The lifestyle guru’s advice on 1980s entertaining was absurd – but reminds us that hosting should always be fun

The celebrations were imminent and the greenhouse ready to accommodate – among the orchids, in unseasonable November warmth – an intimate Hawaiian luau. The table was set with giant clam shells for serving vessels and miniature hibachis for grilling Dungeness crab. Somebody had found a small, pink pineapple and secured it on the watermelon like a brooch. The hostess considered the merits of a hula dancer, but in the end settled on a more succinct spectacle: a 19lb suckling pig, enwreathed with sub-tropical flowers and caparisoned in bronze.

It was, and could only ever have been, a Martha Stewart affair. This was before the media empire, in more innocent days, when Stewart was a caterer in Connecticut. She was brilliant even then. It takes a spark of something dazzling, even dangerous, to notice a single detail – an orchid, say – and from this to extrapolate a 20-person luau. A while later, Stewart wrote about the party in Entertaining, her 1982 cookbook debut, lushly photographed and with step-by-step instructions for chicken wings with banana. “The pig wore a necklace of starfruit,” she explained. It speaks to Stewart’s generational talent for nonsense that this isn’t even in the top 10 wildest sentences in the book.

The sport is rooted in the culture of rugged individualism and has been slow to adopt modern techniques. That state of affairs is slowly changing

Boosted by cultural phenomena like the hit series Yellowstone and Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter album and tour, rodeo and all things Western are enjoying a cultural resurgence. Attendance, broadcast and streaming viewership are at all time highs. So is the prize money, which is attracting more and more young athletes seeking a chance to make a name for themselves.

But while rodeo is booming, athlete development remains antiquated.

Ill-advised, in which 75-year-old actor doles out advice and his innermost secrets, is fast becoming cult podcast of the year

Bill Nighy is single. He has never read a self-help book, had no intention of becoming an actor and briefly went deaf after putting toilet paper in his ears to get to sleep. He has shutters, not curtains, in his bedroom, but has no idea what time he wakes up. If you invite him to a dinner party he will bring you exfoliating products, except don’t invite him, because he won’t come. He is good at making custard, but doesn’t cook because he lives alone “and it would be too sad”.

The Surrey-born actor is as renowned for his suits as he is his singular ability to inhabit a role while remaining recognisably himself throughout. But almost 50 years into his career, Nighy is finally playing himself. A new podcast called Ill-advised casts the 75-year-old as an agony uncle, doling out advice and his innermost secrets to listeners from Italy to Mongolia to Scotland. The actor describes it as a “refuge for the clumsy and awkward”. But it’s gently becoming the cult podcast of the year. In the most recent episode, Nighy has even threatened to make merch.

Whether it’s music boxes, glasses cases or mugs, footie coasters, F1 keyrings or pet portraits, adding a personal touch to a gift has never been easier

• The best self-care gifts for Christmas

Struggling to find a gift for your hard-to-buy-for mother-in-law? Perhaps you’ve ended up with your boss in the work secret Santa and are stuck for ideas? Or maybe you can’t think of what to buy a friend who already has everything?

Personalised gifts elevate a crowd-pleasing present to a meaningful one. From a wooden gaming stand to ceramic egg cups, we’ve found some of the best.

It is uncomfortable to watch royals appealing to the nation’s best instincts while an elected government feels compelled to chase our worst

Every child has the right to feel safe, loved and as if they belong.

Put like that, there is nothing remotely radical about what the Princess of Wales used her first public speech since recovering from cancer to say: that families need consistently nurturing environments to flourish; that the world could actually use a bit more tenderness; that we are all responsible for the culture in which future generations grow up; and that (as she told an audience of blue-chip employers) caring for others is work deserving of respect. It’s the reasons why those motherhood-and-apple-pie values don’t always prevail in real life, rather than the values themselves, that are generally too contentious for the carefully apolitical royals. Yet what were once safe, bland nothings are increasingly no longer so – and not just because of the awkward shadow now cast over any royal initiative involving childhood by the former prince Andrew’s infamous association with the sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

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I guessed it would be worth a couple of hundred pounds at most, but it was a preparatory print for his famous 1639 etching The Goldweigher

My father died 20 years ago, when I was 26, and my mother died 10 years later. I’ve always felt grateful that one of the things they passed on to me was a love of art. My dad, Alan Barlow, was a stage designer, a Benedictine monk and then, after marrying my mother, Grace – who was a GP – he became a full-time artist.

In his studio in Norfolk, there were two big Victorian plan chests, where he stored paper and sketches he had created. He was also an art collector and some of the drawers contained artworks he had bought but didn’t have wall space for. For a long time, I didn’t feel ready to go through everything in his studio. I always felt connected to him when I went in there.

PM says Reform UK leader also has ‘questions to answer’ about alleged racist comments and chants when at school

• UK politics live – latest updates

Keir Starmer has accused Nigel Farage of being “spineless” when it comes to tackling racism in his party after the Guardian revealed allegations he made xenophobic and antisemitic comments while he was at school.

The prime minister said the Reform UK leader had “questions to answer” about the alleged comments and chants, which include songs about the Holocaust and accusations of bullying towards minority ethnic schoolboys.

Germany says leaders welcomed US efforts to end war but current line of contact should be ‘starting point’ of negotiation

German Bild tabloid is also reporting that Merz is expected to hold a phone call not only with Zelenskyy, but also with the US president, Donald Trump.

Mind you: there’s been no official confirmation yet.

As she prepares to deliver her budget next week, Reeves speaks of pressure of being UK’s first female chancellor

• UK politics live – latest updates

Rachel Reeves has said she is sick of people “mansplaining” how to be chancellor to her as she prepares to deliver her budget next week.

Reeves made the comments in an interview with the Times in which she spoke of the pressure of being the UK’s first female chancellor and the subject of constant political attacks.

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

Shares are falling faster than wickets in Perth at the start of trading in London, as fears of an AI bubble rip through markets again.

Following losses on Wall Street last night, the FTSE 100 share index has dropped by 104 points, or just over 1%, at the start of trading to 9423 points. That’s a one-month low.

it’s been a truly remarkable 24 hours, with a sequence of moves that were almost impossible to predict….

After the world’s largest company reported spectacular results, the stock was up around +5% by 3pm London time. It closed down -3.15%. The broader market followed a similar pattern: the S&P 500 initially climbed +1.93%, only to fade and close down -1.56% as doubts about AI valuations crept back in. That marked the biggest intra-day swing for the S&P since the six days of extreme market turmoil that followed the Liberation Day tariffs in early April. Adding to the negative backdrop for crypto were lingering questions over the crypto market structure bill that’s being worked on in Congress.