ruin

THE Nineties might have been ruled by boybands and girl-bands, but life at the top of pop could be tough.

And it was probably worse for the girls, as putting on extra pounds, dating the wrong guy or, heaven forbid, having a baby were hugely frowned upon by management teams.

New BBC documentary Girlbands Forever, the follow-up to last year’s three-parter about boybands, delves into an era where record companies had less regard for duty of care, days off or mental health.

It features members of Atomic Kitten, Eternal, Sugababes, Mis-teeq and Little Mix, providing insight into what it was like being in an all-female group in the Nineties and early Noughties.

The dream was to replicate the success of the Spice Girls, the all-conquering icons who sparked the girlband explosion.

And record labels invested millions in a bid to find the next big thing.

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But as the Spice Girls’ rivals All Saints found out, the pressure became unbearable.

So much so that when founding member Melanie Blatt informed managers that she and bandmate Nicole Appleton were pregnant, both were told to abort their babies.

The reason? They had just cracked America with No1 hit Never Ever and momentum could be lost.

Melanie, 50, explains: “I hadn’t been with my partner for very long, it was definitely a bit of a surprise It wasn’t people congratulating us. It was more like this look of dread and worry and the realisation that things are going to change.

“We flew to LA and at [airport] LAX our manager, he was behind us, was telling us to abort our babies.”

She added that her bosses told them they were “going to ruin everything” and “it was the end of the band”.

Melanie ended up having her baby with her partner, Stuart Zender, the bassist for band Jamiroquai.

‘Vomiting in toilets’

But Nicole, who fell pregnant with then boyfriend Robbie Williams, did not, which Melanie admits caused issues with their relationship.

She explains: “Nic and I had been best friends since we were 11. We took pregnancy tests in a hotel in Canada and spent that whole night discussing bringing our kids up together. It was one of the best nights ever.

“And it’s not really my place to talk about it, but unfortunately . . . it was a very uncomfortable situation because I kept mine, she didn’t. That was a really tricky part of my and our existence.”

All Saints, which consisted of Melanie, sisters Nicole and Natalie and main songwriter Shaznay Lewis, were always deemed a “cool version” of the Spice Girls and were far more rock ‘n’ roll.

Whereas Victoria Beckham, Emma Bunton and Mel B found love with a footballer, an R&B singer and a dancer respectively, the All Saints girls dated rock stars, with Nicole marrying and having a son with Liam Gallagher.

Melanie says: “We were turning up to kids’ TV shows on a Saturday morning without having one wink of sleep. We looked fine, just a bit of vomiting in the toilets prior to CD:UK.”

After two albums, All Saints split in 2001, a disparity in earnings between Shaznay and the rest of the band being a major factor.

By the end of their existence as a group, Melanie says they “hated each other”.

She adds: “We’d fallen out, it was hell, it was ‘separate’ everything.

“It was just ridiculous but literally one of the proudest moments of being in that band was calling it quits because we didn’t stay for the money. We wanted to be done, we didn’t want to be with each other any more and we made that decision.

“We were in control. We were supposed to go on tour and we gave the money back and I’m so proud of that. That’s one of the only decisions we were all happy to make together, telling each other to f*** off.”

• Girlbands Forever begins on Saturday at 9.20pm on BBC Two.

Little Mix

AS girlbands moved into the 2010s, life did not get any easier, with social media now to contend with.

With Little Mix, Perrie Edwards, 32, bore the brunt of the online abuse due to her relationship with One Direction heart-throb Zayn Malik.

She explains: “Social media was dark, especially back in the day.

“Me and the girls used to get a lot of stick. Things we would wear or how we would look, people would pick us apart.

“You’re hurting enough as it is, never mind everybody having an opinion on it. Everyone wants to know your business and everyone feels like they have ownership in that.

“You can’t escape it. So you may as well sing about it.”

Life in girlbands was relentless, so Little Mix lasting ten years was a monumental achievement.

But Perrie, below, admits she almost quit when she was at her lowest ebb ahead of a gig in Las Vegas.

She says: “I didn’t want to go, I was so exhausted. I tried getting out of the trip and when I got there, I started experiencing panic attacks.

“I didn’t know what was happening at the time, I’d never experienced a panic attack.

“I ended up in a hospital. I didn’t want to let the girls down. They had to do it without me and I hated it and I really resented myself for it.”

She adds: “When you’re in a group dynamic, even though you’re going through stuff individually, you can’t just be selfish so I kind of put a brave face on a lot of time.

“I didn’t want to let the team down.”

Eternal

ETERNAL had a No1 smash hit with I Wanna Be The Only One in 1997, but their looks soon became a concern.

Founding member Kelle Bryan, 50, reveals: “People were always voicing concerns about my weight and about our weight as a band. Stylists would come along and say, ‘This doesn’t fit you, this doesn’t fit you’.

“We’re talking about an era where being a size zero was popular, so they sent us away to this place in the countryside where they were able to control what we ate.”

Atomic Kitten

WHILE on the 1999 Smash Hits Tour, Atomic Kitten’s Kerry Katona fell for Westlife singer Brian McFadden, but was ordered not to date him by management.

Kerry, 45, says: “They all went absolutely f*ing apes**t. I remember [Westlife manager] Louis Walsh saying, ‘I don’t like you, you’re trouble’.

Bandmate and best pal Natasha Hamilton, 43, adds: “It was definitely bad for the brand. Not from my point of view but from the label and management. They said girls can’t be seen with one of the boys in the biggest boyband in the UK because fan jealousy is a thing.”

