Keyword – Film
Trefwoorden – Film, Italy, Europe, World news, Culture
Title – Bologna’s niche festival of forgotten films captures the streaming generation | Film | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/angela-giuffrida
Link – Bologna’s niche festival of forgotten films captures the streaming generation | Film | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-19T12:00:33.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jun/19/bologna-italy-festival-forgotten-films-il-cinema-ritrovato

Bologna will be transformed into an open-air museum of cinema on Saturday as a nine-day festival dedicated to restored, rediscovered and overlooked films – some dating back more than a century – gets under way in the northern Italian city.

Now celebrating its 40th anniversary, Il Cinema Ritrovato, or “rediscovered cinema”, has evolved from its niche origins into an influential international gathering captivating a new generation of cinephiles.

Last year’s edition, which included the resurrection of Charlie Chaplin’s 1925 film The Gold Rush, drew a record 140,000 people, who crowded into Bologna’s Renaissance square, Piazza Maggiore, and other locations in the city’s historical centre for screenings of film classics.

In an interview with the Guardian, Gian Luca Farinelli, who co-founded the festival and is now one of its four directors, compared the experience to “walking through the ruins of the past”.

A similar number of visitors is expected this year. But it was not always this way. Farinelli conceived the idea for the festival at 19 with two friends from his cinema club, Michele Canosa and Nicola Mazzanti, after being introduced to Bologna’s Cineteca, a film library formed in 1963 that today includes a laboratory regarded as one of the world’s most influential for the restoration of films and documentaries.

Delving through Cineteca’s archives, the three friends “began to discover many things that we did not know”, Farinelli said. “We wanted to find an audience to show these jewels to.”

They found that audience shortly before Christmas in 1986 when the debut edition joined forces with another film festival held at Cineteca’s Lumière cinema.

Enno Patalas, the German film historian and a pioneer of film restoration, brought the 1931 cinema classic M and Metropolis, both by the director Fritz Lang, to the event.

“From the outset it was clear that this was an extraordinary field,” said Farinelli, who since 2000 has been the director of Cineteca. “We also very quickly understood that there was a void in Italy – nobody was really specialising in restored films, and so this is how we created the [Cineteca] laboratory.”

Although it steadily grew each year, Il Cinema Ritrovato remained largely the preserve of classic film enthusiasts until 1995 when the festival shifted to a summer slot. “This made our work much better known,” Farinelli said.

The regular attendance of a host of international film directors, among them Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Wes Anderson, as well as the Italian director Alice Rohrwacher has also helped to enhance its profile.

In more recent years, attendance has soared. “Another extraordinary aspect is that we have seen the younger audiences explode,” Farinelli said. “For younger people, cinema of the past is a great surprise. Yes, they know the [streaming] platforms and all the series, but in Bologna they discover that cinema has a long history. They also discover the pleasure of watching films together in a square with other people.”

More than 500 films from world cinema will feature in the festival’s 40th-anniversary edition , ranging from silent films to 1980s Hollywood greats and restored films that were long buried.

“This year we will present various films that nobody has ever talked about, so it’s like seeing a film for the first time,” Farinelli said.

Among them is A Spring for the Thirsty, a black and white 1965 surrealist film by the Ukrainian director Yuri Ilyenko that was censored by Soviet authorities for its alleged “ideological perversions” before finally being released in 1987. This will be its first significant airing after being painstakingly restored by Fixafilm in collaboration with the Dovženko Studio in Kyiv.

“I have seen a huge amount of films in my life, but seeing this one was shocking – I have never seen a film like it,” Farinelli said.

Retrospectives will be dedicated to the Italian director Luchino Visconti, including a restoration of Il Gattopardo (The Leopard), as well as the screen legends Barbara Stanwyck and Josephine Baker.

Farinelli said: “When someone organises a festival, you can only hope that it will grow. But what is quite unique about Il Cinema Ritrovato is that it has grown while maintaining its principles – that is, to go in-depth and show films but also the complicity, richness and contradictions of the history of cinema.”

This article was amended on 19 June 2026. An earlier version said Spring for the Thirsty was restored by Cineteca. In fact, it was restored by Fixafilm in collaboration with the Dovženko Studio in Kyiv.

Keyword – Fashion
Trefwoorden – Milan fashion week, Men’s fashion, Fashion, Fashion weeks, Life and style, Italy, Europe
Title – Ralph Lauren bridges generations with menswear tie-up in Milan | Milan fashion week | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/chloe-mac-donnell
Link – Ralph Lauren bridges generations with menswear tie-up in Milan | Milan fashion week | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-20T11:21:21.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2026/jun/20/ralph-lauren-milan-fashion-week-menswear-ties

For his second standalone menswear show in Milan, Ralph Lauren reverted to the accessory that launched his empire in 1967 – ties.

Skinny silk ties featuring subtle swirly prints were neatly knotted and used as the finishing touch to elegant pinstripe suits, while more brightly printed or striped cravats were whirled and worn like ties peeking out from under knitwear and rugby shirts.

Elsewhere, ties were used in place of belts; others came wrapped around bags, and even footwear came tied up, with the uppers of espadrille shoes formed of ties that had been spliced together.

For the American fashion house that has become catnip to gen Z, the focus on ties in Friday night’s show was a slick way of appealing to this younger cohort, who have recently discovered both the brand and the accessory for the first time, but without alienating its existing older customers, many of whom are octogenarians like Lauren himself and have been wearing ties since day dot.

While other key players in the fashion industry continue to grapple with a widespread luxury slowdown, Ralph Lauren is enjoying a renaissance. In May, its CEO, Patrice Louvet, announced that sales for the last fiscal year had increased by 15%, with revenue exceeding the $8bn (£6bn) mark for the first time in the company’s history.

While womenswear has been a key focus of this growth, the decision by the brand to join the men’s fashion week schedule in Milan suggests there is further momentum to be found in menswear too. The show that kicked off Milan fashion week on Friday night combined its dapper-driven label Purple with its more accessible Polo brand, which focuses on collegiate style classics.

Part of Lauren’s magic is worldbuilding and this time around he transported guests to the golden age of Italian sport. A gleaming 1920s mahogany speedboat plonked in the courtyard of his Milan headquarters – a sprawling palazzo in the capital that Lauren bought in 1999 – greeted guests including the actors Tom Hiddleston and Colman Domingo and the grand prix record-breaker Lewis Hamilton.

Textured knitwear in sea-salt whites, striped shirting in nautical blues along with reversible butter-soft leather jackets lined with cashmere captured a fantasy mood of zipping around Lake Como. Reflective racer sunglasses, deck shoes and squashy tote bags that could be easily stowed onboard added a purposeful touch.

