lost

AFTER literally breaking the scales, Alison Hammond has spent recent years vehemently denying fat jabs helped her to shed 13st. 

And we can reveal her astonishing weight loss is actually the result of an adventurous gym routine, a toyboy boyfriend and a £2.85 supermarket secret.  

A close pal said: “Alison was mortified when she stepped on the scales in 2020 and her weight was so high the sensor broke. 

“It stopped at anything over 29st, so she has no idea exactly how much she weighed back then. 

“It was a real wake-up call and she began a strict diet that day. 

“People are constantly accusing her of cheating and saying that she’s on fat jabs, but she’s not.

“They weren’t even around then.”  

Instead, the Great British Bake Off host, 51, has been munching on Itsu crispy seaweed thins — with just 24 calories in a pack.  

Her mate added: “When shoppers see her in Tesco the trolley is usually packed high with boxes of Itsu seaweed snacks.

“She eats about four packs a day.

“Instead of toffees she’s addicted to seaweed.” 

It is a far cry from the terrifying moment a few years ago that kickstarted her bid to get healthy. 

The scale shock prompted her to visit the doctor, who confirmed she was prediabetic and needed to slim down or face an early death. 

Being prediabetic — the point where your blood sugar is higher than normal but not high enough yet to be diabetic — genuinely terrified her as it can bring serious health problems.  

Following her doctor’s grave warning in November 2020, and in a desperate bid to reverse her diagnosis, the popular This Morning host made a plea to viewers live on air.  

Begging for help 

“I need some help,” she said bravely.

“I’ve really got to change my ways, if you guys see me out there buying sweets or chocolates, please I’m begging you, I’m not allowed to have it. 

“It’s serious now.”  

Viewers were quick to react, messaging the show in their droves with supportive comments and sharing their own struggles too.  

I thought, ‘I have to be an adult about this’. The sweets had to stop and the fatty foods.

Alison of changing her life

“Ali knew she was morbidly obese and was genuinely concerned that she was going to die,” says her pal.

“But the encouragement from viewers really touched her.

“It inspired her to make changes.” 

She previously said that her mother Maria, who died in January 2020 from lung and liver cancer, influenced her decision to overhaul her lifestyle. 

“My mum had type 2 diabetes,” she said.

“She was worried for me, so when I then found out I was prediabetic, that was frightening.  

“I thought, ‘I have to be an adult about this’. 

“The sweets had to stop and the fatty foods.”  

It was not the first time Alison had tried to lose weight.  

She had a gastric band fitted after a chair broke underneath her while she was interviewing actor Matt Damon in 2007.  

However, following the op, Alison experienced complications and “couldn’t keep anything down”. 

After two years, she decided to have the procedure reversed.  

Then, ten years later, she appeared on TV show Sugar Free Farm, which followed celebs as they embraced a sugar-free diet and farm work. 

While she managed to lose two stone on the show, the side effects from the sugar withdrawal left her feeling dizzy and sick.  

Now Alison, who is mum to Aidan, 21, works out three to five times a week with her personal trainers Lui Mancini and Ellis Gatfield.  

She combines strength training, boxing and Pilates rather than cardio and when she is busy working she enjoys walking.

A video posted by Lui displayed her hard at work with kettlebells, medicine balls and a punching bag. 

But no doubt also helping Alison’s confidence — and her weight loss — is her lover.  

She met David Putman, 29, a former Russian model, when she booked in for a massage in 2023.

The couple kept their relationship secret for about a year but now it is very much out in the open and despite the 22-year-age gap they are desperately in love.  

“It was pretty much love at first sight,” said her pal.

“She fell totally head over heels with David and he’s besotted with her.

“When you see them together it’s so sweet.

“He gets on really well with her son too.” 

But a change in her diet has had the most dramatic effect on her.

In a bid to reverse her prediabetes she has cut back on sweets and fatty foods — which has not been easy, especially as the host of C4’s Great British Bake Off, where she is surrounded by temptation.  

“Ali was completely addicted to toffees,’ says her pal.

“She would eat bags of them.” 

For people who need to use them, weight-loss jabs are a good thing. But for me, as soon as I hear any scare story, I get frightened.

Alison on using fat jabs

But these days she relies on seaweed.

The salty snack, combined with a rigorous exercise regime, has seen her weight drop to under 17st.  

She now drinks two litres of water a day and has a high-protein diet with lots of chicken and turkey mince bolognese.  

“She eats half of what she used to eat,” revealed her friend. 

Alison, who also hosts Your Song on Channel 4, previously told how weight loss jabs were not for her because she was “frightened” by “scary” stories surrounding them. 

She said: “For people who need to use them, weight-loss jabs are a good thing.

“But for me, as soon as I hear any scare story, I get frightened. 

