Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – World Cup 2026, World Cup, Football, Sport, US sports, Australia sport
Title – World Cup 2026: Scotland fall flat; USA into knockouts; Turkey’s tears and Almíron’s red for covering mouth – live | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/michael-butler,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/tomdavies,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/matthughes
Link – World Cup 2026: Scotland fall flat; USA into knockouts; Turkey’s tears and Almíron’s red for covering mouth – live | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-20T11:31:06.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/live/2026/jun/20/world-cup-2026-scotland-morocco-usa-australia-netherlands-sweden-germany-cote-d-ivoire-ecuador-curacao-tunisia-japan

A reminder that you can play around with group permutations in our Bracketology game.

Paraguay’s win over Türkiye was obviously a huge boost for the South American nation, but it was also pretty much the perfect result for Australia, too.

With Türkiye guaranteed to finish bottom of the group and eliminated – as the standings are now decided by head-to-head record rather than goal difference – the Socceroos are now highly likely to finish as at least one of the eight third-placed teams and will now play a weakened Paraguay, who will surely be fatigued by their 10-man exploits. who will be without the suspended Miguel Almirón.

If Australia win or get a draw against Paraguay, they will finish in second and play the second place in Group G (New Zealand, Iran, Belgium and Egypt are all currently on one point). If they lose against Paraguay, they still have a good chance of making it through, although as a third-placed team they would then face a group winners.

Good to see people are not getting carried away . USA have looked good, it’s true, but against … Australia and Paraguay.

The next two matches are a couple of ripsnorters : Netherlands v Sweden and Germany v Côte d’Ivoire, all of whom won their opening games.

Sweden were arguably the most impressive side in the first round of matches, sweeping aside Tunisia 5- 1. It will be interesting to see if they line up with the same attacking line-up against a stronger Dutch side, who have been tipped by economist Joachim Klement to win the tournament. The German has developed his own formula that has previously accurately predicted the winners of the past three tournaments.

Iran to complain to Fifa over travel restrictions

Iran plans to lodge a complaint with Fifa over travel restrictions its team is facing in the US at the World ⁠Cup. Due to uncertainty over ⁠visas and the conflict ​with the US, the Iranian team are commuting from their tournament base in co-host Mexico for their three group games in the United States.

US authorities require them to enter within ⁠24 hours of a match and leave the same day, leading team coach Amir Ghalenoei to say Iran were the “most oppressed” team in the tournament.

“The Football Federation of Iran believes these restrictions are inconsistent with ⁠the principles of providing equal conditions for participating teams and may affect their technical preparation,” the federation said in a statement on ​Friday announcing its protest to Fifa. Fifa did not immediately ‌respond to a request for comment.

Andrew ‌Giuliani, director of the White House World Cup Task Force, told the Telegraph that he would be open to renegotiating ‌the terms of Iran’s entry to the United States. He added that Washington could consider allowing Iran to stay longer around their matches.

“Look, everything is dynamic, things can be discussed on this and we certainly want to create competitive fair play on the field, that’s why every coach on the team has got their visa, has the opportunity to come in,” he said in Seattle ahead of United States’ match against Australia. “The president wants to make sure this tournament strikes a competitive balance, ‌while also making sure bad actors don’t get into the country. We’ve done that, with a month to go.” Reuters

Hello everyone! I’m still reeling from staying up to watch Scotland v Morocco, which as a new-ish father with a sleep deficit, is increasingly looking like a foolish decision.

Right, time to hand you over to Michael Butler for a bit. See you’se later.

Cold War Steve ’s latest exclusive World Cup collage is with us:

A couple of contrasting views on Scotland from BTL. Hyndsight is not impressed:

I’m sorry to say that Clarke has to take full responsibility for that first half. Tierney and Robertson weren’t sure where they were playing. 3-5-2 is best for Scotland. Tierney on the left of a 3 and Robertson further forward. Doak is our only direct threat and we need a goal against Brazil because they always score.

Gunn Hendry, Hanley, Tierney Doak, McGinn, McTominay, McLean, Robertson Shankland Adams

all depending on injuries.

Benwyvis2 begs to differ:

Gave one of the top ten teams in the world a run for their money despite losing a goal in the second minute. Could well have stolen a draw. And but for the early goal, might have stolen a one-nil win. The tactics were correct. Well done, Steve. Better luck trying to fend off Brazil.

Throwing things forward now, Saturday’s action starts with a couple of potential crackers. The Netherlands, who looked enterprising and fallible in equal measure against Japan, take on Graham Potter’s revitalised Sweden in Houston, who hammered Tunisia in their opener. Then Germany meet Côte d’Ivoire, each having won their first games.

Potter has been bigging up Alexander Isak in the buildup after his goal and two assists against Tunisia, as AFP reports. “Alex has had a season that has been interrupted,” Potter said. “Most football players would say they need a certain amount of time and games to get up to top, top level, so we’ve had to try to build Alex up. I think there’s more to come from him.”

Germany’s head coach, Julian Nagelsmann, said his team had to be prepared for Côte d’Ivoire’s athleticism. “Their speed is one of their biggest strengths and that’s what I think they do best,” he said, highlighting the French-born Ivorian winger Nicolas Pépé. “During the last game, he was everywhere,” Nagelsmann said.

On this day in World Cup Euros history : 1976 – Antonin Panenka won the final for Czechoslovakia with the most famous penalty of all time. And 50 years on, he sat down with Gavin Newsham for a good long chat:

Antonin Panenka laughs like a bear might, a low rumble, suggesting mischief among the memories. He is sat in an office at Bohemians football club in Prague, recounting the story of his impudent, revolutionary penalty that not only won the 1976 European Championship for Czechoslovakia against West Germany but soured his relationship with the goalkeeper his spot-kick humiliated, Sepp Maier. “He went 35 years without uttering a single word to me,” he smiles.

But the feud went much deeper. “I read some articles that he even had a shooting target in his garage with my face on it that he used to fire darts at. We get on well enough now though.”

Saturday marks 50 years since that moment in Belgrade’s Red Star Stadium slipped into football folklore. With the final locked at 2-2 after extra time, Czechoslovakia and the reigning world champions found themselves in uncharted territory: the first penalty shootout to decide a major international tournament.

One of the biggest gripes about the World Cup so far has been the advert hydration breaks, but Emma Hayes, from a coach’s perspective, has a more mixed view:

I’m not a fan of the hydration breaks that have been introduced at this World Cup , but they’re here for now and it is fascinating from a coaching perspective because the momentum has swung straight after several hydration breaks. That could suggest coach involvement has helped teams to tweak things.

Turning the game into four quarters – it felt inevitable it was going to head in that direction, and I hope it doesn’t carry on going in that direction. I don’t like it, but let me also be clear – when it’s hot, you really need it, for health and safety. So put yourself in Fifa’s shoes. If you only have drinks breaks in the hot cities you could be accused of giving certain teams an advantage with a chance for a tactical discussion over, say, a team playing in Seattle, where it’s cooler. Imagine turning around and saying: “We’ll only have VAR in some of the stadiums, not all.” You’re either going to have it or you’re not going to have it.

Having just watched the highlights of Paraguay v Turkey , would it be fair to describe it as a minor classic of its type? A spicy, high-tempo tear-up full of Scenes That Everyone No One Likes To See – and who doesn’t love a heroic defensive rearguard against relentless attacking (apart from fans of the losing team)? And the sending-off looked fair to be honest. That rule was brought in for a reason, whatever was said in this instance.

It’s been a star striker’s tournament so far – aside from the immobile slab of monetised wax playing at No 7 for Portugal – and that’s reflected in the big names already nestled in Golden Boot top 10. Here’s the current hit parade:

A first dive into the old mailbag produces this, from Gerry Scott, with which I heartily concur:

If best placed third placed teams are going to be able to advance from the group then goal difference should be preferred to head to head as a way of ranking teams. Türkiye should at least have the prospect of beating the US and overtaking one of Paraguay or Australia rather than already being out of the tournament.

I’m sure Gianni will be on it soon.

Football Daily has landed . Listen in as Max Rushden, Barry Glendenning, Lars Sivertsen, Jack Snape, Ewan Murray, Seb Hutchinson and Alex Abnos digest what they’ve just seen.

Manchester City close on appointing Maresca

Some non-World Cup news now , from the ever-busy Matt Hughes:

Manchester City are close to reaching a financial settlement with Chelsea that will enable them to appoint Enzo Maresca as their new manager.