Mis-Teeq

BEING an all-black group who rose up from the “underground scene” in 1999, Mis-Teeq felt they were discriminated against and given fewer opportunities.

Su-Elise Nash, 44, says: “We weren’t invited to the same premieres. Some magazines wouldn’t consider us for the cover because they didn’t think three black girls would sell.

“Our struggle to get there was definitely not as easy as it would have been if we had one white member or we’d all-white.”

Sugababes

WHEN Sugababes founding member Mutya Buena gave birth to her first child aged 19 – while the band were working on their fourth album – there was no let-up.

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Mutya, now 40, quit the group that same year in 2005 and was later diagnosed with post-natal depression.

Record label exec Darcus Beese says: “I remember standing in my kitchen trying to talk her down. I had no concept of post-natal depression. I would ask questions now like, ‘How’s your mental health?’.”

I’d come for the sunrise but I quickly discovered three things that can ruin even the most beautiful moment

It was just gone 5am when I arrived very tired and ready to tackle a scenic sunrise hike at one of the UK’s most popular peaks. But looking around, it appeared I wasn’t the only one who had this marvellous idea — despite the time, the car park was starting to fill up.

I could make out the faint glow of iPhones as early risers emerged from cars, clutching coffee and camera tripods, shivering in the dark. From here, the route to the summit of Pen y Fan, the highest peak in south Wales, is one of the most straightforward ways to the summit and is often described by locals as a “motorway”, so it shouldn’t have been a huge surprise to find myself surrounded by other keen walkers.

Pen y Fan rises 886 metres (2,907 ft) above a landscape of rolling high hills. It’s one of several flat-topped summits in the area, and the dramatic peak was once a mountain for the committed: avid hikers, the British Army on training exercises and reluctant school kids dragged up for the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. These days, it attracts anyone with a phone and a sunrise, with viral social media clips turning the picturesque summit into a must-visit backdrop for selfies.

Interest in the UK’s beauty spots has surged since Covid-19 restrictions began in 2020, when an hour’s exercise was a brief escape from lockdown life. In recent years, reports of national parks, beaches, and hiking trails being overrun with crowds, litter, and queues have become almost routine as more people head for the hills, clutching their smartphones.

We set off from the car park in the dark, joining the steady stream of hikers snaking up the trail. The ‘motorway’ path was well-trodden and wide enough in parts to accommodate the crowd without too much jostling. My companions, seasoned hikers with well-worn gear, moved with practised efficiency, while I kept pace, observing the scene unfolding around us.

The trail was a mix of gravel and uneven stone, occasionally slick with dew, and the dawn light had not yet hit the high, rolling green hills, verdant valleys, and grassy mountain plateaus.

Headlamps and iPhone lights dotted the landscape like fireflies, and it was hard not to slow down and take in the absurdity of what felt like hundreds of us all crawling up the same path, multiple dogs running loose, phones flickering, and me, trying not to become part of someone’s Instagram Live.

As we crested the final rise, the line of hikers slowed to a crawl, everyone funnelling toward the summit marker. The Pen y Fan cairn, a large pile of stones that has stood since the Bronze Age, marked with a National Trust plaque and topped by a trig point, was already commanding attention. People had formed an orderly queue, patiently waiting for their turn to stand beside it for a photo.

Even in the soft pre-dawn light, it looked like a scene from a theme park: polite shuffling, polite muttering, everyone clutching phones and cameras, some even doing little TikTok dances.

Watching the strange scene, it was hard not to think about the meteoric rise of ‘TikTok travel’, the phenomenon of visiting somewhere not to discover it, but to make the place a backdrop for your own carefully choreographed content.

Don’t get me wrong: I love a good selfie. But queuing for a picture, or orchestrating an hour-long photoshoot solely for social media, is not something I have patience for.

And yet, despite the absurdity of it all, the sunrise we had come to see was spectacular. The first golden rays of light struck the ridges, catching the Llyn Cwm Llwch lake in a soft, golden glow and providing expansive 360-degree views of the surrounding countryside, including the Black Mountains, Carmarthenshire Fans, and the Cambrian Mountains to the north and west.

A thin mist lingered in the valleys below, and a “dragon’s breath” cloud inversion spread across the landscape, curling around the peaks like smoke and catching the sun’s pink-and-gold light. Even the most devoted TikTokkers paused for a moment just long enough to gape at the extraordinary panorama.

The way the glacier-carved peaks glowed, the soft light spilling over the valleys, and the atmospheric ‘Dragon’s breath’ are why Pen y Fan draws so many, why we brave the crowds, and why, inevitably, you find yourself taking a quick selfie, trying to preserve the moment without letting it slip away.

I’d come for the sunrise, but I quickly discovered three things that can ruin even the most epic mountain moment: crowds, dogs running wild off lead, and litter. None of them is enough to spoil Pen y Fan entirely, but together, they’re a reminder that our growing love for the outdoors can have unintended consequences.

I’m also self-aware enough to know I’m part of the problem. I came for the same thing as everyone else, a photogenic sunrise shared with my hiking pals.

I could have chosen one of the many quieter peaks or valleys scattered across Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) — there’s no shortage of them. But here I am, trudging up the most popular route with everyone else. The lure of dawn light is hard to resist, even when you know exactly how crowded it’s going to be.

As I sipped my coffee and surveyed the summit, it was impossible to ignore the consequences of Pen y Fan’s popularity. The cairn, once a quiet marker of the highest point in south Wales, had become a pivot point for human activity.