“So I haven’t wanted to use them, but that’s not to say I wouldn’t in the future, and I certainly wouldn’t look down on anyone who did.” 

But industry insiders have warned there could be an issue if her slimdown becomes too extreme, especially as she vies for the presenting gig on Strictly.  

“There’s a fear that if she gets too skinny she might not be as popular with her fans,” said another source.  

Pals insist Alison has no intention of losing her curves or trademark sparkle.

Her journey has never been about fitting into a certain dress size but building a healthy life.  

During an interview on Loose Women last year, she summed up her attitude perfectly: “You know what, all I can do is be me.

“I can’t do anything else. 

“I’m a black, big, bubbly woman, who is slowly deflating a little bit.” 

Only time will tell if Alison’s next steps will be into the ballroom. 

But one thing is for certain, it will be seaweed, and not Ozempic, in her handbag. 

It’s not only easy to get lost in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s new David Geffen Galleries, it’s inevitable, intentional — and one of the best things about the place.

The museum has deconstructed the traditional, boxy narrative of art history and rendered the story itself a matter of curves and continuities. Art in the collection is freed from its departmental silos and put into conversation across genre lines, place and time.

The museum has physically invalidated the binaries of center and periphery, major and minor arts. In a startling and largely gratifying way, LACMA has done what the poet Audre Lorde, alluding to a different but not unrelated aspect of patriarchal dominance, deemed impossible: used the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house.

The change goes far beyond a remodel. It’s a reinvention, a recalibration, a revisionist fever dream.

The vision conceived by museum director and Chief Executive Michael Govan and architect Peter Zumthor is not perfect, and brings with it a modest set of frustrations, but as a whole, the installation registers as ravishing and bracingly fresh. It thrusts us midstream into the ageless, ceaseless flow of makers worldwide reckoning with life, earth and being.

It prompts us, as we bob about, to reflect on our own proclivities and preconceptions, our patterns of reception and perception.

It compels us to recognize that what matters is not just what we see in the museum but how we see, what pulls us close and why, what private histories we bring to the occasion, what expectations, what tools.

Over two visits to the new building, getting my physical bearings mattered less and less as I surrendered to the generative sensations of not knowing. The museum has produced a dense guidebook to the new galleries, whose title, “Wander,” doubles as invitation and imperative. Even at 430 pages, the book is only minimally useful as an orientation device. For help with that internal navigation, Rebecca Solnit’s moving 2005 book, “A Field Guide to Getting Lost,” proved a better compass.

LACMA’s guidebook to the David Geffen Galleries, called “Wander,” doubles as invitation and imperative.

(Museum Associates / LACMA)

Solnit, citing the cultural critic Walter Benjamin, writes, “to be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery.” She goes on to recall how roaming freely as a child was key to developing self-reliance, which feels apt to the LACMA strategy. We are put in charge of making our own way, through tapestries and tea sets, past ancient jug and contemporary sphinx, without heavy-handed authoritative direction.

The history of art reads here as one long, free verse poem-in-progress, gorgeous and absorbing. Even so, many of the most memorable moments come in the form of cogent micro-essays, smartly curated ensembles of work bearing a legible, lucid premise. Some of these are contained within four (rectilinear) walls; some occupy less demarcated spaces. “Tonal Variations: Photography and Music,” for instance, gathers images by Paul Caponigro, William Eggleston, Lisette Model and others. These artists were also serious pianists, attuned, no matter which instrument they were using, to the qualities of rhythm, pattern and progression.

Lisette Model, “Window at 5th Avenue,” 1940, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

(Museum Associates / LACMA)

In a section headed “The Global Appeal of Blue-and-White Ceramics,” a long display case houses a timeline articulated sculpturally. The sequence advances from a 9th century bowl made in Iraq to a 13th century vessel from China, a 14th century example from Thailand, another from 15th century Syria, up to work by a 20th century German artist who transformed a functional vessel into personal adornment by cutting a string of beads out of the planar surface of the bowl.

Dish, Turkey, Iznik, c. 1530-35, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

(Museum Associates / LACMA)

On the wall facing this display is a huge vitrine containing an 18th century Talavera jar from Mexico, paired with a 2025/26 color photograph by Brooklyn-based Stephanie H. Shih. In the still-life composition, a cheeky visual lesson on the collision and convergence of cultures, the jar holds flowers, cactus and edible Mexican treats influenced by Chinese and Filipino flavors.

Top, Stephanie H. Shih, 梅國 “(Still life with chamoy and Dirty T Tamarindo),” (2025- 26); bottom, Jar (c. 1700-50)

(Museum Associates / LACMA)

Shih is one of a handful of artists commissioned to create new work using the museum’s collection as muse. L.A.-based Lauren Halsey is another. Her formidable, untitled 2026 sphinx regally commands its space among ancient Egyptian and Roman sculpture, a marvel of the cross-temporal and cross-spatial, spiked with specific references to Black self-determination.

