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‘My whole body has been broken’: Davy Russell on bust-ups, Grand National glories and a life in the saddle

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The jockey had remarkable career triumphs but he’s still infamous for punching a horse and a rival rider

Davy Russell’s wife, Edelle, sometimes brings out a skeleton that resembles his battered body during her anatomy classes at school. The skeleton looks as if it has contracted measles because it is covered in red dots, with each dot marking a bone that Russell broke during his 21 years as a professional jump jockey. He had a remarkable career where he became Ireland’s champion jockey three times, won the Grand National twice, as well as the Gold Cup, while also being infamous for punching a horse and a rival rider before he finally stopped racing in 2023.

“It doesn’t bother me,” Russell says as he confirms that the skeleton is still wheeled out at Edelle’s school down the road from where he and I have lunch in his kitchen in Youghal, a small town less than an hour from Cork. “When there’s a quiz on the telly and they ask where is the ulna bone, your fibula or tibia, I know every answer.”

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‘It’s shorthand for what we expect women to look like’: how ‘not-too-done’ hair took over screens in 2024

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From the sisters in Nobody Wants to Ashley Jensen’s detective in Shetland, one hairstyle dominated ambient TV this year

The 2024 Netflix series Nobody Wants This was widely adored for many reasons – not least the concept of the Hot Rabbi, the renaissance of its star, former The OC geek-hearthrob Adam Brody, and the soothing LA lifestyle porn. But, for many of us, through Brody’s co-stars Kristen Bell and Justine Lupe, it was simply another 2024 example of what has become known in some quarters as “TV hair”.

Throughout the series, Bell and Lupe, playing two very LA sisters who co-host a podcast about sex and relationships, sport a very specific brand of subtly waved hair. Neither ringlets nor straight, it’s glossy and well-styled, done but not too “done”. And it’s in any TV series where white women are the main characters – see Meghann Fahey in The Perfect Couple; Rose Byrne in Platonic; or even, back in 2021, Anna Kendrick in Love Life. It’s arrived in the UK too – Ashley Jensen has TV hair in Shetland, which crucially remains immaculate even on the windswept isle. Far away from the ultra-glam tresses seen on Love Island, this look may be subtly “done”, but – make no mistake – it is definitely “done”.

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Max Purcell to miss Australian Open after accepting ban for anti-doping breach

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Australian doubles star accepts provisional suspensionITIA yet to specify length of ban or any details of breach

Australian tennis player Max Purcell has been provisionally suspended over an alleged violation of the sport’s anti-doping program.

The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) announced on Monday that the two-time doubles grand slam winner had voluntarily accepted the suspension, after admitting to a breach relating to a prohibited method.

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UK growth revised down to zero; firms warn economy is heading for ‘worst of all worlds’ – business live

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UK GDP flatlined in the July-September quarter, ONS reports, as companies warn October budget has hurt economy too

Sharp fall in UK business activity forecast as economic gloom deepens

Digging into today’s GDP report, we can see that the services sector stagnated in July-September.

The business-facing services sector flatlined, while consumer-facing services increased by 0.1%

“The challenge we face to fix our economy and properly fund our public finances after 15 years of neglect is huge.

“But this is only fuelling our fire to deliver for working people.

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Sprout bhajis? How to feed unexpected guests at Christmas and New Year

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Elevate the basics with cupboard staples and when it’s all finished store the leftovers quickly

Turning a dish from what you might have at the weekend to something special to impress guests can often be achieved just by adding something which is already in the fridge or cupboard.

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Look out for the stars of Bethlehem … in south Wales

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Rain isn’t the only thing that’s biblical in these parts … We explore a holy land of walks, pubs and crystal-clear night skies in Carmarthenshire

There’s no room at the inn in Bethlehem, Carmarthenshire. Because there’s no inn. No shops. Only a former post office turned private residence. I can see a few barns, but there’s not much else in this tiny linear village. The official population is almost 200, though only a few dozen live in the centre. There’s a primary school that closed in 1999 and now serves as the village hall. Some people still come to post Christmas cards here to get the local postmark, organised by a small local group who stamp the envelopes that can then be posted in a little red postbox by the village hall.

I find the chapel, first built in 1800, down a side road, a couple of hundred yards to the south. The settlement was originally called Dyffryn Ceidrich (Ceidrich’s Valley), but after the chapel was baptised Bethlehem – a common enough name for a house of worship in Wales during its nonconformist heyday – it came to denote the area too. The stone building is tall and austere, with long, thin windows; it would have been the focal point of community life and – as any reader of Caradoc Evans’ My People will know – quite possibly a hotbed of sin, prejudice and hypocrisy. There are some weathered gravestones, with a smattering of Thomases, Davieses and Joneses, and in the morning mist it’s quite atmospheric.

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Notre Dame rose again from the ashes – so too can France’s battered democracy | Alexander Hurst

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With the country in stalemate, people have lost faith in government. But citizens’ assemblies show one way forward

When Notre Dame burned, something in the flames seemed to speak to the combustibility of our age. Nothing is for ever, the fire said, even those edifices – stone or institutional – that we assume will always be there. In almost every democracy, there are similar forces of backlash and disaffection. The anger is diffuse and the discontents vary, but there is a general agitation that seems to boil down to the feeling that someone should do something.

At the moment, France seems to have crystallised this phenomenon in a way that other democracies might draw both warnings and lessons from. Will François Bayrou last longer as prime minister than Michel Barnier? Perhaps. But the basic impediment remains: the country is politically split roughly into thirds (and the “left” is split among itself), with the end result that creating a majority for anything is almost impossible.

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A consensus is emerging: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Where is the action? | Nesrine Malik

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It may feel hopeless to see supportive states continue to back Israel, but bearing witness matters for future reckoning

A consensus is building. On 5 December, Amnesty International concluded after an investigation that “Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip”. A few days later, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) stated that after research and analysis, it concluded that “there is a legally sound argument that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza”.

A few days after that, Human Rights Watch (HRW) declared that “Israeli authorities are responsible for the crime against humanity of extermination and for acts of genocide”, and Médecins Sans Frontières reported that its medical “teams in the north of Gaza are seeing clear signs of ethnic cleansing”. Earlier in November, HRW also concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza amounted to “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity”, and appeared to “also meet the definition of ethnic cleansing”.

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Parcels of land: is the Czech Sphinx gazing at Royal Mail’s property assets?

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Daniel Křetínský could be hoping to develop or sell off the company’s portfolio of about 1,800 sites

The shadow of the Sphinx looms large over a nondescript urban depot in north London. You could fit two football pitches on to the vast King’s Cross site – a rarity in this densely populated part of the capital – yet it makes up just a fraction of a vast freehold estate, the keys to which are about to be handed to the billionaire Daniel Křetínský.

Known as the Czech Sphinx, because of his inscrutable demeanour, Křetínský is poised to complete his conquest of Royal Mail, via a £3.6bn takeover of its parent company, International Distribution Services (IDS).

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State-funded UK scheme to save beloved community sites will close early

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Government to shut £150m community ownership fund despite millions of pounds remaining unallocated

Editorial: ‘community right to buy’ – unleashing the power of the local

A state-funded scheme that has helped save cherished community sites including mainland Britain’s most remote pub is being shut early, leaving millions of pounds unallocated.

The community ownership fund was launched in 2021, with the aim of handing out £150m worth of grants that would give local groups the financial firepower to take control of pubs, village shops, sports grounds and other beloved assets.

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