wild

“Untamed,” a quasi-police drama premiering Thursday on Netflix, is a vacation from most crime shows, set not in a big city or cozy village but in the wilds of Yosemite National Park. (Never mind that the series was shot in British Columbia, which has nothing to apologize for when it comes to dramatic scenery, and whose park rangers are not threatened by draconian budget cuts nor their parks by politicians’ desire to sell off public lands.)

The mountains and valleys, the rivers and brooks, the occasional deer or bear are as much a part of the mise-en-scène as the series’ complicated, yet essentially straightforward heroes and villains. Lacking big themes, it’s not so much meat-and-potatoes television as fish and corn grilled over a camp fire, and on the prestige scale it sits somewhere between “Magnum P.I.” and “True Detective,” leaning toward the former.

Created by Mark L. Smith (“American Primeval”) and Elle Smith (“The Marsh King’s Daughter”) and starring Eric Bana and Sam Neill, Antipodean actors wearing American accents once again, it’s a limited series, though, for a while, it has the quality of a pilot, introducing characters that could profitably be reused — with perhaps a little less of the trauma peeking out at every corner. Of course, if the show becomes a fantabulous success, the Netflix engineers may contrive a way to make it live again; it’s happened before.

“Untamed” starts big. Two climbers are making their way up the face of El Capitan when a woman’s body comes flying over the cliff, gets tangled in their ropes and hangs suspended, dead. She is hanging there still — the climbers have been rescued — when Investigative Services Branch special agent Kyle Turner (Bana) rides in on his horse.

“Here comes f—ing Gary Cooper,” mutters grumbling ranger Bruce Milch (William Smillie) to new ranger Naya Vasquez (Lily Santiago), a former police officer (and single mother, with a threatening ex) newly arrived from Los Angeles. (The horse, says Milch, who regards it as a high horse, gives him “a better angle to look down on us lowly rangers.”) What are the odds on Vasquez becoming Turner’s (junior) partner? And on a difficult relationship developing into a learning curve (“This is not L.A. — things happen different out here”) and turning almost … tender?

More heroically proportioned and handsome than anyone else in the show, a man of the forest with superior tracking skills, Turner is also a mess — a taciturn mess, which also makes him seem stoic — barely holding himself together, drinking too much, living in a cabin in the woods filled with unpacked boxes, undone by the unaddressed family tragedy that broke him and his marriage. (The dark side of stoicism.) Sympathetic remarried ex-wife Jill (Rosemarie DeWitt, keeping it real), who herself is only “as happy as I can be, I guess,” and sympathetic boss Paul Souter (Neill), try to keep him straight.

“You’ve locked yourself away in this park, Kyle,” Souter tells Turner. “It’s not healthy.” Turner, however, prefers “most animals to people — especially my horse.” Nevertheless, he has a couple of friends: Shane Maguire (Wilson Bethel), a wildlife manager — that means he shoots things, so be forewarned — also living in the woods, but without the cabin, is the toxic one; Mato Begay (Trevor Carroll), an Indigenous policeman, the nontoxic one. And he’s sleeping with a concierge at the local nice hotel, just so that element is covered; it’s otherwise beside the point.

If the dialogue often has the flavor of coming off a page rather than out of a character, it gets the job done, and if the characters are essentially static, people don’t change overnight, and consistency is a hallmark of detective fiction. The narrative wisely stays close to Turner and/or Vasquez; there are enough twists and tendrils in the main overlapping plots without running off into less related matters. (Keeping the series to six episodes is also a plus, and something to be encouraged, makers of streaming series. Your critic will thank you for it.) Still, between the hot cases and the cold cases, with their collateral damage; hippie squatters from central casting chanting “Our Earth, our land;” a mysterious gold tattoo, indigenous glyphs and old mines — there is an especially tense scene involving a tight tunnel and rising water — the show stays busy. Though last-minute heavy surprises don’t register emotionally — trauma overload, maybe — you will not be left wanting for answers, or closure.

And you will learn quite a bit about vultures and their dining habits — not what you might think.

Thick white cloud hangs outside the windows of Rifugio Segantini, a mountain hut 2,373 metres up in the Italian Alps. But it is shifting, revealing glimpses of the majestic Brenta Dolomites before us: a patch of snow here, a craggy peak there. The view is tantalising, and a couple of times I have run outside in a kind of peekaboo farce to see the full display, only for it to pass behind clouds again.

The refuge – cosy, wooden-clad and packed with hikers – is named after the Italian landscape painter Giovanni Segantini, who was inspired by these mountains. His portrait hangs on the walls and his name is embroidered on the lace curtains. A simple stone building with blue and white shutters in Val d’Amola, the refuge is dwarfed by its rugged surrounds, with Trentino’s highest peak, the snow-capped 3,556-metre Presanella, as a backdrop. The entries in the guestbook are entirely by locals.

For most British hikers, the eastern parts of the Dolomites, like the Tre Cime di Lavaredo and Lago di Braies, towards Cortina, are better known. Few come to Trentino, and fewer still come to this part of the Adamello Brenta nature park. This, I am told, is the wild part of these mountains: less explored, with fewer tourists, and rousing “bigger emotion”, according to my mountain guide Nicola Binelli. (He climbed Presanella for the first time when he was six.)

I’m here to sample the new Via delle Valli (the Trail of the Valleys), a network of 50 hiking routes covering 50 of Trentino’s mountain valleys, which launches this month. It runs from ski capital Madonna di Campiglio down to Lake Idro, taking in both the Brenta Dolomites and the Adamello glacier, Italy’s largest. Some are gentle family-friendly strolls; others are remote challenging climbs for which a mountain guide is recommended. Trails can be walked in a day, or strung together in a multi-day trek, making use of the area’s mountain huts (open from June to September) and bivouac shelters. But exploring the whole route is a long-term project, intended to be walked over weeks, months or even years.

These trails existed before, but they have been unified under the Via delle Valli. Their signage is being updated, maps and GPX files have been made available online, and a “Valley Passport” has been introduced, which hikers can stamp at each valley as an encouragement to return. Each valley has a local ambassador, intended to pass their love and knowledge of the area on to others.

The initiative, which has been three years in the making, is the brainchild of local tourist board manager Loredana Bonazza, who was inspired by Spain’s famous Camino de Santiago. The idea, she explains, is to tempt mountain-lovers away from the area’s hotspots, like Madonna di Campiglio and Val Genova, and towards adventures on lesser-charted trails. “Every valley is different,” she says. “We forget everything [in the mountains]: our stress, our jobs, our family problems. You really feel connected with the mountain. The result is: per scoprire; per scoprirsi. To discover; to discover yourself.”

My focus is on two contrasting valleys – the rocky, rough Val D’Amola and neighbouring verdant Val Nambrone, where we begin by exploring one of its jewels: the breathtaking (literally) Lago Vedretta, at 2,600 metres. We climb from another hut, Rifugio Cornisello (newly renovated and all timber and glass), through green alpine pastures, up over a rocky lip, where the lake appears in all its glory. The landscape remains frozen, even in late June, with sheets of ice thawing into pale blue water. You’d be forgiven for thinking it was Patagonia, rather than Italy.