Setting recent works among older ones is an effective element of LACMA’s overall plan to shed outworn hierarchies. It recasts every piece of art by every artist throughout the single-story space as equally relevant. The seamless integration of old and new feels stealthy, and a touch subversive, a doubling-down on the museum’s approach to time as nonlinear, sinuous and delightfully slippery.

Lauren Halsey’s untitled 2026 sphinx.

(Museum Associates / LACMA)

That said, a few words readily available would help connect the dots without undermining the provocation. Text — where and how it appears, or doesn’t — is my only major complaint about the installation of the new galleries.

Text panels announce, in one or two paragraphs, the themes of each given section: “Images of the Divine in South Asia”; “The Evolution of Abstract Painting in Modern Korea”; “Textile Conversations: Africa and Black America.” Individual object labels are kept minimal, containing only basic identification about each work, no commentary. When asked about this decision during my first walkthrough, Govan replied that more time reading means less time looking — “and we have the internet.” Every thematic text panel has a QR code that links to the Bloomberg Connects app, an aggregate guide to museums and other cultural sites that offers selected, augmented entries.

Determining how much didactic information is insightful and sufficient, and how much constitutes excessive artsplaining, is a delicate, ongoing challenge for museums. Where LACMA landed on this contested plain strikes me as unfortunate and counterproductive.

A few lines of explanation or context on a wall label can add perspective for even the most informed visitor, and provides crucial support to those with less foundational exposure and access to art.

You can take or leave text on a wall without breaking your stride, but text accessed via QR code is another matter. (Never mind that connectivity is spotty inside a sprawling concrete shell, and several times when I tried to get information from the app, I couldn’t.) Encouraging us to shift our gaze from the wall to our devices — to assume that accursed downward tilt of the neck when splendors abound before our eyes — is simply detrimental. It breaks the spell of being fruitfully lost in the present, and retethers us to the digital distractions that dominate our days.

Wall text beside Francis Bacon’s “Three Studies of Lucian Freud” (1969), at Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

(Museum Associates / LACMA)

Shouldn’t the imaginative minds that created this space, this opportunity to revel in direct sensual experience, want us to keep our attention where our bodies are? Why this fallback to current convention, when the rest of the experience is about radical reinvention? This feels like a missed opportunity. I’m hoping a more experimental, exploratory approach to providing information, context and interpretation, in keeping with the rest of the enterprise, might yet come.

Does the new structure serve the art? Mostly, very well.

The lighting is varied, treated as another texture in the space, palpable and rich. There’s a generous amount of natural sunlight, but some spots are noticeably dim. Some gallery walls are glazed in deep hues (reddish and eggplant), and the intensity of the color is jarring at first. But neutral, white-box viewing spaces (with even, predictable lighting) can be found elsewhere on LACMA’s campus and pretty much anywhere art is shown. Here, the very irregularity of the interior environment, including the concrete surfaces — richer and more textured than I expected — heightened my alertness. And keener senses tend to make for more consequential experiences.

In deciding how to organize roughly 2,000 works of art across 110,000 square feet of exhibition space, LACMA devised a conceptual schema that isn’t apparent in the galleries themselves. The “Wander” guide maps out the division of the space into four regions correlating to bodies of water: the Indian, Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and the Mediterranean Sea. While the zones and their boundaries aren’t indicated by obvious signage, and I caught one laughable categorization (Ansel Adams’ photographs of the Pacific shoreline landing in the Atlantic section), this schema at least doesn’t get in the way.

And what does work about the propositional structure is its comprehensive realignment. It moves to retire art historical frameworks of the past, dependent on borders between places and times.

Throughout this installation, we are repeatedly reminded of the impact of trade and migration, the fluid movement of resources and belief systems. We’re reminded of porousness and simultaneity, and that all art histories are, in the end, propositional structures.

Here’s a new one, the Geffen Galleries say. Try it out. You might get lost. Indeed, you will get lost. And what wonders await you in the uncertainty and mystery.

The company’s stock plunged about 8 percent on the news of Hastings’s departure.

Netflix Chairman Reed Hastings is leaving the streaming service he cofounded 29 years ago as the company regains its footing after it lost its $72bn deal for Warner Bros Discovery to Paramount Skydance.

In a letter to investors released on Thursday, Netflix said Hastings will not stand for re-election at its annual meeting in June and plans to focus on philanthropy and other pursuits.

The company’s stock plunged about 8 percent on the news of Hastings’s departure. The cofounder is credited with helping to revolutionise how movies and television shows are delivered in homes, upending Hollywood’s business model.

