The seasons have shifted. As we enter Autumn and reacquaint ourselves with cosy jumpers, thick coats and hot chocolates on the sofa, the pull to sit comfortably on an evening, after a long day, and create something increases. How can you start a new crafting hobby this autumn? You want to do it, but you’re not sure how to begin.

Charlie Ayre has been selected to represent Great Britain in the men’s -60kg category at the upcoming World Judo Championships in Baku. Ayre is one of thirteen Great Britain judoka set to compete at the championships with a mix of previous medallists and debutants heading to one of the most prestigious judo events outside of the Olympic games.

Rumon Gamba and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra are on top form, attentive to every nuance and playing with real elegance. Every section excels, the tutti passages are well controlled, and the lower strings and percussion add richness to the sound. Chandos provides a warm, detailed recording. Bantock's parents had other plans for him, and English music is richer for their disappointment.

There is a particular style of historical writing and lecturing which irritates me disproportionately. It is not history itself that bothers me; on the contrary, I find the attempt to understand the past endlessly fascinating, which is why I watch a good deal of historical “documentaries” and avidly read both historical nonfiction and fiction.

When childbirth goes wrong or a baby is left with lifelong injuries, the families deserve answers and, where negligence has occurred, they deserve compensation. No one could argue otherwise.

There has never been any sense of Vonda Shepard rushing to put out a record simply for the sake of having something new to say. Instead, she has always seemed more interested in maintaining the remarkable bond she has built with her live audience, whilst allowing herself the time and space to follow her own creative process. New music arrives when it is ready — and, on Nine Songs, that patience has once again paid off.

To read Michael Rosen’s poems out loud is to hear an echo. For to give voice to a random selection of his most performable verses is to be accompanied by Rosen himself, declaiming at one’s shoulder, but with infinitely greater skill and idiosyncratic grace.

When running a smallholding, it always pays to plan ahead for land management. This year has been a real challenge, with a long, hot summer and very little rain, resulting in drought conditions across much of the UK. As a result, many crops were lost, and hundreds of farmers got only one decent cut from the fields.

The story behind it is as touching as the music. Ursula Vaughan Williams kept these recordings, and in 1996 she passed them to Stephen Connock, at that time chairman of the RVW Society, so that it could eventually release them. Of the seventeen tracks, fourteen are getting their first commercial release, while the remaining three appear to have been taken from a BBC transmission. Hence the title: From Ursula, with Love.

Tom Ogden’s songwriting has become noticeably more personal, drawing heavily on marriage, relationships and the small details that make up a shared life. Yet there is nothing overly grand about the subject matter. Instead, Blossoms find their material in arguments, car journeys, television nights and domestic routines, turning the stuff of everyday existence into bright, melodic indie-pop.

I remember when the BMW X5 was launched in 1999. It was the German manufacturer’s first foray into the world of the SUV. The emphasis was more on sporty on-road driving rather than off-road prowess. I must confess to coveting one, and once a year or two had passed, I did contemplate a second-hand purchase, but values remained strong.

A York Transformational Life Coach who built a senior corporate career while battling imposter syndrome is on a mission to help other women unlock their highest potential. Diane Spence spent decades working in leadership roles at blue-chip companies including Nestlé and Asda. But while her life appeared successful on the outside, inside she was plagued with feelings of self-doubt.

Two decades separate the works on this disc, yet César Franck's Piano Quintet and George Enescu's Octet make natural companions. Both push chamber music to the edge of the symphonic, both build vast structures from a handful of recurring ideas, and both demand players who can sustain intensity over long spans. Recorded at Nordstrom Recital Hall in Seattle and produced by Simon Kiln, the album features violinist James Ehnes, artistic director of the Seattle Chamber Music Society, at the head of a hand-picked ensemble of colleagues.

Killing Heidi was only the beginning. Hooper subsequently explored a folkier side with The Verses alongside Jesse, before embarking on a solo career that has seen her continually experiment with an array of genres and sonic landscapes. Overnight Success, her fourth solo album, finds her drawing all of those experiences together and planting herself firmly in the Americana and country sphere.

The disc is the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge's thirtieth for Hyperion, and the first since Steven Grahl took up the baton as director of music. Any anxiety that the choir's famously burnished sound might falter in the changeover can be laid to rest within a few bars. If anything, it has acquired a fresh bloom. Tone, diction, soloists, accompaniment and Hyperion's characteristically sumptuous engineering are first-class from every angle, and the whole has the feeling of a choir singing music it loves.

From flying with a medical condition to falling ill while travelling on holiday, health concerns are one of the biggest reasons that people may put off travelling altogether. While some caution is sensible when planning a large trip, many of the most common travel health fears are based more on myth than true medical fact. To help provide an expert perspective, Dr.

Twenty years. It’s a long time in anyone’s book, but in music, where careers can come and go in the blink of an eye, it’s quite something. For Dan Gillespie-Sells, frontman of The Feeling, it’s a milestone that’s being celebrated in the best possible way: by getting back on the road and playing the album that started it all.