Chelsea are demanding compensation from City to release Maresca as they believe they have evidence that the Spaniard breached his contract at Stamford Bridge by talking to the club’s Premier League rivals when he was still their manager last season.

It has been widely reported that Maresca informed Chelsea he had been approached by both City and Napoli last winter in the chaotic weeks that led to his surprise resignation on New Year’s Day, a claim that has never been disputed.

Chelsea are adamant they deserve to be compensated for the loss of Maresca, whose departure destabilised a season that ended with them finishing 10th in the Premier League and missing out on European qualification, but they have a good relationship with City and have confidence an amicable agreement can be reached.

What do you think of it so far? It’s basically almost impossible to have a bad time at a World Cup , for all the oppressive politics and commercialism that seek to suffocate the spectacle. And here’s our writers’ verdicts on how they’ve found the first week and a bit.

This country is big enough to host a vibrant and fulfilling World Cup; it is simultaneously capable of hosting one that passes entirely unnoticed.

‘Everybody’s crying’: Turkey come to terms with shock exit

Turkey arrived at their first World Cup in 24 years with great expectations and a host of rising stars but crashed ⁠out goalless and in tears ⁠after another shocking ​failure to convert against Paraguay.

As Reuters reports, they had an astonishing 32 attempts on goal against Paraguay, scoring none of them, having had 30 – count ’em – in their opener against Australia, which they lost 0-2.

Arda Guler, the 21-year-old star of Turkish football, apologised to the nation. “We tried very hard ‌but it didn’t work. But we should have scored some goals,” he said. “We should have won these games … Everybody’s sad, everybody’s crying.“

It was a stunning fall for a team that made a swashbuckling ​run to the Euro 2024 quarter-finals. A golden generation of players anchored by the young talents of Guler and Kenan Yildiz had appeared set to make their mark on the global stage.

Instead, Turkey’s players and staff will face a fierce reaction on the home front before their final group game against the USA, who have already qualified for the round of 32.

Paraguay coach Gustavo Alfaro said his players had shown their mettle after losing 1-4 to the USA in their first game. “It’s nothing about tactics or strategy here. This victory, this result is to the credit of the players,” he said.

Preamble

Greetings everyone and welcome to day 10 of the World Cup. Readers in Europe have plenty to digest as they wake up. Scotland slipped to a 1-0 defeat by Morocco that could have been worse, after they went behind within two minutes and were thoroughly outplayed in the opening stages before I went to bed, but could have been better, with Scotland having two big penalty shouts turned down.

Elsewhere, we have perhaps the shock of the tournament so far with many people’s dark horses, Turkey, exiting already after a second straight defeat, to Paraguay, who had Miguel Almirón sent off for remarks made to Mert Muldur with his hand concealing his mouth, the first use of that new sanction.

The host nations continue to enjoy themselves, USA’s win over Australia securing their qualification for the knockouts, while Brazil eased to a 3-0 win over Haiti.

Here’s yer reports:

Keyword – Food
Trefwoorden – Food, Cake, Baking, Dessert, Snacks, Fruit, Eggs
Title – Benjamina Ebuehi’s recipe for upside-down blueberry cake | Food | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/benjamina-ebuehi
Link – Benjamina Ebuehi’s recipe for upside-down blueberry cake | Food | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-19T05:00:23.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/food/2026/jun/19/upside-down-blueberry-cake-recipe-benjamina-ebuehi

I grew up thinking the only fruit that was allowed in an upside-down cake was tinned pineapple, so once I discovered that no such rule existed and that I had free rein, upside-down cakes became far more exciting. I’ve since used everything from plums and apples to blood oranges, but today I’ve gone for blueberries. And, thanks to how juicy they are, you don’t even need to make a caramel: just toss the berries in sugar. I always add a pinch of five-spice, too, for a warming fragrance that just works. Trust me!

Upside-down blueberry cake

Prep 5 min Cook 1 hr Serves 9

For the topping 350g blueberries 50g caster sugar ¼ tsp five-spice powder For the cake 3 large eggs 120g caster sugar 45g light brown sugar 50g olive oil 80g melted unsalted butter , plus extra for greasing 70g soured cream 165g plain flour 1½ tsp baking powder ¼ tsp fine sea salt Ice-cream , to serve

Heat the oven to 180C (160C fan)/350F/gas 4, and grease and line a 20cm x 20cm square tin with enough baking paper to overhang.

Put the blueberries in a bowl and toss with the caster sugar and five-spice, to coat. Tip them into the lined tin, making sure the berries are spread out evenly and with minimal gaps.

In a second bowl, mix the eggs and sugars until combined. Pour in the oil and melted butter, stir until smooth, then work in the soured cream. Tip in the flour, baking powder and salt, and mix gently until just combined.

Pour the batter over the blueberries, then bake for 40-45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Remove and leave to cool in its tin for a few minutes, then flip the cake upside down on to a serving plate. Serve warm with scoops of ice-cream.

Keyword – UK news
Trefwoorden – Brexit, Business, European Union, Europe, Foreign policy, Politics, UK news, World news
Title – Boats, bankers and borders: five symbols that sum up Brexit a decade on | Brexit | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jasper-jolly,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/joanna-partridge,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/heatherstewart,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/gwyntopham,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/kalyeena-makortoff
Link – Boats, bankers and borders: five symbols that sum up Brexit a decade on | Brexit | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-20T04:00:52.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jun/20/boats-bankers-and-borders-five-symbols-that-sum-up-brexit-a-decade-on

Ten years ago the UK voted 52% to 48% to leave the European Union , triggering a long and tortuous political process.

It took until 1 January 2021 for the country to sever its links to the single market and customs union, but the fractures Brexit left in Britain’s body politic, international relations and economy remain.

How to understand such a seismic split? Here we look at five of the touchstones of the 2016 referendum and what they can tell us about the reality that followed the rhetoric.

Nissan Sunderland

The fate of Nissan’s factory in north-east England was a totemic issue in the run-up to the 23 June 2016 referendum. For leavers, the site near Sunderland symbolised the British manufacturing prowess that allowed it to sell to the world. For remainers, it represented what could be lost.

The British car industry was firmly opposed to leaving the EU. Carlos Ghosn, Nissan’s chief executive at the time, argued that remaining made “the most sense for jobs, trade and costs”. The people of Sunderland thought differently, voting by 61% to 39% in favour of Brexit.

Theresa May, installed as prime minister in the chaos after the vote, could not publicly admit Brexit threatened jobs at Nissan, giving Ghosn huge leverage. In a deal whose details remained secret for more than two years, the Japanese carmaker was eventually granted £61m in state aid to persuade it to invest in new models. The money has kept flowing since: the government gave it another £101m in late 2022, and it is now in talks for more support for Nissan’s latest investment plans.

Yet even that support could not fully compensate for the years of uncertainty with the prospect of a “no deal” Brexit threatening 10% tariffs on exports overnight. The UK finally averted that fate by signing the trade and cooperation agreement with the EU in 2021, which added extra non-tariff barriers to car exports.

In 2016, the Sunderland factory made 507,000 cars, just shy of its 2012 record. Last year, it managed just 273,000 cars. It is hard to disentangle exactly how much of that decline is due to Brexit – although Nissan warned privately that being left out of the latest batch of EU rules could create another “existential threat” .

The negative impact has been partly masked by a run of other challenges: the coronavirus pandemic; the Ukraine war energy crisis; Donald Trump’s deglobalisation drive; and Nissan’s leadership chaos and 20,000 global job cuts .

However, this month the Sunderland factory secured a lifeline: a potential deal to produce cars for the Chinese manufacturer Chery . If that is confirmed it could transform the fortunes of the factory – albeit preserving jobs rather than adding thousands of new ones.

Yet Brexit’s cost to the wider UK automotive industry is beyond doubt. Brian Gu, the vice-chair of the Chinese carmaker Xpeng, is looking to make its cars in Europe , an investment that could create thousands of jobs. Asked this month whether the UK could be on the shortlist, he said: “We will probably want to focus on the largest market first. The EU is one big market.” JJ

The Thames flotilla

One of the campaign’s most striking images was the clash between a fleet of Brexit-supporting fishing crews that sailed up the Thames led by the then Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, and a rival pro-remain flotilla headed by the rock star Bob Geldof .

Many of the protesters blamed the EU for their industry’s decline, arguing Britain got a bad deal when it entered the bloc in the 1970s. More than nine in 10 fishers told pollsters they intended to vote leave. A little over a week later, they got their wish.

