Guillermo del Toro, the monster maker who wanted Frankenstein
Guillermo del Toro spent 50 years on Frankenstein, and his other 12 films each carry a piece of it. Here is his career and the eight to watch first.
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David Lynch: the Eagle Scout who made his name an adjective
Lynch built his films on dread beneath the picket fence. Follow the Montana painter from Eraserhead to Twin Peaks: The Return, plus 8 works to watch first.
Universal's first monster wore a face Lon Chaney made himself
Lon Chaney's Phantom set the template and Karloff and Lugosi made it a genre in 1931. Here is who made the monsters, and eight films to start with.
Gothic rock: how post-punk learned to love the dark
Bauhaus, the Cure and Siouxsie Sioux turned post-punk towards the dark. Where gothic rock came from, where it went, and eight records to hear first.
British big beat ruled the late 90s, then crashed
Hip-hop breaks, acid house and punk met in a London pub basement in 1994. Norman Cook says why the sound burned out, plus 8 records to hear first.
The Wicker Man still burns: where folk horror came from
Nobody called it folk horror until decades later. Here is how folk horror grew from three British films, and nine films to watch this Halloween.
Why Italy's giallo thrillers still haunt horror films
Mario Bava's black gloves and Dario Argento's blood-red colour taught the slasher its tricks. Here is where giallo came from, and eight films to start with.
In Chicago, Larry Heard slowed house down and made it deep
Larry Heard added jazz chords and a slower pulse to Chicago house in 1985. How deep house reached Paris, Detroit and Berlin, and nine records to hear first.
How horror film scores learned to scare, and eight to hear first
From Herrmann's Psycho strings to Carpenter's Halloween piano and Goblin's Suspiria, how horror scores learned to scare, plus eight to hear first.
Luis Enrique won PSG the Champions League after Mbappé left
PSG chased Europe's top prize from 2011, when Qatari owners arrived. In 2025, a year after Kylian Mbappé left, they won it with a 5-0 final over Inter.
Slot won Liverpool's 20th English title with Klopp's squad
Jürgen Klopp called his squad a good base to hand on. Arne Slot added one player, changed the daily routine and won the 2024-25 Premier League.
UK firms exposed to AI are cutting junior jobs first
A King's College London study of millions of UK job postings finds entry-level roles shrink first, while Goldman Sachs finds AI also adds jobs.
Three usual causes of a slow computer, and how to spot each
Microsoft blames low storage, startup apps and ageing hardware, and Apple adds short memory. These checks show which one is slowing yours.
The NHS says food poisoning usually clears within a week
Most UK food poisoning passes within a week, but the germ sets the clock. Here is what the NHS and Cleveland Clinic say to expect.
Cat licking is usually affection, but a sudden rise needs a vet
Most licks signal affection, says the cats.org.uk blog. A sudden rise in licking, or licking with hiding or a change in appetite, calls for a vet visit.
Keith Flint, the gentle man behind the Prodigy snarl
Keith Flint went from Essex roofer and rave dancer to the snarling voice of Firestarter. Friends remember a kind man. Nine records to start with.
China's Gang of Four were called to a meeting and arrested
On 6 October 1976, a month after Mao died, Hua Guofeng had Jiang Qing and three allies seized one by one. Their fall ended China's Cultural Revolution.
The Empire State Building: New York's 13-month race to the sky
Crews raised the Empire State's steel 1,048 feet in 23 weeks as Lewis Hine took pictures. The tower later survived a bomber and lost the height record.
The roof that cost Jørn Utzon the Sydney Opera House
Nobody knew how to build Jørn Utzon's roof when work began. Costs soared, a new works minister stopped paying him, and he resigned in 1966.
Claude will join Gemini in watermarking text, and users object
Gemini already hides a pattern in its word choices that only a secret key shows, and Claude will follow. Users fear it cannot tell editing from writing.
Nearly half of the UK's 8.6m people living alone are 65+
People aged 65 and over account for most of the growth since 1996, and the number of men aged 65 and over living alone has roughly doubled, the ONS says.
Saddleworth's villages grew on wool and turnpikes
How turnpikes, the Standedge canal tunnel and the woollen mills built Saddleworth's Pennine villages, and which sights and walks show it best.
A high tunnel can add weeks to the growing year at both ends
Penn State Extension says a high tunnel can start the crop up to eight weeks before the field season and carry it six weeks past the first frost.
Britain's allotments owe their survival to a century of law
A 1908 duty on councils and a 1925 Act gave Britain's allotments legal cover. Here is how that cover held as plots fell from 1.4 million to 300,000.