Every so often, discarded rubbish or a stray dog poo bag would catch your eye, small but persistent reminders of the mountain’s rising footfall.

Even the Central Beacons Mountain Rescue Team has had to intervene, “downing tools” during training sessions in the National Park to clear up litter, including disposable barbecues, something they described on social media as increasingly common and, heartbreakingly, unnecessary.

Another complication was dogs off-lead. Bounding freely, they sometimes disappeared from view entirely, prompting panicked calls from their owners and, presumably, even more posts in local hiking Facebook groups about missing pets.

On a slope like Pen y Fan, it’s a worry: not just for the dogs (which I love to be clear) but also for wildlife and the growing problem of erosion and mess along the most popular paths.

For all the talk of crowds and chaos and poor pet management, though, I know most people who come here care deeply about the mountains.

I’m a member of enough hiking groups to see how much affection there is for these astonishing landscapes. Most walkers are respectful; they don’t drop litter, keep dogs close, and tread carefully. A small minority spoil it with blaring music, buzzing drones, or abandoned dog poo bags. Perhaps that’s why this behaviour feels so jarring; it isn’t the norm.

What’s needed isn’t less enthusiasm, but more awareness. Simple, consistent reminders of how to “leave no trace,” and a bit of encouragement to explore beyond the same three or four photogenic peaks, might go further than any warning sign ever could.

Of course, awareness is easier to preach than practise when the sunrise forecast looks promising, and so, here I am. It turns out that it’s easy to grumble about the crowds until you realise that you’re one of them. And maybe that’s the paradox of places like Pen y Fan, they’re loved to the point of being over-loved.

Mallam Abakar and his two sons leave their home in Gyawana, Lamurde Local Government Area of Adamawa State, northeastern Nigeria, at 5 a.m. every weekday. Thirty minutes later, they arrive at the farm, and each one of them takes a position.

Five-year-old Isiaka sits at the entrance, guarding a wide bed of ripening rice. His older brother, Abu, stays in the opposite direction. Their father settles near their makeshift shelter, his gaze sweeping across the entire field. 

Isiaka and Abu clutch pieces of zinc and wooden sticks to make a sound. Day after day, the boys repeat this routine, standing guard over their father’s rice field as if it were a battlefield.

By 6 a.m., the team is on high alert. As the father patrols the edges of the field, the boys pound their gongs and shout fiercely, driving away swarms of quelea birds before they can descend.

The quelea species native to sub-Saharan Africa is the most numerous bird species in the world, with a peak post-breeding population estimated at 1.5 billion, according to the Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International. Known as the red-billed quelea, this small weaver bird is notorious for its attacks on small-grain crops. It is a major pest throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa and can cause significant economic losses.

Across Nigeria, the recurring quela bird invasion of rice farms remains a great challenge to farmers, especially those in Adamawa, Taraba, Sokoto, Jigawa, and Yobe. The invasion is noted as one of the reasons driving food shortages in these regions, as the dangerous parasites are capable of wiping out hectares in minutes during every invasion.

The family that watches

Mallam Abakar has been cultivating rice for more than a decade. Apart from the recurring flood, farmer-herder clashes, another challenge he faces in the region is quelea bird invasions. 

The first major invasion in Adamawa State was reported in 2016, when the birds swept through 12 council areas, destroying crops worth millions of naira. Since then, the birds have repeatedly unleashed large-scale devastation, pushing rice farmers in the region into crippling losses.

“The birds come every year. In the last few years, we noticed a decline in their invasions, but this year, they are back with full force,” Abakar said. 

HumAngle gathered that the birds usually appear at the end of July and stay until October. As early as 6 a.m., they start hovering above the fields, attempting to descend, prompting farmers to chase them away in an effort to protect their crops. 

The birds are scarcely seen in the afternoon, as they retreat to nearby sugar cane plantations for rest. However, around 5 p.m., they re-emerge in their thousands, and farmers resume their vigilant watch. 

Local farmers say the birds are highly sensitive to sound, often targeting unguarded farms. 

Flying in a swarm of thousands, they descend, settle, and can strip a hectare of rice in minutes. The birds are attracted to mostly rice fields, especially those nearing maturity. They feed by sucking out the milky sap from developing grains or plucking out fully ripened seeds. In addition to feeding damage, their rapid wingbeats shake the plants, causing seedlings and grains to fall to the ground.

To keep them away, the farmers patrol their farms, and since they can’t be everywhere at once, they set up dummies to create the illusion of a human presence. Sometimes they tie strips of leather or plastic across the farms. When the wind blows, the strips flutter and mimic movement, which discourages the birds from descending. Farmers also hit gongs to scare the swarms away or alert neighbouring farms that the birds are on the move. 

Mallam Abakar said he and his children only rest when the birds leave the fields in the afternoon. The family has set up a small tent on the farm, where they take shelter from the scorching sun. There, they pray and share meals before returning to their watch. 

Shaking his head repeatedly, Abakar told HumAngle, “It’s draining. Imagine doing this every day before harvest. We get tired, and sometimes it feels like we should just let them be.”

However, he cannot ignore the birds, as he is a full-time farmer who relies on his farm yields to cater for his family. In a good year, he usually harvests around 20 bags of rice or more. However, in recent times, he has endured repeated tussles with the birds.

“There was a certain year they wiped off my entire rice field,” Abakar recounted. “It was devastating, and since then, I’ve been on guard.”