Later came the Polo collection, which Lauren in his show notes described as the “next-generation vision of American prep”. This was luxury through the lens of TikTok fashion fans. For them, much of its aspirational appeal lies in the styling that can be easily riffed on as they rummage around secondhand platforms and shops.

Camo trousers were worn loose and baggy; colourful checked shirts were styled untucked; rugby shirts were patchworked together featuring motifs of flowers and crossbones, while neat blazers clashed with denim speckled with paint or visible mending created by using sashiko embroidery.

Keyword – Opinion
Trefwoorden – Parents and parenting, Life and style, Social media, Social media ban, Social media bans, Media
Title – Social media bans are trending. But it’s too late for my son and me | Dave Schilling | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/dave-schilling
Link – Social media bans are trending. But it’s too late for my son and me | Dave Schilling | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-20T11:00:04.000Z
Category – Opinion
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/20/social-media-addiction-ban

T ry as I might, I think there’s no saving my son from modern technology. It’s ubiquitous, seductive and deeply ingrained in every aspect of middle-class life. Worse yet, I’m also addicted. When do I not have my iPhone out, desperately scrolling through a suite of apps, hoping they’ll offer me some manner of comfort from the security of my living room couch? Hours go by as I’m practically begging someone to notice me on Instagram, while he’s skipping from brainrot videos to basketball tutorials on our internet-connected TV. Ten years ago, I might have witnessed a scene like that and thought it was a sign of the end times. We’ve lost our way so much as a culture that a parent and a child can be simultaneously subsumed by screens, barely noticing the other person . But at some point, everyone realizes that the battle is lost. This is just how it is.

In spite of that grim diagnosis, Keir Starmer – who turned snatching defeat from the jaws of victory his personal brand – has made this losing battle a signature issue. This week, the British prime minister announced a comprehensive ban on social media for children under the age of 16 . That includes Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X, Snapchat and YouTube (though not the kids’ version ). The ban is modeled on one currently deployed in Australia, which has holes wide enough to drive a fleet of vintage Sherman tanks through. Teenagers in Australia are finding ways around their ban already, and of course they are. When I was 15, if I wanted a six-pack of Budweiser or some of those tiny airplane liquor bottles, I could figure it out.

The UK will try the policy anyway, swearing that their social media ban is tougher. “Australia-plus”, as it was described by Starmer, like it’s an esoteric streaming service that only shows rugby and Crocodile Dundee movies. We must applaud the attempt, even if it’s plainly quixotic. Restrictions on underage drinking and cigarettes might not prevent every kid from picking up a bad habit, but what would it say about our society if we didn’t bother trying? Still, I’m fully aware that keeping my kid off social media until the day he turns 16 is about as likely as him reading the entirety of James Joyce’s Ulysses. First of all, he hasn’t even started yet. Second, he’s reading at a third-grade level. Because he’s in third grade.

I suppose I could model better behavior for him. I could put my phone away. I could drag him outside for an aimless walk. I could force him into some elaborate arts-and-crafts project that I will then have to clean up after he’s done. Maybe we could pretend to be fairies in the forest and sprinkle invisible pixie dust on each other? We could, but I don’t want to do any of those things. I want to share this clip from La Dolce Vita on my Stories. What if a beautiful woman likes it and messages me? Oh, wouldn’t that be a fine thing?

Of course, as I’m modeling neurotic, digitally corrupted behavior, my son peers over to see what’s so damned important. “I’m on Instagram,” I blurt out, turning sharply to shield my shame from his view. He doesn’t need to know I’m a sad, middle-aged single man. Or at least he doesn’t need to know right now . When I text friends about the “depths of my solitude”, he has to peek. Fortunately, the only texts he really cares about are the ones I send to his mother, which are far more normal. Things like “yes, we’re watching YouTube again” or “he wants a Lamborghini because he saw one in a YouTube video.”

“Lambos are cool, Dad,” he’ll say, slyly picking up my subtle frustration. You know what isn’t cool? Significant credit card debt. The thing that social media and online video has done the most with my son is make him not understand the basic tenets of capitalism as I know them. When I was his age, I understood that money comes from work. That work affords you a salary, which can be really high or really low. What you can afford is dictated by the boundaries of your bank account. YouTube has obliterated the concept of financial hierarchy. It says: you can have whatever you want in life as long as you have enough rizz, that you farm the requisite amount of aura. Success, according to YouTube, is not tied to work. It’s about clout. And maybe that’s true these days, and that’s why I don’t own a sports car. Can’t get many aura points if you’re too busy updating your Hinge profile.

In some twisted, dystopian way, our form of online parallel play is like bonding for the modern age. We watch YouTube on TV, which means no easily visible comments section, no trolls. Just a lean-back TV watching experience, though one more chaotic than what I grew up with. My parents sat down to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation with me every week, and even though we were practically mute for an hour every Saturday, they were at least showing an appreciation for my interests. Watching YouTube with my son might be the 21st-century version of that. Instead of restrictions or draconian surveillance, I sit there with him while he watches a guy get hit in the groin with a Slim Jim-branded baseball bat to win $15,000.

At least we’re doing it together. At least we’re both sufficiently curious about the other’s technological addiction that we can be skeptical. Why is my son watching baseball bat punishment videos? And why am I doomscrolling and hoping to meet “single women in your area”? Perhaps the only thing that will break the cycle of social media addiction isn’t an elaborate law, but the basic shame of transparency. Whenever my son peers over my shoulder to ask me what I’m doing, I’m snapped out of my own neuroses and placed back into reality. I suffer a bit of embarrassment, then stow my phone back in my pocket. The lure of the infinite void of the internet will come back soon enough, but for at least a moment, my son and I can share a bit of joy. This is the life , I say, as we watch a woman eat a handful of Pop Rocks and brush her teeth .

Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist

Keyword – Environment
Trefwoorden – Cop31, Germany, Electric, hybrid and low-emission cars, Fossil fuels, Energy, Environment, Europe, World news, Technology
Title – Can we electrify the world? Ambition moves from nerdish backwater to centre stage | Cop31 | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/fiona-harvey
Link – Can we electrify the world? Ambition moves from nerdish backwater to centre stage | Cop31 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-20T04:00:51.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/20/electrification-takes-centre-stage-bonn-climate-talks

E lectrifying the world – with electric vehicles , electric heating and cooling, and modernised heavy industry – could be the next biggest step towards phasing out fossil fuels, replacing the 80% of global energy that still comes from hydrocarbons. As using electrical energy is much more efficient than combustion, the move would save billions of dollars for consumers and businesses – global energy demand could be halved, according to one estimate.