Despite making up only about 0.3% of the British economy, the fishing and aquaculture sector played an outsized role in the debate, with the leave campaign touting control of UK waters as a considerable Brexit prize.

Freed from Brussels’ common fisheries policy, Britain was supposed to be able to control access of foreign boats to UK waters and negotiate its own catch quotas.

But Brexit failed to turn around the fortunes of the dwindling and ageing industry. Boris Johnson’s 2020 deal left many fishers feeling betrayed . EU boats could continue fishing six miles off the coast until 2025, although Britain did regain management of fish stocks.

That anger reignited last year after Keir Starmer extended EU vessels’ access to British waters up to 2038 as part of his “reset” deal. Fishers were “enormously aggrieved” by this, says Mike Cohen, the head of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations. “Given access to British waters was a valuable thing, we thought we’d be able to get something in return.”

A notable loser from Brexit was the UK distant waters fleet. It now comprises just the Hull-based Kirkella, which catches cod and haddock in Arctic waters. The vessel’s owner sold the other boat in 2022 after the UK’s whitefish quota was slashed during negotiations with Norway.

Britain imported £4.1bn of seafood last year, double the value of its exports (£2bn), according to the public body Seafish. Britons have little appetite for the shellfish plentiful in their waters such as lobsters, crab and langoustines, with most of the catch exported to Europe, a process that has become much more complicated post-Brexit. More restrictive immigration rules made it harder to recruit skilled overseas workers for crews.

“Nothing changed with Brexit,” says Derek Meredith, the owner of three fishing boats at Brixham in Devon. Soaring fuel prices and other rising costs are making it harder to make a living, he says. “If I could sell all three of them today, they’d be gone.” JP

Blue passports

Among all the promised Brexit benefits, the blue passport was something Britons would literally be able to grasp. It was rolled out in 2020, just as Covid suspended travel, but about 70% of the 54m UK passports in circulation are now the old navy colour, with the remaining burgundy all but extinct by 2030.

Brandished with relish by victorious Brexiter ministers , it proved a pyrrhic win. About 70m of the 90m UK overseas trips a year are made to Europe, the latest data shows. Where British passport holders were once fast-tracked through the borders with EU or EEA nationals, they now share a lane with the same rights as any far-flung visitor. And that blue passport needs stamping every time.

The rocky introduction of the EU’s entry-exit system (EES) has, in places, turned the queues into a fraught six-hour bunfight, as the bloc’s border officers take down non-citizens’ biometrics. Even if most people experience little delay, the anxiety has clearly spread: Greece, announcing an exemption for UK travellers this summer, has seen bookings bounce up compared with Portugal or Spain.

Regardless of how well EES eventually functions , Britons will still face a €20 (£17) charge to visit the EU when an additional layer of border formality, Etias, is introduced in the coming year.

The passenger may perceive only pricier travel and time-consuming queues, but international transport operators have stumped up at the back end too. Tens of millions have been spent on EES machines for Eurostar, Eurotunnel and ferries. Airlines such as easyJet had to create new companies and relicense aircraft and crew. Planes and parts are now certified under separate UK and EU safety agencies, and airline chief executives privately express huge frustration at the painful cross-border friction for their supply chain.

Perhaps the most damning statistic of all is the surging demand, up 2,500% since the year before the referendum, for one passport granted to those of particular foreign ancestry. Its cover bears not the royal coat of arms but, of course, an Irish harp. It’s not blue, though. GT

Care home workers

The febrile debate in the run-up to the vote left many of the thousands of EU staff caring for elderly people and disabled people in UK residential homes anxious about their future.

“I think for six months before the referendum, we started to see this disquiet amongst our European colleagues,” recalls Nadra Ahmed, the chair of the National Care Association. “The Brexit debate was quite toxic. It kind of didn’t feel like they were going to be very welcome.”

In the years that followed, recruiting and retaining EU workers got increasingly hard. “It just became impossible: we weren’t getting the applications,” says Raj Sehgal, who operates six care homes in rural Norfolk, with about 150 staff.

Kieran McCormick, who runs a recruitment agency for nurses and care workers across Northern Ireland, says: “We have seen the volume of European healthcare workers coming to work for us fall off the face of the earth.”

When Covid hit in 2020, despite the formidable pressures on care homes, it became easier to find workers for a while, as other opportunities dried up. But, as the economy reopened, the sector lost some staff to hospitality and retail. Meanwhile, many EU workers who had gone home to ride out the pandemic did not return.

That picture was being repeated nationwide, with knock-on effects for the NHS. The number of unfilled vacancies across the care sector in England shot up, from 78,000 in 2016-17, to 132,000 five years later.

Ministers were so concerned they announced that from February 2022, social care employers would be able to recruit and sponsor workers from overseas. What followed was an explosion in overseas recruitment – annual applications for health and care visas peaked at 161,600 in the year ending November 2023. That year, one in three new starters in the sector was recruited from abroad.

As of last year , 24% of the social care workforce was from a non-EU country – with Nigerians, Indians and Zimbabweans the top three nationalities. That was up from 9% in 2017. Over the same period, the share of EU care workers declined only slightly from 7% to 6%.

By 2024, the Conservatives had become so concerned about the rapid pace of migration that they tightened the rules, including banning care workers from bringing in their families. Labour cracked down further, effectively ending the overseas recruitment of care workers altogether.

Sehgal says with local workers still hard to come by, he has been left casting around for overseas students, but “the calibre of applicants is not the same”.

“We don’t have a sufficient workforce to meet demand,” says McCormick. “It is typically minimum wage, and folks are saying, ‘I’m not doing that: I can go to Marks & Spencer or Lidl and get an extra £2 to £3 an hour for nowhere near the level of responsibility.” HS

The City skyscraper

A couple of days before the referendum, the developer of what was due to be the City’s tallest skyscraper – 22 Bishopsgate – put the project on ice. “We want to see the results of the Brexit,” said Pierre Vaquier, the then head of Axa’s property arm.

He was far from alone in fearing the damage to London’s status as Europe’s premier financial hub. Executives warned after the vote that bankers, wealth managers and underwriters would flock to Frankfurt, Paris, Luxembourg, Milan and Dublin instead.

Bosses, fearful of falling foul of EU rules, laid plans to transfer assets and staff. Estimates swung widely as banks like HSBC geared up to move up to 1,000 staff to Paris, while JP Morgan said 4,000 of its 16,000 UK jobs could be exported.

Up to 75,000 City jobs and as much as £10bn in tax revenue could be lost, according to calculations from the consultants Oliver Wyman. Xavier Rolet, the then boss of the London Stock Exchange, went further, saying that 232,000 of the UK’s 1.1m financial sector jobs could be at risk.

“Nobody really knew how this was going to play out,” recalls Miles Celic, the chief executive of lobby group TheCityUK. But when his team met the then Brexit minister, David Davis, in October 2016, in hopes of getting the City included in UK Brexit negotiations plans, Celic was rebuffed.

“[Davis] listened very politely and at the end of it, he said: ‘I’m not worried about your industry, your industry is big enough and smart enough to look after itself.’ And that pretty much was what we subsequently saw … The industry has basically been fine. It has adapted.”

Firms faced extra costs and were forced to duplicate jobs and paperwork, while regulators scrambled to make sure banking and payments would not be disrupted when article 50 was triggered in January 2020.

But the City, arguably, has continued to boom. Ultimately only 7,000 jobs were lost to continental Europe, according to EY’s last Brexit tracker report in 2022. About 1.1 million people are still employed across the City today, where bosses have toasted regulators for tearing up the EU rulebook, scrapping banker bonus caps and loosening listing rules that could help revive the UK stock market.

As for 22 Bishopsgate, it only took four months for the developers to decide Brexit was not such a threat after all and restart the project . It was completed in 2020. KM

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – World Cup 2026, England, Football, World Cup, Sport, Football ticket prices
Title – ‘I paid $800 for my ticket but it was worth it’: England fans enjoying early World Cup vibe | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/ed-aarons
Link – ‘I paid $800 for my ticket but it was worth it’: England fans enjoying early World Cup vibe | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-19T12:42:06.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jun/19/i-paid-800-for-my-ticket-but-it-was-worth-it-england-fans-enjoying-early-world-cup-vibe

T hey came, they saw and they went to the rodeo. For those England fans who made it to Dallas, watching Thomas Tuchel’s side see off Croatia in their opening match of the 2026 World Cup was the experience of a lifetime.