It was after the birds wiped off his rice fields that he started bringing his children to the farm to assist in scaring the birds away. 

“We don’t wait for them to attack before we start defending,” Abakar said. 

Tiny birds, huge losses 

Bernard Ramson, a 40-year-old rice farmer in the region, who also works as a private security guard, told HumAngle that the quelea bird invasion on his farm left him depressed. He started farming in the region last year and enjoyed a bountiful harvest in April after taking part in irrigation.

“We started sighting the birds around July, and by August, their numbers tripled,” he said. 

For months, Bernard tended to his rice farm, applying pesticides and weeding by hand. With less than a month to harvest, he was counting down until he arrived at his rice field one morning to find it destroyed. The birds had drained the milky sap from the ripening rice, leaving behind husks and wasted seeds. 

“I was expecting over 20 bags of rice, but I ended up with half a bag. I was so disturbed to the extent that I was bedridden for days,” he said. 

Bernard has not returned to the farm since the incident. He said the sight of the farm devastates him, and the loss has even disrupted his work routine, making him unable to cope. 

He attributes the loss to his tight schedule. “Farmers who can’t wait all day hire people to watch their farms 24/7 and scare the birds away, but as a security guard who shuffles between work and farming, I wasn’t always available, so the birds took advantage of my absence and wreaked havoc on my farm,” Bernard said.  

While they also damage guinea corn farms, he said, rice farmers suffer the most severe losses.

“I’ve seen people hitting gongs and walking around their farms. Others spread nets on the farm to trap the birds, but even that is not sufficient because some of them end up escaping from the net,” he said. While he is still grappling with the loss, he intends to resume farming next year, and this time, he said, he’d be prepared. 

HumAngle spoke to some farmers in Garin Overseer, another community battling with the invasions in the Lamurde Local Government of Adamawa State. 

Richard Pwanidi, a 35-year-old who inherited his father’s farmland, has erected a makeshift shelter on the farm. There, he and his brothers take turns warding off the quelea birds in the night. He had lost a significant portion of his rice crop to their invasion. 

Richard said that though all mechanisms were in place to drive the birds away, the invasion had cost him a lot. 

HumAngle observed leather strips tied around his farm, dummies placed in front of each rice bed, and his brothers constantly patrolling the fields, creating the impression of human movement. These strategies are similar to the ones adopted by other farmers in the area. 

“We beat drums, we screamed when we saw them approaching, but it seems they were already used to it, because despite the effort, they flew into my farm, descended, and did their thing,” Richard said.  

He lost three beds of rice to the birds, as did his brother on the same day. 

Richard is currently carrying out an early harvest due to the invasion. Even though his rice crops require a week or more to fully ripen, he said he’d rather harvest them now than lose everything to the birds. 

According to Richard, farmers in the region are tired. “We are not talking about five or ten thousand of them. We are talking about thirty thousand and above, descending at once,” he said. 

‘Overlapping schedules’

After witnessing the devastation, HumAngle consulted Bethel Clement, a conservation biology scholar at the A.P. Leventis Ornithological Research Institute, University of Jos, Plateau State, on why the invasion persists. “The issue continues because farming schedules overlap with Quelea migration. Altering rice production timing to avoid this overlap could drastically reduce damage, though local constraints such as water availability may limit such flexibility,” he said. 

The conservation biologist also said that while chemical spraying is widely used, it harms ecosystems and is unsustainable. He recommended more integrated measures, including synchronised planting and early harvesting, organised community bird-scaring, habitat management to reduce roosting near farms, and encouraging natural predators such as kestrels and owls through nest boxes and perches. These approaches, he said, balance food security with environmental protection and offer farmers long-term resilience.

‘We need help’

In 2020, the sum of  ₦13 billion was approved by the Federal Government to tackle the quelea bird and other pest invasions across 12 affected states in Nigeria, including Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Kebbi, Sokoto, and Taraba. Four years later, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development flagged off the project in Kebbi. However, the affected farmers in Adamawa who spoke to HumAngle said they have yet to benefit from the intervention.

“I’ve been farming rice in this region with my late father since I was a boy, and I’ve never witnessed any aerial spray of chemicals facilitated by the government. We heard that money was approved by the government for aerial spraying, but we’ve not seen it so far,” Richard said. 

He added that the only support they received was from Savannah Sugar, a private company that sprayed chemicals around farms in Gyawana, Garin Overseer, Opalo, and other areas, approximately ten years ago. “[After the company spread the chemical, the birds vanished for like three years before they returned,” Richard added.

HumAngle contacted the office of the Adamawa State Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development for comments on the state government’s planned response to the invasion, if any, but received no reply at press time. 

Richard believes government intervention could prevent further losses. 

“We need help,” the farmer said. 

According to American Summer camp travel provider Wildpacks, ‘souvenir’ stamps may seem like a harmless memento, but can cause serious complications at border control

Brits may be unknowingly putting their holiday at risk by collecting passport stamps when travelling.

Passport stamps are badges of honour for many travellers, creating a nostalgic paper trail of their adventures. However, Brits heading to Wales, the United States and the European Union and those flying further afield this summer are being warned that collecting novelty stamps in their passports could cause serious problems on future trips or even blocked from entering countries.

According to American Summer camp travel provider Wildpacks, ‘souvenir’ stamps may seem like a harmless memento, but can cause serious complications at border control. The warning comes as more information emerges about when a new border regime for travel to EU countries will come into force.