There are around 100 bears in Trentino, as well as wolves, foxes, chamois, falcons and eagles. But on the way back to the refuge, where we are spending the night, we take a detour up above the turquoise Lago di Cornisello Superiore to spot fluffier mountain residents: marmots.

There are plenty of them up here, promises Debora Rambaldini, ambassador for Val Nambrone and the first woman in the area to become a forest guard. We follow her up a lush green spur dotted with wildflowers, and stand in silence, listening to the sounds of rushing water. Rambaldini puts a finger to her lips. There, a flush of reddish fur, a marmot darting between rocks, bushy tailed. And better still, another sunbathing on a rock below, eyeing us with suspicion.

The following day, we head to Val D’Amola. The route takes us around the inky Lago Nero and up over the Bocchetta de l’Om pass, backpacks fully loaded. Val D’Amola is only a few kilometres away, but it is a different world. It is more peat and bog, more Lord of the Rings. The water – grey here, not blue – thunders rather than babbles. But after lunch it’s our ascent up to Quattro Cantoni, a steep ledge and the gateway to the next valley, that reveals more of these mountains’ wild side. The cloud hangs low and thick, and apparently a storm is coming – soon. The sky rumbles above. Scrambling over rocks, tiptoeing on ledges and gingerly crossing patches of snow, the route is humbling: a reminder to improve my mountaineering skills. But safely back at Segantini, I feel elated. And the storm never comes.

At Segantini, just as we sit down for our hearty mountain dinner of polenta, the clouds finally part. Seen from Cornisello, these jagged, teeth-like Dolomites appeared pastel pink in the sunset; now, they are slate-grey, foreboding, capped with snow. They fill the whole horizon. As the sky darkens, we can see the twinkling lights of another hut, the vast Tuckett which sleeps 120 people, slowly appear on their black flanks.

I head to bed happy, and feel my heart racing with the altitude. It’s a small, six-bed dorm room, with a window that looks back towards the way we came. Occasionally, distant flashes of lightning illuminate the room, disrupting the dark and quiet. Sleeping – and waking – above 2,000 metres, though, is special. Ordinary life, below the clouds, feels a long way down. Time slows, you can only focus on the present, the company, the view. Afterwards, a little part of me will stay up here at Segantini, waiting to come back and explore more of these wild mountains and the secrets of the Via delle Valli.

The trip was provided by Trentino Marketing and the local tourist board. Dorm rooms at at Rifugio Cornisello €65 B&B or €90-€100 half-board, and €85 half-board at Rifugio Segantini. For more information about the Via delle Valli, visit campigliodolomiti.it

As we sauntered along sun-splashed woodland paths, our knowledgable guide Michael started to explain the links between the local geology and flora. The unusually luminous light green leaves of the beech trees? “That’s due to the lack of magnesium in the chalky soil.” The 18 species of wild orchid that grow here? “That’s the high calcium content. You see? Everything is connected.”

That’s a phrase my companion and I kept hearing at Møns Klint on the Danish island of Møn. This four-mile (6km) stretch of chalk cliffs and hills topped by a 700-hectare (1,730-acre) forest was fashioned by huge glaciers during the last ice age, creating a unique landscape. In 2026, a Unesco committee will decide whether Møns Klint (“the cliffs of Møn”) should be awarded world heritage site status, safeguarding it for future generations.

Using Interrail passes, we took the train from London to Vordingborg (Møn’s nearest railway station) via the Eurostar, with overnight breaks in Cologne going out and Odense, Denmark’s third-largest city, coming back. There’s an efficient bus service both from Vordingborg station to Møn (over an impressive bridge) and on the island itself but, for maximum flexibility, we hired electric bikes in Stege. About 12 miles from Møns Klint, Stege has been Møn’s main town since early medieval times. Home to impressive ancient ramparts and a bijou museum, it’s a good place to stock up since most of the island’s shops are found on the winding high street.

One wind-and-battery-assisted pedal to Møns Klint later and Michael was taking us about 500 steps down to the beach, the scene of cliff collapses so immense that the spoil sometimes forms peninsulas sticking out a quarter of a mile into the sea. Besides being a cartographer’s nightmare, the slowly dissolving chalk also turns the water by the shore a milky white, giving it a distinctly Mediterranean flavour. Almost every stone we picked up was a 30m-year-old fossil of some sort – Michael identified squid, sea sponges, sea urchins and oysters.

Another day we spent meandering along Klintekongens Rige, the longest of Møns Klint’s nine waymarked footpaths. The nine-mile circular trail sent us up and down and up and down through the forest; into the 18th-century “romantic gardens” of Liselund, where the bass-heavy croaking of glistening frogs contrasted with soprano peacocks; and down to a long stretch of beach for a mini adventure clambering over fallen trees and mounds of tumbled rock while the Baltic Sea lapped almost up to the cliff face.

When the sun went down we met up with night-time guide Susanne, who walked us into the darkened forest and interpreted the cries of tawny owls and scampering noises in the undergrowth (the owls’ potential dinner). The islands of Møn and Nyord form Scandinavia’s first Dark Sky Park, so we were able to gaze up at a panoply of stars while Susanne made us one of the tastiest gin and tonics we’d ever drunk, with mint from her garden and a wild rose syrup from petals she’d foraged that day.

The next morning, we explored the area’s mountain bike trails with Uffe, a guide, like Michael, from the GeoCenter, the local interpretive museum (where an exhibition on biodiversity is appropriately called “Everything is connected”). Along the way, he pointed out splendid displays of lady orchids and a herd of goats whose grazing improves biodiversity. Then, having barely broken a sweat, we suddenly found ourselves out of the woods and atop Denmark’s eighth-highest peak. Aborrebjerg is a humble 143m high, but still provided us with panoramic views across Møn and the shimmering sea. Later, we took to the water on a paddleboarding tour from the village of Klintholm Havn with Kesia from Møn Surf, appreciating the grandeur of the mighty chalk cliffs from another angle.

At night, we slept in a modern and stylish apartment at the nearby Villa Huno – an eco-build with a living roof and a view over a peaceful lake. We strolled around it one evening, stumbling across a woodpecker guarding the remains of a medieval fort, before enjoying a tasty dinner in Koral, Villa Huno’s summer-only restaurant. After a couple of nights we switched to a well-appointed bell tent next door at Camp Møns Klint. Then, as a base for exploring the island of Møn further, we pedalled west to Ellevilde boutique hotel. New owners Kirstine and Kenneth recently moved down from Copenhagen, leaving their highly regarded Restaurant 56 Degrees. Kenneth’s small plates blew us away – imagine a Danish Ottolenghi – with many ingredients from the garden or neighbouring farms. The sweet pickled onion and rhubarb salad, and the wonderfully crisp herby flat breads that accompanied a gazpacho, will live long in the memory.