“Netflix is growing revenues double-digits, expanding margins in 2026 and gushing free cash flow,” said LightShed Partners media analyst Richard Greenfield. “While the Q1 was uneventful financially, the departure of Reed Hastings has spooked investors.”

Netflix reaffirmed in a 14-page shareholder letter that its mission remains “ambitious and unchanged” – to entertain the world, providing movies and series for many tastes, cultures and languages. The company’s full-year outlook remained unchanged.

The company did not say how it plans to spend the $2.8bn termination fee it received after losing the Warner Bros movie studio and HBO, and lifted its earnings per share to $1.23 in the first quarter compared with 66 cents per share in the same quarter last year.

Revenue rose to $12.25bn, an increase of 16 percent from the year-ago period, modestly exceeding analyst forecasts of $12.18bn.

Netflix, which long told investors that a Warner Bros acquisition was a “nice to have, not need to have” proposition, highlighted areas of future growth.

The company said its investment in expanding its entertainment offerings, with video podcasts and live entertainment – such as the World Baseball Classic in Japan – is driving engagement.

It plans to use technology to improve the user experience and improve monetisation, as advertising revenue remains on track to reach $3bn in 2026 – a twofold increase from a year ago.

TV producer Sid Krofft, the puppeteer and co-mastermind behind fantastical 1970s Saturday morning television shows like “H.R. Pufnstuf” and “Land of the Lost,” has died. He was 96.

Krofft died in his sleep on Friday at the home of his friend and business partner Kelly Killian, she announced on Instagram. His youngest brother and business partner, Marty Krofft, died in 2023.

“I loved Sid with my whole heart. The last six years of my life were devoted to him, and his to me,” Killian wrote. “In that time, he taught me more than I could ever put into words — about the art of Hollywood, the magic of the stage, and the depth and complexity of human nature. I wish so very much that I had more time with him.”

“Sid Krofft was an icon who did what he loved most until the very end — being out in public with his legions of fans,” his publicist Adam Fenton said in a statement. “Sid never slowed down, attending his final show where it all began just last November in his home state of Rhode Island. Sid was a beacon of light and will be greatly missed.”

Sid co-created 1960s and ’70s children’s TV shows that featured colorful and quirky characters like Weenie the Genie, Horatio J. HooDoo and Cha-Ka the ape-boy. Together, he and Marty produced through their production company, Sid & Marty Krofft Pictures, popular series, including their television debut and cult hit, “H.R. Pufnstuf.”

“H.R. Pufnstuf,” a combination of live-action and puppetry that Sid once referred to as “our first baby,” follows the adventures of a young boy, a talking flute and a 6-foot-tall dragon. That was the start of a television enterprise. The brothers went on to create more (mostly short-lived) shows, including “Lidsville,” about a teenage boy who falls into the top hat of a magician. He finds himself in the titular Lidsville, a land of living hats.

Other shows included “The Bugaloos,” about four teenage musicians with wings and antennae, “Electra Woman and Dyna Girl,” which follows the adventures of a superhero and her sidekick, and “Pryor’s Place,” a live-action children’s show starring comedian Richard Pryor.

The Krofft puppets frequently made cameos on other well-known shows during the 1970s and ’80s.

Most recently, the beloved character H.R. Pufnstuf appeared in the brothers’ 2016 Nick Jr. show, “Mutt & Stuff,” about an animatronic dog at a canine school.

The brothers also produced other beloved shows such as “Sigmund and the Sea Monsters,” “Land of the Lost,” “D.C. Follies” and the prime-time variety shows “Donny and Marie” and “Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters.”

Sid, left, and brother Marty Krofft pose with some of the life-size puppets created for their syndicated series “D.C. Follies” in Los Angeles in 1987.

(Reed Saxon / Associated Press)

Because the shows often featured eccentric and larger-than-life characters, Sid once told The Times that people were convinced the ideas came from using psychedelics. But he insisted the concepts were born during his daily runs along the Los Angeles coastline.

“I’m a runner, and I thought of them during my runs on the beach at Santa Monica,” Sid said. “That’s where they came from.”

While the 1970s were the defining decade for the Krofft brothers, they got their start as puppeteers decades prior.

In a long-standing rumor, Sid and Marty were said to be fifth-generation puppeteers. In an interview with The Times, Sid confessed that the whole thing was a lie concocted by a publicist in the 1940s. Their father, Peter Krofft, was a clock salesman and joined Sid when he was on tour as a teenager.

Sid was born July 30, 1929, in Montreal. The brothers immigrated to New York City from Canada with their father. Sid started working as a professional puppeteer at age 10. By the time he was 15, he had joined the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus as “the world’s youngest puppeteer.” By his late 20s, he was working as the opening act for big industry figures like the Andrews Sisters, Judy Garland and Cyd Charisse. That’s around the time he hired his brother — who was seven years younger and a salesman — as his assistant.