“I’ve never been to a World Cup game before so I thought it was something I couldn’t miss out on,” says Oli Lee, a music producer from Kent who now lives in Los Angeles and is otherwise known as one half of the Snakehips duo who had a UK top-five hit in 2015. “I paid $800 (£604) for my ticket but it was all worth it. We had a bit of a session in Dallas – I ended up jumping in a pool with my phone in my pocket but it’s still working somehow!”

About 4,000 England supporters bought tickets for the game at the futuristic Arlington Stadium – home of the Dallas Cowboys – but it is estimated that as many as 15,000 were in Texas for the buildup. A video of some launching into a chorus of “Sweet Caroline” during a break at the Fort Worth Rodeo on Tuesday went viral on social media, with many others embracing the cowboy culture by purchasing hats to shield them from the unforgiving Texan sun.

One pub in downtown Dallas, called the Londoner, said they ran out of beer after fans spent almost $30,000 in the space of three hours, with some reports in UK media claiming they ended up being thrown out by police. That version of events was disputed by the police themselves, who told local media that no one was forcibly removed.

There were no major incidents before or after the game either. Fifa has played down reports some ticketless fans were able to sneak past security to gain access to the stadium despite stringent measures in place. Some supporters are thought to have paid in excess of $1,000 for a ticket and a spokesperson for the England fans group Free Lions said that some had come to the United States on the off-chance they could pick up a late deal.

“I think a lot of fans were waiting for prices to come down but they just haven’t,” he said. “There’s still a lot of demand there and I think a few fans have travelled without tickets.”

Lee Williams, from south London, has been planning his trip for months and took in the co-hosts’ opening match in Los Angeles before spending a few days by the beach in Mexico. He arrived in Dallas on Tuesday and is hoping to be back for the semi-finals if England make it that far.

“It’s been absolutely brilliant,” he says. “The cost is astronomical – I’ve been scared to look at my bank balance in the mornings. We bought a round of six beers last night and it cost north of $100. But the vibe has been great and the Americans have really bought into the whole thing. The atmosphere was unbelievable in Los Angeles. I’m going home to work to pay off what I’ve spent out here.”

Williams, who works in finance and also coaches Millwall Lionesses Under-18s, was encouraged by the way Thomas Tuchel’s half-time speech inspired England to seize the initiative after conceding a second equaliser just before half-time against Croatia. “I loved Gareth Southgate but he was slightly more conservative than I thought we should have been given the talent we have at our disposal. I like the way that we really took the game to Croatia in the second half and decided to take risks.”

He would, though, like to see Marc Guéhi brought in to shore up a defence that looked very shaky during the first half. “A new centre-back pairing is going to take a long time to bed in – if you are going to go far in any competition then your goalkeeper and centre-backs have to be stable and settled. Hopefully it clicks,” he adds.

Representatives of England fan groups, including Free Lions, visited all three group stage venues in March to have an idea what to expect. Most have been encouraged to book the train – costing a cool $80 – to get to the next game against Ghana at the Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, 30 miles from downtown Boston. Oli Lee will be watching back home in LA, albeit very nervously.

“It’s so stressful – I never feel comfortable,” he says. “When Harry Kane missed that first penalty I thought it was a terrible omen. But, as the game progressed, we got stronger. Hopefully we can go all the way this time.”

Keyword – Culture
Trefwoorden – Culture, Television, Film, Books, Music
Title – From Funboys to Olivia Rodrigo: the week in rave reviews | Culture | The Guardian
Author – Guardian Staff
Link – From Funboys to Olivia Rodrigo: the week in rave reviews | Culture | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-20T05:01:52.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/jun/20/from-funboys-to-olivia-rodrigo-the-week-in-rave-reviews

TV

If you only watch one, make it …

Funboys

BBC iPlayer; available now

Summed up in a sentence This brilliantly daft tale of twentysomething friends from a fictional Northern Irish town returns – with a major cameo from Steve Coogan.

What our reviewer said “This level of silliness belies some serious comic architecture. These boys may be idiots, but the men behind them are nothing of the sort.” Rachel Aroesti

Read the full review

Further reading Alan Partridge is more popular than me – that’s a given

Pick of the rest

Queen James

BBC iPlayer; available now

Summed up in a sentence A fabulously entertaining look at the male lovers of Britain’s first king from historian Gareth Russell.

What our reviewer said “Russell definitely has the gift.” Jack Seale

Read the full review

Should I Marry a Murderer?

Netflix; available now

Summed up in a sentence The astonishing real-life tale of a woman who helped police to investigate her killer fiance – only for them to let her down badly.

What our reviewer said “We should rename the true crime genre: ‘The catalogue of ways misogynists and the patriarchy have set up this world to hurt, humiliate and destroy us.’” Lucy Mangan

Read the full review

OnlyFans: Inside the Machine

BBC iPlayer; available now

Summed up in a sentence A preposterously bleak film about the hordes of men who have turned the sex platform into a sleazy nightmare – with big tech turning a blind eye.

What our reviewer said “What the film does brilliantly is position all of this in the crosshairs of the wider social moment.” Stuart Heritage

Read the full review

Further reading The malignant rise of OnlyFans managers

Film

If you only watch one, make it …

Effi o Blaenau

In cinemas now

Summed up in a sentence Blistering Welsh-language film with Leisa Gwenllian as a force of nature in this big screen version of Gary Owen’s one-woman play Iphigenia in Splott.

What our reviewer said “It is a tremendous performance from Gwenllian as Effi, pursuing what appears to be the dissolute life of irresponsible adulthood and yet, when finally and inevitably coming into contact with authority figures from whom she needs help, Effi regresses to a desperately childlike state.” Peter Bradshaw

Read the full review

Further reading Sex, austerity and mugs of vodka: how the Greek myth Iphigenia became a Welsh-language film sensation

Pick of the rest

Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day

In cinemas now

Summed up in a sentence Dreamy adaptation of Woolf’s novel about a headstrong young Edwardian woman takes flight under Tina Gharavi’s direction, with Timothy Spall and Jennifer Saunders among the ensemble cast.

What our reviewer said “What emerges is a wayward, unworldly fantasia, a four-leaf clover of a film – or even five-leaf; rather beautifully designed and photographed, flavoured with a wistful, unexpectedly Germanic kind of romanticism.” Peter Bradshaw

Read the full review

Further reading ‘More relevant now than ever’: how Virginia Woolf recaptured the cultural zeitgeist

Cactus Pears

In cinemas now

Summed up in a sentence Subtle story of forbidden love between two young men, Anand and Balya, and their humble dreams of happiness in India, in an assured directorial debut from Rohan Kanawade.

What our reviewer said “The cactus pears of the title are a shy gift to Anand from Balya; he has symbolically removed their prickles in advance, a touching act which only points up how the prickles are not to be removed so easily in any other aspect of their lives.” Peter Bradshaw

Read the full review

Killing Anna

In cinemas now

Summed up in a sentence Haunting documentary tells how Syrian academic Annsar Shahoud created an online persona to flush out the suspected perpetrator of Syria’s Tadamon massacre.

What our reviewer said “It’s not clear if she and her collaborator, genocide studies professor Uğur Ümit Üngör, are part of the European vigilante networks that inspired last year’s fictional feature Ghost Trail. But the courageous, haunted and psychologically smudgy nature of this work is plain to see here.” Phil Hoad

Read the full review

Further reading Massacre in Tadamon: how two academics hunted down a Syrian war criminal

Now streaming …

Hokum

Prime Video; available now

Summed up in a sentence Adam Scott plays a writer retreating to the remote Irish hotel in which his parents spent their honeymoon in this eccentric and blackly comic shocker.

What our reviewer said “It is an amusing and gruesome premise, which writer-director Damian McCarthy stretches out into a convoluted, bizarre extended narrative involving two separate hospital stays.” Peter Bradshaw

Read the full review

Further reading Adam Scott: ‘There’s nothing wrong with being told that you resemble Tom Cruise’

Books

If you only read one, make it …

Natural Disaster by Lisa Owens

Reviewed by Diana Evans

Summed up in a sentence A woman tries to make her last day of maternity leave perfect in this comic rollercoaster about the trials of motherhood.

What our reviewer said “Amid the humour and viscera of marital squabbles, accidental texts, a mysterious tampon and breastfeeding on the toilet, serious issues are addressed about the modern woman’s practical and emotional responses to ‘having it all’, and whether any real contentment might be found down that path.”

Read the full review

Pick of the rest

Togetherness by Rowan Hooper

Reviewed by Philip Ball

Summed up in a sentence A brilliant study of cooperation in nature.

