BlinkDash

45 Hamlets for Shakespeare's 450th birthday - in pictures Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email On the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth, Michael Billington has picked the best Hamlets he's seen in each decade of his theatregoing life. To help you choose your own favourite Prince of Denmark, here are 45 actors who've found a method for the character's madness [Read More]

A Dutch police officer forces open a torture chamber hidden in a shipping container in a forest in June 2020. Photograph: Politie Landelijke Eenheid/ReutersA Dutch police officer forces open a torture chamber hidden in a shipping container in a forest in June 2020. Photograph: Politie Landelijke Eenheid/ReutersNetherlands This article is more than 1 year oldDutch court jails drugs gang who built torture room and cells in containersThis article is more than 1 year oldEleven men sentenced after police hack online chat and hear of plans for ‘cutting pliers for fingers and toes’ A Dutch court has sentenced 11 men to between one and nine years for maintaining an “underworld prison” with a torture chamber, hidden in shipping containers, in a case that shocked the Netherlands. [Read More]

Italy This article is more than 6 months oldItaly investigates Placebo singer for calling far-right PM ‘racist’ and ‘fascist’This article is more than 6 months oldBrian Molko criticised Giorgia Meloni during a concert at the Sonic Park festival Italian prosecutors have opened an investigation into the Placebo frontman Brian Molko for publicly calling the Italian prime minister “racist” and “fascist”, according to local media reports. The band were performing last week at the Sonic Park festival in Stupinigi outside Turin when Molko hurled insults from the stage about Giorgia Meloni. [Read More]

Sexual healingRelationshipsShe is not comfortable with physical contact, and I don’t want to lose what we have I’m a 36-year-old man. I have been in a relationship for a year, and love my girlfriend. But she is a virgin, and says she is not sure she ever wants to have sex. She is not comfortable with physical contact. I don’t want to lose what we have. I don’t want to make her uncomfortable by asking her to do things that she isn’t happy with. [Read More]

Book of the dayAutobiography and memoirReviewThe former Tory minister exposes the ‘shameful state’ of recent Conservative rule in this brilliantly frank account of dysfunctional government Soon after he was elected as a Conservative MP, Rory Stewart tried to sit down next to a party colleague. “This seat is reserved,” the MP growled at him. Stewart pointed out there was no “prayer card” in the brass holder at the back of the seat, meaning it was free. [Read More]

GuatemalaObituaryGeneral Romeo Lucas GarcíaBloodthirsty military dictator of Guatemala responsible for more than 300 massacresIn the long league table of Guatemalan military villains, General Romeo Lucas García, who has died of respiratory failure aged 81, was outdone in infamy only by Efraín Ríos Montt, the retired general who replaced him as the country's dictator after a coup in March 1982. "Elected" president in 1978, in a typically fraudulent poll, Lucas was allegedly responsible for an average of 200 murders and " [Read More]

The Torres del Paine mountains in Patagonia, southern Chile. Photograph: AlamyThe Torres del Paine mountains in Patagonia, southern Chile. Photograph: AlamyPatagonia holidaysForty years ago this month, Bruce Chatwin visited Patagonia and his subsequent book lit a beacon for the remote region in many travellers’ minds. Chris Moss picks the highlights among its peaks, glaciers and lakes For my first forays into Patagonia, in the 1990s, I left behind my guidebooks and travelogues. [Read More]

My best shotPhotography'They ring a bell and all the girls at the brothel have to come out of their rooms and line up, and the clients get to choose' Reading on mobile? See full image here I love Vegas. It's the epitome of all the contradictions of US culture and society. Everything Americans don't want to discuss ends up in Nevada, from nuclear testing to prostitutes. I was there in 1998 taking photos of its McDonald's-style wedding culture when I decided to take a road trip. [Read More]

A white moose in Ontario. The moose are not albino, but get their colour from a recessive gene. Photograph: Mark Clement/clementphotography.caA white moose in Ontario. The moose are not albino, but get their colour from a recessive gene. Photograph: Mark Clement/clementphotography.caCanada This article is more than 3 years old'Everyone is outraged and sad': Canada shocked by killing of rare white mooseThis article is more than 3 years oldFlying Post First Nation in northern Ontario offer reward after ‘spirit’ moose – considered sacred – killed by suspected poachers [Read More]