Digis Mak

The annual inflation rate has burst through the 10% barrier sooner than the financial markets and the Bank of England expected but the sharp jump in the cost of living last month is not really that much of a shock.Consistently over the past year the figure has come in higher than forecast but it will not merely be the leap in the headline number for the consumer prices index (CPI) – up from 9.4% in June – that will be a cause for concern.For a start, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said price increases were evident pretty much across the board. The ONS splits the CPI into 12 separate categories, and in nine of them inflation picked up last month. Food prices rose particularly strongly but there were also increases in clothing and footwear, restaurants and hotels, and recreati...

“What if?” is a reliably magnetic question. What if you got rejected instead of accepted, took one job over another, cut and run on a lover or stuck it out? The non-Marvel multiverse potential is the evergreen hook of Idina Menzel's Broadway vehicle If/Then, the NBC series Ordinary Joe, and Netflix's new film Look Both Ways, in which Riverdale's Lili Reinhart plays a recent college graduate whose unexpected pregnancy splinters her life into two distinct trajectories. Think a zillennial, streaming-era version of Sliding Doors, the 1998 film in which Gwyneth Paltrow plays a Londoner whose life diverges over making / missing a train and, like Look Both Ways, differentiates its timelines from her with a haircut.Look Both Ways, directed by Rafiki's Wanuri Kahiu from a script by April Pro...

EITHERne of the first things I did when a long relationship ended in 2019 was download a dating app – mainly motivated, I must admit, by fantasies about my ex's reaction to seeing my profile. Since then, I've never really stopped. I sit on them during TV ad breaks, while I'm waiting for the microwave to ping, in all those pockets of time where I used to listen to my own thoughts. In bed I lie on my back scrolling until my hand tingles because all the blood has run from it. Yet, despite my commitment, they've not found me a boyfriend, or even much sex. In fact, they've done the complete opposite to what I thought they would do when I first heard about them. They don't make anything easy – they make it much harder.I was at university when the people around me first started using Tin...

yestandup comedy must have been the furthest thing from Sarah Mills' mind as she awaited some ominous test results in 2018. The diagnosis was life-altering: stage three bowel cancer, caught just in time, if also three years late. But then the comedy kicked back in. "Even the way I got told that I have cancer was funny," says Mills. “They took me into a little side room and said [gravely]: 'We've seen something angry-looking up your bum.'”Mills had almost stopped performing standup entirely by then but found that “the jokes start to write themselves. It's a comedic gift.”Now in remission – “not high and dry, but getting there” – she is one of several comics to bring such of serious illness to this year's Edinburgh fringe. Her show of Ella Badass continues a surprisingly successful t...

Tarantino and Avary surrounded by the VHS tapes from their collectionQuentin Tarantino and Roger Avery have launched a podcast together, a good opportunity to review which other film directors have opted for this formatThat Quentin Tarantino worked in a video store has already ceased to be a movie buff fact to become popular culture. In the mid-1980s, the future director of 'Reservoir Dogs' hung around the halls of Video Archives with another store clerk, Roger Avary. The two moviegoers would become friends, collaborators, then ex-friends, and now co-workers. podcast. When the store closed in 1995, Tarantino bought his entire catalog and replicated the store in the basement of his house. As crazy as it sounds. Now in every episode of The Video Archives Podcast, the two choose one o...

"You are not allowed to talk to any refugees, or take any photos of refugees,” the Mahama camp manager announced from behind his desk in his air-conditioned office. He had waited until this moment, three hours after setting off in the same car from the Rwandan capital of Kigali, to proclaim this. When I had tried on the journey to ask questions about the camp, he told me brusquely that he would not be discussing anything until we got to his office from him.ace to reporter on the global development desk at the Guardian in London, I had applied for, and been granted, permission to visit Rwanda, and the Mahama camp, to cover the impact of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as hypertension and diabetes in refugee camps.It wasn't a particularly sensitive subject, I thought, yet I was be...

Russian forces launch missile attacks on Odesa region, reports sayRussian forces have reportedly launched missile attacks on the Odesa region overnight.Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesperson for the Odesa regional administration, reported that Russian forces launched several missiles at the region, injuring three.Ukraine’s armed forces also provided an update, saying the missiles destroyed a recreation centre and several private buildings.⚡️ Official: Russian forces launch missile attacks on Odesa Oblast. Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesperson for Odesa Oblast’s administration, reported that Russian forces have launched several missiles at the region. Details are reportedly being clarified.— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) August 17, 2022 Updated at 07.26 BSTKey eventsShow key events onlyPlea...

Former President Donald Trump's tour of political vengeance made a stop in Wyoming Tuesday, unseating one of his biggest critics in the Republican Party by a double-digit margin.Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., lost to a Trump-backed challenger. Cheney is the vice chair of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and Trump's role in fueling it.While some Republicans have stood up to Trump – 10 in the House voted for his second impeachment – none has taken him on as strongly as Cheney, who has said Republicans cannot have both loyalty to Trump and to the U.S. Constitution.Cheney's race was the main event on Tuesday, which also featured a special election in Alaska to replace the late GOP Rep. Don Young, who died earlier this year. Alaska voters will use ranked-choice voting to s...

The owner of the Arezzo store, on Félix Valverde Lillo street, attends to a client. / JM ROMEROThe City Council has authorized 110 opening licenses in the city so far this year Mérida revives with the opening of new commercial premises, especially in the downtown area. Mainly there are openings of small businesses and franchises, since they are the most successful establishments. By type of business, the one that opens the most is the women's clothing store. One fact certifies this reality. So far this year, the City Council of the capital of Extremadura has already issued 110 opening licenses for commercial establishments that are scattered throughout the city, according to the information requested by this newspaper. According to Patricia Llanos, president of the Mérida Merch...

Twenty years ago, I took six months out from my NHS job as a psychologist to embark on a round-the-world trip. But, when I fell in love with scuba diving and took a job as a cook on a dive boat on the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia, I called my boss in England to tell her I wouldn't be coming back.After two days based at the diving school, the students would board a boat for a three-day trip. It was me they came to with their worries: “Are there sharks on the reef?”; “Are they dangerous?”; “Is it pitch black on a night dive?” I was the cook, but my psychology skills were put to good use. That morning on the boat, two of the instructors were going on an “early one”, and they asked me if I wanted to go with them. They said the best time to dive was 6am, when the fish were...