Møns Klint represents a mere sliver of the island of Møn, so we spent our last day exploring its mostly flat countryside on our electric bikes. A cycle path runs parallel to the island’s main road, and all the smaller roads we used were essentially car-free, which made for a very relaxing experience. We raced hares along hedges; marvelled at some wonderfully eccentric medieval frescos in Elmelunde church; bought ceramics from a friendly potter called Jacob; and stopped off at little flea markets in islanders’ front gardens.

Crossing the wind-blown bridge on to the tiny island of Nyord (population 35), we watched lapwings at play and visited Denmark’s smallest museum. Not much larger than a telephone kiosk, it is a former lookout shelter that tells the stories of those who guided boats through the perilous straits nearby.

In Nyord’s only village, also Nyord, we dropped into Noorbohandelen for some rum mustard, one of the many flavoured varieties that are a local speciality. We admired their aesthetically satisfying shelves of bottles filled with all manner of colourful spirits made on the premises, before lunching alfresco at their cafe on a correspondingly colourful salad, as swallows tore joyfully about the sky above our heads.

The trip was provided by southzealand-mon.com, with travel provided by Interrail. An Interrail Global Pass for 4 days travel within a month costs £241 adults, £217 seniors, £180 12-27s, 4-11s free with an adult. Villa Huno has apartments from £145 a night. Camp Møns Klint has tent pitches with electricity from £40 a night. Ellevilde boutique hotel has doubles from £119 a night

PSG will face either Real Madrid or Borussia Dortmund in the semifinals after winning a lively game against the German champions.

Champions League holders Paris Saint-Germain moved a step closer to another trophy with a 2-0 victory over Bayern Munich in the quarterfinals of the Club World Cup, a game marred by a gruesome injury to young German star Jamal Musiala.

After Desire Doue broke the deadlock with a 78th-minute strike in Atlanta on Saturday, PSG soon found themselves down to nine men after a pair of late red cards.

But with Bayern throwing everyone forward in search of an equaliser, Ousmane Dembele added an insurance goal deep into stoppage time to send the French powerhouse into the semifinals, where they will face either Real Madrid or Borussia Dortmund in New Jersey on Wednesday.
PSG’s keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma made a pair of exceptional first-half saves.

In the 27th minute, he sprang to his right to parry Michael Olise’s goal-bound effort from just beyond the corner of the six-yard box. In the 41st, he sprawled the opposite direction to keep Aleksandar Pavlovic’s effort, an intended early cross that was inches in front of Musiala near the penalty spot, from creeping inside the right post.

Bayern keeper Manuel Neuer was also called into action during the first half, thwarting Khvicha Kvaratskhelia’s effort from close range at the near post with an outstretched arm in the 32nd minute. Four minutes into the second half, he dove left to deny Bradley Barcola on the break.

But Musiala’s sickening injury marred the end of the half. As he chased a loose ball near the byline in first-half stoppage time, Donnarumma darted off his spot and dived for it, only to crash into the left ankle of the 22-year-old German.

As Musiala rolled over, his foot dangled awkwardly, the ankle appearing to be cleanly broken.

Donnarumma walked away with the ball, but knelt down in horror when he looked back and realised the seriousness of the injury. A stretcher was immediately summoned to take Musiala off the field.

Both teams walked towards the locker rooms in stunned silence, with the PSG keeper appearing to be close to tears. He was booed throughout the second half by Bayern fans each time he touched the ball.

PSG, which claimed their first Champions League title with a 5-0 rout of Inter Milan five weeks ago, broke the impasse late in the second half when Joao Neves stole the ball from Harry Kane near the halfway line to send the French team sprinting towards the Bayern goal.

Neves got the ball back off a give-and-go and found Doue lurking just outside the top of the area. His left-footed shot caught Neuer flat-footed as it skidded inside the right post.

But PSG had to hold on for dear life to preserve the win after Willian Pacho and Lucas Hernandez were both sent off with red cards.

Referee Anthony Taylor dismissed Pacho in the 82nd minute for his dangerous challenge on Bayern’s Thomas Muller, and sent off Hernandez in the second minute of second-half stoppage time for an elbow in the face of Raphael Guerreiro.

Bayern had two goals overruled for offside in the game, including a late header by Kane.

As Bayern pressed for an equaliser, PSG broke on a counterattack and Dembele doubled their advantage deep into stoppage time following some brilliant setup work by Achraf Hakimi, who beat three defenders, then fed Dembele for a first-time low finish that left Neuer little chance.

In the waning seconds, the German club was awarded a penalty kick, only to have it waved off after a video review.

PSG’s captain, Marquinhos, lauded PSG’s attitude to see out the game.

“It is always difficult to play with two fewer players, but today, the team showed the attitude and desire to get the job done,” Marquinhos told DAZN.

“That second goal was really important, especially in a huge competition like this.”

PSG right back Hakimi said his side had beaten one of the best teams in the competition and a big “rival”.

“We are really happy and proud of the team effort. We had a tough team against us, I think we did what we had to do to take the victory,” Hakimi told DAZN.

Shocking video footage shows a woman having a mid-air meltdown thousands of feet in the air and demanding a business class upgrade – before being restrained by passengers and cabin crew

Footage from Aeroflot flight SU734 shows a woman going into a fit of air rage while the plane from Russia to Egypt was mid-flight, frightening other passengers on board.

The clip shows the economy passenger screaming at cabin crew insisting on an upgrade because she was suffering from pain in her “butt and t**s”.

The woman can be seen standing in the aisle and yelling at the cabin crew in broken English: “I’m in pain in my butt, I’m in pain in my t*ts… I want my business class…” reports The Sun.

She even grabs her own breasts while arguing her case, pleading: “But I need a business class because I was working.”

Passengers helped the crew overpower the woman after she allegedly threatened to open the emergency exit and began removing her top in desperation, according to the Telegram channel Aviatorshchina.

READ MORE: List of airlines that have banned popular item from overhead lockers amid safety fears

Although the video doesn’t show her fully undressing, it captures her bizarre gestures and meltdown as shocked passengers watch on during the six-hour flight.

When her rant fails to sway staff, the wild-eyed woman sinks to the floor screaming, “No, no, get out!” as a female voice calmly replies: “You asked for it.”

“The woman tried to push forward, ran around the cabin, approached the emergency exit, and threatened to ‘open’ it,” the report claimed. They also mentioned that the passenger “began taking off her T-shirt” in a bid to get to the desired seat.

“The stewardesses first tried to manage on their own, but the brawler wouldn’t give in,” the channel added. “After she was restrained, the violator was moved to the back of the plane and handed over to the police upon arrival.”

The woman’s identity and nationality remain unknown and Aeroflot has not commented on the incident. However, a fellow passenger described the mood on board as “tense and uncomfortable,” with some fearing the woman might actually reach the emergency exit.

“People were scared. We didn’t know how far she would go,” they reportedly said.

READ MORE: Tense moment Ryanair passengers hastily ‘jump from wings’ of plane after fire alert

The Airbus A330-300 aircraft was carrying dozens of holidaymakers heading to Sharm el-Sheikh, many of whom were left shaken by the strange outburst.

