Abstract art like this gives all abstract art a bad name, just meaningless concoctions that avoid proper scrutiny

One thing is obvious about Ed Sheeran the painter: he doesn’t want to ruin his clothes. He paints in a white protective suit, photos reveal, as if paint was radioactive material or sewage. It’s a telling contrast with a real artist like Jenny Saville, who gets completely covered with paint like a naughty three-year-old, let alone Van Gogh, who ate the stuff.

Sheeran isn’t claiming to be one of those artists – is he? He’s in it for fun and charity. And his paintings have more energy than you’d think from the prissy hazmat suit. He must have moved about a bit, flicking and pouring the fizzy greenish blues, hot orange, lime, mixing them as if making cocktails.

In a world still hostile to the LGBTQ+ community, a new exhibition looks into the things that provide solace, from chosen families in Manila to a decrepit Parisian bar

I don’t believe in ghosts, but I am also an extreme people pleaser. If my living room was filled with judgmental spirits, it felt disrespectful to remain such a mess

About a year after I moved into my apartment in Los Angeles, I was woken up by three loud knocks on my bedroom door at 3am. I thought there might be an intruder – but I got up, opened the door, and there was nobody there. I went to the front door, thinking I had misheard it, but there was nobody there either. I thought I had imagined it. Then it kept happening about once a week.

I thought it must be my upstairs neighbours, perhaps working a night shift, but after I introduced myself to them to ask about the noise, they assured me they wouldn’t be awake at that hour. I asked the man who looks after our 70s-built apartment block if there were problems with the pipes. He said no. At one point, I started putting my dresser in front of the door, because I was so scared. I couldn’t shake the idea that somebody was getting into my apartment, even though there was no evidence of it. I didn’t tell anyone for ages – because if I had, I would have had to recognise how crazy I sounded.

A harrowing investigation into online suicide forums tracks the suspected supplier of the lethal poison used by several visitors to the sites. Plus: Poldark revisited by one of the series’ writers. Here’s what to watch today

9pm, Channel 4
On New Year’s Day 2023, 25-year-old Imogen “Immy” Nunn’s body was found in her Brighton home, after she had consumed a poison bought online via a suicide forum. This unsettling two-part documentary shows that Immy was one of many who had used the sites. It looks at the devastating conversations in the forum and meets the families of other victims, with one father reading his son’s last posts and the replies from users who cheered him on as he was dying. It then follows the Times journalist James Beal’s efforts to find a man accused of shipping this lethal poison globally, which culminates in Beal going undercover and meeting him face to face. (The man is now awaiting trial in Canada over similar allegations.) Hollie Richardson

The prime minister has repaired broken relations with France, but Britain still looks perilously isolated in a world of shifting alliances

Gilded carriages and royal banquets are not essential tools of modern diplomacy, but nor are they obsolete. In a digital age, when intergovernmental business could easily be conducted online, the analogue grandeur of a state visit feels potent as a bestowal of favour.

This week Emmanuel Macron is the beneficiary. In September it will be Donald Trump. The sequence is not meant to indicate preference. Both relationships are special, say officials. There are enough champagne receptions and sleepovers at Windsor Castle to go around.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

One year of Labour, with Pippa Crerar, Rafael Behr and more
On 9 July, join Pippa Crerar, Raf Behr, Frances O’Grady and Salma Shah as they look back at one year of the Labour government, its current policies and plans for the next four years