As Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights gets a boost from a new film adaptation, we survey the surprising, seditious and sensual ways in which prose has influenced pop

The oeuvre of Katy Perry occasionally has some profoundly unexpected inspirations: California Gurls is spelt in homage to Big Star’s September Gurls, while Firework was based on, wait for it, Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, specifically the line about how his favourite people “burn like fabulous yellow roman candles”.

To help combat the impact of screen-time creep, the Countdown word supremo has a few suggestions

• Children’s vocabulary shrinking as reading loses out to screen time, says Susie Dent

Children’s vocabulary is shrinking as reading loses out to screen time, the Countdown lexicographer Susie Dent has suggested, as she urged families to read, talk and play word games to boost language development.

Dent, who also co-presents Channel 4’s Secret Genius with Alan Carr, is fronting a new campaign – working with an unexpected partner, Soreen malt loaf – aimed at boosting children’s vocabulary at snack time.

Reading.

Listening to audiobooks.

Sharing word stories and routinely going to the dictionary to find out where words come from.

Playing word games and puzzles, in print, online, with board games, or in the car.

Having conversations while doing active tasks with your child such as cooking or walking.

Asking your child to invent a new word, or to share the latest slang in their class.

Learn another language.

kerfuffle One of Soreen’s choices, kerfuffle is from Scots that describes a commotion or fuss. Children love it because of its sound, but it also adds a touch of humour to an otherwise tricky situation.

mellifluous Not only does this word have a pleasing sound, fulfilling the very quality it describes, but its etymology is also gorgeous – mellifluous comes from the Latin for flowing like honey.

thrill I chose this one because of its secret life. Something thrilling today is always positive, but in its earliest incarnation, to thrill meant to pierce someone with a sword rather than with excitement. The literal meaning of thrill was a hole, which is why our nostrils began as our nose-thrills, or nose holes.

apricity This is one of the many words in the Oxford English Dictionary that were recorded only once before fading away like a linguistic mayfly. Apricity, from 1623, means the warmth of the sun on a winter’s day. The word is as beautiful as the sensation it describes.

susurrus Say this word out loud and you will know its meaning instantly. Susurrus comes from the Latin for whispering and describes the rustling of leaves in a summer breeze.

bags of mystery This Victorian nickname for sausages always makes me smile. It was inspired by the fact that you can never quite know what’s in them.

snerdle English has a vast lexicon for snuggling, from nuddling, neezling and snoozling to snuggening, croodling and snerdling. Each of them expresses the act of lying quietly beneath the covers. Mind you, if you lie there a little bit too long, you could be accused of hurkle-durkling, old Scots for staying in bed long after it’s time to get up.

splendiferous Another of Soreen’s picks, this word has a distinct touch of Mary Poppins about it. In the middle ages it meant simply resplendent, but since the 19th century it has been a humorous description of anything considered rather magnificent.

ruthful The historical dictionary is full of lost positives – words whose negative siblings are alive and well while their parents have faded away. As well as being gormless, inept, unkempt, uncouth and disconsolate, you could in the past be full of gorm, ept, kempt, couth, and consolate. Best of all is surely ruthful, the counterpart to ruthless which means full of compassion.

muscle Another word with a hidden backstory, and this one often makes children laugh. In ancient times, athletes would exercise in the buff in order to show off their rippling muscles (the words gym and gymnasium go back to the Greek for exercise naked). To the Roman imagination, when an athlete flexed their biceps, it looked as though a little mouse was scuttling beneath their skin. Our word muscle consequently comes from the Latin musculus, little mouse.

Capitalism cares about our species’ prospects as much as a wolf cares about a lamb’s. But democratise our economy and a better world is within our grasp

We have an urgent responsibility. Our existing economic system is incapable of addressing the social and ecological crises we face in the 21st century. When we look around we see an extraordinary paradox. On the one hand, we have access to remarkable new technologies and a collective capacity to produce more food, more stuff than we need or that the planet can afford. Yet at the same time, millions of people suffer in conditions of severe deprivation.

