Reserve

CHANNEL Springwatch and immerse yourself in a nature reserve, says writer Mia Lyndon.

THE PAD

You’ll be able to call kingfishers, cranes and thousands of other beautiful birds your neighbours here.

Tucked inside Slimbridge Wetland Centre, just half an hour’s drive south of Gloucester, are five shepherd’s huts, each with their own pond and mini wetland, and sleeping between two and four people.

We spotted rabbits and foxes from our snug digs among the 100 acres of lush landscape, plus every hut is kitted out with a vintage-style oven, waterfall shower (with excellent water pressure, FYI) and spacious decking.

Owl-shaped curtain hooks and a cuddly mallard doorstop only add to the charm.

EXPLORE

Make the most of your unlimited access to the wetland centre and feed wildfowl on Swan Lake, before bobbing along on an hour-long canoe tour, £10 per person, to get closer to diving ducks and water voles.

HUT STUFF

The luxe Oxfordshire glamping site with a Scandi-inspired spa and nearby vineyard

HOBBIT HOLE

Live like a Hobbit in this cosy glamping lodge

Or hunt down egrets, stalks and grass snakes with the help of friendly driver Chris on a Wildlife Safari – £5 per adult, £3.50 per child (wwt.org.uk).

Find yet more stunning views at Miserden Gardens and wander past elegant topiary, lush fruit trees and herds of roaming deer in this exquisite 17th-century walled garden. Entry costs £12 and under-16s are free (Miserden.org).

Meanwhile, thronging with vibrant indie stores, quaint Stroud is a short drive away.

Pop into the buzzy Malthouse Collective for two storeys of vintage clothes, hand-poured candles and fab local art (Themalthousecollective.co.uk), then hit Made In Stroud for pretty pottery and jewellery (Madeinstroud.co.uk).

Alongside a sweet miniature railway, Stroud’s Stratford Park is home to the Museum In The Park – check out local artefacts, oil paintings and even a Gloucestershire Stegosaur fossil. Entry is free (Museuminthepark.org.uk).

REFUEL

Hunker down with a tasty (and very generous) Full Monty English brekkie, £13, at The Tudor Arms, which sits beside the Gloucester And Sharpness Canal and is just a 10-minute stroll from your bed (Thetudorarms.co.uk).

For a laid-back yet impressive dinner, hike over to The George Inn for dishes such as succulent venison steak with chocolate and red wine sauce, £25, followed by tangy home-made blackcurrant and orange cheesecake, £7 (Quality-inns.co.uk).

Or gaze across rolling valleys at The Bell Inn at Selsley, while tucking into fluffy smoked Hereford cheese croquette, £19, and warming cinnamon milk pie, £9.

Don’t miss the Romanian Calusari white, £6.50 a glass – it’s zippy, fresh and absolutely delicious (Thebellinnselsley.com).

Elsewhere, there are cosy cafes aplenty in Stroud, but the irresistible ginger and date crumble cake, £3.90, at buzzy Woodruffs helps it reign supreme (Woodruffsorganiccafe.co.uk).

Book it

Stays for two at Warblers’ Meadow, Slimbridge, cost from £150 per night (wwt.org.uk/wetland-centres/slimbridge).

Former Ryanair flight attendant Eleanor has shared her top seating recommendations for passengers, including the best rows for extra space and which seats to avoid on your next flight

When reserving a flight with Ryanair, many of us will steer clear of selecting our own seat, primarily due to the extra charge. However, a former cabin crew member with the budget carrier has identified the best row to reserve if you’re seeking optimal space and comfort for a specific journey.

Eleanor was based in Marseille, France, and logged countless hours traversing the globe alongside her cabin crew colleagues. She has now highlighted the seats that could enhance your trip considerably.

Speaking to us about her top travel tips, she explained: “I would say usually it’s better to sit at the emergency exits in the middle of the aircraft, usually around row 17 for safety reasons.

“You have more space and also because children under 16 can’t sit at the emergency exits and infants under two can’t even be in the two rows before and ahead of the emergency exits. So these and row 1 are basically the only seats where you can be sure you won’t be spending your flight with crying babies next to you.”

Nevertheless, while row 17 might be the most tranquil, according to Eleanor, there are particular seats passengers may also want to steer clear of.

The content creator, 25, revealed to us: “I can only say to avoid 11A. That’s supposed to be a window seat – but it doesn’t have a window! You won’t be able to see outside.”

This seat has previously been labelled “Europe’s most hated” because it’s notorious for being the sole ‘A’ seat on a Boeing 747 that lacks a window to peer through. And having urged travellers to reserve row 17, she also pointed out the row that might be worth avoiding.

She elaborated: “Also avoid row 32 on the 737 MAX, an aircraft that Ryanair has only in some bases. That has emergency exits at the wings, and a crew seat near them that faces the passengers.

“So, if you sit in that row, you’ll have the flight attendant stare at you during take off and landing, and you’ll have to move every time they have to pass. It was very uncomfortable as a flight attendant, I imagine it is as a passenger also.”

She emphasised that securing your seat on Ryanair wasn’t absolutely critical, especially since flights are generally brief and there’s no complimentary meal service, which means your location won’t determine whether you’re served first or last, as it might on other carriers.