“I desperately needed an assistant and saw this as a great opportunity to bring out my brother Marty,” Sid said of his youngest brother. “That single moment in my life is what started our long-running career together.”

They later created cabaret-inspired “Les Poupées de Paris,” which opened in 1961 at the Gilded Rafters in the San Fernando Valley, then played at Hollywood’s P.J.’s. It toured the country throughout the ’60s.

While Sid was the creative force behind their projects, Marty was the brains behind the business operation.

Sid Krofft sits for portraits at his home in Los Angeles in 2021.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Sid wrote a tribute to his brother for The Times after his death.

“Marty and I were oil and vinegar,” he wrote. “We worked in different ways, but if you shook us up, we were a great dressing.”

The brothers’ relationship was publicly known to be rocky at times. “It’s not easy for two brothers to work together,” Marty told The Times.

Their shows were low budget; shot on sets that were once thought to be outdated by the 1980s. But the brothers maintained the rights to their creative properties, and some of their most popular stories had revivals or remakes.

In 2009, Universal Pictures adapted “Land of the Lost” into a $100-million box-office flop about the tales of a family stranded in a dinosaur-ridden jungle.

In 2018, the brothers were honored with a lifetime achievement award at the Daytime Emmys, and in 2020, they received stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2021, Kroff resurfaced in the public eye with an Instagram Live show called “Sundays With Sid.” Marty created his own YouTube series soon after called “Mondays With Marty.”

A US musician has revealed he’s been scammed out of his entire £300,000 retirement fund in a shocking blow.

Singer G Love revealed that he had accidentally installed some malicious software onto his computer which resulted in scammers taking all of his cash.

The performer took to X – formerly Twitter – to speak out on the incident that saw his entire retirement fund stolen.

He wrote: “I had a really tough day today I lost my retirement fund in a hack/Scam when I switched my @Ledger over to my new computer and by accident downloaded a malicious ledger app from the @Apple store.

“All my BTC gone in an instant.”

The singer appeared to be referring to his bitcoin investments in the tweet.

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One of his fans replied to confirm they had reported his issue to the Ledger app.

Ledger is an app known to be used for storing cryptocurrency.

He further went on to add: “I lost 5.9 BTC all I had for ten years I worked on this f*** be careful out there.”

5.9 BTC can be converted to work out at approximately £300,000.

G Love is best known for being the frontman for the band G. Love & Special Sauce.

The 53-year-old has been in the music industry since the early 90s.

He has released various albums as part of the band as well as being a soloist.

He continues to regularly perform gigs and appear at festivals and events across America.

The most common scams

Source: Citizens Advice

Online shopping scams 26%
Investment scams 18%
Other financial scams 18%
A friend or family member needs help scams 16%
Mobile network scams 14%

April 6 (UPI) — The United States and South Korea began a joint investigation Monday to locate the wreckage of at least three U.S. aircraft that crashed off South Korea’s northeastern coast during the Korean War, officials said.

The four-week survey of the Gangneung and Yangyang areas of northeastern Gangwon Province seeks to trace the wreckage of a fighter plane and two transport aircraft, ahead of underwater investigations scheduled for August, South Korea’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement.

The joint survey is being conducted by the Pentagon’s POW/MIA Accounting Agency and South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense Agency for KIA Recovery and Identification, which will collect materials, including information from local residents, as well as confirm the availability of medical decompression chamber facilities essential for underwater operations.

“Since 2024, I have been coming to Korea for three years to work with MAKRI to find traces of the heroes who fought in the war,” U.S. Marine Staff Sgt. Jordyn King, deputy team leader of the Pentagon’s DPAA investigation team in South Korea, said in a statement.

“During the one month given to us, we will carefully gather materials so that we can achieve good results in the future underwater investigation.”

Seoul said the survey covers three aircraft crash sites, including that of a transport plane that crashed on Nov. 15, 1952, after departing Gangneung Air Base for Pohang with nine people, including a South Korean service member, on board.

The plane suffered engine trouble mid-flight and crashed into the sea.

A second site is waters near Yangyang County, where a U.S. aircraft crashed on Feb. 21, 1952. The third is in waters near Gangneung, where a transport plane with 17 people on board crashed on Oct. 16 of that same year after suffering a mechanical problem.

“Just as we recover the remains of South Korean troops killed in action, we will spare no support in helping to find the war dead and missing of the U.S. military who helped us,” Lt. Col. Kim Seong-hwan, acting head of MAKRI, said in a statement.

The announcement comes months after the two agencies signed a memorandum of understanding in Arlington, Va., committing to the recovery and identification of remains of soldiers who were classified as missing during the Korean War of 1950-1953, which ended with an armistice.

