This year’s highlights include the remodelling of a Richard Seifert brutalist ‘corncob’ tower, a celebration of Japanese carpentry and a wearable hot-water bottle
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In a case of contents outshining the container, the V&A’s national museum of everything takes the public up close and personal to a gallimaufry of precious things, from porcelain to poison darts, textiles to tiaras. Elegantly shoehorned into the gargantuan hangar that was originally the broadcasting centre for the 2012 Olympics, it’s an Amazon warehouse crammed with global treasures, setting visitors off on an odyssey of “curated transgression” through an immersive cabinet of curiosities.

Hate crimes are rising around the UK, after a summer of flags going up on lamp-posts across the country and racist riots in 2024. Taj Ali is a Muslim journalist who has been collating evidence of these attacks. Even in big diverse areas there is a sense of fear, but what is life like for smaller ethnic minority communities in smaller towns? On his journey with video producers Christopher Cherry and Maeve Shearlaw he finds a sense of anger about the loss of community but people everywhere determined to roll up their sleeves and make things better. 

• Back on the Map, featured in this video, is part of the Guardian's charity appeal which is raising money for grassroots charities that are connecting communities and building solidarity, pride and hope across the country. Donate to our appeal here

A saucer of pomegranate seeds and something sprinkled with petals? No thanks: just give me dinner

It’s lovely going out for dinner in London. It’s a gastro capital with cuisines from all around the world. One night, Indian, French the next, Peruvian, Ethiopian. You can travel the globe without leaving Hackney.

This time of year, I’m super busy planning the un-Royal Variety show – a punk pastiche of the royal version – and so I can’t be bothered with meal prep and washing up, and find myself eating out an awful lot. Most food trends I can get behind (with the exception of truffle – yuck!). But one pernicious dining trend that refuses to go away and which I detest is “small plates”.

Jonny Woo is a performer, drag artist, writer, and co-owner of The Divine, he will be hosting his Un-Royal Variety at Soho Theatre Walthamstow 26-28 November 2026.

Michelle Williams put in a stunning performance in this tale of a dying woman’s quest to have an orgasm. It’s not just clever, tender and blackly comic – it’s a beautiful meditation on what it means to live (and die) well

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Dying for Sex is about a fortysomething woman leaving her husband and having lots of experimental sex after she is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Except, of course, it’s not. It’s about so much more than that. By the end, the sex scenes – many and varied though they may be – are just a bagatelle.

Partly this is because there is no false hope offered here. None of the sexy set pieces are a full escape from reality. The series is based on a true story and the podcast made about Molly Kochan’s decision to cram years of sexual experience into the little time she was told she had left before metastasised breast cancer killed her. Whatever Molly does, whatever we see her do – enjoy or not enjoy – we know it will not change the ultimate outcome. This is the frame in which all the scenes of sex parties, age-gapped hookups, discovery of “pup play” and mastering the tricky latches on cock cages in Molly’s pursuit of her first partnered orgasm are set.

The art activists made headlines during the US president’s state visit when they shocked the waiting media with a short documentary – and were quickly arrested

When Donald Trump’s second state visit was announced, and when the finer details for the Windsor banquet on 17 September 2025 became known, there was no way Led By Donkeys was going to let that pass unprotested. It was just so craven, rolling out the red carpet for Trump. Their next art-activist event unfolded like clockwork.

Led By Donkeys made a nine-minute film about Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein which ended: “The president of the United States was a long-time close friend of America’s most notorious child sex trafficker. He’s alleged to be mentioned, numerous times, in the files arising from the investigation into that child sex trafficker … Now that president, Donald Trump, is sleeping here, in Windsor Castle.” (Trump says that he fell out with Epstein years before Epstein was first arrested, and has consistently denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.)

Raisa K’s solo album is primitive and intimate, Saeko Killy adds a euphoric touch to her dimly lit sound and Bitchin Bajas get blissed out
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Chicago minimalist trio Bitchin Bajas are experts in crafting the ultimate slow burn, with a discography full of soundscapes that often stretch languorously around or beyond the 10-minute mark. Their latest record follows suit with four winding, blissed-out tracks over a 40-minute run time. But it’s not just overindulgent lounge music: the analogue loops quietly build to transcendental heights, nudged along by wandering sax solos, spritely keys and other cosmic flourishes. It’s a lush, often moving odyssey which, towards the end of the epic 18-minute closer, climaxes in an effervescent flurry.

Documents allege Epstein’s accomplice and ex-girlfriend ‘normalized’ his grooming and ‘directed’ girls on what to do

A document among the tranche of newly released Jeffrey Epstein files casts fresh light on psychological tricks that his ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell deployed in her effort to lure vulnerable teen girls into his abusive orbit.

She doted. She joked. She even seemed to listen.

Chris Philp says Mary-Ann Stephenson is dismissing ‘legitimate concerns about mass migration’

Mary-Ann Stephenson, the new chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has said that the “demonisation of migrants” is bad for Britain. (See 10.21am.)

This morning we have published a video report illustrating what she is worried about. It is about the rise in hate crimes, and it features the Muslim journalist Taj Ali visiting smaller more isolated minority communities around the UK to find out the impact this is having.

I remember thinking that the pandemic really showed just how dependent we all are upon the workers that keep our country going. But just because we are out of those times, does not mean that their sacrifice for all of us has stopped. Quite the opposite. So on behalf of everyone in the country, I would like to thank them and their colleagues who are heading out to work on Christmas Day to keep the rest of us safe and healthy. It’s a huge sacrifice, and it lets the rest of us celebrate Christmas with our families in peace.

We laid out 17 tables in a single-run through the first floor, decorated with 10 table runners, 60 miniature Christmas trees, 70 tea lights, a Christmas cracker for each person, and 93 hand-written place cards.

In the corner we set up a hot chocolate station for the kids with gingerbread, Christmas stickers, arts and crafts.

Russia’s Investigative Committee says it is looking into whether Ukraine intelligence services were behind attack

A Russian general has been killed after an explosive device detonated beneath his car in what Moscow described as a likely assassination carried out by Ukrainian intelligence services.

Lt Gen Fanil Sarvarov, the head of the operational training directorate of the Russian armed forces’ general staff, died of his injuries, a spokesperson for Russia’s Investigative Committee said in a statement.

Prof Alice Sullivan claims university failed to protect her right to freedom of expression after protest at event

A UK university faces the prospect of legal action over claims it failed to protect an academic’s right to freedom of expression who was invited to give a lecture on sex and gender.

Prof Alice Sullivan has written to the University of Bristol and the university regulator the Office for Students (OfS) to complain after her talk was disrupted by protesters. She told the BBC some people who had wanted to attend had stayed away because they felt intimidated and that reasonable steps could have been taken to prevent that.