Entertainment

Self-confessed "ugly" popstar ZAND has been announced to play at this year's Loud Women Fest. The one-day festival takes places at both The Dome and Boston Music Room in Tufnell Park on Saturday 15 September 2018. Speaking about the festival, ZAND says: "I'm so excited to be on the bill for a festival with such an important message, along with playing alongside some of the sickest female and non-binary punk bands about in music at the moment! Feminism is lit." Known online for speaking out...

Let me tell you about something that no readers in Britain, Ireland or Western Europe can possibly relate to unless they are either from one of the vast countries of other continents, or perchance have driven hundreds or thousands of miles through Canada, the US or similar lands that bear night horizons lit only by stars with no halo of a distant city’s light. To live in a vast country means that a drive to the next large city can...

Irvine Welsh will unveil the final instalment of his Trainspotting era range of booke - in which one of his characters will be killed off - at a biscuit factory. The author will join the Edinburgh International Book Festival and arts collective Neu! Reekie! at the former Crawford's biscuit factory in the Leith area of Edinburgh for the event. Fans of the series will be read an excerpt from Dead Men's Trousers - which sees the beloved characters Renton, Begbie,...

London soul quintet Mama's Gun are heading out on a week jaunt around the UK in June. The 4-date headline UK tour will start at The Jam House, Birmingham on June 21, 2018 and finish at the Omeara, London on June 29, 2018. The dates arrive as part of a wider world tour in support of the band’s forthcoming album,Golden Days which is due for release on May 18, 2018 via Candelion.  ‘You Make My Life A Better Place’ follows in the footsteps of the Lauren Laverne-supported...

A 'vegetarian' Masterchef judge has baffled viewers after she admitted she doesn't taste all the food she critiques - and "eats around" the meat. Guest judge Jackie Kearney appeared on the 2011 series of the BBC show and went out on the semi-finals, finishing fourth. The mum-of-two was the first vegetarian to get so far in the competition and, despite facing some anti-vegetarian backlash, many supported her food concoctions. Author and chef Jackie was invited back on the show as...

In 2011, the Nobel prize-winning Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk spoke out about the “marginalisation” of non-English writers, about the ‘near-invisibility’ of writers in languages other than English, and about the persistent shortage of translations. He also criticised the response of British and American literary critics, who he said perceived him in narrow terms defined by his nationality. In short, he complained about the western world’s dominance over literary culture. But has anything changed since then? In an exclusive Q&A, The...

Some off-the-wall budget weirdness from London, now. Sorry today released their second visual mixtape Home Demo/ns Vol II, and it's a trip. Expanding on the idea of Sorry as a collaborative, and strictly DIY affair, the band said: Asha said, " have been making videos for fun for years and feel like the videos have built up our personality as a group. The themes just came together by things we had, found or cheap props we bought.” “We try and just make...

Hot Chip's Alexis Taylor has shared the video for brand new track ‘Oh Baby’, and it's got us a bit creeped out. Opening comments: try to keep your eyes in your head, sir. They'll only get sticky and covered in dust and fuzz, and that thought basically makes me want to be sick. Alexis says of the song: “‘Oh Baby’ is an exuberant love song, with a nod to the music I love by the likes of Alex Chilton and Paul McCartney....

Kelvin Jackson-Bowers got the design the day before Ant McPartlin was arrested on suspicion of drink driving