For decades, electrification has been a nerdish backwater of global climate action. But in the last two weeks, at preparatory talks in Bonn before the forthcoming UN Cop31 climate summit , the subject finally took centre stage.

Murat Kurum, Turkey’s environment minister, who will co-host the Cop31 summit this November, told the Guardian last week: “Without electrification, we won’t be able to reach any of the targets [of the Paris agreement], so we must go through this transformation. Whether you call it the missing piece of the puzzle or the most important tool that we have in our toolkit, this is the case.”

Turkey, with the support of Australia, which is co-president of Cop31 , has proposed setting a target of 35% of final energy to come from electricity by 2035. “This is the most important pillar in reducing emissions – you need to increase electrification in cities, in manufacturing, in [all aspects of life], and will serve us in the bigger picture, the bigger targets [of the Paris agreement],” he said.

The push to electrify was the highlight of two weeks of talks in Bonn that otherwise offered little to cheer. After a cordial start to the annual meeting, held roughly at the halfway point between annual climate “conference of the party” (Cop) summits, by the final days the negotiations descended into near-farce, with some countries refusing to agree wording that would base decisions on “the best available science”, despite this being a cornerstone of climate agreements for more than 30 years. The talks, which were supposed to lay the groundwork for Cop31 , finished on Thursday evening with many issues unresolved.

“We have seen side-stepping and stalling,” said the UN climate chief, Simon Stiell, admonishing countries as two weeks of talks slid to a conclusion on Thursday night. “We’ve seen geopolitical tensions wash through these halls. We simply cannot afford to reopen previous decisions, to renegotiate existing targets, or to backslide. It’s cooperation, not fierce competition, that we need.”

The biggest rows were over climate science, and the 1.5C goal. In a strand of the talks known as “research and systematic observations”, some countries – led by Saudi Arabia and the Arab group of nations, but also including India – objected to language reaffirming climate science, and argued that research by scientists in rich countries dominated submissions to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

But other countries said the aim was clearly to delay and derail. Sivendra Michael, speaking on behalf of the Pacific Island nations, said: “We are hearing voices in these rooms that are doing their best to undermine science. Anyone blocking references to science, they are not our friends.”

He added: “There are powerful interests desperate to protect their wealth and influence. We are seeing certain countries holding the [UN] process hostage as vulnerable people suffer heat stress and storms, droughts and famine.”

There were also questions raised by many of the same countries over the inclusion of the global target of limiting temperatures to 1.5C in several places in the negotiating texts, but they faced furious opposition.

Surangel Whipps, the president of the Pacific nation of Palau, told a separate conference in Germany: “We know we won’t make the 1.5C target, but what we need to do is not give up.”

Greater harmony was on show over the “just transition”, a key issue for campaigners which refers to the need to ensure that workers affected by the move to a low-carbon economy are supported, and protected from exploitation.

Camila Mercure, the climate policy coordinator at Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, said the discussions had been constructive. “While [the talks] exposed significant differences among parties, they also showed there is a pathway to a meaningful outcome [on a just transition] at Cop31. Governments must now engage constructively to make that happen.”

But climate finance remains a huge stumbling block as developed countries continue to cut overseas aid and prioritise military spending. Poor countries were furious that rich nations were dragging their feet on fulfilling a previously set goal to triple the funding they provide for adaptation to the impacts of the climate crisis. Pooja Dave, the adaptation policy coordinator at Climate Action Network International, said: “What we saw was clear bad faith and unwillingness by developed countries to make progress on the global goal on adaptation. You cannot implement the GGA without finance.”

At last year’s Cop30 summit in Brazil , attempts to get countries to restate their commitment to “transition away from fossil fuels” were stymied, but more than 50 countries held their own conference in April to discuss such a phaseout .

But the electrification target marked a step change, after years with little mention at Cops, in part because the technology for electrification lagged behind that for renewable generation. But now China has moved to mass manufacture of electric vehicles, bringing prices down, while heat pumps have also come down in price, though less dramatically, and can save consumers hundreds of pounds on their energy bills. Industrial processes are also increasingly switching to cheap renewable energy.

Electric technology, according to Prof Jan Rosenow from Oxford University, is now ready for widespread takeup and offers efficiencies three to five times greater than their fossil fuel counterparts. “I call it electro-efficiency,” he said. “It’s the inbuilt efficiency of electric technology compared with fossil fuels.”

Rosenow has estimated, in a forthcoming paper, that a global switch to electrification would halve energy demand. That would produce savings that would quickly reach trillions of dollars globally, freeing up cash for governments, businesses and consumers to spend on better ends, from health and education to defence.

Some countries are way ahead. Japan, for instance, has nearly reached the target of 35% of energy to come from electricity that the Cop31 presidency is proposing. China is nearly at 30%, but the US lags at 22%, India and Brazil are about 20% and globally the figure is 21%.

But even the Cop measures on electrification, though widely accepted as necessary to meet scientific advice to reduce emissions to net zero by mid-century, face an uphill struggle to gain acceptance within the byzantine processes of the Cop.

While the US is the only major country absent from the UN talks, the influence of Donald Trump’s presidency was felt within the negotiating halls. “Saudi Arabia has taken more of an obvious role [in disrupting progress], and part of that is because the US used to play a role in holding them back,” one negotiator said. Saudi is not alone: it has allies among the Gulf states, which work together as the Arab group, and has been joined by India on some issues, Russia on several, and even by Kenya, usually a strong supporter of climate action. “People feel they can do this because of what they see coming from the US now,” the negotiator said.

Keyword – Business
Trefwoorden – Global economy, Economics, Oil, Commodities, Interest rates, Inflation, Business, US-Israel war on Iran, World news
Title – Trump hails Iran deal but conflict continues to cast long shadow over global economy | Global economy | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/heatherstewart,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/phillipinman
Link – Trump hails Iran deal but conflict continues to cast long shadow over global economy | Global economy | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T12:24:47.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jun/21/trump-iran-deal-long-shadow-global-economy

Hailing his Iran deal this week amid the excess of Versailles, Donald Trump urged sceptics to take Wall Street’s word for its success. “There is nothing as smart as the market – and the market loves it,” he said, claiming credit for ending the economic chaos that had kicked off when he started bombing Iran in late February. Without the agreement, he said, “the alternative would be a worldwide depression”.

By the weekend, the outlook was less optimistic after planned US-Iran peace talks in Switzerland were abruptly called off , then reinstated, and Iran said Israeli bombing in Jordan meant it was justified in closing the strait of Hormuz again. Still, hopes persist that the sea passage carrying about 20% of the world’s oil supplies will reopen fully in the coming days and weeks.

