noise

Would you dare to the stay the night in Cornwall in what is said to be one of the most haunted hotels in the UK? Well – one woman did, and it inspired her murder mystery novel

Perched on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, this hotel is renowned for its eerie tales and rich history, tracing back to the 1750s.

As we’re in the midst of the spooky season, there’s nothing quite as chilling as spending a night in a hotel reputed to be one of the most haunted in the UK. The Jamaica Inn, an old coaching inn with a dark past believed to involve smuggling and ghostly stories, is famous for its spine-tingling reputation.

Originally built in 1750 as a coaching stop, the hotel now serves as a pub, restaurant and hotel, with a dedicated area for learning about the alleged spectral encounters. The Grade II-listed building exudes charm – and fear – with its traditional oak beams and snug rooms.

However, before it became a popular spot for food and overnight stays, it was infamous as a hub for the Cornwall smuggling trade. Its isolated location on the moors made it notorious for smugglers transporting goods like tea, brandy and silks from the sea, hidden beneath the floors and panels.

The isolation of the Jamaica Inn was its greatest asset in those days, often frequented by mysterious figures under dimly lit lanterns. Despite its modern touches, it was creepy enough for English author Daphne du Maurier to base her entire murder mystery novel on her stay there in 1936.

Taking its name from the precise spot where it stands, Jamaica Inn became a literary sensation amongst readers and was subsequently transformed into a film under Alfred Hitchcock’s direction.

The movie marked the final British production he would helm before departing for Hollywood, where he would establish himself as one of cinema’s legendary figures, earning up to six Oscar victories.

Thus, despite its shadowy and occasionally unlawful past, the inn achieved immortality through du Maurier’s fictional masterpiece, as she found herself captivated by the brooding heritage and spooky presence of the establishment and its bleak landscape.

Today in the 20th century, Jamaica Inn has evolved into something of a regional icon, where visitors pause to rest and discover its enduring legacy. One guest posted on TripAdvisor: “Had a thoroughly enjoyable two-night stay.

“The views from the inn were amazing onto the moor. The atmosphere was as expected from an old smugglers’ inn, full of mystery and intrigue!”.

Another visitor, eager to witness a supernatural encounter or sense the presence of the smugglers who once trod these very boards, recounted their spine-chilling experience.

They wrote: “We had done some research before arriving and saw that some rooms in the new, and many rooms in the original, areas have had activity from the paranormal…”

They shared tales about their terrifying night’s sleep – or their lack of. “Within a few minutes I was in the bathroom getting ready for a shower and heard a very loud male whistle from inside the room (corner nearest the bedroom). When asking my partner if she had whistled and getting a response of ‘absolutely NO’ I suddenly felt on edge.”

It’s no mystery that whilst the hotel has been transformed into a contemporary cosy pub and inn popular with travellers, its spine-chilling past is renowned for good reason. Whilst many other guests claim to have never experienced anything of the sort, others can’t help but let their minds wander.

PRIME Day is finally here, and these Skullcandy headphones are at their lowest price all year

Currently, Prime members can pick them up for £43.99 instead of £69.99, making them one of the first proper tech steals of the day.

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Skullcandy Hesh ANC Headphones, £69.99 £43.99

Amazon’s 48-hour sale is underway, with deals on everything from top gadgets to beauty buys, and these headphones are already a clear frontrunner.

The Hesh ANC headphones have dropped by a huge 37% for Prime members, and shoppers can’t get enough of them.

Having tested plenty of the market’s best noise-cancelling headphones myself, I know how rare it is to see this spec list at this sort of price.

With 4-mic active noise cancelling, they block out the world so you can sink into your playlists, podcasts or plane movies in peace.

Battery life clocks in at a generous 22 hours, and the Rapid Charge feature earns you enough juice for three hours of listening on just a ten-minute charge.

They’re cleverly built too, with easy controls for calls, volume and tracks right on the earcup, and Tile tracking tech baked in so you can hunt them down in seconds if they go missing.

They fold flat, collapse down for travel, and even come with a bonus USB-C charging cable, which is a small but handy extra that makes them feel like a real all-rounder.

And with Christmas now creeping closer, they’re the kind of gift you’ll feel smug saving on early.

If you’re not already a member, you can sign up for a free 30-day trial and still cash in on the deals while the sale’s live.

Shoppers are already raving, earning the Skullcandy Hesh Headphones a strong 4.6 out of 5-star rating.

