UK city culture, events & lifestyle
George Thompson 
There’s something quietly devastating about watching a campaigner run out of time. Dame Esther Rantzen, who has spent decades fighting for the vulnerable, is now in a race against her own diagnosis. Full name: Dame Esther Louise Rantzen · Born: 22 June 1940 · Known for: That’s Life! (1973–1994) · Founded: Childline (1986), The Silver … Read more
Few 18-year-olds have had a year as dizzying as Ollie Bearman’s 2024. From a last-minute call-up to replace a Ferrari star to signing a full-time F1 seat, his journey from karting in Essex to the pinnacle of motorsport has been anything but ordinary. When he climbed into Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari at the Saudi Arabian Grand … Read more
Few rock stars have reinvented themselves as many times as Billy Idol, and even fewer have done it with such a signature snarl. Over four decades, he has gone from punk frontman to MTV sensation to a reflective artist grappling with health and mortality. Full name: William Michael Albert Broad · Born: 30 November 1955 … Read more
There are voices that make you stop what you’re doing and just listen. Corinne Bailey Rae’s is one of them — a warm, unhurried sound that found its way onto countless playlists with songs like Put Your Records On. But the woman behind that music also lived through one of the most painful chapters a … Read more
Four hundred years after his death, William Shakespeare still holds a mirror to our lives—our loves, our ambitions, our private contradictions. He married at 18, raised three children in Stratford, and yet the surviving records leave as many questions about the man behind the quill as they answer. Born: c. 23 April 1564, Stratford-upon-Avon · … Read more
Few TV detectives felt as lived-in as Lennie Briscoe, the wisecracking Manhattan homicide cop Jerry Orbach played for more than a decade on Law & Order — the role that made him a television icon and capped a Broadway-first career. His final years deserve an honest look, from the prostate cancer diagnosis to the night … Read more
There’s a reason Teresa Palmer keeps popping up on your feed — she’s an actress who somehow makes blockbuster films, raising five children, and running a wellness brand look like a single, manageable day. A decade into her marriage to Mark Webber, she has built a career that spans Hollywood thrillers and plant-based nutrition, all … Read more
There are some actors whose faces you know instantly, even if the name escapes you for a moment. Timothy Spall is that kind of presence — the British character actor who slips into everything from period dramas to blockbuster fantasy, yet whose own story holds more drama than many of his roles. In 1996, at … Read more
Few television deaths have left fans as shaken as Helen McCrory’s passing in April 2021. The actress who brought Polly Gray to life kept her cancer battle completely private, continuing to work even as she underwent treatment. Born: 17 August 1968 · Died: 16 April 2021 (aged 52) · Cause of Death: Breast cancer · … Read more
There’s a moment, cresting the A1 near Gateshead, when the Angel of the North rises in your windscreen — a 20-metre steel presence that feels both ancient and utterly modern. Antony Gormley, the British sculptor who made it, has spent four decades turning his own body into a mould for cast-iron figures and planting them … Read more