Have you had travel issues because of your passport? Email [email protected] if you’d like to share your story

Because official immigration authorities don’t issue them, some countries treat them as tampering or even a potential security concern. The stamps are available at plenty of famous attractions such as like Machu Picchu, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch and Checkpoint Charlie, with the inky marks offered as a souvenir.

Tourist stamps are increasingly common at historic or iconic destinations. But some mimic official travel markings or reference politically sensitive areas — both of which can trigger delays, questioning, or outright denial of entry.

Jamie Fraser, American summer camp director at Wildpacks, explained: “Souvenir stamps have become a bit of a badge of honour for travellers — they look cool, they feel like part of the adventure. But the second you let someone stamp your passport who isn’t a border official, you’re not adding a memory — you’re risking the whole document being declared invalid.

“If your passport includes anything not placed there by an official, you’re at the mercy of each border’s interpretation. For something that takes up just one square inch, it can cause a world of trouble.”

In some cases, travellers have been forced to replace their passports entirely if a foreign border official considers it damaged or altered.

What the UK government considers passport damage:

• Unofficial stamps, markings or writing
• Torn or missing pages
• Faded or unreadable information
• Ink stains or water damage
• Loose or separated covers

If you are worried about your passport not being valid, companies such as TUI offer handy passport validity checker tools.

When it comes to making sure your passport is in good working condition, following these steps is a wise idea:

• Skip the souvenir stamp – Ask for it on a postcard or piece of paper instead.
• Don’t mark your passport yourself – Even small doodles or messages could be flagged.
• Do a page-by-page check before you fly – Look for unfamiliar marks, stamps or smudges.
• Replace early if in doubt – A clean passport is your best travel guarantee.

Some iconic souvenir stamps include Ciudad Mitad del Mundo which is located in Ecuador at the Equator, Churchill in Canada which has branded itself the polar bear capital of the world and Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, a town famous for having the longest place name in Britain.

Some breakdown policies have limits on the amount they will pay out if a car cannot be fixed at the roadside, meaning drivers could be left out of pocket if it needs to be recovered to a garage

Motorists planning a continental jaunt are being cautioned that they might end up dipping into their own pockets if they don’t review any restrictions on their breakdown assurance.

Upon examining 291 policies, financial guru Defaqto has found that almost a third (31%) of them set a ceiling for individual claims at less than £3,500.

Should the cost of getting a car back on the road or mended surpass this figure, policyholders may need to shell out the excess themselves. Defaqto highlights the importance of checking whether there’s also an aggregate cap for all claims under the policy.

In instances where a vehicle fails before leaving and can’t be fixed promptly, hiring a substitute motor is essential.

Alas, Defaqto’s findings report that merely over a third (34%) of plans actually accommodate for the costs of hiring a car prior to departure, potentially leaving some travellers with hefty bills even before they hit the road.

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This analysis, which was conducted in early June, included various European breakdown cover options such as separately sold “standalone” policies, those bundled with comprehensive car insurance, “short-term” covers specific to particular journeys, and perks offered with certain bank accounts.

Travellers caught unawares overseas might encounter local law enforcement or authorities calling upon an approved vehicle retrieval service.

Defaqto’s research reveals that a notable 16% of these breakdown covers do not compensate for such recoveries, cornering drivers into unforeseen expenses.

If your motor conks out while you’re on holiday and can’t be fixed within a day, many policies will offer “journey continuation” cover to help with the cost of alternative transport like public transport or hiring a car.

Defaqto’s research found that just over a third (35%) of policies cap these costs between £500 and £999.

Close to two-fifths (38%) of policies put a limit on the number of breakdowns you can claim for during the policy term.

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Motor insurance guru at Defaqto, Mike Powell, commented: “If you are going on holiday in Europe this summer, buying motor breakdown insurance may not be the first thing you think about. But if you are taking your own car, it is essential to understand what the policy covers so you are not hit with a large bill if things go wrong.”

He added, “While price is often a major factor in choosing a policy, it is even more important to look closely at the cover provided and the limits that apply. The cheapest policy may end up costing you more in the long run.”

Mike Powell also offers some savvy advice for those planning to drive around Europe:.

• Double-check your breakdown cover before setting off. Ensure your policy includes European cover and pore over the fine print to grasp what’s covered and what’s not.
• Get clued up on local driving regulations. Each country has its own set of driving laws and requirements. Jot down essential contact numbers, including your insurer and local emergency services, and know the drill for motorway mishaps.
• Factor in additional costs. If your cover limit is insufficient, you may find yourself footing the bill for services like towing, car hire or onward travel.
• Keep your documents at the ready. This might encompass your driving licence, insurance certificate, logbook, passport and any pertinent health cards or visas.
• Ponder having the car serviced prior to the holiday. A pre-holiday check-up could help prevent motor breakdowns from occurring in the first place.

IT is a scenario we’ve all witnessed – or perhaps even lived through ourselves.

Boy meets girl. Boy cheats on girl. Girl tells friends they’re definitely over. Girl secretly thinks she can change boy. Girl takes boy back. Boy doesn’t change.

4

4

4

You can change the genders whichever way around, but regardless, we’re about half way through this storyline so far with Love Island‘s Helena and Harry.

The couple were over before they began because of the footballer’s wandering eye, with Helena moaning about being made to look like a mug.

She appeared to have conveniently forgotten however, about running to the Hideaway with Harry while he was coupled up with Shakira – just 56 hours after meeting.