One says “the noise cancellation is really quite marvellous, nice and comfy too. I’d recommend at this price point.”

Another calls them “the best headphones I ever bought, the bass is clean, love the details and Tile feature. Great buy, premium quality.”

A third says they’re “excellent on flights with very good battery life.”

If you’re browsing beyond headphones, there are more gems to be found, like Blink’s ‘easy to install’ £120 home security kit, now just £31, its lowest ever price.

And for those after Amazon’s device deals, we’ve rounded up the top deals on Fire TV Sticks, Echo speakers, Kindles and more.

You can also head straight to our guide to the best Prime Day deals to see every top offer worth snapping up before the sale ends.

Amazon Prime Day: the 10 best early deals

The Amazon Prime Big Deal Days sale kicks off tomorrow (7th-8th October), but there’s already some early deals to snap up.

*If you click on a link in this boxout we will earn affiliate revenue

1. Amazon Fire TV Stick HD, £19.99 (was £39.99) – buy here
2. Poounur Fitness Smartwatch, £23.99 (was £129.99) – buy here
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4. LKOUY Portable Charger, £12.99 (was £59.99) – buy here
5. Slumberdown Feels Like Down King Size Duvet, £21.56 (was £31.19) – buy here
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7. Felix 40-pack Jelly Wet Cat Food, £9.48 (was £14.77) – buy here
8. Amazon Fire HD 10 tablet, £69.99 (was £149.99) – buy here
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When the sale lands, you’ll find more top bargains here:

Just remember, you’ll need to sign up to Amazon Prime to take advantage of these bargains.

The festivities begin even before the characters of “One Man, Two Guvnors” enter the stage. A skiffle band (complete with washboard player) performs a pre-show set to rev up the audience for this update of a classic farce relocated to Britain on the eve of the swinging ‘60s.

The inspiration for Richard Bean’s “One Man, Two Guvnors,” now at A Noise Within in Pasadena, is “The Servant of Two Masters,” Carlo Goldoni’s mid-18th-century comedy that formalized the commedia dell’arte antics and masked characters made famous by the improvisational Italian troupes of the day. Bean’s play, set in the eccentric seaside town of Brighton, is quintessentially English by contrast. But farce is a universal language, and the hilarity is not just translated but alchemized into something riotously contemporary.

Grant Olding has written the songs that set the play’s mood, a mischievous Joe Orton-esque ambiance, only less jaundiced and more childlike. Francis Henshall (Kasey Mahaffy), a down-on-his luck busker who moves through the world like an overgrown baby, is driven more by hunger than lust, at least in the play’s first half.

His raging appetite compels him to break the fourth wall and beg the audience for a spare sandwich. When James Corden played the role in London and then on Broadway (where he won a Tony Award for his work), Francis became a figure of unstoppable gluttony. Mahaffy, who starred in the exuberant revival of “A Man of No Importance” at A Noise Within last season, is more insistently peckish — hungry rather than hangry. Sustenance is offered — a hummus sandwich, not one of the character’s favorites — but the plot won’t allow him to dig in just yet. Poor Francis has no choice but to gamely proceed with the farcical business at hand.

“One Man, Two Guvnors” was so dominated by Corden’s star-making performance (this was before his late-night talk-show days) that I assumed the play was a vehicle for a no-holds-barred clown. The effectiveness of the new production, co-directed by Julia Rodriguez-Elliott and Geoff Elliott, is the ensemble approach to the comedy, with everyone expected to contribute their fair share of mirth.

Mahaffy may not be the most natural Zanni, the commedia term for the trickster servant who’s riddled with hunger and lust and always prepared to talk his way out of trouble. He works hard for his laughs, sometimes too hard, but he’s an endearing imp — an overwhelmed freelancer trying to survive the unforgiving gig economy of his age.

Cassandra Marie Murphy, left, and Christie Coran in “One Man, Two Guvnors” at A Noise Within.

(Craig Schwartz)

When the play begins, Francis is employed as the bodyguard of gangster Roscoe Crabbe, who has mysteriously returned from the dead. In fact, Francis is working for the gangster’s twin sister, Rachel Crabbe (Christie Coran), who has disguised herself as Roscoe to extract a debt from Charlie “The Duck” Clench (Henri Lubatti).

