IIt’s all too easy to fall down the rabbit holes of old festival sets on YouTube. I revisited those I first saw on TV – PJ Harvey in a pink catsuit, singing Down by the Water at Glastonbury, broadcast on Channel 4 in 1995 in my childhood living room, changing my tastes for always – and later ones where I can try to see if I was in the crowd, while suspecting that it’s probably best not to know.

There’s something that almost every show that took place before, roughly, the mid-2000s has in common: they’re surprisingly unproduced. Nirvana at the Reading Festival in 1992 is music history, but look at it again now: it’s three guys playing their instruments on a huge open stage. The dazzling arena-style shows we’re used to, the big screens, light shows, costume changes, fireworks that put New Year’s Eve to shame, are relatively new.

I mention all of this because of Bono, who just admitted that he doesn’t really like the U2 name, or his own voice on many of his records, or a lot of his lyrics, and that he’s doing “the color of scarlet” if any of these U2 songs play on the radio when he’s in the car. “I’m just embarrassed,” he told the Hollywood journalistit is Awards Speech podcast, in an interview to discuss their new song for the animated children’s film Sing 2.

Generally, I lack patience with artists who criticize their most popular work. Sounds gross to people who love it, mourn it, or walk down the aisle (though the latter probably isn’t a problem for Radiohead‘s beef with Creep, for example). But Bono went on to explain that being embarrassing is probably part of what makes U2 so successful. “I think U2 pushes the boat out a lot out of embarrassment. And maybe that’s the place to be as an artist.

U2 are never knowingly underrated, not the kind of actor who would turn up for a big show with just their instruments. Few artists at a certain level would do that more. When I saw U2 at Glastonbury, they not only brought the shine of a massive production, despite the rain, but they also sent an astronaut from the International Space Station to teleport to Earth to present Beautiful Day. There is a kind of blind sincerity in a gesture as grand as this.

They’re an all-or-nothing bunch and thrive on it, pushing the boat out of trouble. And there are far worse band names than U2.

Vicky McClure doesn’t need a bra to defuse a bomb

During the first confinement, some began to sound the death knell for the bra. For women who could work from home, an uncomfortable bra seemed increasingly unnecessary. Who needed the sweet relief of pulling one off at the end of the day if you didn’t have to put one on in the first place?

According to YouGov, about a third of women said they wear a bra less often than usual. But bras are not dead. They’ve evolved. In the United States, sales increased, thanks to a growing appetite for sports bras and bralettes. The only thing out was the armature.

So it makes perfect sense that Vicky McClure would opt for no makeup and a crop top when playing her latest character, a bomb disposal expert, in the new series. Trigger point. The trailer has been shooting since Christmas and makes a panic attack look like a weekend at the spa. It comes from the makers of Course of action, who know a thing or two about tension, and with the added pressure of regular outbursts, I imagine it won’t be casual. McClure told the Radio schedules that his choices were to make the character “human”. “I didn’t want the character to make a big deal out of her looks,” she said.

I tried to imagine the alternative, a woman with a slapped face and a cleverly enhanced cleavage, rolling around in the dust, trying to cut the right thread. That says something that is too ridiculous to conceive. the grave robber The days of action heroines who seemed more likely to falter than win a fight are long gone – it’s Ellen Ripley’s model that has endured.

by Zara Rutherford a glorious journey will inspire girls everywhere

Zara Rutherford landed in Belgium and set a world record, becoming the youngest woman to circumnavigate the globe solo, aged 19. due to adverse weather conditions and visa issues. It looks like a wild and sometimes perilous adventure. She flew through the smoke from the California wildfires and the -20C air over Siberia. The video of her stepping out of the cockpit at the end of her trip and hugging her family (both parents are pilots) is utterly lovely and lovely.

My favorite novel from last year was great circle, by Maggie Shipstead, which told the story of a fictional aviator of the early 20th century and her struggle to complete her own circumnavigation around the globe. It consumed me. Rutherford wants to use her journey to push more girls and young women into careers in science, technology, engineering and math. Certainly, aviation could use help: only 5.8% of commercial pilots in the world are women and 4.7% in the United Kingdom. Rutherford’s journey and Shipstead’s imagination could begin to sow the seeds of possibility in the minds of young women.