2706: Pitched
The unclued lights, all but one being two or more words and some could include a hyphen, are of a kind.
Across
6 Powers which followed BL in Texas (6)
12 Loathed nerd having left one-armed bandit damaged (10)
13 Blackwood, bridge player, rather gaunt (5)
15 Graham is on manoeuvres with NZ crime writer (5,5)
16 Continued to travel, we hear, to city on the Ribble (7)
20 Ride the waves and scan (4)
22 Typical – upset USA twice – then left (2,5)
23 Iberia and TWA losing heart with airlines cartel (4)
24 Whence Tennyson's Lady who has toppled Pixie (7)
30 Approving sounds coming out of Soho (4)
31 Muffs and gloves for fighting by French waters (7)
34 Half of the boss's hearing in a law court (4)
36 Branch officers initially anger cabinet (7)
39 Public room at spa or seaside amusement park (7)
40 Former Norwegian PM trimmed bristly artificial fly (5)
42 Doc, surrounded by duties; prepares for takeoff (6)
43 Ms Price, soprano, at Spanish city by river (8)
Down
2 Wintry hail blowing around Swiss city (8)
3 Soldiers' pipes (5)
5 Measure shallows and protects from floods (7)
6 They are not free of charge (6)
7 Pinches lass's rear and ducks (6)
8 Some of what Kohli destroyed, that is to say (2,3)
9 Settling her in reviewing Armistead Maupin's roman à clef (5,8)
11 National parks' workers supporting compounds (9)
17 Some ultra-high jubilant shout (3)
19 Instructive sessions spilled out into tests (9)
21 In more ways than one, they may make a fine spray (5)
27 Doctrine embraced by Afghanis methodically (3)
28 Publicity broadcast that is plain (7)
29 Rent trouble, quite a blow (7)
32 Mule is slaughtered for food (6)
33 Asprey somehow manages debts (6)
35 Donuts regularly consumed during Sunday afternoon, as starters by composer (5)
37 Love god taking books to praying figure (5)
Download a printable version here.
A first prize of a £30 John Lewis voucher and two runners-up prizes of £20 vouchers for the first correct solutions opened on 23 June.
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Scottish Sun
an hour ago
- Scottish Sun
Nepo baby with rock star dad and Hollywood A-list mum releases song moaning about being rich – can you guess who she is?
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) IT'S a hard life being part of Hollywood royalty – and this nepo baby pop star-in-the-making wants to make sure everyone knows it. But can you guess who this star's famous family are? 7 Romy Mars sends up life as an A-Lister in her new single Credit: YouTube / Romy Mars 7 The 18-year-old is primped by stylists in the clip Credit: YouTube / Romy Mars 7 The pop singer is the daughter of Francis Ford Coppola Credit: AFP In a cheeky parody of life in the limelight, new single A-Listers gives the highs and lows of being rich, from someone who has lived in it from the start. Romy Mars, 18, dropped the song and music video this week, with A-Lister's lyrics talking about how empty fame and fortune actually is. She croons in the first verse: 'Grant all of my wishes, riches to riches, and one day I'll be bored with everything that I've got. 'Get out of fancy clothes right after they get the shot, Recreate scenes from Titanic on a flying bridge yacht.' Romy knows the feeling better than most thanks to her famous family on both sides of her genetic line. Her mother, Sofia Coppola, is a film director best known for Lost in Translation and Virgin Suicides. She follows in the footsteps of her own father, the legendary Godfather director, Francis Ford Coppola. Romy's father is French musician and Phoenix frontman, Thomas Mars, whom Sofia met on the set of the Virgin Suicides in 1999 but got together with in the late 2000's. The pair have been married since 2011, and have two daughters, Romy and Cosima, both of whom have picked up their creative flair. In the accompanying music video, Romy is seen being primped and pampered for a photoshoot, in between scenes of a runaway marriage, fighting through a crowd of paparazzi cameras, and spending a day by a pool in a mansion. The Bling Ring - Teaser Trailer 'I love this golden sunny West Coast, sceney plastic world,' she sings. 'I miss being a real girl, sure, but I'm not a real girl anymore.' After watching the video, fans commented that it reminds them of Paris Hilton's music career. Her launch into music comes two years after she went viral TikTok, making a vodka pasta sauce while declaring: 'I'm grounded because I tried to charter a helicopter from New York to Maryland on my dad's credit card because I wanted to have dinner with my camp friend.' The video racked up millions of views before it was eventually deleted, with her parents banning the then-16-year-old from having public social media accounts. She's since leaned into her privileged image, releasing an EP last year titled Stuck Up. 7 Romy is one of Sofia Coppola's two daughters Credit: Getty 7 The teen got in trouble at 16 for 'trying to charter a private jet to see her friend' Credit: Getty 7 Romy got her musical flair from her dad, French musician Thomas Mars Credit: Getty
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Ocean With David Attenborough to Anora: the seven best films to watch on TV this week