Despite an intimate night in the boudoir, Harry then snogged saucy sexpot Yasmin behind Helena’s back before ending up back with Shakira again.

Through tears last night, Harry admitted to having regrets about ‘cheating’ on Helena, who has barely been able to look at him since.

But before Helena could take him back, she was whisked away for a sleepover with bombshell Giorgio.

He’s not the air stewardesses’ usual type, but he’s the perfect distraction to stop Helena reuniting with Harry.

I have no doubt Helena will end up back with Harry in a storyline set to rumble on this series, but I’m here to warn her that holding out for him will RUIN her career.

Aside from her obvious similarities to Love Island legend Olivia Attwood, Helena’s got the potential to be a stand-out star of the series thanks to her hilarious wit and bombshell beauty.

She had the villa in hysterics when, during a game of Spin the Bottle, she dared ex Harry “to go home”.

But if she doesn’t stick to her guns and stay far away from Harry, she’s going to come across more like pushover Chloe Burrows who kept going back for Toby Aromolaran than brave Liberty Poole who dumped Jake Cornish and left the villa on her own accord.

By proving she knows her worth and can resist Harry’s temptation, Helena will secure herself an army of female fans they can look up to.

She’ll be able to capitalise on this by landing lucrative deals with empowering female brands instead of facing heartbreak once they’re out the villa when Harry inevitably cheats.

I say this because a leopard never changes its spots – and if he’s already untrustworthy while living 24/7 under the same roof, then I don’t hold out much hope.

4

My assumption is also based on what Harry told me before going into Love Island.

While the 30-year-old was in isolation days before the series launch, Harry’s ex said he dumped her for Love Island – despite claiming he was going to Bali for the summer.

When I confronted him about this, Harry played Mr Innocent.

“Oh that sounds so terrible, wow,” he exclaimed.

“No, we were casually dating and I told her I was going away for the summer and we left it there. I didn’t ‘dump’ anyone.”

In fact, Harry went on to rubbish the idea he was as much of a “player” in dating as he was on the pitch.

“I think that is the reputation footballers get, but I can only be myself and that’s not who I am,” Harry insisted to me.

“I’m not a player.

“I’m 30. I’ve got a mullet. I’m ready for something serious.”

As he said this, with a twinkle in his eye and dimple in his smile, it was difficult not to fall for Harry’s charm.

But Helena needs to be strong and resist – or face being played by a player who has no intention of settling down.

A Benidorm expert has warned Brits that a common crime in the popular tourist hotspot has taken a “scarier twist” in recent times – and she knows from personal experience

A Benidorm specialist has issued a stark warning to Brits, stating that a common crime in the popular holiday destination has taken a “scarier twist”.

Michelle Baker, who moved to Spain 40 years ago and raised a family in Benidorm while running a newspaper for two decades, now shares information through her Facebook group, Benidormforever. She has urged visitors to stay alert.

“Phone theft is the No1 crime in Benidorm and it’s now taken a scarier twist,” she penned, revealing details about a new phone scam.

She added: “I’m generally very positive about Benidorm, but several people I know personally have told me this happened to them recently (all of whom I consider streetwise individuals and none were drunk).”

Michelle revealed that she nearly fell victim herself to this crime in recent weeks, describing it as “clearly common and very easy to fall for”, before explaining what the crime involved.

She explained: “You’re approached by an agitated young individual who has ‘lost’ his friends and can’t remember where he’s staying. He explains vaguely where he thinks it is and you open Google Maps on your phone to help him find his way.

“Once your phone is unlocked he snatches it and runs FAST; with adrenaline on his side he’s a two second head-start before you even react. Quickly passing the phone to tech savvy experts, within minutes passwords were expertly changed and large amounts of savings swiped.

“I was lucky; I didn’t get my phone out I simply told the chap who stopped me where his hotel was… but my friends weren’t so lucky and are absolutely gutted to have fallen for this.

“It’s even sadder when you consider the many recent genuine stories of tourists getting lost, sometimes with tragic endings..

“So the moral of the story is; keep your phone out of sight; at best it’ll be swiped from a bar table and sold on for a few euros… but now it appears you’ll have all your money nicked too.”

Michelle emphasised that while the incidents were non-violent, they could still “ruin your holiday”.

She added, if you are approached by someone seemingly lost asking for help, guide them to the nearest hotel rather than whipping out your mobile.

Ominous reports earlier in the year included a British tourist in Benidorm being targeted by thieves who made off with his phone, leading to a staggering £16,000 spent via the pilfered handset.

Following the incident, two young individuals, aged 19 and 20, were apprehended by the Policia Nacional.

The authorities subsequently issued advice to never enter passwords or codes into your phone if there are onlookers, and to utilise different passwords for banking applications as a precaution against theft.

The Foreign Office has issued a warning to travellers, stating: “Be alert to the risk of street crime. Thieves use distraction techniques and often work in teams. Take care of your passports, money and personal belongings, particularly when collecting or checking in luggage at the airport, and while arranging car hire.

“Do not carry all your valuables in one place. Keep a copy of the photo page of your passport somewhere safe. Make sure your accommodation has adequate security. Keep all doors and windows locked. If you’re concerned about the security of your accommodation, speak to your travel operator or the property owner.”

ITV presenter and financial expert Martin Lewis illuminated three important checks that Brits should make ahead of the holiday season

Martin Lewis has urged Brits to make three crucial checks if they plan to holiday abroad this summer. The financial specialist, 53, said it all comes down to the dates on your passport and ensuring you have the right documents before heading off.

