It’s UGH week, the time when we all notice the many terrible things that have accumulated in our homes under the darkness of winter. But don’t worry! You don’t have to do anything silly like spring clean

I rarely have any wisdom to impart, but at this time of year I find myself itching to share one of the few snippets I have gleaned in my 50 years. So here goes.

Have you found in recent days that everyone (in the northern hemisphere, anyway) seems stoked about spring – skittles and beer, carpets of crocuses, the prospect of sitting outside without having your face resurfaced by sleet – but you are not quite feeling it? Have any nascent joys of the changing seasons been crushed by a glimpse of yourself in a mirror, replaced by wondering how you got so dull and lumpy? Has your home become, seemingly overnight, a sticky nest of squalor – toothpaste dribbles on the mirror, mildewed grouting, sofa stains, dust (God, the dust)? Does nothing please you?

After a tricky few years, the group has bounced back, but, says its new chair, cash rewards for workers must wait

Profits are set to double at the owner of John Lewis and Waitrose, but it is likely to be a third barren year for the staff bonus as the retail group targets hourly pay and revamping its stores instead.

The staff-owned John Lewis Partnership, which runs 36 department stores and the Waitrose supermarket chain, has not paid a bonus to workers in three of the past four years, after diving to a loss during the pandemic when it was forced to close stores during government lockdowns.

Conservatives benefit most from donations provided either before or after peers secured their seats

• Cash before honours: the Tory donors made peers who barely speak in Lords

Peers who sat in the House of Lords during the last parliament have given a combined £109m in political donations, almost £50m of which was contributed before they secured their seats.

A group of 20 super-donors – all male – have given more than £1m each.

Nearly £48m came from donors before they joined the Lords, with 91% of that sum going to the Conservatives.

Donations after joining the Lords were split more evenly, with 42% given to the Conservatives, 33% to Labour and 25% to the Lib Dems.

The top three donors were David Sainsbury, with £25m to Labour and the Lib Dems, and the Conservative supporters Anthony Bamford with £10m and Michael Farmer with £9m.

The author always sits in the corner of a room but doesn’t understand why. Do some people crave the solace of the corner more than others? He finds clues to the compulsion in his upbringing – and in art

It can take a surprisingly long time to become conscious of something that has been a feature of one’s life for as long as one can remember. I was 66 before I realised that I had always liked sitting in a corner. This revelation occurred in a restaurant while I was waiting for a friend. I’d got there right on time – I’ve known for more than 40 years that I have a mania for punctuality – and after being shown to a corner table I took what was obviously the best of the two seats on offer: the one in the corner. When I was growing up my mum said that if a man was out with a lady he should always walk curb-side; was there a version of this whereby the gentleman should always let the lady have the corner seat and sit with his back to the interior equivalent – the foot traffic – of the open road, with the attendant risk of being assaulted from behind by the chill blast of air conditioning? If so, that bit of chivalry had been invalidated by my friend’s texting to say she was running an incredible seven minutes late.

As soon as I sat down I was happy. Because I was in a corner. Realising is one thing, but I also want to understand. Where does the satisfaction and pleasure of the corner come from? What does it mean? The following reflections are personal and contingent but, as Diane Arbus once said: “I do feel I have some slight corner on something about the quality of things.”

After suffering a violent attack in Buenos Aires, the writer rediscovered her love of dance

Dance can be life-changing – it’s a lesson we learn every year on Strictly Come Dancing, but it bears repeating. Last year’s winner, comedian Chris McCausland, the show’s first blind celebrity, defied expectations and changed people’s attitude to his disability, while 80-year-old presenter Angela Rippon demonstrated in 2023 that age is no barrier to dancing.

Over my two decades as a dance writer, I’ve tried a little of everything – ballet, ballroom, even breaking, but nothing has moved me like the Argentine tango. And I’m not talking about the version you see on Strictly – that’s the choreographed stage tango, with dancers kicking up their legs in performative tricks; few of us ever get to do that – but rather, the social dance style.

Affected roads include vital routes for holidaymakers, including A2 towards Folkestone and parts of A303 and A30

A quarter of England’s most important A-roads have electric car charging “cold spots”, according to government figures that suggest significant gaps remain in the infrastructure needed to switch away from fossil fuels.

Twenty-nine out of 107 A-roads that are part of the strategic road network have at least one cold spot, according to data obtained by charging company Zest from the Department for Transport. Cold spots are defined as points where a vehicle with only 10% of its battery remaining would not be able to reach a site with at least six rapid or ultra-rapid devices.