Charlie’s dim-bulb daughter, Pauline (Cassandra Marie Murphy), was betrothed to Roscoe, a known homosexual with a sadistic temper. It was to be a marriage of convenience — convenient business-wise for both Roscoe and Charlie. But after Roscoe’s reported death freed her from a frightening prospect, Pauline has become engaged to Alan Dangle (Paul David Story), a would-be actor whose every utterance of love is as hammy as it is sickly sweet.

Rachel is trying to obtain enough money to get married herself. Her intended, Stanley Stubbers (Ty Aldridge), an upper-class twit, murdered her thuggish brother, who was against their union. If she can collect the dowry from Charlie, she and Stanley can sail to Australia to escape the police and live happily ever after Down Under.

Lacking the money to buy even a single portion of fish and chips at a local pub, Francis agrees to be Stanley’s right-hand man. Francis is determined to keep his two bosses apart, a recipe for farcical mayhem, made all the more complicated by Rachel’s convincing drag act and Stanley’s ignorance of her master plan.

In true commedia style, character is destiny. The plot is prescribed by the constellation of types. Obstacles are set up only to be overcome in a stroke of mad luck or outlandish kindness. The longer the delay, the greater the satisfaction when everything is gaily resolved.

Christie Coran and Ty Aldridge in “One Man, Two Guvnors” at A Noise Within.

(Craig Schwartz)

But the route to the happy ending matters, and the actors make this journey a rollicking one. Aldridge’s Stanley is as obtuse as he is supercilious, a dangerous combination for Francis and a hilarious one for us. Coran’s Rachel plays a clever tough guy who puts on a vicious façade to avoid an actual fight. The performance — both in and within the play — works like a dream.

Murphy’s Pauline, a vacuous blonde too literal-minded for metaphor, and Story’s Alan, a scenery-chewer who hogs the spotlight, are a perfect match. Charlie, the transactional patriarch, is as proudly corrupt as his underhanded lawyer, Harry Dangle (Lynn Robert Beg), who sets an equally bad example for his kid, Alan.

Dolly (Trisha Miller), Charlie’s bookkeeper who capably sorts out whatever crooked business is put before her, becomes the romantic object of Francis’ exploits in the second act, when food becomes secondary to love — or its Majorca vacation equivalent, the holiday he dangles before her.

Toward the end of the first act, a serving scene involving a multicourse meal and an octogenarian waiter named Alfie (Josey Montana McCoy) with an adjustable pacemaker brings Francis’ mania for food to a feverish pitch. It’s an ingeniously choreographed slapstick routine, but the bit is even funnier after Francis conscripts a plant in the audience to assist him in hoarding food.

A production of “One Man, Two Guvnors” at South Coast Repertory in 2015 failed to summon the necessary vivacity. That’s where Rodriguez-Elliot and Elliot succeed, creating a party atmosphere through not just the hard-charging band (under the music direction of Rod Bagheri) but the mod scenic design of Frederica Nascimento and the jaunty vintage flair of Garry Lennon’s costumes.

Bean’s play is impressively worked out, mathematically and verbally. The wit is crisp and the comic routines are evergreen, all the more so for the sharpness of the playing.

Mahaffy’s Francis is unfailingly vivid as the self-serving valet of commedia tradition. But this production proves that “One Man, Two Guvnors” is more than a star vehicle for an insanely hungry clown.

“A Beautiful Noise” is a jukebox musical that understands the assignment.

The show, which opened Wednesday at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre on the Broadway musical’s North American tour, exists to celebrate the rough magic of Neil Diamond’s catalog. If glorious singing of American pop gold is what you’re looking for, “A Beautiful Noise” delivers.

Diamond’s fans will no doubt feel remunerated by the thrilling vocal performance of Nick Fradiani, the 2015 winner of “American Idol,” who plays the young iteration of the double-cast Neil, the Brooklyn-born pop sensation who went on a rocket ship to fame and fortune that gave him everything in the world but the peace that had always eluded him. Fradiani vocally captures not just the driving excitement of Diamond’s singing but the note of masculine melancholy that gives the songs their grainy, ruminative subtext.

Hannah Jewel Kohn and Nick Fradiani play Marcia Murphey and the young version of the double-cast Neil Diamond, respectively.

(Jeremy Daniel)

Jukebox musicals, inspired perhaps by the commercial success of “Mamma Mia!,” tend to muscle an artist’s hits into flagrantly incongruous dramatic contexts. Anthony McCarten, the book writer of “A Beautiful Noise,” avoids this trap by setting up a framework that deepens our appreciation of Diamond’s music by shining a biographical light on how the songs came into existence.