Speaking on an episode of ITV’s Martin Lewis Money Show, he said: “Now, I need to say something very important to everybody. Border control and flight checks are getting more stringent.

“There is an immigration issue going on around the world, and that means countries are getting stricter on who they let in. So, you need to be more diligent with your checks.”

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First and foremost, Martin advised travellers to check the expiry dates on passports. If you have less than six months left, this could pose a big problem.

For various countries, including Australia, China, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates, your passport must be valid for at least six months from your entry date. Tourists in European and Schengen countries must also have a passport valid for at least three months after their planned return date.

However, even if your passport is valid for seven months or longer, you may still be denied entry if you do not meet another essential rule. For many nations, including European countries, a passport must have been issued less than 10 years before the holiday departure date.

Martin continued: “If your passport is over 10 years old, many countries won’t let you in. Now, how can it be over 10 years old? Because it used to be that when you renewed, if you had any spare time on your old passport, they could add that on top.

“So, you might have… 10 years, 10 months, and that can bar you too. So, you need to do both of those checks. Now, if you have done those checks, if there is a ‘yes’ to either of those, then the safest thing is to renew before you go.”

The most affordable way to obtain a passport is online through the Government’s website, costing £12.50 less than postal applications. Typically, the passport arrives in three weeks, although it may take longer if additional information or an interview is required.

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In emergencies, travellers also have the option to apply for an urgent passport using the Government’s one-day premium service or one-week fast track scheme. Both schemes are subject to different criteria and cost more than the standard service.

In light of these rules, Martin continued: “If I was seven, eight or nine months away and the rule was six months, I’d probably play safe and get a new passport first anyway, so that I’ve got more on it, because it’s been so tricky.

“And it’s very similar if you are travelling to the USA or passing through the USA, you need to sort your ESTA now. There is heightened border security in the States. If you don’t have, this is your sort of online visa if you like, without one people are being denied entry. You need to be careful.”

How can I get a passport urgently?

Option 1: One-day premium

The one-day premium option is for adults renewing an existing passport. Online applicants pay £222 or £235 for a 54-page frequent traveller passport. Following each application, an appointment will be scheduled, with the earliest booking available two days later.

The Government explains: “You’ll need to hand in your old passport at your appointment. Your new passport will be ready to collect from the passport office four hours after your appointment.”

Option 2: One-week fast track

This alternative option is also available for anyone looking to renew their passport, as well as in these specific circumstances:

• You need to get a child’s passport
• You need to replace a lost, stolen or damaged passport
• You need to change the personal details on a passport (your name, place of birth or gender)

The fast track option is more economical, priced at £178 for an adult passport (£191 for a 54-page frequent traveller passport) and £145 for a child passport (or £158 for a 54-page frequent traveller passport). You can schedule an appointment as soon as the day after you submit your application. Typically, the passport arrives about a week later.

Importantly, you are ineligible to apply for either service if you are outside the UK or applying for your first adult passport. The Government also adds: “If you’ve already applied for a passport and have not received it yet, do not pay for an urgent passport.

“You will not get your passport sooner and you will be charged a £32 admin fee for each additional application.”

When my grandmother, Khadija Ammar, walked out of her home in Beit Daras for the last time in May 1948, she embarked on a lonely journey. Even though she was accompanied by hundreds of thousands of Palestinians – also forced to leave behind their cherished homes and lands to escape the horror unleashed by Zionist militias – there was no one in the world watching. They were together, but utterly alone. And there was no word to describe their harrowing experience.

In time, Palestinians came to refer to the events of May 1948 as the Nakba, or the catastrophe. The use of the word nakba in this context invokes the memory of another “catastrophe”,  the Holocaust. The Palestinians were telling the world: just three years after the catastrophe that befell on the Jewish people in Europe, a new catastrophe –  very different, but no less painful – is unfolding in our homeland, Palestine.

Tragically, our catastrophe never came to an end. Seventy-seven years after my grandmother’s expulsion, we are still being hunted, punished and killed, for trying to live on our lands with dignity or demanding that we are allowed to return to them.

Because it has never truly ended, commemorating the Nakba as a historical event has always been difficult. But today, a new challenge confronts us as we try to understand, discuss or commemorate the Nakba: it has entered a new and terrifying phase. It is no longer just a continuation of the horror that began 77 years ago.

Today, the Nakba has transformed into what Amnesty International described as a “live-streamed genocide”, its violence no longer hidden in archives or buried in survivors’ memories. The pain, the blood, the fear and the hunger are all visible on the screens of our devices.

As such, the word “Nakba” is not appropriate or sufficient to describe what is being done to my people and my homeland today. There is a need for new language – new terminology that accurately describes the reality of this new phase of the Palestinian catastrophe. We need a new word that could hopefully help focus the averted eyes of the world on Palestine.

Many terms have been proposed for this purpose – and I have used several in my writing. These include democide, medicide, ecocide, culturicide, spacio-cide, Gazacide, and scholasticide. Each of these terms undoubtedly defines an important aspect of what is happening today in Palestine.

One term that I find especially powerful as an academic is scholasticide. It underlines the ongoing, systematic erasure of Palestinian knowledge. Every university in Gaza has been destroyed. Ninety percent of schools have been reduced to rubble. Cultural centres and museums flattened. Professors and students killed. The term scholasticide, coined by the brilliant academic Karma Nabulsi, describes not only the physical destruction of Palestinian educational institutions but also the war being waged on memory, imagination and the Indigenous intellect itself.