According to a DPAA release announcing the signing in August, the agreement enhances cooperation and collaboration between the two agencies, while streamlining efforts to locate, excavate and identify the remains of fallen service members.

More than 1.8 million Americans served in the Korean War of 1950-1953, about 37,000 of whom were killed, more than 92,000 wounded and roughly 8,000 were listed as missing, according to Pentagon statistics.

Space isn’t a forgiving place to be stuck. There’s no air, no pulling over for directions and no margin for error. When something goes wrong, you’re left with whatever you have on hand for however long you can make it last.

That fear drives the new sci-fi epic “Project Hail Mary,” opening in theaters Friday, with Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace, a middle school science teacher who wakes up alone on a spacecraft light-years from Earth with no memory of how he got there. Gradually he realizes he’s been sent on a mission to figure out why the sun is dimming and how to stop it. What begins in isolation turns into something closer to a buddy movie, as Grace ends up working with an alien he names Rocky, another traveler trying to solve the same problem.

The film, directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, comes from sci-fi author Andy Weir, whose earlier, similarly survival-themed breakthrough novel “The Martian” was adapted by director Ridley Scott in 2015. That movie put Matt Damon alone on Mars and made the act of thinking through one life-or-death problem after another the engine of the story. The result was a critical and commercial hit that earned seven Oscar nominations, including best picture.

Put someone out in space long enough and the story can go in many directions. Sometimes it’s about survival. Sometimes it turns inward. Sometimes it gets more horrific or even darkly comic. Here are eight of our favorite movies about people lost or stranded in space. Watch them somewhere with plenty of oxygen.

The Peak District village was systematically demolished and submerged in the 1940s to provide water for the industrial industries during the second world war – but it’s ruins remain

It lies beneath a beloved hiking destination in Derbyshire, but this was once a thriving community before it was deliberately flooded and lost forever.

During the 1940s, the picturesque village of Derwent was methodically demolished and submerged beneath what is today known as Ladybower Reservoir.

The expansive, stunning expanse of water frequently serves as a stopping point for visitors admiring the scenery whilst exploring the Peak District, yet few realise what rests beneath its surface.

The reason for its submersion was to supply water to the booming industrial centres throughout the East Midlands during World War Two.

Locals were relocated, and by 1945 the valley had been flooded, with remnants of the former settlement now resting underwater.

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Derwent before it drowned

Prior to the outbreak of war across Britain, Derwent had seemed like a permanent fixture in the moorlands, characterised by its century-old structures and tight-knit community.

Two initial dams were constructed after the water board selected a remote section of the valley. This decision impacted numerous residents. Those who owned farms or smallholdings were relocated to safer areas including Derwent and the neighbouring village of Ashopton.

What they couldn’t have anticipated was that this stretch of the valley, and their cherished village which they’d made their home, would shortly vanish entirely.

The village church conducted its final service for parishioners on March 17, 1943, before being submerged beneath the reservoir. Remnants of the church can be found scattered throughout Derby, with the bell now rehung at St Philip’s Church in Chaddesden.

Whilst nearly the entire area was deliberately flooded, a small number of homes survive above the waterline. Reports indicate that five properties from the original village endure, including several farms and the former village hall.

Mabel, a former Bamford resident who was 92 at the time of her interview, spoke to BBC Travel about growing up nearby and her memories of Derwent.

She revealed: “I may be the last person who remembers Ashopton and Derwent,” explaining that her school was located in Derwent, which she attended whilst the reservoir was being built.

The village emerged

During periods of extreme heat or reduced water levels, the reservoir has receded, and hauntingly, remnants of the village have surfaced. This phenomenon has been documented on several occasions, with the first instance occurring in 1976, leaving locals astounded.

The most recent, and consequently most significant, reappearance of the village occurred in 2018, when reservoir levels dropped dramatically and visitors flocked from across the region to witness the extraordinary spectacle.

An enormous crowd assembled, and the attention drawn to the old structures – which are largely piles of rubble and bricks – resulted in various complications.

On 3 November that year, a man found himself in a sticky situation, requiring mountain rescue assistance after becoming severely stuck in the dense mud surrounding the ruins of Derwent.

In a similar vein, due to the influx of visitors, the remnants were defaced with graffiti, prompting park rangers to discourage further visits as additional items were also taken from the site.

NEW ORLEANS — Trey Murphy III scored 27 points and the New Orleans Pelicans extended their home winning streak to seven games with a 105-99 victory over the Clippers on Thursday night.

Saddiq Bey had 20 points and Zion Williamson added 15 for the Pelicans, who swept the two-game set against the Clippers after a 124-109 win, also at home, on Wednesday night.

Dejounte Murray was held out to rest as part of his comeback from a ruptured Achilles tendon. He had 17 points and a season-high 11 assists Wednesday night in his ninth game since making his season debut last month.