Meanwhile, emergency services were called to Majorca’s Palma Airport after a “false fire alarm” on a Ryanair plane just after midnight today (July 5).

A flight from Majorca Palma Airport to Manchester was “discontinued” due to a false fire warning light indication, according to Ryanair. Eighteen passengers were injured while disembarking the aircraft before returning to the terminal.

Passengers were filmed abandoning the plane via one of its wings before jumping to the tarmac as firefighters and police rushed to the scene. Regional medical emergency response coordinators said 18 people needed assistance with “minor injuries”.

Six had to be taken to hospital. Three were reportedly taken to a private clinic in Palma called Clínica Rotger and the other three to Hospital Quironsalud Palmplanas which is also in the island capital.

One of the most maddening situations that any L.A. outdoors lover can experience is wanting to go camping only to find that every campground within a 100-mile radius is booked for months.

L.A. resident Josh Jackson found himself in that predicament in January 2015. He asked a friend whether he knew of any place Jackson could take two of his kids camping. “What about BLM land?” his friend said. “I don’t think you need reservations.”

Jackson wasn’t familiar with the federal Bureau of Land Management or the 245 million acres of public land, primarily in the West, that the agency manages.

Jackson couldn’t have known that his trip with his children to the Trona Pinnacles would launch a 10-year obsession that would take him hundreds of miles across the West where he’d find solitude and sanctuary in areas dubbed by historians as “leftover lands” because they weren’t seen as valuable by homesteaders, multiple federal agencies and developers.

On Tuesday, Jackson’s decade-long odyssey was published in “The Enduring Wild: A Journey Into California’s Public Lands” (Heyday), which he spent 42 months and took 32 trips, walking 400 miles through BLM lands, to write. The book is a continuation of the work he’s done on his Forgotten Lands project.

Josh Jackson’s “The Enduring Wild” published this week.

(Heyday Books; Asher Moss)

“I had almost no idea what lay ahead, but I wanted to find out,” Jackson wrote. “If these so-called leftover lands had a story to tell, I wanted to play a small part in telling it.”

“The Enduring Wild” is not a guidebook but rather a beautifully crafted introduction into California’s 15 million(ish) acres of BLM land and how Jackson fell in love with them through his exploration of them.

He shares many of his adventures, highlighting experiences on BLM lands in the Mojave, Carrizo Plain National Monument, the Borderlands, the Eastern Sierra, Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument and the King Range National Conservation Area where (insert longing sigh from me) you can hike along the Lost Coast.

I asked Jackson if we could hike at a BLM spot near L.A., so last week, we met up at the Whitewater Preserve, a gorgeous desert canyon where you can swim in the Whitewater River and hike along the Pacific Crest Trail and other paths through BLM land. As our feet crunched through the sandy soil, we kept pausing to stop and marvel at the surprises of the desert (and curse aloud that we couldn’t spot any bighorn sheep).

Josh Jackson, author of “The Enduring Wild,” looks for bighorn sheep often spotted in the Whitewater Preserve and surrounding BLM land.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

I was so eager to talk to Jackson. I have long been BLM curious. I am a type B person who sometimes misses deadline because I’m daydreaming about my next trip, and lately those daydreams have included what it would be like to explore remote places without official trails. But I felt intimidated to get started.

I asked him — for you Wilders, of course — how someone who might not be ready to navigate their own way could start exploring California’s BLM lands, which vary from remote swaths of land to a national monument with a staffed office, without getting totally lost in the desert (not that anyone here has had a nightmare about that).

“The gateway to BLM land in California is 100% the 60-plus campgrounds,” Jackson said. “They’re all first-come first-served. No reservations. They’re free to $10 a night… Those are easy gateways because, by campgrounds, there’s almost always trails. There’s infrastructure. Almost all of them have a pit toilet and maybe a shade structure in the desert or a fire ring.”

A refreshing swimming hole at the Whitewater Preserve.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

Jackson also recommended for BLM newbies to go hiking at national monuments in California like Sand to Snow National Monument where we spent the morning last week. And for any BLM land you’re interested in visiting, Jackson suggests calling the field office where staffers can answer your questions about camping spots, road conditions and trails.

As we hiked, I asked Jackson how he navigates the dichotomy between encouraging the general public to visit BLM lands and protecting them from getting trashed by jerky interlopers. It’s a challenge that any outdoors writer, myself included, has to keep top of mind.

Jackson said that, for one, you won’t find GPS coordinates to streams, hot springs or other natural areas in his book.

“I’m trying to paint a picture, let’s say, of the Carrizo National Plain Monument, which is 250,000 acres,” he said. “Yes, there are some campgrounds. Yes, there are a couple of trails, but … I’m trying to [show] what it feels like to be here and [show] some images I took in hopes more people will get out there and experience them for themselves.”

The Whitewater Preserve features the Whitewater River, which starts on 11,499 foot Mount San Gorgonio and runs 28 miles through the Coachella Valley area.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

Our smartphones and copious number of hiking apps have made it easy to find trails near us. But, Jackson writes, one of the most fun parts of visiting BLM land is all the research you must do before arriving.

BLM lands offer an alternative choose-your-own-adventure experience for those willing to comb over maps and other websites, which you can find more about in Jackson’s “Guide for Exploration,” a short chapter where he provides organizations, tips and best practices to get you started on your journey. Note: This type of information looks simple to gather, but given the rugged and sweeping nature of BLM land, it likely took hours to compile. (Thank you, Josh!)

The BLM land highlighted in Jackson’s book was part of what was threatened to be sold by Congress in recent weeks. Jackson writes in his book about the many threats that remain for BLM lands, including mining and overgrazing.

The view from a segment of the Pacific Crest Trail that passes through the Bureau of Land Management land adjacent to the Whitewater Preserve.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

Of the 245 million acres managed by BLM, Jackson writes, only 37 million acres (15%) have been set aside for conservation. “While I fully support the multiple-use mandate for BLM lands, and I appreciate the role that cattle, natural gas, oil, and certain minerals play in our everyday lives, I still see the pendulum swinging too far toward industry,” Jackson wrote of how the BLM manages today’s public lands.

So how can we protect these lands? Visit them.

Jackson writes about “place attachment” theory which, to run the risk of oversimplifying it, is the concept that when we visit public land and have a memorable experience, we develop an attachment to it. And then, when it is threatened, we rally to protect it.

A lush path near the Whitewater Preserve visitor’s center.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

For example, at the same time that thousands flocked to the Carrizo Plain, about three hours northwest of L.A., in 2017 to see wildflowers blanketing its landscape, President Trump ordered a review of 27 monuments, including the Carrizo Plain. Jackson writes about how the public outcry that followed — fed by people’s memories of that land and its beauty — saved it from losing its monument status.

“My initial fascination with exploring new landscapes had deepened into a commitment to protecting all that I’d experienced,” Jackson wrote. “If these precarious places go unseen and unspoken, who will notice when the subtle beauties of desert, sagebrush, grasslands and remote mountains slip away under the pressure to turn places into profits? In other words, how can we protect what we don’t know?”

