Britains

‘The aftermath of enslavement just doesn’t wash away with bleach. It doesn’t wash away with new buildings. It doesn’t wash away with so-called diversity and representation.” The voice of poet and musician Camae Ayewa, known as Moor Mother, commands your whole attention even over a video call. Within minutes of connecting with her, it’s clear that when she speaks, she does so not to impress or to serenade, but to tell the truth. “In the last I did in the Guardian I said we have yet to deal with the repercussions of…

A plan map of Silchester created with data from the Silchester Mapping Project of the Archaeology Data Service. Credit: Credit: Britannia (2023). DOI: 10.1017/S0068113X23000375 A rough site plan for the Roman-era village of Silchester in south-central England, now a ruin, has existed since antiquarians excavated it in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Though extensive, these efforts used techniques that are now outdated…

Women’s History Month is in full swing, and International Women’s Day is just around the corner. With this year’s theme “inspiring inclusion,” aiming to “forge a more inclusive world for women,” a woman fighting for the well-being of animals reflected on her role in a male-dominated industry, as well as what the special day meant to her.Meet Tarion Partridge, the 25-year-old animal rights and vegan activist who has been risking her life to go undercover in Britain’s abattoirs to expose the mistreatment being perpetuated…

It’s Sunday evening at the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds and business appears to be booming. There is a blues festival in one of the two 400-capacity rooms and the rising US singer-songwriter Sam Evian in the other. The lounge between is packed with students watching Liverpool beat Chelsea on TV. However, the owner-promoter Nathan Clark is nervous: “The picture isn’t as rosy as it seems.”Yesterday, for instance, he was all set to put on the Australian psych-rockers Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, who had pulled 1,000 people…

Having fun is big business. Without the factories and mills that first drew hundreds of thousands to towns and cities, today’s modern metropolis is expected to sustain itself and its residents through the manufacturing of leisure and the commodification of a good time. The zeitgeist phrasing is telling: the night-time is now its own economy – one worth an estimated £66bn in the UK. Cities are no longer expected to sleep – sleep is wasted consumption time, after all. But from nightclubs to pubs and restaurants, the story…

Colorado-born Ball Aerospace has a new owner, a new name and what the company hopes will be a growing global customer base. But Dave Kaufman, president of the company now called Space & Mission Systems, said the nearly 70-year-old business is “staying put” in Colorado. BAE Systems PLC, a British arms, security and aerospace company, closed the $5.5 billion acquisition of Ball Aerospace from Ball Corp. on Friday, Feb. 16. Kaufman, previously Ball Aerospace president and a Ball Corp. senior vice president, removed a…

Today an important parliamentary report was published on Britain’s music industry. Reflecting on the findings of the women and equalities committee’s Misogyny in Music research, I felt deeply moved yet not surprised. The 74-page document is like a mirror, reflecting the systemic barriers and biases that women confront every day in the music industry. It captures a disturbing image of underrepresentation, discrimination and abuse that is cloaked in a culture of silence, and a lack of understanding about…

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cinematic email for freeRay Winstone wanted to go to bed, but Sexy Beast was on the telly. “I said I’d watch 10 minutes then head off,” he remembers. At least until his retired gangster is lying there in his Speedos, browning in the Andalucían sun like a Cockney lamb shank. “But it just kept drawing me in.” He ended up watching the whole thing – the safe-cracking, the orgies, Sir Ben Kingsley at his most…

In October 1954 a clerk working at the British embassy in Moscow, John Vassall, was invited to a party. Vassall got into a taxi with a “dark-haired stranger” and found himself in the Hotel Berlin. There, he had dinner with a group of Russian men in a private dining room. Soon, he was naked and lying on a divan. Two men raped him. Another took photographs. At 3.30am they brought him home in a taxi.The episode – organised by the KGB’s second chief directorate – was a classic honeytrap. A few months later Vassall had a…

The rapid development of novel Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools will lead to an increase in cyberattacks and lower the barrier of entry for less sophisticated hackers to do digital harm, Britain's GCHQ spy agency warned on Wednesday.That lower entry barrier will also likely contribute to the global rise in ransomware attacks, whereby criminals encrypt computer systems for a digital ransom, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which is part of GCHQ, said in a report.Elevate Your Tech Prowess with High-Value Skill…