Derrick Jones Jr. scored 22 points, John Collins had 18 and Bogdan Bogdanovic added 16 for the Clippers, who lost their fourth in a row.

Kawhi Leonard sat out a night after scoring 25 points and grabbing eight rebounds in his return from a one-game absence because of a sprained left ankle.

The Pelicans trailed 94-91 with 5:53 after Collins’ floater, but Williamson made a layup and Murphy hit a three-pointer to put New Orleans up for good as it closed with a 14-5 run.

ABSOLUTE Radio DJ Andy Bush has revealed heartless scammers have stolen his elderly parents’ life savings.

In total, the devastated couple, both 78, were swindled out of £16,000 in an elaborate scheme that used Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis‘s trusted name to entice them.

A ‘broker’ going by the name of ‘John’ gained Andy’s dad’s trust after he clicked into an online link promising to maximise his savings. In reality, Good Morning Britain star Martin had no affiliation with the advert at all.

Andy, who hosts Hometime with Bush & Richie, told The Sun: “They’re really humiliated.

“My dad’s an ex-computer programmer, systems analyst. So he feels someone like him, who’s had a job like that, shouldn’t be falling for a scam like this. So they feel very, very humiliated.

“I feel like a lot of their kind of plans and dreams have kind of gone up in smoke a little bit because that little nest egg that they had to go and do nice retirement stuff is now suddenly completely gone.”

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Andy’s dad has memory issues, which his son believes made him more susceptible to the scam. Neither Andy, nor his brother, had any idea his parents were moving around large sums of money, and he believes they were coerced by ‘John’ not to tell anyone.

Once his dad had clicked the dodgy link, a portal opened to ‘John’ who was then on the phone to them “non-stop”.

Andy likened it to a romance scam and said his parents told him they would speak to ‘John’ on the phone two or three times a day.

“Even when it all came to light that it was a scam, my mum still wouldn’t believe that John, lovely John, would do this to them. So, they really bought into him as a person,” said Andy.

‘John’ set up a Revolut account on Andy’s parents behalf and began transferring large chunks of money from their TSB savings account.

He coached them on what to say to TSB agents when they queried the transfers — though Andy is upset that the bank didn’t do more to clamp down on the out of character money movements.

“Every time they transferred a chunk of £5,000, £6,000 or whatever, TSB would phone up and go, ‘just making sure you’re not transferring this to whatever’. And they would say, ‘no, no, it’s for this, that or whatever’,” he said.

‘John’ then instructed them to put an app on each of their phones, which allowed him to have full access to all their details and to see what they were doing on their devices.

He also installed a fake crypto exchange that showed their money rising at an impressive rate when in reality it had all but disappeared.

Eventually, Andy found out something was amiss when his mum asked if she could borrow £4,000 in order to deposit it into her account to pass an ‘anti-money laundering check’.

Alarm bells immediately rang and Andy asked her to show him the email from ‘John’. Upon seeing it, he said he knew “straight away” that it was fraudulent.

In the meantime, ‘John’ had arranged a £4,000 loan with M&S Bank, which led to Andy’s parents having to cancel their cards after multiple payments began to be made on them.

Andy’s intervention didn’t immediately put an end to the scamming.

Two days later, his parents received an email from a fake cryptocurrency loss recovery company that claimed it could recover their stolen money.

The fresh scam asked for forms to be submitted and a £3,000 payment paid. Andy said he believed the original scammers were behind it.

Even though, his parents’ phones have been wiped, he said there are still concerns the scammers have access.

Andy and his parents have now instructed CEL Solicitors who specialise in recouping money lost to fraud and have contacted the police.

CEL told him that they deal with 500 such cases a month and some £500m is stolen from people each year in total.

He said: “I’ve had so many messages from people who have not just had their parents scammed like this, but a woman in her 30s was scammed out of money when her baby was seven days old because she wasn’t concentrating properly and just pressed the button. You know, young people, old people.

“My mum and dad don’t know who to trust now.

“It’s brought up some really horrible conversations. My mum and dad have always been very outgoing and doing different things, and they’ve always got plans and all that kind of stuff. Now they have to run pretty much everything past me and my brother just to double-check that they’re not being scammed again.”

This season however Liverpool have not had the same luck with injuries as they did last season. They have also consistently struggled to see games out.

After a 1-1 draw against Burnley in January, Virgil van Dijk said: “After 60 minutes, we started to become sloppy and it’s not the first time. We have to address that.”

As positive as Slot’s changes were in his first season, there is a possibility that they were so effective because they were stacked upon the physical base that Klopp had built through an approach that might be considered too strenuous on its own.

For a team to succeed, tactics and the skillset of the squad have to be considered together. Simply put, a team’s style has to suit their players.