The Italian ex-Ryanair employee said it ultimately boiled down to individual preference but she did provide one final recommendation.

She stated: “Another thing I can say is to avoid sitting at the rear of the aircraft, mostly because sometimes, although not often with Ryanair, only in some airports, you will have a bridge from the front and you’ll be the last one to disembark if you’re sitting at the back.

“And also because in case of ditching (controlled emergency landing onto water), that’s the first part that goes in the water, and you won’t be able to open the doors at the back, so you’re less likely to make it in case of a landing in water.”

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Friday quashed Justice Department subpoenas issued to the Federal Reserve in January, a severe blow to an investigation that has already attracted strong criticism on Capitol Hill.

Judge James Boasberg said that a “mountain of evidence suggests” that the purpose of the subpoenas was simply to pressure the Fed to cut its key interest rate, as President Trump has repeatedly demanded.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell revealed the investigation Jan. 11, prompting Senator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican to block consideration of Trump’s pick to replace Powell as Fed chair when his term expires May. 15.

Rugaber writes for the Associated Press.

The South Korean government is “closely involved” in discussions with the International Energy Agency (IEA) over the agency’s reported proposal to release strategic oil reserves to help stabilize soaring oil prices, Seoul officials said Wednesday.

Officials at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources confirmed Seoul’s participation in the reported IEA discussions to Yonhap News Agency, following media reports saying that the IEA has proposed the largest-ever release of oil reserves to its 32 member countries, including South Korea.

According to the report by the Wall Street Journal, IEA members are expected to soon decide on the proposal in an extraordinary meeting.

“South Korea is closely involved in discussions over a coordinated release of strategic oil reserves by the IEA,” a ministry official said.

The country currently holds around 1.9 billion barrels of oil reserves, which is enough to last more than 200 days.

“We have yet to decide how much oil will be released from our reserves with the IEA’s decision,” a ministry official said.

The Seoul government has released its strategic oil reserves on five occasions since 1990, all through international coordination.

The occasions included the 1991 Gulf War, the 2011 Libya crisis and the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine War in 2022.

Copyright (c) Yonhap News Agency prohibits its content from being redistributed or reprinted without consent, and forbids the content from being learned and used by artificial intelligence systems.

The movie is called “Heel” and its frenetic opening — a flash-cut glimpse of young, handsome, swaggeringly cruel Tommy (Anson Boon) in drug-fueled party mode — seems enough to explain the title. The next time we see him, though, he’s neck-shackled in the basement of a remote English estate. What follows in Polish filmmaker Jan Komasa’s blackly comic, unnerving thriller is clearly meant to evoke “Heel’s” more obedience-minded reading.

And who would be harshing this hooligan’s buzz with a case of reform-minded abduction? An eerily isolated, rules-driven nuclear family: mild-mannered, soft-spoken Chris (Stephen Graham), haunted Catherine (Andrea Riseborough) and polite son Jonathan (Kit Rakusen). They all may as well have sprung from the combined neo-gothic conjurings of Edward Gorey and Harold Pinter. Under Komasa’s direction, the mix of fractured fable and terroristic morality play in Bartek Bartosik’s screenplay is absurd but potent, giving “Heel” enough psychologically twisted juju to nearly always feel like more than the sum of its parts.

Our first glimpse of Tommy chained up, pleading to be let go, is through the eyes of a young Macedonian refugee, Katrina (Monika Frajczyk), being given a tour of the large countryside manor where she’s just been hired by Chris for twice-a-week housework. Katrina, like us, is rightly horrified but she’s in her own bind: undocumented, saved by Chris from the streets, with her signature on a confidentiality agreement and a deportation threat hanging over her. She’s hardly in a position to do much more than accept what’s going on as a grimmer version of her own dead-end predicament.

And yet what’s readily apparent is that this weird, fragile, insular family is genuinely keen on folding Tommy into their lives. They’re also convinced of their unorthodox methods, which hinge on reinforcement and reward. Tommy seems receptive, too, with each invitation to participate in his abductors’ togetherness (meals, movie nights, a picnic). This is when “Heel” is at its most alluringly queasy, a dark commentary on all families as institutions inherently built on confinement and emotional blackmail. (It’s no coincidence one of the movie’s executive producers is Jerzy Skolimowski, who made his own pointed kidnapping allegory with “Moonlighting.”)

Everyone’s broken, so the collective strength of the cast in keeping us on our toes about where this is all headed is a huge plus. The wiry Boon doles out his brash character’s reserves of vulnerability to stunning effect — Tommy is a difficult part and Boon knows how to make it revealing and suspenseful. Graham’s tweaked, sensitive patriarch is tantalizingly far from the heartbreaking dad of “Adolescence” and the gloriously oddball Riseborough makes the most of her faint-voiced mom’s severity. Frajczyk and Rakusen are also pitch-perfect.

Last year Komasa had another family-centered thriller with “Anniversary,” a movie about politics corrupting a happy home. But we know that equation already. “Heel” is Tolstoy’s happy-family maxim cooked in a mad scientist’s lab. While it sometimes shows its seams as an idea movie, its elegant disturbia has a boldness, recalling that great mind-game ’60s era that gave us “TheServant,” “The Collector,” and the early psychological freak-outs of Komasa’s countryman, Roman Polanski.