Another term I find evocative and meaningful is Gazacide. Popularised by Ramzy Baroud, it refers to a century-long campaign of erasure, displacement and genocide targeting this specific corner of historic Palestine. The strength of this term lies in its ability to locate the crime both historically and geographically, directly naming Gaza as the central site of genocidal violence.

Although each of these terms is powerful and meaningful, they are all too specific and thus unable to fully capture the totality of the Palestinian experience in recent years. Gazacide, for example, does not encompass the lived realities of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, or those in refugee camps across the region. Scolasticide, meanwhile, does not address the apparent Israeli determination to make Palestinian lands inhabitable to their Indigenous population. And none of the aforementioned words address Israel’s declared intentions for Gaza: complete destruction. On May 6, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich chillingly stated, “Gaza will be entirely destroyed … and from there [the civilians] will start to leave in great numbers to third countries.”

As such, I propose a new term – al-Ibādah or the Destruction – to define this latest phase of the Nakba. The term reflects the horrifying rhetoric employed by Smotrich and numerous other Zionist fascist leaders and captures the comprehensive and systematic erasure under way not only in Gaza, but across historic Palestine. Al-Ibādah is capacious enough to encompass multiple forms of targeted annihilation, including democide, medicide, ecocide, scholasticide, culturicide and others.

In Arabic, the phrase for genocide, “al-Ibādah jamāʿiyyah” meaning “the annihilation of everyone and everything” has the word al-Ibādah as its root. The proposed term al-Ibādah intentionally truncates this phrase, transforming it into a concept that signifies a permanent and definitive condition of destruction. While it does not assign a specific geographical location, it draws conceptual strength from the work of Pankaj Mishra (The World After Gaza), who argues that the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza represents a qualitatively distinct form of genocidal violence. According to Mishra, Gaza constitutes the front line of Western neocolonial and neoliberal projects, which seek to consolidate global order around the ideology of white supremacy. By pairing the definite article with the noun, al-Ibādah asserts this condition as a historical rupture – a moment that demands recognition as a turning point in both Palestinian experience and global conscience.

Today, when it comes to Palestine, the word “destruction” is no longer whispered. From military commanders to politicians, journalists to academics, vast segments of the Israeli public now openly embrace the complete destruction of the Palestinian people as their ultimate goal.

Entire families are being wiped out. Journalists, doctors, intellectuals and civil society leaders are deliberately targeted. Forced starvation is used as a weapon. Parents carry the bodies of their children to the camera, to document the massacre. Journalists are killed mid-broadcast. We are becoming the martyrs, the wounded, the witness, the chroniclers of our own destruction.

My grandmother survived the Nakba of 1948. Today, her children and over two million Palestinians in Gaza live through even darker days: the days of destruction.

My pregnant cousin Heba and her family, along with nine of their neighbours, were killed on October 13, 2023. By then, just days after October 7, dozens of families had already been erased in their entirety: the Shehab, Baroud, Abu al-Rish, Al Agha, Al Najjar, Halawa, Abu Mudain,  Al-Azaizeh, Abu Al-Haiyeh.

On October 26, 2023, 46 members of my own extended family were killed in one strike. By last summer, that number had grown to 400. Then I stopped counting.

My cousin Mohammed tells me they avoid sleep, terrified they won’t be awake in time to pull the children from the rubble. “We stay awake not because we want to but because we have to be ready to dig.”  Last month, Mohammed was injured in an air strike that killed our cousin Ziyad, an UNRWA social worker, and Ziyad’s sister-in-law. Fifteen children under 15 were injured in the same attack. That night, as he had done countless times over the past 18 months, Mohammed dug through the rubble to recover their bodies. He tells me the faces of the dead visit him every night – family, friends, neighbours. By day, he flips through an old photo album, but every picture now holds a void. Not a single image remains untouched by loss. At night, they return to him – sometimes in tender dreams, but more often in nightmares.

This month, on May 7, Israeli strikes on a crowded restaurant and market on the same street in Gaza City killed dozens of people in a matter of minutes. Among them was journalist Yahya Subeih, whose first child, a baby girl, was born that very morning.  He went to the market to get supplies for his wife and never returned. His daughter will grow up marking her birthday on the same day her father was killed – a terrible memory etched into a life just beginning. Noor Abdo, another journalist, compiled a list of relatives killed in this war. He sent the list to a human rights organisation on May 6. On May 7, he was added to it himself.

A worker at the restaurant that was hit spoke about a pizza order placed by two girls. He said he overheard their conversation. “This is expensive, very expensive,” one girl said to the other. “That’s okay” she replied. “Let’s fulfil our dream and eat pizza before we die. No one knows.” They laughed and ordered.  Soon after their order arrived, the restaurant was shelled and one of the girls was killed. The worker does not know the fate of the other. He, however, says he noticed a single slice from their pizza was eaten. We can only hope that the one who was killed got to taste it.

This, all this, is al-Ibādah. This is the destruction.

In the face of global inaction, we are all but powerless.

Our protests, our tears, our cries have all fallen on deaf ears.

But we are still left with our words.  And speech does have power.  In the Irish play Translations, which documents the linguistic destruction of the Irish language by the British army in the early 1800s, the playwright Brian Friel explains how by naming a thing we give it power, we “make it real”.  So in a final act of desperation, let the commemoration of this year’s Nakba be the time when we name this thing and make it real: al-Ibādah, the Destruction.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.