If the oil does start to flow more freely again, it should forestall the shortages of key products, such as jet fuel, that some analysts had predicted would occur if the war persisted.

Energy markets are already anticipating the hoped-for resurgence in supply: the cost of a barrel of crude oil dropped below $80 a barrel after the agreement was announced, for the first time since the early days of the war.

Yet governments are still counting the economic costs of a war they did not want any part of.

The severity of the impact varies by region. Gulf economies, which have seen exports of their main revenue-raiser choked off and found themselves the target of Iranian bombs, are expected to plunge into recession. Analysts at Oxford Economics are expecting GDP in the region to decline by 2.6% this year.

Economic growth in the US, now a net energy exporter, has remained strong, with stock markets bolstered by the AI investment boom, and SpaceX just the first of a series of mega market launches expected this year.

But American drivers are paying $1 a gallon more for petrol than a year ago, and economy-wide inflation in the US has surged to 4.2% , its highest rate in three years – news that Trump greeted by claiming: “I love the inflation.”

Trump’s newly appointed pick as Federal Reserve chair, Kevin Warsh, was chosen in the hope he would deliver a string of interest rate cuts.

In fact, Warsh is likely to face pressure to raise borrowing costs in the coming months. Dario Perkins, the head of global research at the consultancy TS Lombard, said that of the leading central banks, “as the economy has remained strong and inflation has increased, the Fed is probably going to increase rates the most, maybe as much as four times (to a range of 4.5% to 5%) by the end of next year”.

He said the US economy had remained strong thanks to consumers running down their savings to continue spending, while shoppers in the UK and continental Europe had been more circumspect. “The euro consumer, while they have savings, are more worried about the war and its outcome,” he said.

In the EU, which is heavily reliant on gas imports, the European Central Bank (ECB) has already raised interest rates for the first time since 2023, in the hope of choking off surging inflation.

The impact on prices in the UK has been somewhat more muted, with inflation hitting 2.8% in April and interest rates on hold for the moment – but confidence has been hit hard and the jobs market remains weak.

Sanjay Raja, the chief UK economist at Deutsche Bank, said inflation would rise further – perhaps by up to another percentage point – in the coming months. “All of the data suggests that there’s something coming – we are going to see some pressure.” However, he expects the downward effect on growth to be relatively modest – knocking up to a quarter of a percentage point off GDP growth.

Many developing countries have been forced to ration fuel in the face of rocketing prices and are braced for the impact of surging fertiliser costs over the coming months.

This “demand destruction” – cutting back on usage when prices become unaffordable – may be part of the reason why oil prices have not surged even higher since February.

Raja argues it is also because countries including China have been able to rely on strategic oil supplies, some of which may not have been known about by analysts.

Despite Trump’s bullishness, his tentative agreement with Iran leaves many questions unanswered and will not immediately draw a line under the economic damage caused by the war.

Ryan Sweet, the chief global economist at the consultancy Oxford Economics, said: “The difficulty of quantifying the economic cost is that the economic timeline doesn’t equal the military timeline, so we’re still going to be feeling the economic impact of this through the rest of this year and potentially early next.”

He pointed out that while Trump had stressed that the strait of Hormuz would reopen, the details remained hazy. “There’s still the risk that tolls are imposed on ships, or the number of ships that go through the strait is a lot less than before the conflict – there’s still a lot of uncertainty around that.”

Fears remain that hostilities could yet be reignited – for example, if Trump comes to doubt that Tehran is serious about winding down its nuclear plans.

Trump is also facing some pushback against the deal at home, even from Republicans. Neil Shearing, the chief global economist at the consultancy Capital Economics, said policymakers should view the agreement as fragile.

“It’s a good start. But there are several ways the deal can fall apart. Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah and Lebanon, Iran exploiting its chokehold over the strait of Hormuz, and a dispute over how to limit Iran’s nuclear ambitions.”

He added that the oil markets may be too sanguine about the next few months. “Our modelling of the oil price shows that prices of Brent crude should be about $90 a barrel in the third quarter and $80 a barrel in the fourth quarter. However, the market has raced ahead and is already pricing oil at $80. That’s a Goldilocks outcome to the war when there is plenty more negotiating to be done.”

Matt Gertken, the chief geopolitical strategist at BCA Research, said in a recent research note that the US-Iran memorandum of understanding “should not be seen as a complete and durable peace deal that uncorks the global commodity bottleneck and concludes the war”.

Instead, he said, “we would still assign a 60% chance of renewed fighting after the midterm [elections in the US] as President Trump gains a window, from 4 November 2026 until the end of 2027, to try to get better terms and better implementation”.

Even if the deal holds, many economists are wary of assuming the energy markets will quickly snap back to normal.

First, that is because it will take time for Gulf oil infrastructure to be restored and for the backlog of ships stuck in the region to transit through the strait and beyond.

Second, and more worrying, there is a risk that by illustrating so starkly Iran’s ability to choke off Gulf oil supplies at will, the conflict may have permanently increased the cost of some commodities by prompting firms to build more slack into their supply chains. As Sweet put it: “I think there’s going to be a long shadow from this.”

Keyword – Travel
Trefwoorden – Europe holidays, Hotels, Travel, France holidays, Spain holidays, Portugal holidays, Greece holidays, Italy holidays
Title – Chic and cheerful: 15 hotels for affordable European glamour | Europe holidays | The Guardian
Author – Fiona Kerr
Link – Chic and cheerful: 15 hotels for affordable European glamour | Europe holidays | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T06:00:24.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2026/jun/21/15-hotels-affordable-european-glamour-greece-spain-france-portugal-italy

GREECE

Toes in the sea on Kastellorizo

Just 2km from the Lycian coast, Kastellorizo is much closer to Turkey than mainland Greece. Ferries from the Turkish beach town of Kaş, as well as Rhodes and other Dodecanese neighbours, dock at the island’s tiny harbour, lined with colourful neoclassical houses. One of them, an ochre-painted mansion with pistachio green shutters, is Hotel Mediterraneo , which is so close to the water that you can practically roll out of bed and into the sea from the ground floor suite.

Mediterraneo’s owner, Parisian architect Marie Rivalant, is one of many artists and creatives who have fallen for Kastellorizo’s sleepy charms. She took over the quayside pension 25 years ago, painting the seven bedrooms in sunny colours and layering them with rugs, cushions, antiques and artworks (if you like her bohemian style, there is a small shop at the hotel selling her finds). Breakfasts blend influences from her travels too: flaky Turkish börek pastries, Greek yogurt and freshly baked croissants, served on the terrace. Doubles from €170 B&B , mediterraneokastellorizo.com

A shipshape foodie stay in the Dodecanese

In the 19th century, the Greek island of Symi grew wealthy on sponge-diving, shipbuilding and seafaring. This brought merchants, with silver, spices and sponges traded in a neoclassical building on the Kali Strata, a stone stairway that connects the harbour of Gialos with the upper village of Chorio.

