Drop the pretence: instead of parading a love of highbrow literature, just enjoy the books you want to read

Toughen up. It’s the end of the line for soft, middle-class authors. Lefty-baiting headteacher Katharine Birbalsingh has declared that “gentle parenting” advice books by middle-class writers are sabotaging families by insisting adults become friends with their children.

She’s probably got a point – most mums and dads have watched with a cocked eyebrow as a Boden-clad parent has tranquilly informed little Johnny that punching another child in the face while playing in the sandpit “might not be what they like” – but I say Birbalsingh is not going far enough. Why stop with the parenting books? Why not fillet the whole damn bookcase of toxically middle-class ideas? Visionaries such as Chairman Mao have tried it before – with, admittedly, mixed results – but this time we’ll do it right.

Tebay, Cumbria: We’re a small farm, and our margins are so tight that the recent mess with government grants left us close to selling some of our livestock

I turn my back to the wind and watch the cows grazing. Despite the cold, they look happy and healthy, without a care in the world. Elsewhere on the farm it has been a stressful time. For better or worse, farms our size depend a lot on government grants to get by, but we’ve had compounding problems on this front recently. There was the announcement that the basic payment scheme wasn’t just being cut, but being phased out far quicker than expected.

Another grant, our Environmental Stewardship agreement, ended at the end of 2024, and is mainly replaced by the Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme. I submitted an SFI application on 4 September, well ahead of the start of the agreement on 1 January, but it wasn’t confirmed until mid-February (and even then it was half the expected amount). Added to that, our final ES payment – paid annually, but usually in December – didn’t come through until February.

Cargo aircraft caught fire after striking bird shortly after departure from Newark, New Jersey, on Saturday morning

A FedEx cargo airplane caught on fire after striking a bird shortly after the plane’s departure from Newark, New Jersey, on Saturday morning, according to officials.

There were no injuries reported onboard, and the plane made an emergency return to Newark Liberty international airport.

• Head coach ponders different Test, ODI and T20 captains
• McCullum may look to domestic game for new leader

Brendon McCullum is open to the concept of three England men’s captains – and possibly even appointing one from outside the current setup – as he attempts to revive the white-ball teams and ensure a winter of misery does not bleed into the Test side.

Signing off from the Champions Trophy with a seven-wicket shellacking at the hands of South Africa – a seventh successive one-day-international defeat – McCullum admitted England were poor in “all facets of the game” and lessons needed to be learned. His review will also mean identifying a successor to Jos Buttler as white-ball captain.

Past traumas processed through investigative journalism and drama; a truly moving and surprising documentary; laugh-out-loud indie comedy; and Lauren Laverne’s return

Lucky Boy (Tortoise Media)
Moorgate (Radio 4/BBC Sounds)
Thirty Eulogies (Radio 4/BBC Sounds)
Harford: An Oral History (Dan Hooper)
Lauren Laverne (Radio 6 Music/BBC Sounds)

“In that summer, it was me and her against the world. We were powerful, right?” On Tortoise Media’s new four-part podcast, Lucky Boy, Gareth (not his real name) is remembering his first love. He was 14 then, bright but a “misfit”, having a secret relationship. She was 27 and a teacher. Lucky Boy is how Gareth thought of himself at the time; nearly 40 years later, he thinks the opposite.