What our reviewer said “Togetherness is not an attempt to make evolution cuddlier and more palatable; rather, it is a corrective deeply informed by what we have learned since Darwin about how nature works.”

Read the full review

Morbid by Saul Justin Newman

Reviewed by Rachel Clarke

Summed up in a sentence An eye-popping debunking of longevity pseudoscience.

What our reviewer said “In 2010 in Tokyo, 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.”

Read the full review

Further reading The troubling rise of longevity fixation syndrome

A Little Bit Bad by Cassandra Neyenesch

Reviewed by Daisy Hildyard

Summed up in a sentence A tragicomic tale of an American woman’s illicit romance that is also a gripping murder mystery.

What our reviewer said “I absolutely enjoyed every single page. The plot is constructed for compulsive reading: the two storylines are told in interspersed chapters, and as the affair begins to cool, the murder mystery gets going. The central couple are sparkling and adorable.”

Read the full review

Disability by David Turner

Reviewed by Lucy Webster

Summed up in a sentence A revelatory new history of the struggle for disabled rights.

What our reviewer said “One sign of the devaluing of disability activism and history is the fact that none of the personalities in the book are household names. Disabled suffragette May Billinghurst surely deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the Pankhursts.”

Read the full review

You may have missed …

The Matchbox Girl by Alice Jolly

Reviewed by Natasha Walter

Summed up in a sentence The winner of this year’s Walter Scott prize explores fascism and complicity through the eyes of a mute autistic girl being treated by Dr Hans Asperger at the Vienna Children’s Hospital during the second world war.

What our reviewer said “This is a book that walks a tightrope between sentimentality and honesty, between realism and imagination, and creates something spirited and memorable as it does so.” Natasha Walter

Read the full review

Albums

If you only listen to one, make it …

Olivia Rodrigo: You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love

Out now

Summed up in a sentence The pop star returns with a witty, intelligent and occasionally painful album that pivots away from the bratty pop-punk of her previous records to take on 80s new wave. What our reviewer said “The real identity of the subject of the album might be the least interesting thing about it. Parsing the songs for clues seems besides the point: it’s a spectacularly accomplished pop album whoever it is about.” Alexis Petridis

Read the full review

Further reading If CMAT is an affront to the male gaze and Olivia Rodrigo is indulging it, how exactly should women dress?

Pick of the rest

Brahms: Violin Sonatas

Out now

Summed up in a sentence Violinist James Ehnes and pianist Andrew Armstrong bring assurance and grace to these three violin sonatas written by Brahms in his creative prime. What our reviewer said “The longevity of Ehnes and Armstrong’s partnership pays dividends here in performances that exude an effortless rightness.” Clive Paget

Read the full review

Ibeyi: Offering

Out now

Summed up in a sentence The fourth album from sisters and musical duo Ibeyi offers a heady brew of songs with strong melodies, celestial R&B and soaring vocals that walk the line between otherworldly mysticism and grinding edge. What our reviewer said “Fusing the influences of their Cuban percussionist father and Parisian upbringing, the twins sing in multiple languages, summoning ancient lore over intricate beats, transcendent harmonies and brooding distortion.” Rachel Aroesti

Read the full review

Joe Lovano: Paramount Quartet

Out now

Summed up in a sentence Lovano and his quartet’s latest album masterfully glows with the saxophone’s pliable eloquence, joined by free-spirited guitar, bass and drums. What our reviewer said “A late-career triumph from a tireless maestro of the saxophone.” John Fordham

Read the full review

Now touring …

Lily Allen: West End Girl

Tour continues in the UK and Ireland to 8 August

Summed up in a sentence Allen’s one-woman performance of her zeitgeist-dominating album is full of theatrical staging, humour and high camp. What our reviewer said “It’s certainly an unusual arena show, but as a discourse on power in relationships and perhaps even the emptiness of some celebrity, it’s compelling stuff.” Dave Simpson

Read the full review

Further reading Dead-end boys and West End girls: Lily Allen’s greatest songs – ranked!

Keyword – Life and style
Trefwoorden – Dating, Relationships, Life and style
Title – Blind date: ‘Her one dating request was “no one in finance”. I work in finance’ | Dating | The Guardian
Author – Guardian Staff
Link – Blind date: ‘Her one dating request was “no one in finance”. I work in finance’ | Dating | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-13T05:00:07.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jun/13/blind-date-yusuf-hannah

Yusuf on Hannah

What were you hoping for? Someone interesting, good chat is more important than anything. And a fun story. I like a random side quest.

First impressions? Great smile, really lovely northern accent – she seemed confident and excited.

What did you talk about? Her Hackney half marathon. And her disdain for people in finance. “Not in finance” was her one date request (I work in finance).

Most awkward moment? Hannah said she thought I could be dyslexic five minutes in.

Good table manners? Yep, no notes.

Best thing about Hannah? Her accent, or her brains – she’s studying for a PhD.

Would you introduce Hannah to your friends? My friends get on with most people, and the same is probably true for Hannah.

Describe Hannah in three words Charismatic, clever and confident.

What do you think Hannah made of you? Posh – she said. But hopefully good enough company for a Wednesday night.

Did you go on somewhere? We were in the restaurant for nearly four hours! Late enough for a school night.

And … did you kiss? Negative.

If you could change one thing about the evening, what would it be? Maybe more of a romantic spark.

Marks out of 10? A solid 7 – lovely evening.

Would you meet again? Absolutely, although probably as friends. Sounds like we’d do a cracking yoga class or something.

Hannah on Yusuf

What were you hoping for? Low expectations, to be honest – my sister made me apply. But hopefully to go for a nice meal, meet someone random, and do something different on a Wednesday evening.

First impressions? Really nice and friendly.

What did you talk about? Jobs. Family. Writing these answers. Solo travel. Bank holiday plans.

Most awkward moment? Maybe when he told me he worked in finance. I said I’d explicitly asked for someone who didn’t work in finance.

Good table manners? Yes, although I was so focused on my own I didn’t pay much attention to his.

Best thing about Yusuf? He was easy to chat to, asked questions and I felt comfortable straight away.

Would you introduce Yusuf to your friends? Not sure how much they would have in common.

Describe Yusuf in three words Interesting, friendly and chatty.

What do you think Yusuf made of you? Probably that I talked a lot and was weird for saying I wasn’t a foodie.

Did you go on somewhere? No, it was way past my bedtime.

And … did you kiss? No.

If you could change one thing about the evening, what would it be? I can’t think of anything. I had a really nice time, but it was more as friends.

Marks out of 10? 8.

Would you meet again? Potentially, as friends.

Yusuf and Hannah ate at the Bull & Last , London NW5 . Fancy a blind date? Email blind.date@theguardian.com

Keyword – Television & radio
Trefwoorden – Sandra Oh, Theatre, National Theatre, Killing Eve, Television & radio, Film, Stage, Culture
Title – ‘How do I deal with my rage? I put it in everything I do’: Killing Eve’s Sandra Oh on fury, friendship and hitting her prime in midlife | Sandra Oh | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/emmabrockes
Link – ‘How do I deal with my rage? I put it in everything I do’: Killing Eve’s Sandra Oh on fury, friendship and hitting her prime in midlife | Sandra Oh | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-20T11:00:05.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/jun/20/sandra-oh-interview-killing-eve-theatre

S andra Oh bursts into a back room at the National Theatre in London with wayward post-rehearsal energy. The 54-year-old, long one of the most stylish actors in Hollywood, is in brown linen, a herringbone jacket and hat and sunglasses, which she removes before collapsing into a chair and throwing her head forward, arms outstretched, hair splayed across the table. “It’s just the fucking process of it,” she groans. “We just finished our first stagger-through, which if anyone is an actor – it’s early days, so the fact we made it through was great. It’s brutal. We started in the Lyttelton, and it’s interesting to be in that space and to hear verse. You can really hear it. It’s not just about volume or speed. It’s not even solely about intention. You learn so much just being in that space, but the big thing is – sorry.” She catches herself. “I’m just marching on.” And she bellows with laughter.

Oh has been in London for just over a month rehearsing her role as Alice in a modern reimagining of Molière’s Le Misanthrope. It’s a happy return; eight years ago, she was in the capital to film the first of four series of the hit show Killing Eve , which became a phenomenon and changed her life as an actor for ever. Oh played Eve Polastri, the shambolic but brilliant British intelligence agent, who, along with Jodi Comer’s Villanelle, made for one of the best spy capers of recent years. Now, she is playing a novelist – gender-flipped from the 17th-century original, in an adaptation by Martin Crimp – who is fed up with the flattery and dishonesty of the people around her. It’s a deliberate pivot to theatre; last summer, she appeared as Olivia in a starry production of Twelfth Night at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, New York. In the autumn, she made her debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in a production of Donizetti’s comic opera La Fille du Régiment. Unlike the sometimes fraught me-me-meism of screen work, says Oh, working in theatre in general and at the National in particular “is a collaborative thing” – not least, she adds drily, because no one does it for the money. “Everyone has to bring their best and most open selves. And everyone else loves watching everyone succeed.”