That sounds like a great reason for your (and my) next road trip. In the meantime, if you’d like to hear me and Jackson talk about the lessons he learned in writing this book, join us at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena at 7 p.m. Tuesday. I hope to see you there!

3 things to do

A western fence lizard — a.k.a. blue belly — presides over its domain from atop a stump.

(James Maughn)

1. Learn to draw reptiles in La Puente
L.A. County Department of Parks and Recreation will host a free nature-focused art class from 6 to 7 p.m. Saturday at San Gabriel River Park (255 S. San Fidel Ave. in La Puente). Students will observe what’s around them and draw, paint or used mixed-media techniques to create artwork. This month’s class focuses on reptiles. Artists of all skill levels ages 8 and older are welcome. Materials are provided. Learn more at the park’s Instagram page.

2. Clean up the cove in Rancho Palos Verdes
The Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy needs volunteers to plant native plants and remove weeds from 9:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Saturday at Abalone Cove Park (5970 Palos Verdes Drive S in Rancho Palos Verdes). Participants should wear closed-toed shoes, long pants and long sleeves and bring sun protection and a refillable water bottle. Sign up at pvplc.volunteerhub.com.

3. Provide habitat for monarchs in Huntington Beach
Volunteers are needed from 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday in Huntington Beach to improve habitat at the Huntington Beach Monarch Nature Trail. Volunteers will yank out invasive plants, plant native species that provide food and shelter for butterflies, and collect seeds for future growth. All ages are welcome, and organizers will host nature-themed activities specifically for children. Register at eventbrite.com.

The must-read

A view of the 101 Freeway and surrounding landscape from atop the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing in Agoura Hills, which is entering Stage 2 of construction.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

It was one small step for reptile, one giant leap for the animal kingdom. Local animal rights leader Beth Pratt was showing a group around the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing when she spotted a Western fence lizard basking in the sun, about 75 feet above the traffic racing along the 101 Freeway. It seemed like just another lizard at first, given how common they are in L.A. “But then it hit me, ‘Wait. This lizard is on the bridge!!!!! And this is the first animal I have seen on the bridge!!!!’” Pratt, California regional executive director of the National Wildlife Federation, wrote in an email. “I stopped the group … and told them — ‘You are seeing the first animal on the crossing itself.’ Everyone cheered. Even the lizard seemed to know it was a special occasion. He posed for the photos I took.” Times staff writer Jeanette Marantos wrote about the moment in her latest story about the world’s largest wildlife crossing, which is entering Stage 2 of construction. Spoiler alert: We’re starting to see native plants grow on the bridge too!

Happy adventuring,

P.S.

Great news! The state of California will provide $6.75 million to continue financing the California State Library Parks Pass program, which allows library card holders to check out park passes that cover vehicle day-use entry to more than 200 participating state parks. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget originally didn’t include money for the program, which launched in 2021 with an aim of lowering the cost of entry to our state public lands. More than 8,000 Californians signed a petition demanding the program be saved. In celebration of that success, head over to your favorite library, including L.A. Public Library and L.A. County Public Library branches, to see if they have a park pass waiting for you.

For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.

As the manager of Guns N’ Roses during the band’s debauched heyday, Alan Niven has no shortage of colorful stories.

The LAPD fetching Axl Rose from his West Hollywood condo and bringing him directly to the stage so Guns N’ Roses could open for the Rolling Stones at the L.A. Coliseum.

Slash going off script and taking a Winnebago for a joyride — and then standing in rush hour traffic and brandishing a bottle of Jack Daniels — while filming the “Welcome to the Jungle” music video.

Guitarist Izzy Stradlin carrying a $750,000 cashier’s check that Niven had to take from him and hide in his own shoe for safekeeping during a raucous trip to New Orleans.

About 15 minutes into a thoughtful Zoom conversation, the garrulous Niven poses a question of his own: “Why was I managing Guns N’ Roses?”

Given what he describes, it is a good question.

“Because nobody else would do it,” he says, noting that the band’s former management firm “could not get away fast enough” from the group. “No one else would deal with them. Literally, I was not bottom of the barrel, darling — I was underneath the barrel. It was desperation.”

Case in point: his very first Guns N’ Roses band meeting. On the way into the house, Niven says, he passed by a broken toilet and “one of the better-known strippers from [the] Sunset Strip.” Stradlin and Slash were the only ones who’d shown up. Once the meeting started, Stradlin nodded out at the table and Slash fed “a little white bunny rabbit” to a massive pet python.

“And I’m sitting there going, ‘Keep your cool. This may be a test. Just go with it and get through it.’ But that was my first GNR meeting.”

These kinds of stranger-than-fiction anecdotes dominate Niven’s wildly entertaining (and occasionally jaw-dropping) new book, “Sound N’ Fury: Rock N’ Roll Stories.” With brutal honesty and vivid imagery, he describes the challenges of wrangling Guns N’ Roses before and after the band’s 1987 debut, “Appetite for Destruction.” These include mundane business matters (like shooting music videos on a budget) and more stressful moments, such as navigating Rose’s mercurial moods and ensuring that band members didn’t take drugs on international flights.

But “Sound N’ Fury” also focuses extensively on Niven’s time managing the bluesy hard rock band Great White, whose lead singer, the late Jack Russell, had his own struggles with severe addiction. To complicate the entanglement, Niven also produced and co-wrote dozens of the band’s songs, including hits “Rock Me” and “House of Broken Love.”

Niven mixes delightful bits of insider gossip into these harrowing moments: firing for bad behavior future superstar director Michael Bay from filming Great White’s “Call It Rock ’n’ Roll” music video; Berlin’s Terri Nunn sending President Reagan an 8-by-10 photo with a saucy message; clandestinely buying Ozzy Osbourne drinks on an airplane behind Sharon Osbourne’s back.

And his lifelong passion for championing promising artists also comes through, including his recent advocacy for guitarist Chris Buck of Cardinal Black.

Unsurprisingly, Niven says people had been asking him for “decades” to write a book (“If I had $1 for every time somebody asked me that, I’d be living in a castle in Scotland”). He resisted because of his disdain for rock ‘n’ roll books: “To me, they all have the same story arc and only the names change.”

A magazine editor paid him such a huge compliment that he finally felt compelled to write one.

“He said, ‘I wish I could write like you,’ ” Niven says. “When he said that, it put an obligation on me that I couldn’t shake. Now I had to be intelligent about it and go, ‘Well, you hate rock ‘n’ roll books, so what are you going to do?’ ”

Niven’s solution was to eschew the “usual boring, chronological history” and structure “Sound N’ Fury” more like a collection of vignettes, all told with his usual dry sense of humor and razor-sharp wit.

“If you tell the stories well enough, they might be illuminating,” he says. “I saw it more as a record than I did a book. And you hope that somebody will drop the needle in at the beginning of the record and stay with the record until it’s over.

“For me, dialogue was key — and, fortunately, they were all more f— up than I was,” he adds. “So my memory of the dialogue is pretty good. … There’s some dialogue exchanges in there that imprinted themselves for as long as I live.”

