Martin Belam

UN special envoy to Syria has cautioned Israel that its airstrikes and ground invasion need to stop, saying it is violating 1974 agreement

Occasionally I am convinced that time travel means that suddenly things that have never previously existed in our timeline pop up, and have apparently been here forever. That is how I feel about the Museum of Brands in London, which despite clearly being very much in my wheelhouse, I had genuinely never heard of until an old friend from school mentioned on Facebook that they had visited it. Of course, I instantly had to make plans to go, and so went last week while the Guardian was on strike.

Questions on general knowledge and topical trivia, plus a few jokes, every Thursday. This week: animals. How will you fare?

It is that time of the year to remind everybody that I was clearly destined to be a journalist with a journalist attitude to deadlines, because my vow in the middle of 2002 that by Xmas 2002 I would have my own personal blog up and running on the interwebs meant my first ever blog post was on Christmas Eve 2002, the very last possible moment. A tale, my current editors will tell you, as old as time.

This time last year we got our first full-length look at Ncuti Gatwa in the role . Fast forward 12 months, and here was a man with a season behind

Questions on general knowledge and topical trivia, plus a few jokes, every Thursday, even on Boxing Day. How will you fare?

Much like those family circular letters at Xmas, end of year lists on personal blogs are more for the benefit of the writer than the reader. I look forward to looking back on this list for years to come. And so in that spirit …

I’ve ditched the usual blurb about “not being a movies person, but anyway…” because since I started going to the cinema regularly in 2022 I’ve turned into the kind of guy who downloads the London Film Festival brochure and meticulously plans what to see. You can find all my one-line spoiler-free reviews here.

Questions on general knowledge and topical trivia, plus a few jokes, every Thursday. How will you fare?

Questions on general knowledge and topical trivia, plus a few jokes, every Thursday. How will you fare?