What explains this paradox? Capitalism. By capitalism we do not mean markets, trade and entrepreneurship, which have been around for thousands of years before the rise of capitalism. By capitalism we mean something very odd and very specific: an economic system that boils down to a dictatorship run by the tiny minority who control capital – the big banks, the major corporations and the 1% who own the majority of investible assets. Even if we live in a democracy and have a choice in our political system, our choices never seem to change the economic system. Capitalists are the ones who determine what to produce, how to use our labour and who gets to benefit. The rest of us – the people who are actually doing the production – do not get a say.

Marineland Antibes, the French government and animal welfare groups all agree on the need to rehome the listless killer whales but no one can agree where

In a sprawling aquarium complex in south-eastern France that once drew half a million visitors a year, only a few dozen people now move between pools that contain the last remaining marine mammals of Marineland Antibes. Weeds grow on walkways, the stands are empty and algae grows in the pools, giving the water a greenish hue.

It is here that Wikie and Keijo, a mother and son pair of orcas, are floating. They were born in these pools, and for decades they performed in shows for crowds. But since the park’s closure in January 2025, they no longer have an audience. When they are alone, they “log”, or float at the water’s surface, according to a court-ordered report released last April.

Kevin thinks wardrobes are there for a reason, but Mabel says hangers are a hassle for a woman in a rush. You decide who deserves a dressing down
• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

Mabel’s clothes mountain gets in the way and sets a bad example for our sons. I call it the ‘Monster’

Kevin is exaggerating the size of the pile. I like living in organised chaos and he should accept that

Andreas Graf lived without screens and no idea of the date or time. The conditions were often brutal – but he found kindness and friendship as he rode

In April 2022, Andreas Graf set off on his bike from his home in Norway. His dream was to cycle to India. A week later, having reached Sweden, it was already becoming more of a nightmare. “It was pouring with rain and I was lying in my tent in my half-wet sleeping bag and I was like, I could be in my very cosy Oslo apartment,” he says. “I had this good life, a career, a partner, and I had left everything behind.”

He was 31. Friends were settling down. Graf had a well-paid job in industrial engineering, but was still renting in a houseshare. “I had started to think about whether to make a financially reasonable and sensible decision, or do something else. I went for option two.”

Manchester United owner responds to criticism by saying: ‘It is critical that we maintain an open debate on the challenges facing the UK’

Here is video of Jim Ratcliffe making his comment about the UK being “colonised” by immigrants.

Kemi Badenoch has urged Keir Starmer to delay the departure of Sir Chris Wormald, the cabinet secretary, so that he remains in post to oversee the release of government documents relating to Peter Mandelson’s time as ambassador to Washington.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that the cabinet secretary is simply the latest person to be thrown under a bus by this prime minister.

It is all the more concerning to be changing cabinet secretary in the midst of the ongoing scandal over the appointment of Lord Mandelson and his conduct in office.

Changing the cabinet secretary in the middle of this scandal – or more precisely forcing out the incumbent without any clear process – would be an extraordinary thing to do.

Any individual appointed in the circumstances, without a full process to point to and in midst of managing a scandal, could find it difficult to demonstrate impartiality.

Information appears to contradict court testimony by banker in 2025 over nature of ties to convicted sex offender

The former Barclays boss Jes Staley was named as a trustee of Jeffrey Epstein’s estate until at least May 2015, according to documents that appear to contradict court testimony given by the banker.

This month the Guardian revealed that US prosecutors had reviewed allegations of rape and bodily harm against Staley, who denies any wrongdoing. He has never been charged with a crime related to the allegations.

Exclusive: Countdown lexicographer urges families to read, talk and play word games to help language development

• Susie Dent’s tips and tricks to add muscle to a child’s vocabulary

Children’s vocabulary is shrinking as reading loses out to screen time, according to the lexicographer Susie Dent, who is urging families to read, talk and play word games to boost language development.

The Countdown star’s warning comes as the government prepares to issue its first advice to parents on how to manage screen use in under-fives, amid concerns that excessive screen time is damaging children’s language development.

GDP in last three months of 2025 also hit by weak consumer spending, with little momentum going into this year

• Analysis: UK economy limps along at 0.1% growth – but there are reasons for optimism in 2026

• Business live – latest updates

The UK economy expanded by only 0.1% in the final three months of last year, according to official data, as falling business investment and weak consumer spending led to little momentum going into 2026.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that the economy grew at the same rate of 0.1% as the previous three months. This was less than a 0.2% rise that economists had been expecting.