As a ceasefire brings a measure of peace to the Dresden-like hellscape that Gaza has become, it is time to take stock of all that has been lost. The human cost of what the UN commission of inquiry recognises as a genocide is of course incalculable, but fewer are aware of how much rich history and archaeology has also been destroyed in these horrific months.

Marc Lynch is angry. The word ‘rage’ appears six times on the first page, and comes in response to Israel’s war in Gaza. This should be sufficient warning to anyone expecting a cool, calm, dispassionate analysis of the Middle East that they might have picked up the wrong book.

“Opera and ballet will be at the heart of the culture of many people who live in London and the south of England,” former Conservative minister Jake Berry (now a member of Reform UK) once told parliament. “But for many of us in the north it is our local football club – our Glyndebourne, Royal Ballet, Royal Opera House or Royal Shakespeare Company will be Blackburn Rovers, Accrington Stanley, Barrow, Carlisle or Sunderland.”

Published by Saqi Books and currently available for pre-order, Love is Resistance features 77 commissioned tear-out posters by artists, writers, students, and activists from around the world. In a conversation with the book’s author and founding editor, Aya Mousawi, alongside contributor Shumon Basar, we learn about the powerful role poster-making can wield.

Thirty years ago, the Birmingham-born musician Steven Kapur – better known by his stage name, Apache Indian – released his second album, Make Way for the Indian. Like his first record, which was shortlisted for the 1993 Mercury prize, the album was a pioneering mix of Kapur’s key musical influences: Jamaican reggae, dancehall and traditional Indian bhangra.

Marc Lynch is angry. The word ‘rage’ appears six times on the first page, and comes in response to Israel’s war in Gaza. This should be sufficient warning to anyone expecting a cool, calm, dispassionate analysis of the Middle East that they might have picked up the wrong book.

It’s not just you. The internet is getting worse, fast. The services we rely on, that we once loved? They’re all turning into piles of shit, all at once. Ask any Facebook user who has to scroll past 10 screens of engagement-bait, AI slop and surveillance ads just to get to one post by the people they are on the service to communicate with.

What do we think of when we think of blondes? Perhaps Scandinavia, where blonde hair is commonplace, or iconic blonde stars such as Marilyn Monroe or Brigitte Bardot. Sexy Swedes, brash Americans or free-spirited Frenchwomen – not Britishness, that’s for sure. 

There is an inherent tension present from the opening pages of Wendy Hitchmough’s new biography, Vanessa Bell: The Life and Art of a Bloomsbury Radical.

There is nothing, it seems to me, more appalling, more deadening in the urban landscape than a uniform mass of low buildings covering acres and acres … High dwellings – I think, really very high dwellings – are an enormous enhancement of the scene.”