One of the artists that doesn’t get much ink in “Sound N’ Fury” is another group known for its hedonistic rock ‘n’ roll behavior, Mötley Crüe.

“The fact that people are still interested in what you’ve got to say about things that happened 30 years ago is almost unimaginable,” Alan Niven says.

(ECW Press)

Niven promoted and facilitated distribution of the independent release of the band’s 1981 debut, “Too Fast for Love” and helped connect Mötley Crüe with Elektra Records. He doesn’t mince words in the book or in conversation about the band, saying he feels “very ambivalent about the small role I played in the progression of Mötley Crüe because I know who they are. I know what they’ve done to various people. I know how they’ve treated certain numbers of women. And I am not proud of contributing to that.

“And on top of that, someone needs to turn around and say, ‘It’s a thin catalog that they produced,’ in terms of what they produced as music,” he continues. “There’s not much there and it’s certainly not intellectually or spiritually illuminating in any way, shape or form. They are brutish entertainers, and that’s it.”

Still, Niven says he didn’t hesitate to include the stories that he did in “Sound N’ Fury,” and by explanation notes a conversation he had with journalist Mick Wall.

“He sent me an email the other day saying, ‘Welcome to the club of authors,’ ” he recalls. “And I’m going, ‘Yeah, right. You’ve been doing it all your life. I’m just an enthusiastic amateur.’ And he said, ‘Welcome to the club — and by the way, it’s cursed.’”

Niven pondered what that meant. “A little light bulb went on in my head, and I went, ‘Ah, yes, the curse is truth,’ because a lot of people don’t want to hear the truth and don’t want to hear what truly happened.

“There are people in the Axl cult who won’t be happy. There will be one or two other people who won’t be happy, but there’s no point in recording anything unless it’s got a truth to it.”

Niven says when the book was done, he didn’t necessarily gain any surprising insights or new perspectives on what he had documented.

“The fact that people are still interested in what you’ve got to say about things that happened 30 years ago is almost unimaginable,” he says. “I never used to do interviews back in the day. But at this point, it would just be graceless and rank bad manners not to respond.

“Occasionally people go, ‘Oh, he’s bitter,’” Niven continues. “No, I am not. I don’t think the book comes off as bitter. Many times I’ve said it was actually a privilege to go through that period of time because I didn’t have to spend my life saying to myself, ‘I wonder what it would have been like to have had a No. 1. To have had a successful band.’ Well, I found out firsthand.”

Niven stresses firmly that management was more than a job to him.

“It was my way of life,” he says. “People who go into management and think it’s a job that starts maybe at about half past 10 in the morning once you’ve had your coffee and then you check out at six, they’re not true managers.

“They’re not in management for the right reasons,” he adds. “Rock ‘n’ roll is a way of f— life. It’s 24/7, 365. And that was my approach to it.”

Josh Jackson’s “The Enduring Wild: A Journey Into California’s Public Lands” is a story of adventures across 41 California landscapes, with photos of beautiful places you are unlikely to have seen, in locations ranging from the Mojave Desert to the Elkhorn Ridge Wilderness in Mendocino County. Early on, the author lays out mind-bending stats: more than 618 million acres in the United States are federally owned public land and 245 million of those belong to the Bureau of Land Management.

Public lands, he notes, “are areas of land and water owned collectively by the citizens and managed by the Federal government.” These lands “are our common ground, a gift of seismic proportions that belongs to all of us.”

Drive across the United States and consider that 28% of all of that is yours. Ours.

Jackson’s assertion that we are all landowners is a clarion call amid a GOP-led push to sell off public land. The shadow of the current assault on public lands weighs heavy while reading this lovely book.

The book has endearing origins. When Jackson could not get a reservation for weekend camping with his kids, a buddy suggested that he try the BLM. Until that moment he had never even heard of the Bureau of Land Management. Yet, 15.3% of the total landmass in California is … BLM.

Jackson starts out with history: All these lands were taken from Native American peoples, and he does not overlook that BLM used to be jokingly referred to as the Bureau of Livestock and Mining. In 1976, a turnaround came via the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which built a multi-use mandate to emphasize hiking and conservation as much grazing and extraction (a.k.a. mining). This effort to soften the heavy use of public lands by for-profit individuals and companies led to the so-called Sagebrush Rebellion and the election of President Reagan. Arguably, we’ve been struggling with finding the multi-use balance ever after.

Jackson’s first BLM foray was out to the Trona Pinnacles in the Mojave Desert, where he and his two older children camped, playing in a wonderland where “hundreds of tufa spires protrude like drip-style sand castles out of the wide-open desert floor that extend for miles in every direction,” while his wife, Kari, an E.R. nurse, stayed home with their newborn. The pandemic shutdown in 2020 inspired Kari’s suggestion, “Why don’t you start going to see all these BLM lands?”

Jackson’s love affair with BLM lands was not immediate, as just a few miles into his next hike in the Rainbow Basin Natural Area near Barstow, he was underwhelmed, like he was missing something. A few miles later, he sat and considered a Terry Tempest Williams quote from “Refuge”: “If the desert is holy, it is because it is a forgotten place that allows us to remember the sacred. Perhaps that is why every pilgrimage to the desert is a pilgrimage to the self.” Revisiting this quote on repeat, Jackson had an emotional shift, deciding to stop hiking and … start walking.

On his next trip to the Amargosa Canyon, Jackson began by reaching out to the Amargosa Conservancy, learning about the Timbisha Shoshone people whose ancestral land this is, about past mining and dozens of plant and animal species. Committed to going at the pace of discovery, he admired the enchanting, striated geology of Rainbow Mountain, cherished creosote, mesquite and the brave diversity of desert flora and was struck by the gaze of an arrogant coyote. On his return, he found that in three hours, he had only traveled … a mile.

Yet it was during this meander that his writing made a steep drop into seeing, feeling, connecting, plunging toward transcendence.

A highlight of the book is a repeat trip to Central California’s Carrizo Plain, first during a drought, silenced by its sere magnificence. After the heavy rains of 2023, he joined Cal Poly San Luis Obispo botanist Emma Fryer and was overcome by the delirious beauty of a superbloom, feeling like “I had wandered into the Land of Oz.” Fryer observed that the drought was so severe that only the hardy native seed survived within the soil, releasing their beauty the moment water allowed them to come to life. Seeing the same place twice was revelatory, both familiar and completely new.

It’s hard to tell if the places he visits gets more beautiful over the course of the book or his capacity to appreciate them and share his joy has grown. Despite the frequent paucity of BLM cartographic resources, apparently Jackson never got lost or worried about dropping the thread of a trail. Describing his father, Jackson might as well be talking about himself: “I have no memories of my dad being worried or fearful in unfamiliar situations.” Nevertheless, toward the end of the book, when he and his hardy father camped next to the rushing Eel River, Jackson did worry about bears breaking into their tent. Fortunately, the bears did not arrive but, inspired by William Cronon’s “The Trouble With Wilderness,” Jackson’s heart opened as he realized that “Nature” is not out there; nature is wherever we are.