Liverpool’s squad overhaul in the summer should have resulted in an improvement on the success of last season. In actuality, it appears now that some of the players Liverpool lost had the necessary traits needed to elevate Slot’s ideas.

Picking specific moments to press is not inherently a bad tactic but it requires aggression and co-ordination throughout the squad.

The tragic loss of Diogo Jota will have undoubtedly impacted Liverpool’s ability to complete an optimal pre-season.

Alongside the sales of Darwin Nunez and Luis Diaz, Liverpool are without three attackers who could press well, often winning the ball high, even if they did not engage as often under Slot, as they did under Klopp.

This season Liverpool’s forward line has not been able to minimise the potential flaws of Slot’s press – often slower to apply pressure, failing to cut out easy passing lanes and not back-pressing to tackle opposition midfielders.

Florian Wirtz’s 86.7 pressures per 90 minutes this season are similar the numbers Jota (104.1) and Nunez (93.6) boasted last season but the likes of Hugo Ekitike (73.3), Alexander Isak (70.0) and an ageing Mohamed Salah are different types of players.

When I think of the solidarity of musicians, I recall an iconic scene from the film “Titanic.”

It’s the one where a quartet plays “Nearer, My God, to Thee” as the great, “unsinkable” ship sinks into the North Atlantic Ocean.

They attempted to offer calm amid a sea of panic as passengers and crew feverishly boarded lifeboats. The events were based on a true story and historians note that the body of the Titanic band leader Wallace Hartley was found floating in the ocean “with his music case strapped to it.”

Even in tragedy, we seek music to bring us solace.

Much closer to home, musicians from Pacific Palisades, Altadena and other affected areas have been challenged to keep the music going after losing instruments, studio equipment and business along with their homes in the January 2025 fires that claimed the lives of 31 people.

One organization, Altadena Musicians, launched the app Instrumental Giving to connect donors who can spare an old piano or a gently used cello with those who lost similar instruments.

KC Mancebo, an Altadena Musicians advisor, spoke with The Times about the group’s mission and success.

The campaign’s genesis

It started with composers Brandon Jay and his wife, Gwendolyn Sanford, who saw their Altadena home, music studio and several instruments destroyed by the Eaton fire.

Shortly after the fire, Jay posted about the lost equipment and what each piece meant to his family.

He said the response from that post — hundreds of people offering their instruments and other types of aid — left him “overwhelmed and gobsmacked.”

He called friends and helpers from throughout the music industry, including Mancebo, chief executive of the event production and talent booking agency Clamorhouse, hoping to offer to others the same help he received.

Mancebo had been helping homeowners navigate fire insurance paperwork and processes.

“Brandon Jay asked, ‘Why don’t we start gathering instruments for our friends,” Mancebo said. “We had 25 friends in the Palisades and 15 friends in the Eaton fire that lost everything, so we and others got involved.”

How’s it going so far?

The organization has passed out around 3,500 instruments to 1,200 families since the first donations in late January 2025, Mancebo said.

The donations range from ukuleles to Steinway & Sons pianos.

“We’re providing instruments to anyone from children who lost their first instruments to people who lost their entire studio,” she said. “The need is great.”

The gifts have come from individual donors and corporate benefactors such as JBL, which has provided speakers and equipment, as well as guitar makers Fender and Gibson, among others.

Rebuilding from the ashes

Mancebo lost her Westside home eight years ago because of a defective dryer that caught fire, she said.

“I went through the whole process of insurance, permitting and rebuilding and we didn’t have FEMA or anyone to help,” she said. “I want to provide that help to those in a similar situation.”

Mancebo said it took eight years to recover and rebuild her home.

“No one is fine after the first year,” she said. “Everyone needs help.”

Brentwood resident Amy Engelhardt, a singer/songwriter, composer, lyricist and playwright, donated her Kawai Upright Piano to the Altadena Musicians organization on March 10, 2026.

(Courtesy of Amy Engelhardt)

One person’s goodbye is another’s hello

Brentwood resident Amy Engelhardt, a singer/songwriter, composer, lyricist and playwright, loved her Kawai upright piano she purchased through a PennySaver ad in 2000.

“It was a deal for the starving artist,” she said. “I paid so little and I always considered it a gift.”

Since then, Engelhardt said she has written all of her music on that piano. She didn’t, however, play it while recording her Grammy-nominated vocal group, the Bobs.

Still, she donated her piano this week to a woman who lost her home. The instrument would not be making the permanent move with Engelhardt back to New York, where her playwriting services are in demand.

“I did get emotional about it, but it’s OK,” Engelhardt said. “It’s comforting knowing that someone else will love it and create their own memories.”

Those interested in donating can check out https://altadenamusicians.org.

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