It’s a dynamic that suits Oh in her current phase. In the last few years, she has become that rare figure in Hollywood, a famous woman who has only grown more powerful with age, a champion of younger performers and something of a truth-teller in an industry full of people encouraged by flattery to talk absolute rubbish. She is funny, shrewd, insightful and, above all, generous in her insights. A few years ago, in the New Yorker , she spoke about surviving years of racism as a woman of Asian origin trying to get ahead as an actor. (On white male directors not casting her, she said: “It’s like being able to get over a bad boyfriend. They’re not going to call. Just move on and hang out with the young women who want you to be their mom.”) Later, she described to the New York Times a sense of being “deep into this very rich middle part of [my] life” in which “only now do [I] have enough strength and hopefully curiosity to go into the places of asking the question: why did I do that? Who has been steering the ship? Because now, in this back half of my life, I’m the captain of the ship.”

In the diaries Oh has been keeping since she was a child – extracts of which have appeared in papers and podcasts – one gets the sense of an introspective, literary person, with a deep connection to where she came from – the suburb of Ottawa, Canada, where Oh still has friends from grade school. If we loved her 20 years ago as Dr Cristina Yang in Grey’s Anatomy – a blunt, brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon – these days Oh appears as a sage-like person very much in her prime, which, she tells me, she finds, “incredibly liberating and also, like, enraging”.

We’ll get to that. A fortnight before I meet Oh at the theatre, I see her in a studio on the eve of the first week of rehearsals. As an actor gearing up to appear at the National for the first time, Oh had, a few weeks earlier, the amazing good fortune to run into Fiona Shaw at a grocery store in her LA neighbourhood, where her Killing Eve co-star happened to be living while filming. “She’s one of the greatest stage actors of her generation and knows the National,” says Oh. In the supermarket aisle and later, over breakfast at Oh’s house, Shaw gave her a bunch of hacks about the stage at the Lyttelton. “She said, ‘If you’re going to be on this stage, look out for [the sight lines] in this area,’ or, ‘This is the strongest area on stage, do this technicality this way.’ She was giving me the gold. I could not believe it.”

In the studio that first day we meet, Oh is in a cropped leather jacket and soft leather shoes that are “good and supportive. I need structure.” Don’t we all, I say, and Oh cackles. In fact, while it’s the structural and technical aspects of theatre work that she enjoys, it’s TV that made Oh. Her jump to leading roles came relatively late. It’s strange, these days, to stumble across Oh in old movies in parts that seem wildly too small for her – the other day, while watching the 2001 film The Princess Diaries with my kids, I was taken aback to see Oh as the cartoonish Vice Principal Gupta. Other credits from that period include “fourth fired employee” from something called Full Frontal and “marketing person” from the movie For Your Consideration.

Despite enjoying great, early success in TV in Canada and becoming a prominent ensemble player for nine years in Grey’s Anatomy (2005-14), it wasn’t until Killing Eve that she really ascended to leading role status. Famously, when her agent called her with the script for the show, Oh assumed she was to read for a minor character. “‘So Nancy, I don’t understand, what’s the part?’” Oh recounted saying to her agent at the time. “And Nancy goes: ‘Sweetheart, it’s Eve, it’s Eve.’”

Oh as Eve was a revelation; by turns sardonic, baffled, excavating every nuance of what it is to be a frustrated, overlooked cog in the machine, and all the while harbouring star status that let out in her electric chemistry with Comer.

Eight years and another big show – Netflix’s excellent comedy drama, The Chair – later and Oh’s attitude to all this history is by turns philosophical, resigned and, increasingly, weary of being asked to relive it. She’s that rare actor willing to say crunchy political things such as “Patriarchy runs within all of us” or “If you’re going to put all your stock and wait for the white dude to give you the opportunity … that’s destructive.” Equally, however, raking over and over the bad times gets old. When I ask what makes her angry these days, she says: “Isn’t that just the question and the challenge of life? How do you deal with life not being fair, or/and turning out the way you want? You’ve gotta figure it out. You have to find different avenues to work out what’s going on subconsciously and consciously. Typically women have – I shouldn’t say ‘typically women’.” She thinks for a moment. “No, I will say that. I think this is the one thing that particularly straight men have a much more difficult time with, which is to find friendships where there are deep conversations, and where they can talk things out. I have that relationship with friends, both men and women, because I’m lucky, but also when you’re an artist you’re trying to figure that out all the time in your work.”

Figure out what, exactly?

“Figure out what you’re saying, which is: how do I deal with my rage? Or: how do I deal with what’s going on in the world? You can work that out physically, or talking-wise, or you can work that out in art. I will say I’ve been putting that in every single project.”

The talking part is vital to Oh, a “big believer in therapy” who maintains strong connections with her oldest friends. For two years in the early 2000s she was married to Alexander Payne, the director, with whom she worked on the 2004 movie Sideways, and while she won’t talk about her personal life, she will talk about her other relationships. Oh grew up as one of three children of parents – mother a biochemist, father who worked in business – who moved to Canada from South Korea in the 1960s, and thinks her middle child status has something to do with her self-appointed role as a “bringer-inner. I’m a keeper of people. I’m not an outsider that way. I like the harmony and community.”

Just that morning, she says, she was on a video call with her oldest friend in Canada, a woman she has known since she was six and with whom she has been through many phases of friendship. “You have to grow out of your teenagehood, and then you hit another thing when you’re in your 30s.” This was the period during which she and her friend sought help from a therapist together because, “we were growing into different people and were trying to figure out how to still stay close”. And, “I gotta tell you,” she says, “it was really hard.” Was there a chance it might not have worked out between them? “No. I feel like the people who are closest to me have to be able to confront things.”

She bursts out laughing at my expression. “Look how nervous you got.”

I did!

“You thought about who you’re anxious about and then you thought, could I [confront them]? That would be really bad. But then …” She’s not far off.

It’s useful to remember that Oh isn’t American, and while Canadians can be as avoidant as the British when it comes to emotional honesty, she reminds me that “Korean people are pretty confrontational. There’s a different thing within the [Korean] family structure – although I do think I’m different, even within my family.” It took her time to learn how to confront people without flying off the handle. “I had to go through so much therapy not to be so reactive.”

Her broad rule of thumb in relationships is, “openness, confidence, willingness. Being non-judgmental. I just think the freer you are, the freer you let everyone else be.” She says: “I have a lot of longstanding friendships. I cherish them and I’m good at maintaining them. I’m the connector of the various groups. I’ll start the WhatsApp, or I’ll start the Zoom during Covid. I’m the one, often times, saying: ‘OK, let’s all go somewhere!’ You need to put the work in, you can’t just sail by.” These things take work, of course. There is the question of resentment. “Yes. You think it only happens in love relationships, but that’s not true.”

W hen Oh was fresh out of theatre school, someone said something to her that she never forgot. Acting hadn’t been her first goal, or rather, she’d disguised to her family how intent she was on pursuing it. “I’m the only person in my family who doesn’t have a master’s,” she has said. She won a place to study journalism at university, which she promised her parents she’d return to if nothing came of the acting gig. Instead, after graduating from the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal, Oh was immediately cast in the 1994 Canadian premiere of David Mamet’s Oleanna. “And a good friend said to me: ‘Oh my God, congratulations, I’m so happy for you. I’m so jealous, and I’m so happy.’ And I saw that she meant both things and that she held both things, and that I could hold both things as well.”

The crucial lesson Oh took from this exchange is that jealousy can be neutralised as long as you own up to it, and this has been key to her experience of hanging on to old friends. “I kept all my friends from early childhood and my theatre school mates, and my working relationship with people in Canada. I’m hopefully going to shoot something in Toronto and went out to dinner with the producer and I was ‘cheersing’ him, like, you know darling, this is our 30-year relationship. That has great meaning for me.”

She thinks and adds: “Life can be destabilising, so you have to figure out: what are your stabilisers?”