As David Attenborough passes his 99th birthday, here's another landmark documentary to add to his collection – and one that's more polemical than usual. His lucid message here is 'If we save the sea we save our world', as he talks us through what humanity has done to the Earth's oceans and how we can protect them. Awe and anger intermingle – there are glorious images of aquatic life, such as the remote submarine seamounts that are 'pitstops' for migrating fish or the kelp forests in coastal waters that capture carbon. But it's the underwater footage of indiscriminate dredging by trawlers that has the most emotional impact – a picture of devastation that's also a call to arms. Sunday 8 June, 8pm, National Geographic/Disney+ Small-town Spanish teenager Sara (Laura Galán) is nicknamed 'Cerdita' (Piggy) by her mocking peers, being overweight and the daughter of the local butcher. Their bullying reaches a peak at the outdoor swimming pool but, fatefully for them, a stranger (Richard Holmes) witnesses it and makes them pay. Carlota Pereda's smart horror thriller teases a common cause – even a twisted desire – between Sara and the malevolent mystery man as kids go missing, the community descends into panic and Sara painfully discovers her inner fighter. Saturday 7 June, midnight, Film4 For a man not short on ego, Prince let himself come across as a pretty unlikable character in this 1984 musical drama, which spawned his most commercially successful album. He plays the Kid, a resident singer at a Minneapolis nightclub who rubs everyone up the wrong way with his independent/selfish approach. Apollonia is the new girl in town who catches his eye, while Morris E Day is the comic relief as a competing band's frontman. But the romance and rivalry angles play second fiddle to the exhilarating, axe-wielding antics of one of rock's greatest showmen. Saturday 7 June, 12.45am, BBC Two It was a surprise multiple Oscar winner this March, but Sean Baker's brilliant indie drama deserves all the plaudits. The writer-director's ability to immerse us fully in the lives of society's marginal characters is here focused on Mikey Madison's titular Brooklyn stripper and sex worker. When a Russian oligarch's son, Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), falls impetutously in love with her, Anora seizes the chance of a better life. But she is up against some formidable in-laws … From slapstick comedy to gritty drama, a superbly acted, manic treasure. Friday 13 June, 10pm, Sky Cinema Premiere Sign up to What's On Get the best TV reviews, news and features in your inbox every Monday after newsletter promotion There aren't many Shakespeare plays with more quotable lines than his Roman power play, from 'It was Greek to me' to 'Let slip the dogs of war'. And in Joseph L Mankiewicz's slick take it's Marlon Brando as Mark Antony who gets the best: his 'I came to bury Caesar not to praise him' speech is a masterclass in rhetorical rabble-rousing. And Brando has to raise his game, what with seasoned stage stars James Mason (Brutus), Louis Calhern (Caesar) and, particularly, John Gielgud (Cassius) immersing us eloquently in portents and plots, murder and mayhem. Sunday 7 June, 2pm, BBC Two An apple-barrelful of controversy surrounds this amiable live-action version of Disney's animated fairytale. There's a revised plot that gives the sleeping princess more agency; the casting of Rachel Zegler, an outspoken advocate for Palestinian rights, as the lead alongside the Israeli actor Gal Gadot as the evil queen; and those seven dwarves. The dwarf issue is sidestepped by making them CGI versions of the originals, and the songs from 1937 are still wonderfully whistle-worthy. Simon WardellWednesday 11 June, Disney+ Mike Leigh's unsettling 1993 drama features his most complex lead character. David Thewlis – in a searing performance – is Johnny, who has to flee Manchester for London and imposes himself on a former girlfriend, Louise (Lesley Sharp), and her flatmate Sophie (Katrin Cartlidge). But he soon finds himself adrift in the city and endures a dark night of the soul. The lonely, desperate people he encounters, including Peter Wight's security guard and Gina McKee's cafe waitress, are mirrors of his own misanthropic, eloquently despairing 13 June, 11.20pm, Film4
New Statesman
5 hours ago
- New Statesman
Sharing a bed with Edmund White
Photo by Peter Kevin Solness / Fairfax Media via Getty Images For a time, Edmund White and I slept in a bed reputed to have belonged to Walt Whitman. We were both living in New York and teaching at Princeton. When we had to stay the night, we were hosted by a friend who lived on the edge of the campus. In his guest room was a dark wood bed purchased in the 1950s from an antique dealer who produced the story of its connection to the 19th-century American poet. Whatever the truth, on our separate nights, Edmund and I both slept in 'Whitman's bed', smoothing the unchanged sheets in the mornings to maintain the fiction that it had not been slept in by anyone else. Eventually, Edmund wrote a poem about it, describing himself, an aged gay novelist, chastely reading Chekhov's stories, and a British PhD student who was the object of his erotic fantasy, both sharing the great gay poet's bed. 