Today that building, with its high-ceilinged historic grandeur, is The Old Markets hotel. In the bedrooms, antique maps, old globes, nautical paintings and silverware nod to its past life. There are only seven rooms and three suites spread between the old market and the neighbouring Captain’s Mansion, but the hotel has an outsized culinary reputation thanks to its rooftop tasting-menu restaurant, Agora, and huge Greek breakfast feasts of Symi orange blossom akoumia (rice doughnuts) and toasted tsoureki (sweet brioche-like bread). Like many islands, Symi is best explored by boat, bobbing from Agios Nikolaos beach to St George Bay and on to the monastery at Panormitis, before heading back to the pretty horseshoe-shaped harbour. Doubles from £150 B&B , theoldmarkets.com

SPAIN

A ducal palace in northern Spain

Spain’s paradors – state-run hotels in heritage buildings – are windows into the country’s history, from Moorish castles to medieval monasteries. In the hilltop town of Lerma, in the Castile and León region, the imposing 17th-century Ducal Palace is now Parador de Lerma , a place where royals married, princesses were born and even Napoleon stayed (walk in Bonaparte’s footsteps in room 313).

Several works by the great poet of Spain’s Golden Age, Lope de Vega, were first performed in the central covered courtyard surrounded by colonnaded galleries. The Duke of Lerma was also one of the great collectors of his time, and the parador is lined with moody oil paintings, Flemish tapestries and works by contemporary Spanish artists. The vaulted restaurant dishes up local favourites such as roast suckling lamb and Burgos cheeses. Nearby, the Arlanza wine region turns out muscular reds – try them at Bodega Palacio de Lerma . Doubles from €124 room-only, breakfast €22 , paradores.es

A hillside retreat near Barcelona

Set above the Costa del Maresme, the romantic manor of Can Casadella is a peaceful escape from Barcelona’s summer throng and just half an hour away. Magda and Josep allow visitors to have the run of antique-filled sitting rooms, cosy library and colonnaded terraces, where a hammock swings in the breeze. Outside, the old pond has been turned into a natural swimming pool, and there are orchards of orange, lemon, fig and almond trees. Freshly squeezed orange juice is served at breakfast, alongside homemade lemon and rosemary marmalade, breads, local cheese and sausages.

The nine large doubles and twins have original tiled floors and wooden beams, some with sea views and their own terraces. It’s enough to check out of the world for a few days, but Magda can also organise cooking workshops and yoga in the garden, and recommend hikes in the Parc de la Serralada Litoral next door or the best beaches a short drive away. Doubles from €132 room-only, breakfast €12 , cancasadella.com

A colourful hideout in Andalu c ía

Cortijo Genesis , a reimagined farmhouse, opened its doors last summer outside the whitewashed village of Gaucín, 40 miles west of Marbella. There’s a retro, Palm Springs-esque glamour to the pink scalloped parasols and wrought iron loungers in the garden, and the interior is just as colourful: a rainbow-painted ceiling in the reading room, a yellow-tiled kitchen and five bedrooms inspired by semi-precious stones – citrine, cornaline, morganite, lapis lazuli and aventurine.

Belgian co-owner Valentina Geyer is a reiki practitioner and equine therapist, and there’s a strong wellness focus, with meditation zones, yoga and pilates retreats, reiki healing and equine coaching. Much of the food is homegrown and homemade, with eggs from their hens, honey from their beehives, and herbs, fruit and vegetables from the permaculture plot. Good fuel to explore the hiking and biking routes through the hills nearby, or simply dip in and out of the swimming pool. Doubles from €180 B&B, cortijo-genesis.com

FRANCE

A quieter side of the Côte d’Azur

Halfway between the hip grit of Marseille and the glitz of Saint-Tropez, Hyères is one of the quieter corners of the Côte d’Azur and known as Hyères-les-Palmiers for the thousands of palm trees that grow along boulevards and gardens. Part of its sleepy charm (and why it has stayed that way) is that its old town lies not on the beach, but a couple of miles inland, looking down on the Med from a hilltop perch.

It’s here that the Lilou Hotel opened a couple of summers ago, giving a Haussmann-esque building a fashionable twist, with cream and ochre paintwork, poplar burr wood furniture and rattan touches. There’s a slip of a pool outside and the restaurant dishes up coastal plates of bouillabaisse croquettes, tuna crudo and langoustine risotto. Down on the coast, l’Almanarre beach is a beautiful curve of sand popular with kite- and windsurfers. And just offshore are the islands of Porquerolles (home to a contemporary art institute and white sand beaches) and Port-Cros (a wild and rugged nature reserve) to explore. Doubles from €145 room-only, breakfast €22 , lilouhotel.fr

A seaside spa hotel in Brittany

On the blustery Finistère coast, a 45-minute drive east of Roscoff, the Grand Hôtel des Bains in Locquirec has a timeless New England air with its shiplap panelling and jaunty stripes. The chic decor is thanks to late owner Dominique van Lier, who edited a Belgian interiors magazine and tastefully transformed what had been a stuffy spa resort. The Marine Spa is still a huge draw, with massages, magnesium therapies and beauty treatments from Breton skincare brand Thalion. There’s also a sauna, hammam and warm indoor pool with knock-out views over Baie de Morlaix.

Most bedrooms have sea views, and there are beaches to walk to either side of the hotel’s rocky promontory, from tiny coves to the sweeping sands of the Baie de Locquirec. While the look here is East Coast US, the food and service are decidedly French (oysters, roasted lobster with seaweed butter) and the hotel also owns Brasserie de la Plage on the quayside for a change from the white-tablecloth dining room. Doubles from £198 room-only , i-escape.com

An artist ’s resort in Normandy

Claude Monet painted the luminous cliffs of Étretat more than 50 times during the 1880s, capturing the ever-shifting light on the white rock faces and dramatic sea arches. There are views of those famous chalk beauties from Le Donjon Domaine Saint Clair , which is set high above the Normandy seaside resort. One of the hotel’s bedrooms is named after Monet, while others honour novelists Guy de Maupassant, who lived in Étretat for part of his childhood, and Gustave Flaubert, a frequent visitor.