Back in Los Angeles taking long walks with his daughter, past bodegas and car washes, he saw jacaranda, heard owls and coyotes and realized the wild had been here all along. An urban sycamore claimed its space regardless of enclosing cement and car exhaust, as spectacular and venerable as any sycamore in the state.

Can the places Jackson visited for his book endure public larceny? He is tracking the answer to this question, real time, on his Substack, where he’s currently describing the shocking attempts to sell millions of acres of BLM land.

“It’s been a wild few weeks for BLM lands. 540,385 acres in Nevada and Utah were on the chopping block to be sold off,” Jackson recently noted. “Everyone was talking about the land totals — but no one was showing what the landscapes actually looked like. So, I decided to go see them.”

Great advice: Bring a friend, pack water and go.

Watts’ writing has appeared in Earth Island Journal, New York Times motherlode blog, Sierra Magazine and local venues. Her first novel is “Tree.”

Italy’s lessser known peaks

The Julian Alps are mostly in Slovenia, but I have gone on many trips to the little known Italian portion of this mountain range to visit old friends in the ski town Sella Nevea. The scenery is awesome: pointed white, limestone peaks above deep and mysterious pine-forested valleys. The books of mountaineer Julius Kugy romantically describe this large wilderness, the obscurity of which amazes me. Nature is abundant with various large mammals, bird life and flora. If you love alpine adventure but don’t like tourists then seek it out, there’s nobody there!
Paul

Alone with orchids and sea birds, Sweden

Stora Karlsö, off the west coast of Gotland, is one of the oldest nature reserves in the world and is a few hours’ journey by train and ferry from Stockholm. It’s a tiny, rugged limestone island, mostly just a high cliff with an alvar (grassy heath) plateau. There were lots of orchids and plenty of sea birds. Once sheltered from the wind, I found the fragrant air was incredible. I spent the night in a simple cabin and enjoyed a decent meal, but civilisation in the regular fashion was far away, and there was hardly any cell reception.
Linda

Pink marsh, pink flamingos, France

Between Toulon and the Mediterranean, Hyères spreads across a series of headlands, salt flats and offshore islands. We based ourselves near the Giens peninsula, where the ancient pink salt marshes stretch out towards the sea, dotted with flamingos, herons and egrets. The coastal paths wind over rugged cliffs, with pine woods and scattered islands combining to create a setting of seabirds, wildflowers and open sea.
Steph

Camino de Santiago with detours

In the spring of 2023, my wife and I walked the 500-mile (805km) Camino de Santiago across northern Spain. The beaten track was busy, so we took every opportunity to deviate off it along alternative sections. Walking across the Meseta, the expansive, high central plateau famed for its isolation, we took the detour from Calzada del Coto to Mansilla de las Mulas along the Via Trajana, the old, cobbled Roman road. We were surrounded by birdsong, wildflowers and the ghosts of legionaries. Apart from when we stopped for a comfortable night and an immense breakfast at the Via Trajana hostel in Calzadilla de los Hermanillos, we only saw two other people in two days and 20 miles of walking.
Richard

Bears and wolves in the Romanian forest

The Carpathian forests of Romania, flanked by brooding mountains, are a brilliant place to lose yourself for a couple of weeks. On my hiking trip there last summer I spotted brown bears, wolves and lynx as I marched through valleys and woods. I came across medieval towns and villages that are rich in traditional folklore. One highlight was sampling local cheese and singing songs with villagers in the Barza valley. I was rewarded – or punished – for my musical efforts with a bumpy ride on a horse-drawn cart to the next village. Don’t miss a walk up to Postăvarul peak (1,800 metres) for great views over the area.
Joe

A hike through Iceland’s myriad landscapes

Thirty-five miles and three nights in mountain huts in the southern highlands of Iceland: the Laugavegur trail is a microcosm of the landscapes of that incredible country. Geothermal springs, high-altitude snowfields, multicoloured rhyolite mountains, black sand deserts and otherworldly moonscapes. Finally, the magical valley of Thórsmörk – Thor’s Valley – amid birch woods enclosed by three glaciers. Staying in mountain huts means you’ll feel part of a multicultural, international community of travellers, with the warmth and camaraderie this entails, with tales exchanged and memories made.
Bill Duncan

Sardinia’s wild west

Between the popular north coast of Sardinia, where the super-rich anchor their yachts, and the populated south with the capital Cagliari, lie several quiet areas where nature flourishes. Much of the west coast is relatively undeveloped. We joined bareback riders on horses along tracks, watched flamingos wade in salt marshes, visited ancient Nuragic ruins and sunbathed on the white-sand beaches of the peaceful Sinis peninsula.
Chris Allen

A Croatian island paradise

On the remote Croatian island of Lastovo, part of the Lastovo Islands nature park, we watched honey buzzards soar overhead and heard shearwater chicks calling to be fed at dusk. Lastovo is a dark skies island and we loved seeing the Milky Way sparkle so brightly. Most of the island is forested and the place remains very undeveloped, as a result of being reserved for the Yugoslav army until 1988. It’s a natural paradise of pine-scented trails leading to quiet beaches and interesting flora and fauna. It can be reached by frequent ferries from Dubrovnik and Korčula.
David Innes-Wilkin

Winning tip: The big beasts of Bieszczady in Poland

I went on a hiking tour to see large mammals in Bieszczady national park in south-east Poland in 2022 and it was amazing – gorgeous landscapes, wild bison, red deer, wolves, brown bears, lynx and wild boar. We walked through haunting overgrown orchards as the landscape was abandoned after the second world war. I went as a solo traveller with a company called Wild Poland (I did a three-day tour that started and ended in Kraków – but there are lots of different options and prices on their website).
Josie

Mauricio Dubón scored the winning run on a wild pitch in the 10th inning, Jeremy Peña and Isaac Paredes opened the game with home runs, and the Houston Astros beat the Angels 3-2 on Friday night.

Peña led off the 10th with a single that advanced automatic runner Dubón to third. Dubón scored when Hunter Strickland, who hadn’t allowed a run in 14⅔ innings of his first 13 appearances with the Angels, threw a pitch behind the back of Paredes.

Houston closer Josh Hader (5-1) retired the side in order in the ninth and Bennett Sousa retired three straight batters in the 10th for his second save.

Angels starter Yusei Kikuchi gave up home runs to Pena and Paredes for a 2-0 Astros lead in the held the Astros to four hits, striking out nine and walking none, for the rest of his seven-inning start.

Jo Adell trimmed Houston’s lead to 2-1 in the fourth with a 426-foot homer off Astros starter Hunter Brown. Angels rookie Christian Moore, a first-round pick out of Tennessee in 2024, tied it 2-2 with his first major league homer to open the seventh.

Tempers flared in the third when Brown hit Angels shortstop Zach Neto in the elbow with a 95-mph sinker. Both benches and bullpens emptied, but no punches were thrown, and order was quickly restored.

Key moment: Astros center fielder Jake Meyers raced to the gap in left-center to make a spectacular, full-extension diving catch of Adell’s drive with a runner on first base and one out in the bottom of the eighth to preserve a 2-2 tie.

