Barcelona suffer another financial blow with Rakuten set to pull plug on €30m-a-year shirt sponsorship September 9, 2021 Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten is to end its €30m-a-year sponsorship of Barcelona at the end of the season, according to reports. The development is another blow for the beleaguered titans of Spanish football, who are more than £1bn in debt and lost star player Lionel Messi this summer. Rakuten has been the main shirt sponsor [...]
Marvel What If…? episode 5 review – an undead adventure September 9, 2021 There have been some interestingly complex questions in the first half of What If…?, Marvel’s cavalcade of hypotheticals. What would happen if Peggy Carter became the hero Steve was meant to be, or if the original Avengers were killed before they started? This week, things are a bit simpler, and this is reflected in episode [...]
Respect, the explosive biopic of Aretha Franklin, has it all September 9, 2021 The music biopic is a subgenre fraught with obstacles. First, you have to find the right lead – a Janis Joplin film has been in development for years with everyone from Amy Adams to Pink attached. Secondly, you have to secure the back catalogue – last year’s Stardust failed to capture the spirit of David [...]
Lotus gets serious with hand-built Emira GT4 racer September 9, 2021 Following the launch of the roadgoing Emira in July, Lotus has announced a GT4-spec race car. Here's what we know so far.
Usain Bolt: I considered athletics comeback for Tokyo 2020 Olympics but my coach talked me out of it September 9, 2021 World’s fastest man Usain Bolt has revealed that he was talked out of making a comeback at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Bolt, who won the men’s 100m and 200m titles three Games in a row, bowed out from athletics after the 2017 World Championships in London. But the Jamaican says he had second thoughts in [...]
Emma Raducanu into US Open semi-finals as dream run continues September 8, 2021 The next British teen tennis star Emma Raducanu extended her dream run at the US Open by beating Belinda Bencic 6-3 6-4 to reach the semi-finals. The 18-year-old Kent native became the first qualifier in US Open history to reach the last four after beating the reigning Olympic champion. Raducanu, ranked 361 in the world [...]
Paris Saint-Germain hit back at LaLiga boss Javier Tebas in increasingly bitter war of words with Spanish football league chief September 8, 2021 Paris Saint-Germain have hit back at LaLiga boss Javier Tebas after he labelled them “enemies” and “as dangerous as the European Super League”. The outspoken Spanish league chief, a long-standing critic of the spending of PSG and Manchester City, also derided the French club’s signing of Lionel Messi at the age of 34. In a [...]
From The Vine star Joe Pantoliano on lockdown, mental health and filming in Italy September 8, 2021 The name Joe Pantoliano will be familiar to many movie fans, but if it isn’t, his performances certainly will be. He had memorable roles in The Goonies, Midnight Run, Bad Boys, and The Fugitive; as well as being a part of the breakthroughs of The Wachowski Sisters and Christopher Nolan. That’s before you get on [...]
From The Vine review is the cinematic holiday we all need September 8, 2021 This remains an unpredictable time for the box office, with our collective trauma seeming to be reflected in the films we have made hits. Horrors like Candyman and A Quiet Place: Part II have thrived, while we’ve also lined up for some vicarious city destruction in Godzilla Vs Kong and Fast and Furious 9. Those [...]
How Hastens luxury beds are helping beat ‘Covidsomnia’ September 8, 2021 Before the onset of the pandemic, insomnia was something I’d only experienced vicariously, through the red-eyed stares of characters on screen, or the defeated anecdotes of colleagues with young children. I’ve always been a big sleeper, never really growing out of that teenage phase of lying in bed late at weekends and occasionally enjoying an [...]