Less than three hours’ drive from Paris, Étretat is a popular spot with French tourists in the summer, who flock to the Alabaster Coast for locally caught seafood at waterfront bistros and the pebble beach between the cliffs. Built in 1862, Domaine Saint Clair is an imposing castle-style house with an idiosyncratic charm: bedrooms are tucked up and down little staircases and there is an open-air Jacuzzi atop the tower. There’s also a heated outdoor pool, a petit spa and a cocktail bar, which harks back to the town’s golden age. Doubles from €190 room-only, breakfast €25 , hoteletretat.com

Basque elegance in Biarritz

With its imperial palace on the headland overlooking wetsuit-clad surfers catching the waves, Biarritz has a funny duality of belle époque grandeur and salt-crusted beachiness. But it works. A few blocks back from the beach, Hotel Saint-Julien has a similar mix of elegance and ease. The typical 19th-century Basque house, with a whitewashed facade and painted shutters, has good bones – high ceilings and original wooden floors.

More recent updates have given an easy breeziness to the 26 bedrooms, all slightly different but decorated in muted colours with vintage furniture – the top floor has views over the rooftops to the sea. There’s a homely chambre d’hôte simplicity, and the restaurant has a rotating cast of visiting chefs and pop-up residencies. Restaurant Anema (until October) serves a daily changing menu of whatever is freshest from the fish market – on balmy nights bag one of the tables on the terrace. Doubles from €180 room-only , breakfast €19 , hotel-saint-julien-biarritz.fr

Chic Cannes at less haute prices

Cannes turns on the full red-carpet sparkle for the film festival each May, but with its superyacht-filled marina and beach clubs, it is a prime people-watching spot any time of year. The French Riviera town is known for palatial institutions such as the Carlton, Hôtel Martinez and Le Majestic, but a short walk from La Croisette, the newly opened Hôtel Lepoussin gives Haussmann-style glamour at less haute prices. There’s a mid-century feel to bedrooms, with sunny yellow textiles and wide curving wooden headboards; downstairs there’s an honesty bar in the lobby and a dinky plunge pool.

Keep the costs down further by skipping the beach-club fees and head instead to the public Plage Macé or Plage de la Bocca, stocking up on a picnic from the Marché Forville first. Or nip across to the Îles de Lérins on the ferry, exploring quiet coves, coastal walking trails and the fort where the mysterious Man in the Iron Mask was imprisoned. Doubles from €135 room-only, breakfast €19 , lepoussinhotel.com

PORTUGAL

A royal resort on the Portuguese Riviera

In 1870, King Luís I chose Cascais, 20 miles west of Lisbon, as his official summer residence. Aristocrats followed his lead to the Atlantic coast, building Italianate villas and ornate mansions, and turning the former fishing village into a fashionable resort. The Pergola Boutique Hotel was Cascais’s first hotel when it opened in 1985, transforming two chalets into an elegant 15-room retreat, the facade decorated with hand-painted tiles. Rooms are filled with art and antiques, and in the garden is a restaurant run by the team behind Lisbon favourite Café de São Bento .

The hotel is only a two-minute walk from the station, and arriving by train is easily the loveliest approach, with the line hugging the coast all the way from Lisbon. While Cascais still has a refined air, the coast is rugged and breezy – walk the boardwalk by the sea to neighbouring Estoril , catch a wave on the sandy stretch between Estoril and Carcavelos, or hike over cliffs to remote Praia da Ursa. Doubles from £199 B&B , mrandmrssmith.com

Rococo grandeur in the Algarve

This incredible rose-coloured palace – now Pousada Palácio Estoi – was built in the 19th century by the Viscount of Estoi, with more than a passing nod to Versailles. Outside there are immaculate French-style gardens with clipped parterre hedges, statues and fountains, while inside is full-throttle Louis XV: ceilings frescoed with cherubim, ornate plasterwork, giant gilt mirrors and huge chandeliers. The 63 bedrooms, on the other hand, are a curious minimalist counterpoint, housed in a new wing that flanks the palace – slick and white like a visual palate cleanser from all that bling.

The extension is also home to a spa, with hammam, saunas and treatment rooms, and the restaurant dishes up Portuguese fish stew and Algarve orange tart in the old palace kitchen. From here, it’s a 20-minute drive to Faro, where boat trips depart for the lagoons, pristine beaches, birdlife and barrier islands of the Ria Formosa natural park . Doubles from €122 B&B, pousadas.pt

ITALY

An artist ’s guesthouse in Piemonte

Italian-Canadian artist Bruno Billio knows hotels – he spent 18 years as resident artist at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto. But now his creativity, which spans installation, sculpture and design, comes to life in a new way at his four-bedroom guesthouse, La Giardi na , which opened this spring in the hills outside Turin.

It’s a handsome conversion of a 12th-century convent, and deeply personal too, with rooms named after family members and a wedding picture of his parents in the sitting room. Billio’s sculptural installations (found objects bound in vibrant thread; porcelain figurines dipped in black rubber) and original paintings by other artists grace the guesthouse. There are views towards the tall peak of Monviso and the Alps, with vineyards and hill towns just beyond the estate’s gates. Doubles from €140 B&B , lagiardina.com

A nonna’s house on Lake Como

Alessandro and Andrea Motti’s grandmother was born in this house in the village of Laglio on Como’s western shore, and when the brothers were little they used to play with the chickens and rabbits in the garden overlooking the water. Now they’ve turned their nonna ’s old home (and the neighbouring one) into a charming bed and breakfast, Cà Spiga . All eight bedrooms have lake views, and a breakfast spread from the family’s deli, Da Luciano , is laid out on the terrace each morning. Recently they have started serving Sunday lunches in the garden too, with dishes from local bistro La Piazzetta in Cernobbio.

Alessandro is full of tips to sidestep the Como crowds. Follow his lead and drive to the beach on the northern part of the lake at Domaso, before lunch at Osteria Aquila d’Oro in the Valle del Dosso del Liro, finishing at his favourite cocktail bar, Lo Scalo in Cremia. Doubles from €225 B&B, caspiga.it

Views to the lighthouse in Puglia

Jutting out into the Adriatic, the Gargano peninsula, the spur to Italy’s boot, is a place of dramatic white limestone cliffs and sandy beaches, rugged mountains and deep forests – a wilder, quieter alternative to southern Puglia. At its very tip, the whitewashed town of Vieste is a place Italians flock to in summer for its clear waters and medieval centre.

