple call for calm after Russian warning shots | UK news | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/emine-sinmaz,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/helena-horton
Link – ‘We don’t want world war three’: yacht couple call for calm after Russian warning shots | UK news | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T13:45:33.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jun/17/british-yacht-couple-russian-warning-shots

A British woman on a yacht in the Channel near which a Russian warship fired warning shots has told how she does not want the incident to be blown out of proportion, saying: “We don’t want world war three to start because of this.”

Jane Kelvey, 69, and her husband, Alan, 70, were on their yacht, Bright Future, travelling from the south coast of England towards France on Tuesday when they came into close contact with the Admiral Grigorovich, a 409ft (125-metre) Russian frigate.

Jane said the warship fired four or five warning shots that sounded like “a whipcrack. You can tell when a gun’s been fired. You know that noise.”

Despite the incident, the retired couple from Buckinghamshire were determined to enjoy their two-month sailing trip, Jane said.

“We just don’t want it blown out of all proportion. We don’t want world war three to start because of this, because had it just been the five blasts on their horn, we wouldn’t have reported it, there would have been nothing to report. It was just the gunfire that was a little bit surprising,” she told the Guardian on Wednesday.

“I don’t want it to put any other British sailors off either. We all cross the Channel so often, it doesn’t need to be made into a big incident.”

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said the Russian vessel fired warning shots to prevent a possible collision after making attempts to contact the 40ft (12-metre) British-flagged yacht, which was about 20 nautical miles south of the Isle of Wight, outside the UK’s territorial waters.

A translation of a statement posted on the Russian defence ministry’s Telegram channel said the yacht had been on a “dangerous approach” and the warning shots were fired after attempts were first made to attract the crew’s attention with signal flares and sound signals.

Jane said the Russian statement was untrue. Recounting her version of events, she said: “We were following our course from Lymington to Cherbourg at about five knots, we could see them in the distance. As we got closer, we could see it was a warship. We saw the Cyrillic lettering on the side and assumed it was a Russian warship.

“We were in no danger. We were not about to collide with them. They didn’t appear to be adrift, which is what they’re saying, that they had inability to manoeuvre.”

She said their yacht was using an automatic identification system (AIS), a maritime tracking system, so the Russian vessel would have known their location.

“They had plenty of opportunity to warn us off, if that’s what they wanted,” she said. “They didn’t fire flares, they didn’t get on the radio to us, they just gave five blasts from their horn to let us know they were there. We acknowledged by changing our course and then they did another five blasts, and then they fired the warning shots at which point we put our engine on and steered about 90 degrees to port to get right out of the way. But we weren’t in the way, we were not about to collide with them at all.”

She added that the only reason she was talking to the press was because of the untruthfulness of the Russian statement. “For us, until the shots were fired, it was just a nothing incident. We obeyed their five toots when we manoeuvred out of the way. But then when the gunshots happened, it was just completely unnecessary, and what they said was just not true. We weren’t adrift, we weren’t under motor, which they said we were. We were sailing and to be fair, we were the stand-on vessel, we actually had right of way, but we weren’t going to argue with a warship.”

The Russian statement said naval personnel had acted “in strict accordance” with international shipping regulations. But Jane said: “They [the Russians] obviously realised that what they did was going to cause some concerns so I think they just got their statement out early and they wanted to frame it in a way that shifted the blame to us.”

She said the couple contacted the UK Coastguard before a boat from HMS Tyne, another patrol vessel, was sent to the yacht to gather details and check they were safe.

On Wednesday, the Kelveys, who retired in 2023, were praised by their former colleagues for how they handled the incident. For 40 years they owned a local business that makes signs for the NHS and care homes, as well as celebrities and politicians – including Boris Johnson.

Daniel Murphy, the company’s production manager, said: “That’s typical of them not to be too stressed about it, they have a good way of looking at life, they brush off things, they have a stiff upper lip. They’re irreverent and funny.”

In 2022, Johnson visited the sign factory for a photo opportunity and Jane showed him how to make signs.

Murphy said: “This was the day before Russia invaded Ukraine and we got a heads up it might be coming, because suddenly Boris’s aides surrounded him and got him into a corridor where he took a call from [the then US president] Joe Biden.”

Murphy said of Alan: “He built this business from nothing – it started in his dad’s shed. They are self-made people so it’s great they are living their dream.”

Looking ahead to the rest of their trip, which will take in the coast of Brittany, Jane said: “It’s worth working hard to get to do this.”