During those early years of her career in Canada, Oh enjoyed huge amounts of success. After the Mamet play, she was cast as the lead in a critically acclaimed TV movie called The Diary of Evelyn Lau, which told the story of a teenage runaway, followed by the title role in a CBC biopic of Adrienne Clarkson, a Chinese Canadian who became an acclaimed journalist and the governor general of Canada. For her lead in a film called Double Happiness, Oh won a best actress award at the Genies, the Canadian equivalent of the Baftas. And so she did what successful Canadian actors do: packed up and headed for Hollywood.

The crash was brutal and instantaneous. Soon after arriving in LA, an agent told her there were no roles for Asian actresses for at least another year and she’d be better off returning to Canada to “get famous” (she was already famous in Canada). Oh had to take encouragement where she could find it, as she had been doing since she was 10 years old and noticed every person of colour on screen, or, later, took heart from the example set by Yoko Ono. She had two personal interactions “in very key moments” during those years that helped her stay the course when it seemed as if the breakthrough would never come. In 1997, Oh won a CableAce award for best actress in a comedy, for her role in an HBO show called Arliss. At the ceremony, she ran into Alfre Woodard, the Oscar-nominated actor currently knocking it out of the park alongside Alfred Molina in the Netflix sci-fi hit The Boroughs. “She didn’t know who I was,” says Oh, “but she took me aside and said something very wonderfully encouraging, which was just, basically, keep going, baby. And that meant a lot to me; I knew who Alfre Woodard was and respected her as an artist, and it was someone just saying, ‘Keep on going.’”

The second encourager was Jamie Foxx, whom she met at another awards do – Oh laughs, “that’s when you meet these people. And he also basically said keep going.” It doesn’t take much. “No. Sometimes when young people will come to you, they are open and vulnerable and it’s a certain responsibility as adults to guide them. It can be just a kind word or you can actually invest in a moment and really talk to the young person.”

Oh does this admirably and with a certain amount of amused tough love. To those in her industry who complain endlessly about the cost of fame, she says mildly, “Nothing is free.” If it all gets too much – the attention, the speculation – she points out, “You can always go away.” (They never do.) Oh says she has never been particularly vulnerable when it comes to being addicted to fame, or to anything else for that matter. “I don’t think that I was ever in danger. Meaning, like, even my lowest times, they were normal lows, like being heartbroken or depressed because you don’t know what to do – normal things. Maybe I’m not willing to say what my addictions are, but they’re not the classic ones. I’ve got to this point where – it’s so boring; it’s so boring,” she says with comic despair, “‘I have to drink less, because of my stomach.’ It’s bullshit. It’s such a bore.”

She meditates. (“Everything you need to figure out in life is found sitting on that cushion.”) And she moves around. Before any new role, Oh leans into the physicality of the piece – she’s a big fan of body work. “But not exercise; not sports. I like dancing; I like moving my body. I think there are answers in the body. I think there are things that are trapped in the body.” She preps for roles on the move and will often walk a circuit to help memorise a script. “I always look for a park and a tree to learn my lines. It works better for me. When I was doing Killing Eve, I was in this garden and there was a specific tree.” Round and round she went, until she had the part down.

She says good writing is the key to good acting, and I ask if Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s scripts for that first series of Killing Eve made her job easier. “Yes, and that has to do – specifically with television and film – that has to do with tone. Something like a play you have a lot more room to interpret it. Something like television, you need the tone to be right there on the page. To write tone, you have to be coming from a very specific point of view.”

While the new version of Le Misanthrope has been put into modern language, the dialogue is still in verse and Oh finds it thrilling – “the challenge of technical language is juicy for me, because you have to work a different muscle. It’s a different way of putting in the emotional discovery. It’s an old play!”

It is; Le Misanthrope opened in 1666 at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris, though Oh finds it has relevance for our times. “Molière set it in his theatre milieu where there are artists and writers and gossip. It’s a lot about hypocrisy and Alice’s own search for honesty and truth, which has meaning in 2026 – the difficulty in finding truth. I hope it has a wider meaning about what it is to want to tell the truth, want to be honest, and how difficult it is.” In the play, Alice gets into trouble for speaking her mind, and, says Oh, “I need to figure out what that means – not only for the character. What does it mean to speak your mind at this time of your life? What is it about a woman who speaks her mind and then gets shot down because of it?”

A few months ago, Oh voiced her support for Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist and newly elected mayor of New York, and was thrilled when he showed up at a performance of Twelfth Night in Central Park. “What was amazing, as a non-New Yorker, was to witness how he affected our entire cast, which was very diverse; half over 50, half very young. And the way the cast lit up meeting Mamdani, it was like, oh, this is who he represents and this is how much hope he elicits in New Yorkers.”

Oh is active in promoting the authentic representation of Asian cultures on screen. In 2021, she gave a passionate speech at a Stop Asian Hate rally in Pittsburgh, in which she repeated what has come to be a famous mantra: “I am proud to be Asian. I belong here.” In 2022, she wrote about her career for an online literary magazine, in which she said, “For the first time, I’m finally getting film roles where my character’s name is Korean.”

It has taken such a long time to get here, both in terms of the industry she works in and what she has had to do to process and absorb the years of being sidelined. She’s not there yet, she says. And yet. “All the work that you’re doing, on your own time, with your own heart, in the middle of the fucking night. That doubt? And the raw depression? And the questioning, and the anger? It’s alchemising into something.” When she talks about owning all the different parts of herself – including the internalised racism and misogyny – the conclusion she often comes to is, “There is no self. Meaning you don’t have to be tied to self. But that’s not easy.”

In the meantime, Oh is here to have fun. Backstage at the National, she’s doing the thing she does best, which is creating community. On the table between us is a water bottle decorated with stickers she had made during the run of Twelfth Night of all her co-stars, including Peter Dinklage and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, pulling a face. “Oh, that’s Jesse, tasting hot sauce,” she says, laughing. Later, Oh asks a production assistant if he can get her candid photos of her present co-stars to be made into stickers for the same purpose – an ad-hoc team building thing that amuses her.

And when she leaves the theatre? “I shit you not, I have to sleep,” she says, eyes wide with amazement; Oh, who is by nature wildly energetic, also knows her limitations. “With this play, I need to sleep 10 hours. I get into bed at 8.30pm, and I get up at 7am.” It’s as single focus as it gets, but after all those years of feeling herself to be in the wrong place, denied the opportunities, that’s a luxury she’s here for. “I’m allowed to concentrate on that one thing. I’m doing this for a purpose. It’s a privilege to be able to focus on that. Then hopefully you deliver.”

The Misanthrope is at the Lyttelton at the National Theatre, London, until 1 August.

Shoot credits: Hair: Carlos Ferraz. Makeup: Sara Hill. Stylist’s assistant: Charlotte Gornall. Main image and final shot: pink shirt and white trousers, both Carven ; bracelet, resin ring and resin pendant necklace, all Dinosaur Designs ; earrings and gold ear cuff, both Otiumberg . Fabric and sofa, House of Hackney. Sofa shot: midi dress and embellished shoes, both Simone Rocha . White and yellow dress shot: sequin dress, Huishan Zhang ; earrings, Completedworks . Pink dress shot: organza dress, Cecilie Bahnsen; earrings, Completedworks .

Keyword – Law
Trefwoorden – International criminal court, Law, UK news, World news
Title – ICC prosecutor suspended by UK barristers’ watchdog amid sexual misconduct inquiry | International criminal court | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/ameliahill,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/harry-davies
Link – ICC prosecutor suspended by UK barristers’ watchdog amid sexual misconduct inquiry | International criminal court | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-19T15:04:48.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/law/2026/jun/19/international-criminal-court-prosecutor-suspended-bar-standards-board

Karim Khan, the international criminal court prosecutor, has been suspended from practising as a barrister in England and Wales by the UK’s Bar Standards Board (BSB).

It comes less than two weeks after Khan was suspended as ICC chief prosecutor as part of a disciplinary process triggered by sexual abuse allegations against him. Khan has repeatedly denied the claims.

The BSB imposed an interim suspension with immediate effect on Friday. Under its procedures, the decision must be reviewed by a panel within four weeks.

The suspension means Khan is no longer authorised to practise in the jurisdiction where he qualified as a lawyer and established his legal career, before moving into international criminal law.

The allegations against Khan emerged in 2024. They were made by a woman who worked for him at the court’s headquarters in The Hague.

According to sources familiar with the situation, the BSB’s decision to suspend Khan relates to her claims, which include allegations that he engaged in coercive and nonconsensual sexual behaviour over an extended period.