In a historic building overlooking the marina, Tra Cielo e Mare has just six rooms, all decked out in white and wood. Three have balconies overlooking the sea, and breakfast is served on the terrace with views towards the lighthouse, which sits on its own little island. Spiaggia del Castello , a sandy stretch framed by the huge Pizzomunno monolith is 15 minutes’ walk from the hotel. And the whole peninsula is part of the Gargano national park , which is crisscrossed with cycling and hiking trails. Doubles from €190 B&B , welcomebeyond.com

Prices are for late June/early July and were correct at the time of going to press

Keyword – News
Trefwoorden – Toy Story 5, Animation in film, Pixar, Technology, Film, Culture, Children, Society
Title – To the tablet and beyond: does Toy Story 5 go hard enough on technology? | Toy Story 5 | The Guardian
Author – Jesse Hassenger
Link – To the tablet and beyond: does Toy Story 5 go hard enough on technology? | Toy Story 5 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T05:00:21.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2026/jun/21/toy-story-5-go-hard-enough-on-technology

For more than 30 years, Pixar’s signature Toy Story series has been entertaining children while giving voice to their parents’ anxieties. This is especially pronounced in the film’s sequels, as the living toys who dedicate their lives to the happiness of their owner/child experience all different sorts of potential and parent-paralleled obsolescence, from physical wear-and-tear and a child reaching young adulthood to the toy equivalent of empty-nesting (still hanging around the playroom but no longer anyone’s favourite). It’s only natural – maybe even a little belated – that Toy Story 5 would address the encroachment of technology, which continues to make its way to children earlier and earlier. So many years after the tech breakthroughs that allowed Toy Story to become the first computer-animated feature, and Pixar to become a household name in family entertainment, has the formerly Steve Jobs-owned company turned against the kind of innovation that built its success?

The movie arrives at a conspicuous juncture in the sometimes-uneasy relationship between humans, their children and their tech. According to Pew Research , the majority of kids under 12 are using tablets and/or smartphones, even as links between screen time and mental health difficulties continue to be studied. More school districts in the US are tightening rules on devices. Parenting in 2026 involves making a series of difficult, imperfect decisions about how to further regulate screen time. It’s only natural that Toy Story 5 would reflect this, even if it’s not entirely clear when the movie itself is taking place. (The human characters have clearly not aged seven full years since 2019’s Toy Story 4.)

For the non-human characters in the movie, tech – personified by a child-friendly “Lilypad” tablet nicknamed Lily – threatens to supplant their role as a child’s go-to plaything. This is a particularly traumatic experience for Jessie (Joan Cusack), the seemingly inanimate, secretly soulful favourite toy of eight-year-old Bonnie. Bonnie is lured in by Lily’s simple but transfixing games, and real-world parents are invited to share Jessie’s panic and dismay that children Bonnie’s age are more likely to stare at screens than imagine their own adventures to project upon the vessels of more traditional playthings. Of course, whatever its creative virtues, Toy Story 5 will also become content for those young eyes. After a run in theaters, it will be distributed on Disney+, a popular streaming app available on tablets everywhere.

Whether because of their tech roots or the trademark nuance they bring to these issues (most likely both), the film-makers behind Toy Story 5 haven’t created an anti-tech screed. One band of landfill-clogging capitalism-enabled plastic toys – nostalgic and adorable though they may be – is not necessarily positioned as morally superior to a more complicated yet also more practical configuration of the same non-biodegradable polymers. The differences (or lack thereof) are underlined when Jessie meets and eventually befriends some outdated devices who share her understandable neuroses about being discarded. What are these iterations of tech if not their own form of toys, ready for humans to project their own wants and needs on to them before facing eventual discarding?

Indeed, while the new tablet is shown to have a hypnotising, even deadening effect on Bonnie, its most nefarious emotional results are human-generated. Bonnie’s parents buy her a tablet because of its social utility; she is having trouble making friends, and not only do many children her age have tablets, it also functions as a nascent social media. It does not bring her on to an open internet full of randos and creeps and their horrible posts (which is a whole other set of dangers the movie does not get into), but the film does depict it as a medium ready-made for bullying, even if a user’s group chat is limited to other children from their dance class. At the same time, tech does play a role in a complicated effort to make Bonnie a more compatible IRL friend, even if their bond pointedly involves continuing imaginary and toy-based play, rather than everyone sequestering themselves on their respective devices, as seen during an ill-fated sleepover earlier in the film.

This is all thoughtful and fair-minded; anyone expecting the middle-aged Pixar brain trust to produce an addled grownup screed against children and their damn tech – while extolling the virtues of their beloved fake plastic icons of yesteryear – will be pleasantly surprised. Pleasant surprises are typical of the Pixar storytelling style – grab the viewers with a great hook (the toys versus their new nemesis, the screens) and then deepen the story they thought they were getting until it is about something else (the positive impact parents hope to make on their children’s lives, even when it may be fleeting). That was true, too, of Pixar’s previous film Hoppers , from earlier this year. It starts off about a teenage girl’s attempts to save a local pond ecosystem, and winds up as a race to prevent all-out war between animals and humanity.

The problem with this approach of late – especially in Hoppers but also present in Toy Story 5 – is that these nuances start to feel mathematically, rather than emotionally, derived. Pixar film-makers are directors and writers and designers, yes, but there’s also an engineering side to their work that seems to love the big swings of inventive technology while resisting same-scaled gestures for their characters. Hence Jessie can’t rebel too hard against tech (or at least cannot have that rebellion fully validated), and Mabel, the budding activist from Hoppers, must remain in a friendly tug-of-war with developers and local politicians, rather than fully rebuking them. Some of these story turns play less like acts of radical empathy than a form of pointy-headed both-sides-ing.

To a degree, these are just the basic building blocks of good mainstream drama – unlikely allegiances, lead characters whose assumptions are challenged, seeming villains who gain nuance with further exploration. But it is precisely the would-be value-neutral conditions of modern tech that makes it so insidious in a child’s hands. To make the addictive quality of bad touchscreen games secondary to havoc wreaked by bad friends, especially when that havoc is entirely enabled by tech, seems like an optimistic view, especially in an era where deepfakes lead to disinformation and AI exhausts water supplies because tech guys insist the tech requires immediate acquiescence from humanity.

Toy Story 5 isn’t exactly suffused with move-fast-and-break-things tech-bro cheerleading. The film wittily acknowledges both the haplessness of many parenting decisions – Bonnie’s parents admit that getting their child a tablet may be a bad idea, and essentially offer their own shruggy emoticon, unsure of what else to try – and the fact that screen fixations know no demographic limitations. (At one point, there is an offhand gag about a grown adult spending minutes on end fussing with his virtual-meeting backgrounds, amusing himself and likely no one else.) In that sense, it’s true to modern parenting: I regret letting my child look at YouTube too early, and I also look at my phone too often. We do what we can to mitigate these hard-to-erase bad decisions and move forward.