'My first poem since 1985', he told me untruthfully in an email. Edmund, who died this week at the age of 85, was perhaps America's greatest living gay writer. The author of more than 30 books, including novels, memoirs, and biographies of Proust, Genet, and Rimbaud, he occupied a unique position in American literature. I first met Edmund in Princeton, where he was a professor of creative writing until 2018, at a weekly dinner that he hosted with the owner of 'Whitman's bed' – the philosopher George Pitcher. The evening before Edmund taught his class, he and his husband, the writer Michael Carroll, would travel down to Princeton, stay with George, and take a group of PhD students out to dinner at a local restaurant. The dinners were a finely honed ritual: George, then in his early nineties, would use a flashlight on his key ring to inspect the menu. Someone would order a bottle of white wine. And the PhD students would attempt to keep up with Edmund and Michael's wit. Edmund was a conversationalist of the kind I associate with 18th-century philosophers: intellectually curious but also a master of levity, ranging from minor French literature to celebrity gossip. He once recalled a dinner with Michel Foucault to which he had also invited Susan Sontag. When she went to the bathroom, Foucault hissed at Edmund: 'Why did you invite her? She only ever talks about work!' Edmund's life informed his literature in a special way. In The Loves of My Life: A Sex Memoir (2025), his last published work, he writes: 'I'm at an age when writers are supposed to say finally what mattered most to them – for me it would be thousands of sex partners.' This is another connection with his 19th-century predecessor, as his Princeton colleague Jeff Nunokawa points out: 'Ed believes with a Whitmanesque unabashedness that sex is an instrument of knowledge.' His promiscuity gives his work an epic quality. His oeuvreis, in one sense, a story of America in the second half of the 20th century: its husbands and hustlers observed in their most intimate moments. In The Loves of My Life, he writes: 'I remember a big Southerner who fucked me as I wiggled my butt to show passion, though he kept saying in his baritone drawl, 'Just lay still, little honey.' More wiggling and he'd say, 'C'mon, baby, just lay still for me.' I thought his bad grammar proved he was a lifelong top. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe There is also an unignorable darkness in Edmund's account of desire. As a child, he was sent to a Freudian therapist who pronounced his sexuality pathological. His most well-known book A Boy's Own Story (1982) features a boy who seduces his teacher, only to betray him. To readers who complained that this was unbelievable, Edmund wrote: 'how could the product of an oppressive culture not be deformed?' In time, he outgrew the belief that his desires were curable. He witnessed the Stonewall riots, in the summer of 1969, after a police raid on a popular gay bar. Recalling the laughter, Edmund called it 'the first funny revolution', but emphasised its importance: 'Stonewall inaugurated an epoch when partners of the same sex could claim, maybe for the first time in history, their common humanity.' Like Whitman and the American Civil War, this revolution required its writers, and Edmund would be one of them. After becoming HIV positive in 1984, Edmund was found to be a 'long-term non-progressor', a condition affecting 1 in 500 people infected with HIV. It meant that he would not die from AIDS. Instead, he watched his friends and acquaintances die, and his own writing became a record of the disease and the political intolerance that met it. In Artforum in 1987, he wrote: 'I feel repatriated to my lonely adolescence, the time when I was alone with my writing and I felt weird about being a queer.' Unlike so many gay writers of his generation, Edmund lived long enough to see himself be celebrated as a legend. He spent his summers in Europe and winters in Florida. He was made the director of creative writing at Princeton, until, according to his friend and colleague Joyce Carol Oates, he realised that he would not be able to spend the first week of every January in Key West. At this point, he 'graciously resigned'. Success, inevitably, brought criticism. A review of The Loves of My Life by James Cahill in The Spectator called it 'lurid.' Edmund had cleverly anticipated this, noting in the book's introduction that 'sex writing can seem foolish, especially to the English.' It is his openness to and about sex that will grant Edmund's work its enduring significance, and which makes it feel vital for an era threatened both by a new puritanism and an even more repressive 'anti-wokeness'. His funny, detailed, historiographical writing makes sex appear motivated more by curiosity than appetite. 'I always feel as if I don't really know people unless I've gone to bed with him,' he claimed. I loved visiting Edmund and Michael's apartment in the West Village, the walls stacked to the roof with books. The dinner conversations were full of warmth and wit and smut. I simply expected to see him again. His long life and many books are something to be grateful for and amazed by. My friend Amelia Worsley, who visited him at home a few days before his sudden death, writes: 'I was amazed when Stan, one of Edmund's first loves, stopped by the apartment. We talked about the glamour of New York in the 1960s and the AIDS crisis that followed. 'It's a wonder that I am still alive,' Stan said to Edmund, 'And a wonder you are too.'' [See also: Alan Hollinghurst's English underground] Related