Earlier this month, an executive committee of the ICC’s governing body voted by qualified majority to determine that Khan had committed serious misconduct in connection to the allegations.

Representing Khan, the leading London libel law firm Carter-Ruck said: “As he has consistently made clear, Mr Khan unequivocally denies all allegations of impropriety. He maintains that he has acted at all times fully in accordance with his professional obligations.

Carter-Ruck said the interim action by the BSB was based on a decision by the Bureau of the Assembly of States Parties of the ICC. It said the bureau was a “political body” that had “purported to substitute its own assessment” of the allegations over an advisory panel of judges who concluded that a UN report into the claims “did not establish misconduct”.

“Mr Khan’s legal team is taking all necessary steps to challenge the decision of the bureau, protect his rights, and ensure that due process is upheld,” the firm added.

Elected prosecutor in 2021, Khan has led some of the court’s most closely watched investigations. During his tenure the ICC issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president , Vladimir Putin, over the war in Ukraine. Khan also sought arrest warrants for senior Israeli and Hamas figures in connection with the war in Gaza.

The allegations have hung over the court for almost two years. Questions about how the complaint should be handled and whether Khan should remain in office while investigations continued have caused tensions among its member states.

Although the BSB’s decision is temporary pending review, it represents a significant development in the case. Khan built his reputation at the English bar before moving into international criminal law, first as a defence advocate and later as a prosecutor on the international stage.

The case has presented the ICC with a situation it has not faced before: since the court was established in 2002, its member states have never been asked to decide whether a sitting chief prosecutor should remain in office.

The issue has now been referred to the ICC’s 125 member states. Representatives are due to meet on 24 July to decide whether they accept the conclusions of the disciplinary process and what action, if any, should follow.

A vote could then follow to determine whether Khan should remain in post.

In the meantime, the prosecutor’s office continues to operate under Khan’s deputies, who are overseeing ongoing investigations and cases.

The BSB’s interim suspension will also come before a panel within the next four weeks. Khan is expected to challenge his suspension through the barrister regulator’s processes.

Keyword – Sport
Trefwoorden – England cricket team, Ben Stokes, Brendon McCullum, Cricket, Sport, England v New Zealand 2026
Title – Ben Stokes could be back soon as England captain as mood turns his way | England cricket team | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/matthughes
Link – Ben Stokes could be back soon as England captain as mood turns his way | England cricket team | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-18T18:03:57.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jun/18/ben-stokes-england-captain-cricket-ecb

The England and Wales Cricket Board is hopeful Ben Stokes will be able to make a quick return as England captain. Brendon McCullum , the head coach, and Rob Key, the team’s managing director, refused to say that they wanted Stokes back in the side in press conferences over the past week, but behind the scenes the mood is believed to be more optimistic.

The ECB is understood to be waiting for a report from the Cricket Regulator into Stokes’s actions in breaking the team curfew along with the fast bowler Gus Atkinson after England’s first Test win against New Zealand at Lord’s last week. The regulator’s preliminary report is due in the next few days and its contents will inform the ECB’s next steps.

McCullum repeatedly emphasised his concern for Stokes’s welfare during a press conference at the Oval on Monday but, having initially considered retirement last week, the talismanic all-rounder has now made it clear he wants to play on. Stokes is also understood to have been surprised at the tone of McCullum’s comments in questioning his mental wellbeing.

The 35-year-old has been named in Durham’s squad for their County Championship match against Northamptonshire on Friday, which indicates his desire to return and could create a problem for the ECB if he is omitted from next week’s third Test at Trent Bridge without further explanation.

The ECB is conducting its own inquiries into Stokes’s and Atkinson’s behaviour in a Chelsea nightclub in parallel with those of the Cricket Regulator, but is eager to get the matter resolved quickly.

An immediate return to the squad for Trent Bridge has not been ruled out, but given that match starts next Thursday an extended break until England’s Test series against Pakistan begins in August appears more likely.

Stokes and Atkinson were both made unavailable for selection for the current Test match, although it is unclear whether their absence at the Oval would count as a formal suspension.

McCullum also insisted his relationship with Stokes remains strong despite feeling let down by the captain breaking a curfew and reported tension over strategy during the 4-1 Ashes defeat last winter.

ECB sources said that while Stokes has work to do to win back the trust of the players and management, the overwhelming feeling is that they want him to return.

Keyword – Politics
Trefwoorden – Conservatives, Scotland, Politics, Climate crisis, Environment
Title – Tory byelection victory gives Badenoch vital evidence to justify abandoning net zero | Conservatives | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/kiran-stacey,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/severincarrell
Link – Tory byelection victory gives Badenoch vital evidence to justify abandoning net zero | Conservatives | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-20T06:00:01.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/20/tory-byelection-victory-gives-badenoch-vital-evidence-to-justify-abandoning-net-zero

For the first time in 50 years, the Conservatives have won a byelection in Scotland, taking Aberdeen South from the Scottish National party and giving Kemi Badenoch one of her most significant achievements as party leader.

The win for Douglas Lumsden, which was secured with a 15% swing, giving the Tories a majority of 6,050, provides the party leader with an important piece of evidence that her decision to abandon the party’s commitment to net zero by 2050 is working.

The question for Badenoch is whether the appeal of her pro-North Sea drilling position will translate in other seats away from the north east of Scotland , which is heavily reliant on the oil and gas industry for tens of thousands of local jobs.

Speaking at a rally on Friday alongside Lumsden, Badenoch said: “What this means is that we have won that referendum on oil and gas.

“Aberdeen has sent a message to the Labour government and to the SNP that we will not be ignored, Aberdeen will not be ignored, the centre will not be ignored.”

The seat was heavily targeted by the Conservatives, both because of its demographic make-up and because of the travails of the SNP .

As a semi-rural commuter belt comprising of two-car households and luxury villas based heavily on energy sector jobs, Aberdeen South was always going to provide the Tories with fertile ground.

The Tories took the seat in 2017, albeit against a backdrop of discontent over the former first minister Nicola Sturgeon’s attempts to use Brexit as a trigger for a second Scottish independence referendum.

The voters were also unhappy at the SNP this time, albeit for different reasons. Shortly after the byelection was called, the party’s former chief executive Peter Murrell pleaded guilty to stealing £400,000 in party funds.

The scandal hovered over the contest, and was often brought up by voters on the doorstep.

But it was the argument over the North Sea which appeared to be decisive.

The basin is in steep decline after decades of drilling, but the Tories argue it should be drilled for as long as economically viable.

The SNP has a more nuanced position, arguing new drilling should only take place if it can be shown not to violate the UK’s climate change commitments, and that the tax burden on oil companies should be cut. The party has also called, however, for heavy investment in renewables and cutting the UK’s carbon emissions.

Labour, meanwhile, has pledged to issue no new licences in the North Sea at all – a policy championed by the energy secretary, Ed Miliband.

Lumsden spent much of the campaign highlighting those differences, saying on Friday: “This result sends a clear message to Labour and the SNP: their war on North Sea oil and gas must end.”

Stephen Flynn, who triggered the byelection when he stood down as MP to take his place in Holyrood instead, called the result “a tough night in Aberdeen that some will need to reflect on, quite heavily”.

Badenoch said on Friday morning that the win means “a message has been sent that we do need to drill our own oil in the North Sea, not take oil from Russia or Norway when we have got our own oil right here”.

She urged the Labour government to approve environmental applications for the Jackdaw and Rosebank mega-fields.

The Tory leader has unlikely backers in this position from two of the country’s biggest unions: Unite and GMB.

Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, which has thousands of members in the energy sector, said: “Until there is a credible plan for jobs the anti-North Sea policies must be consigned to the bin.”

If Labour wants to counteract that message nationally, it will need to highlight the effects of North Sea drilling on the UK’s climate commitments.

Polling shows that voters are heavily in favour of issuing new licences in UK waters, with 48% saying they support such a move and only 21% saying they would oppose it.

But they are much less supportive of Badenoch’s argument that the UK should ditch the 2050 net zero target. A recent poll by Ipsos for the policy institute at King’s College London found 64% of voters believe that goal should be reached at least by 2050, if not earlier.

Badenoch’s stance might come into sharper focus in the coming weeks.

While the Tory leader was celebrating her victory in northeast Scotland, Andy Burnham was celebrating his own in Makerfield , more than 300 miles to the south.

If the outgoing Manchester mayor succeeds Keir Starmer as prime minister in the coming weeks and picks Miliband as his chancellor, as many of his allies want, the Tory attacks on Labour’s net zero policies are only likely to intensify.