Yet, on a bigger-picture level, there is not much satisfaction in a movie about how tech does not have to be that dangerous, and can even be pretty endearing, just so long as parents are just the right combination of ambivalent, flawed and oblivious, yet emotionally available in others. The movie seems to sense this discomfort: its big emotional wallop doesn’t have much to do with tech, but rather the same insecurities Jessie has felt since Toy Story 2. The tech may change, the movie implies, but the fundamentals of guiding a child and imprinting your best moments into their memories remains universal.

That may be wishful thinking. Part of the nefariousness of tech is the way it introduces new guiding forces into a child’s life, unbidden and often unqualified. It may not be the purview of Toy Story 5 (or Toy Story 6) to tell a story about Bonnie taking advice from YouTubers spewing nonsense, or training herself away from reading and toward short-form video, or relying on chatbots to perform simple tests incorrectly. But as much as Pixar acknowledges that toys may not have a future, their faith in the partnership between humans and tech may belong in the past.

Keyword – Food
Trefwoorden – Food, Snacks, Film, Life and style
Title – Superfood or sweet treat? 17 delicious ways with popcorn – from snack bars and choux buns to salads and soups | Food | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/timdowling
Link – Superfood or sweet treat? 17 delicious ways with popcorn – from snack bars and choux buns to salads and soups | Food | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T09:00:26.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/food/2026/jun/21/superfood-or-sweet-treat-17-delicious-ways-with-popcorn-from-snack-bars-and-choux-buns-to-salads-and-soups

P opcorn became indelibly associated with cinema-going during the Great Depression (it was cheap and hugely profitable), but it also has an established reputation as a superfood – recently given a boost by longevity expert Dan Buettner, who described popcorn as the best snack to eat if you want to live to 100. “It’s very high in fibre, it’s very high in complex carbohydrates, and it even has more polyphenols than a lot of vegetables,” he said.

Popping corn has been consumed by humans for at least 4,000 years, but its widespread popularity as a snack probably dates to a single event : the Columbian Exposition of 1893, also known as the World’s Fair, held in Chicago.

It was there that inventor Charles Cretors introduced the first mobile, steam-powered popcorn machine, which enabled street vendors to travel to fairgrounds, baseball games and political rallies. At this same exposition, two brothers started selling their own proprietary mix of sweet molasses-coated popcorn and peanuts. Later packaged and sold under the name Cracker Jack, it is often considered to be America’s first junk food.

So popcorn can be good for you or bad for you, depending on how much salt, sugar and fat you add to it. Here are 17 recipes running the entire spectrum, from healthy to indulgent to potentially life-threatening – offered without prejudice.

First up, a spiced popcorn brought to you by the British Heart Foundation. It requires nothing more than a half-teaspoon of smoked paprika and a quarter-teaspoon of ground cumin per 50g of popcorn kernels (this doesn’t seem like enough to me; I’ve never used a quarter-teaspoon of anything). Put everything into a pan with a tight-fitting lid, along with a couple of teaspoons of sunflower oil, and pop.

For a slightly more complex – and saltier – variation, Guardian reader Rachel Kelly offers popcorn with a spiced salt that includes chilli and lime as well as paprika and cumin. Nigel Slater suggests fennel seed and pancetta popcorn in which the corn is popped in a mixture of butter and bacon fat.

The choice between salted and sweetened popcorn divides opinion, although I generally reserve my ire for people who mix the two. It requires no small leap of faith, then, for me to recommend Yotam Ottolenghi’s spicy popcorn , which features a caramel made from butter, sugar, salt, chilli and dried shrimp. The coated popcorn is baked for an hour until it loses its stickiness, then mixed in a two-to-one ratio with plain popcorn.

For a more straightforward toffee popcorn , you can’t go far wrong with a recipe containing only butter and muscovado sugar. Susanna Booth, meanwhile, has a dairy-free toffee popcorn that can be adapted to produce two flavours: margarita (lime and salt) and coffee .

Liam Charles’s honey-caramel popcorn is closer to the traditional American Cracker Jack, although he claims it’s the result of a serendipitous cinema collision between toffee popcorn and honey-roasted nuts. If you’re after a more dedicated recreation of the original, this homemade cracker jack from Brown Eyed Baker is a decent approximation, and even a possible improvement.

Popcorn granola snack bars come with the imprimatur of the Popcorn Board, an awareness-raising nonprofit funded by US popcorn processors, which collectively might be referred to as Big Popcorn. They would like you to eat way more popcorn, and their snack bars are an amalgam of popcorn, peanuts, granola, honey and peanut butter. For a slightly less-stuck-together version of the same idea, try Bombay popcorn mix : peanuts, popcorn, sultanas and crispy chickpeas. For an even more stuck-together version, Tom Kerridge’s popcorn bars are fused with chocolate and marshmallows.

Salted caramel and popcorn crumble choux buns , which include three kinds of sugar and a filling of toffee popcorn cream, bring us quite a long way from superfood territory. If this isn’t the Snack Least Likely to Help You Live to 100, it must surely be on the shortlist.

Popcorn’s status as a whole grain sometimes allows it to make an appearance in bread recipes. In this popcorn bread recipe from Australian Better Homes and Gardens, the popcorn is first reduced to a powder in a blender before being combined with less unusual bread ingredients, such as flour and yeast. Likewise popcorn can be deployed as part of a coating prior to frying fish, as with popcorn and mushroom-crusted tilapia (another idea from Big Popcorn).

From the wilder shores of popcorn-based culinary innovation come not one but two recipes for popcorn salad. The first is a strange but apparently quite traditional picnic dish familiar to residents of the American heartland. This popcorn salad recipe from The Kitchn combines freshly popped popcorn, grated carrots, celery, spring onions, tinned water chestnuts, grated cheddar, bacon, mayonnaise and ranch dressing. Suffice to say it’s not just the popcorn that makes it weird.

The other one – from Three Many Cooks – is a simple rocket and onion salad with a classic vinaigrette dressing, and popcorn . The idea is easier to get your head round if you think of the popcorn as a crouton alternative. Pretend you’re out of croutons.

Finally, popcorn soup. Almost all the recipes I found tell you to whiz and sieve the soup before serving – often several times – so the popcorn element is not textural, except for the few pieces sprinkled on top as a garnish. This popcorn soup recipe from A Food Lover’s Kitchen, modelled on a dish from a Seattle restaurant, also uses fresh corn on the cob. The kernels are first stripped off, and the denuded cobs used to make corn stock. Otherwise it’s popcorn, celery, carrot, onion and cream, resulting in a smooth chowder with a delicious buttery corn taste. Just don’t try to take it to the cinema with you.