Business owners are being urged to review their record-keeping arrangements ahead of a change that could leave them facing an Employment Tribunal claim nine months or more after a workplace dispute. From 1 October, the deadline for bringing most tribunal claims will rise from within three months of the act complained about to within six months.

With a history that goes back nearly 180 years The Wellington in Shadwell has seen many changes. Originally a traditional coaching inn, it was run by various breweries, and now it has a very different role. Opened as a restaurant in 2019 The Ego at The Wellington has just undergone a remarkable transformation project.

Chester Zoo’s popular winter light trail will return with a redesigned route, new animal puppets and adults-only evenings introduced for the first time. Lanterns & Light will transform the zoo after dark for 42 nights from 13 November 2026 to 3 January 2027, with festive lights, colour and wildlife-themed displays.

A major immersive production narrated by Sir David Attenborough is heading north for the first time, with Our Story with David Attenborough coming to Chester Zoo this autumn. The acclaimed production will open at Chester Zoo on 17 October, making it the first venue outside London to host the full exhibition following its successful run at the Natural History Museum.

It boasts some of the best views across the city, arguably one of the most desirable city centre locations, just down the road from Leeds Trinity Shopping Centre and amenities you’d expect from a 5* hotel, but this isn’t a new luxury hotel, it’s the city’s latest purpose-built student accommodation tower.

CrossCountry customers encouraged to plan ahead for Christmas travel: Snow at Birmingham New Street Rail passengers travelling this Christmas are being encouraged to plan ahead, as major engineering work will mean no trains can operate to or from Birmingham New Street between Thursday 24 and Monday 28 December 2026.

Vital funding will help EMPOWER Youth Zones expand its work and create more opportunities for children and young people throughout Greater Manchester. The Matchroom Charitable Foundation has announced a £50,000 donation to EMPOWER Youth Zones, supporting the charity’s work with thousands of young people across Salford and Manchester.

Dr Zeineb Djebal, Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship at the University of Liverpool Management School and Academic Programme Director for the Help to Grow: Management Course. On International Day of Older People, I’m taking a moment to recognise a group that deserves more attention in conversations about entrepreneurship: the over 50s who are building businesses…

The Architectural Heritage Fund (AHF) has today announced 25 standout projects as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations. This diverse selection of projects stretches across the UK and illustrates what half a century of heritage-led regeneration looks like in practice.

Teenage girls are spending fewer evenings with friends, feeling isolated in their communities and dodging school sport at higher rates than boys, according to a report into England’s “bedroom generation”.  Polling of 15-year-olds for the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) finds that more than one in five girls (21 per cent) now spends no evenings out with friends during a typical week, compared wi…

Supporters of compensation for WASPI women outnumber opponents by almost four to one, according to a landmark new analysis of more than 10,000 voters. The research, carried out by Stack Data Strategy among 10,052 adults in Great Britain, found that almost half of voters (47 per cent) believe women affected by State Pension age changes should receive full or partial redress.

Northern Gas Networks is encouraging university students kick-starting their new term and student life in rented homes to carry out two potentially lifesaving checks.

Dear Editor, Like most of us, I don’t think twice before hopping on a bus or train to go to work, meet friends or do a spot of shopping. However, for millions of people across the country who are deaf or have hearing loss, barriers on public transport can make even every day journeys feel impossible.

Almost all charities surveyed say current funding levels are not keeping pace with costs. Half are considering redundancies, while three-quarters report falling income over the past year.

Millions of older homeowners are sitting on a retirement lifeline worth hundreds of thousands of pounds — but as Andrew Palmer reports the research shows those in the North are far less likely than southerners to ever consider using it It sounds like a story about poverty.

New polling by Opinium for Carers UK reveals that 3.33 million people have given up work to care for a family member or friend who is older, disabled or seriously ill, with 1.1 million leaving their job in the last two years alone – more than 1,500 people a day.

The UK stands to lose a multi-billion-pound economic opportunity and risks letting investment, jobs and energy security slip away, say the authors of the 2026 Economic Report from Offshore Energies UK Energy security is national security in an increasingly volatile world where conflict in the Middle East is constricting global oil and gas supply.

With the biggest ever Great North Run just days away organisers of the world’s greatest half marathon announce that the BALLOT FOR THE 2027 event is now OPEN. The Ballot runs from Monday, 7th September at 8am until midnight on Sunday 20th September, at which point ballot applications close. The draw takes place on Monday 21st September with applicants notified of their results soon after.

New research from the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) by economist Julian Jessop examines two of the most widely blamed causes of the UK's poor economic performance over the past decade and a half: fiscal "austerity" after 2010 and the 2016 vote to leave the European Union. It concludes that the evidence for either being a major drag on growth is much weaker than commonly assumed.

Consumer confidence increased by 0.9 points movement in August 2026, according to the latest data from YouGov and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr). The Consumer Confidence index rose from 105.5 to 106.4. Any score greater than 100 indicates positive sentiment, while a score of less than 100 indicates negative sentiment.