• Jason Ayto to step up during recruitment process
• Mikel Arteta expected to play a key role in appointment

Arsenal intend to take their time over appointing Edu’s successor as sporting director, with his deputy, Jason Ayto, set to step up until the recruitment process has been completed.

Mikel Arteta admitted before Wednesday’s 1-0 defeat at Inter that the Brazilian’s departure had taken Arsenal by surprise and “everything happened very quickly”. It is understood that Edu – who is expected to join the multi-club network of Nottingham Forest’s owner, Evangelos Marinakis, on a reported £5m a year – is beginning a six-month notice period with reduced responsibilities as Arsenal look for a replacement.

Continue reading...

The actor and model answers your questions about bonding with Dennis Potter, corpsing in Austin Powers and her multiple, multicoloured Christmas trees

Why haven’t you done more comedy? You were effortlessly hilarious in Austin Powers. Haigin88
Why, thank you! I learned from the best playing opposite Mike Myers, whom I adored. I used to get terrible giggling fits when we were shooting and had to play lots of scenes without actually looking Mike in the eye, for fear of corpsing.There’s one scene where Austin attacks Basil Exposition’s mother, bellowing to Michael York: “She’s a man, baby!” while trying to yank her wig off to show she’s a spy. But it isn’t a wig as she’s a perfectly ordinary old lady. I ruined every take by laughing and I’m ashamed to say that in theactual movie, you can see I’m glassy-eyed and smirking.

Would you prefer to be a Bond girl or a Powers girl? MarkWatson1
Well, I like a catsuit – which, in this day and age, would mean a Powers girl. But my dream is to be a Bond villain – with or without a catsuit. I loved the Daniel Craig Bond films, but all the villains were men.

Continue reading...

Original purpose of King Arthur’s Hall is a mystery and archaeologists say it is unique anywhere in Europe

An enigmatic stone and turf structure on Bodmin Moor that was previously thought to be a medieval animal pen has been found to be 4,000 years older – and unique anywhere in Europe.

The rectangular monument was built not in the early medieval period to corral livestock, as recorded by Historic England , but rather in the middle Neolithic, between 5,000 and 5,500 years ago, archaeologists have discovered.

Continue reading...

The technology that was meant to streamline the search for love has left us lonelier and more frustrated than ever

Why are fertility rates at an all-time low ? Since the figures for England and Wales were released last week, we’ve heard the same old theories. The cost of living means that couples can’t afford to start a family. Career-hungry women are eschewing children. Childcare and house prices mean that families are reluctant to expand.

Yet these analyses ignore a key group: those who would like to have children with a partner but are single. In a 2021 survey of women who were “childless by circumstance”, of those women who wanted children but had not tried to have them, four in 10 said this was because of the lack of a partner. Which leads us to a hidden factor in the decline in fertility: a crisis in modern dating.

Siân Boyle is a freelance journalist

Continue reading...

This week’s Champions League games saw players punished for having arms and moving. I’ve lost sense of what handball is

The first draft of this column began with me rehashing one of my three anecdotes. Not the microwave or the six-pound peach, the one where I ranted on TalkSport about how repetitive and boring the Lord of the Rings films are to the point where the boss texted to ask whether I’d ever considered being so energised about football.

So it was with some disappointment when the editor sent this back to say I had used the same story TWO WEEKS AGO – literally my previous column! Nothing like repetition when criticising something for being repetitive. If I was smarter, I could say I meant it.

Continue reading...

Japanese car maker to reduce global production capacity by 20% and cut sales budgets after loss in last quarter

Nissan has announced it will cut 9,000 jobs from its global workforce as part of “urgent measures” to stop falling profits.

The Japanese car manufacturer said it would also reduce global production capacity by 20% and cut its sales budgets after it slumped to a loss in the three months to the end of September.

Continue reading...

Residents advised to keep doors and windows locked as police use thermal imaging cameras to search for animals

These monkeys went bananas: 40 monkeys escaped from a research facility in South Carolina , and local authorities on Wednesday warned residents to stay away.

“Residents are strongly advised to keep doors and windows secured to prevent these animals from entering homes,” the Yemassee police department said on Facebook this week. “If you spot any of the escaped animals, please contact 911 immediately and refrain from approaching them.”

Continue reading...

Sir John Thompson tells industry conference there was ‘no evidence’ that bats were at risk from the trains

The cost of a “bat shed” to protect a species of bats in woodland along the new HS2 high-speed line has risen to more than £100m, HS2 Ltd’s chair has revealed.

The 1km-long mesh structure will be built where the London-Birmingham high-speed line emerges from a tunnel in Buckinghamshire, to protect a colony of Bechstein’s bats.

Continue reading...

• Jack Grealish included despite recent lack of action
• Ramsdale in squad but no place for Nick Pope

Newcastle’s Lewis Hall and Southampton’s Taylor Harwood-Bellis have been called into the England squad for the first time and Lee Carsley has kept faith with Jack Grealish despite the forward not being involved in the past five Manchester City squads because of injury.

Carsley, preparing for his final two games in interim charge before Thomas Tuchel takes over, has not included Grealish’s club-mate John Stones or the Newcastle goalkeeper Nick Pope, with Aaron Ramsdale returning to the squad. Declan Rice is in after missing Arsenal’s game at Inter on Wednesday.

Continue reading...