The older version of , now the grizzled Diamond burnt out by tour life and desperate not to duplicate the mistakes he made in his first two marriages, is played by Robert Westenberg. He’s been sent by his third wife to a psychotherapist to work on himself. As he shares with the doctor (Lisa Reneé Pitts), he’s been told that he’s hard to live with — an accusation that his long, stubborn silences in the session make instantly credible.

Introspection is as unnatural to Neil as it was for Tony Soprano, but the doctor gently guides Neil past his resistance. Intrigued by his remark that he put everything he had to say into his music, she presents him with a volume of his collected lyrics and asks him to talk her through one of his songs.

Nick Fradiani, from left, Robert Westenberg and Lisa Reneé Pitts as both iterations of Neil and his doctor during an onstage therapy session.

(Jeremy Daniel)

“I Am … I Said,” which makes reference to a frog that dreamed of being a king before becoming one, cuts too close to the bone. That single will have to wait for a breakthrough in therapy, but he is lured back into his past when the Jewish boy from Flatbush talked his way into a meeting with Ellie Greenwich (Kate A. Mulligan), the famed songwriter and producer, who convinced him not to change his name and gave him the chance that set him down the road to stardom.

The production, directed by Michael Mayer and choreographed by Steven Hoggett, marks this therapy milestone by having backup singers and chorus members emerge from behind Neil’s chair. Out of darkness, musical euphoria shines through.

The show’s approach is largely chronological. “I’m A Believer,” which became a runaway hit for the Monkees, catapults Diamond into the big leagues. Once he starts singing his own material, he becomes a bona fide rock star — a moody Elvis who straddles rock, country, folk and pop with a hangdog bravura.

Neil’s first marriage to Jaye Posner (a touching Tiffany Tatreau) is an early casualty after he falls in love with Marcia Murphey (Hannah Jewel Kohn, spinning a seductive spell musically and dramatically). It’s Marcia who coaches him into playing the part of front man. The hits come fast and furious after that, but the frenzy of tour life exacts a severe toll.

Tiffany Tatreau as Diamond’s first wife Jaye Posner, from center left, Nick Fradiani and Kate A. Mulligan as singer-producer Ellie Greenwich in “A Beautiful Noise.”

(Jeremy Daniel)

Of course, everyone at the Pantages is waiting impatiently for “Sweet Caroline,” the anthem that never fails to transform into a sing-along after the first “bum-bum-bum.” The performance of this ecstatic number is powerfully mood-elevating.

Fradiani’s character work is most impressive in his singing. That’s when the inner trouble Neil has been evading since his Brooklyn childhood hauntingly resounds.

“America,” “A Beautiful Noise,” “Song Sung Blue,” “Love on the Rocks” and “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” songs heard countless times, take on more weight as the circumstances of their creation are revealed. The therapy gets a little heavy-handed in the protracted final stretch. But Westenberg, who’s a touch too emphatic early on, lends poignancy to the cathartic release that ushers Neil into a new place of self-understanding.

By keeping the focus where it should be — on the music — “A Beautiful Noise” thrives where more ambitious jukebox musicals stumble. This is a show for fans. But as the son of one who remembers the songs from family road trips, even though I have none of them in my music library, I was grooving to the sound of a bygone America, high on its own unlimited possibilities.

At the curtain call at Wednesday’s opening, Katie Diamond came on stage and video-called her husband as the Pantages audience collectively joined in an encore of “Sweet Caroline.” It wasn’t easy to hear Diamond sing, but it hardly mattered. Fradiani had supplied that dopamine rush for more than two hours with his virtuoso musical portrayal.

You may hear it if you try the facilities when you fly this summer

A flight attendant says birdsong is now being played in plane toilets to hide embarrassing “toilet sounds”. Esther Sturrus posted a video to TikTok to demonstrate the new feature.

She posed in the mirror and showed the speaker inside the toilet. The 24-year-old, who has worked for Dutch airline KLM since 2020, laughed as the sound of birds chirping filled the air. The sound has been installed on the brand new Airbus A321neo.

Since the summer of 2024, KLM has gradually been replacing their Boeing 737 with the model, according to their website. “[The birdsong] definitely catches people by surprise the first time,” said Esther, who is from Rotterdam.

“You’re expecting the usual hum of the engines or total silence, and instead you’re suddenly surrounded by chirping birds. The idea behind it is to make the onboard experience a little more soothing and enjoyable, even in the smallest and most unexpected places.

“The birdsong gives a sort of spa-like vibe. Let’s be honest, it also nicely covers the classic toilet sounds, so it might just be functional too. I found it unusual and amusing and just had to capture the moment.

“It’s little touches like these that show how much thought can go into even the tiniest details of a flight experience.”

Esther often reveals secrets of the skies with her 222,500 followers on TikTok. And the 24-year-old attracted 21,300 views with her latest video.

Her followers loved the new feature, and some viewers said they’d even had the sounds installed in their own homes. Ronald said, “So nice, we have this at home too.”

KLM Airlines said: “Very mindful.”

“I’m the type of person who just falls asleep on the toilet with such a calm sound,” added Giovanni.

A fourth viewer joked: “Next flight bring bird food.” “This is what we have at home,” another person added.

When Pan Am Flight 103 set off from Heathrow to New York, its passengers and crew were looking forward to returning home to celebrate Christmas – but tragically, they never made it

The Lockerbie bombing where 270 people sadly lost their lives is still the deadliest terror attack in the history of the UK, even though it took place more than 30 yeas ago. It was 21 December, 1988, when the Pan Am Flight 103 from Heathrow to New York exploded just 38 minutes into its flight while travelling over Lockerbie, with the wreckage of the plain raining down on the houses below.

And it wasn’t just the passengers who lost their lives – the small Scottish town lost 11 residents, including a family of four, Jack and Rosalind Somerville and their children, Paul, 12, and Lindsay, 10, who died when a section of the aircraft fell on their home in Sherwood Crescent.

In Lockerbie, residents opened their front doors to see 259 bodies dropping out of the sky, landing on the street in front of them. After the bomb exploded, everything went dark and eerily quiet in the town.

READ MORE: ‘My teen son is missing after being spiked – I’m shocked at huge police mistake’

The 243 passengers boarding their pre-Christmas flight at London Heathrow or via Frankfurt in Germany came from 21 countries and ranged in age from two months old to 82. Forty per cent of the 270 total victims were aged 25 or younger, many of them children, while two-thirds were American.

Of the 16 crew onboard the plane, called ‘Clipper Maid of the Seas’, some were returning home to spend the festive season with their families, while others were set to enjoy some last-minute Christmas shopping in New York. They included senior purser Mary Murphy, who hailed from Twickenham and had been flying for over 25 years, and junior purser Milutin Velimirovitch, who had kindly rearranged his schedule to help a friend.

The ill-fated plane heading for New York had landed at noon at London Heathrow that day from Los Angeles, parking at Gate K-14 before pushing back for its flight at 6.04pm and taking off from runway 27R at 6.25pm. Just after 7pm, an air traffic controller at the Scottish Air Traffic Control Centre tried to make contact with the plane to no avail, before a loud noise was heard on its cockpit voice recorder.

Bunty Galloway told The Guardian she had been watching TV just like any other night when she heard a strange noise and opened her front door to see two young women fall in front of her house, with the body of a child already lying at the foot of her steps.

The bomb had exploded at 7.03pm, when the plane was 31,000 ft above Lockerbie. Radar showed that eight minutes after the explosion, the plane’s wreckage had spread to one nautical mile, with a British Airways pilot flying from Glasgow to Carlisle contacting the Scottish authorities after seeing a huge fire on the ground.

Investigators later found signs of an explosion on one of the baggage containers from the forward hold. Scottish police and FBI agents would learn the bomb, containing 350 to 450 of Semtex, had been concealed in a Toshiba radio cassette player inside a brown Samsonite suitcase, which also contained various items of clothing purchased in Malta.

Records in Frankfurt suggested an unaccompanied bag had been routed from a flight from Malta to Frankfurt, where it had been loaded onto the feeder flight to London and onto the subsequent ill-fated flight to New York. After a painstaking investigation in 2001, Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was found guilty of 270 counts of murder in connection with the bombing and sentenced to life in prison. He was released on compassionate grounds in 2009 and died from prostrate cancer in 2011, always denying his involvement in the bombing.

In December 2020, the US Attorney General announced new charges against Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, a former Libyan intelligence operative, for his role in the bombing, with a trial set to take place in Washington in May.

Lockerbie: A Search for Truth premieres on Sky and NOW today