Key stat: The home runs by Peña and Paredes marked the first time in three years the Astros have opened a game with two homers. Jose Altuve and Peña last accomplished the feat on July 24, 2022, at Seattle.

Up next: Astros LHP Brandon Walter (0-0, 1.53 ERA) opposes Angels RHP José Soriano (4-5, 3.54) on Saturday night.

Many Brits seek summer sun abroad from Turkey to Cape Verde, but holidays often turn into costly disasters with delays, illness, and nightmare accidents

Every summer, millions of Brits jet off in search of sunshine and relaxation – but for some, dream holidays can quickly spiral into disaster.

From flight delays and lost luggage to heatstroke, food poisoning, and unexpected injuries, the holiday season often brings more chaos than calm.

Travel insurance providers report spikes in claims during July and August, with accidents abroad, hospital visits, and missed connections among the top complaints.

Here, the Mirror looks at some dream getaways that quickly became nightmares…

Horrific joke gone wrong

A “joke” on a lad’s holiday in Benidorm ended up with a dad breaking his neck after he was shoved into a pool.

Martin Bullen, 31, described how someone who he didn’t know playfully pushed him into the water at a Benidorm pool party on June 10.

The single dad-of-two said he tried to turn his fall into a dive but he didn’t realise how shallow the water was and he split his head open on the bottom of the pool.

Luckily one of the revellers at the party was an army medic who helped get Martin out of the pool and kept him still until an ambulance arrived.

Paramedics took Martin, who works as a sales advisor, to a nearby hospital where doctors gave him 16 stitches in his head and found that he had fractured his neck in three places and broken his back.

READ MORE: ‘Cause of death’ of Beth Martin, 28, whose heart was removed after dying on holiday

He said that the trip to Benidorm had been intended as a relaxing getaway with his cousins to give Martin a break from being a busy single dad.

Martin explained that he had gone to book travel insurance before the holiday, but he had gotten distracted before paying and forgot to purchase it – a mistake he dubbed ‘stupid’.

The tourist ended up forking out £1,500 for the hospital stay and extra flights. He urged holidaymakers travelling this summer not to make the same “daft mistake” as him.

Martin, from Wigan, Greater Manchester, said: “I was having a drink but I had my wits about me and stuff. Somebody pushed me into the pool and I didn’t know it was a shallow pool.

“I’m thinking I’ll just dive in and dive back up and my head hit the floor straight away and it split open my head.

“It was quite scary. I’ll be honest, there was at one point I thought I was going to die on my own [in hospital] because I didn’t know what was going on or who to talk to.

“It was a moment of madness [not to take out insurance]. I was looking at getting it, I put it in the WhatsApp group for my cousins to get it and as I went to do mine something came up with the kids.

“Then it just slipped my mind and then I forgot all about it and didn’t get it done. It was a daft mistake. I knew I needed to get it. Failure to prepare is preparing to fail, that’s the best thing I could say.”

Raw buffet food hell

What was supposed to be a dream getaway quickly spiralled into a holiday from hell for 25 Brits after they allegedly suffered gastric illnesses while staying at the Riu Karamboa, in Boa Vista in Cape Verde.

The group claim there were disturbing scenes around the hotel’s buffet – birds, flies, and even cats wandering freely. The food, they allege, was often “raw and undercooked,” served alongside “dirty crockery and cutlery.”

One NHS worker who splurged £3,000 to celebrate early retirement said she ended up hospitalised with a severe E.coli infection during her holiday.

Sharon Burrow, 56, of Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, recalled how the luxury break became “one of the worst experiences of her life,” and eight months on, she still battles ongoing complications.

Another guest, Penny Robson, a 55-year-old paramedic from London, was forced to take antibiotics after battling a brutal bout of gastric symptoms – bloating, diarrhoea, nausea, and stomach cramps. Penny, who paid £2,000 for a weeklong stay with a friend in September 2023, had to cancel two prepaid excursions, including a stargazing trip and a private island tour, after falling ill five days in.

The Riu Karamboa resort told the Mirror: “For RIU Hotels & Resorts, the health and safety of our guests is our highest priority. That is why we adhere to strict Health & Safety protocols and comply with all applicable regulations.

“Additionally, we work closely with local health authorities to ensure a safe environment for both our guests and employees. As part of our proactive approach to preventing health issues, we conduct thorough internal and external audits on a regular basis.

“Our hotels in Cape Verde, which consist of six properties with a total of 4,650 rooms, maintain an average occupancy rate of over 80%. Given this high level of activity, we continuously monitor our operations to uphold the highest health and safety standards.”

‘Never leaving UK again’

It was a luxury holiday of celebration that turned into a nightmare. Alison Shah had celebrated her big birthday in style with a month-long trip to countries including Bangkok and Thailand when she tried to get home with her partner Richard Kay, 52, and chaos ensued.

The couple finally made it home after a three-day trek but their ordeal has made them vow ‘never again’. “I have never experienced anything like this,” said Alison. “We paid a lot of money for the holiday and it has ended in a nightmare.”

The couple had flown from Thailand to Dubai last April to find the airport in turmoil due to severe storms, with their plane circling above the airport for an hour and a half before it was able to land. They had a few hours to wait until flying to Manchester.

“Finally at 8am, we started to board the plane, the plane was there,” said Alison. “We then sat there for two and a half hours in the holding area waiting to get on the plane. Nobody was answering any questions and people were getting frantic.”

The couple’s frustration peaked when they were informed of their flight had been cancelled. “We were then told our flight was cancelled and we had to leave the airport,” added the emergency control operator. “We went back the following day and joined another queue for seven and a half hours.

“We were waiting to board the plane and it kept saying delayed, delayed, delayed. The screen changed from Manchester to Sydney and they sent us away again.”

After spending money on a hotel stay, the couple faced further uncertainty at the airport the next day when they were offered a flight to Manchester on April 28 – 12 days after they were meant to head back home. “We couldn’t do that. We had to go to work and we had already been out of the country for a month,” Alison said.

“I asked if they could get us to another airport, if I could get near the UK I could work it out. They got us a flight to Istanbul.”

But their ordeal wasn’t over – landing in Istanbul on April 19, Alison and Richard were greeted with the news that their luggage had gone missing, meaning they had to buy clothes there. The couple then made their way from Istanbul to Dalaman, Turkey, on Saturday in hopes of catching a flight to Manchester.

“We’re pleased to be home, but really really upset not to be able to give the grandchildren the gifts and open the cases and do what you normally do when you get home,” Alison said.

Sir Tim Clark, President of Emirates Airline, penned an open letter at the time of the disruption, which said: “The UAE experienced its highest rainfall in 75 years. Storm winds and torrential rain disrupted activities across the cities.

“While our hub in Dubai continued to operate, albeit with reduced flight movements for safety reasons, the flooded roads hampered our customers, pilots, cabin crew, and airport employees from getting to the airport, and also affected the delivery of essential supplies like meals and other flight amenities..

“We know our response has been far from perfect. We acknowledge and understand the frustration of our customers due to the congestion, lack of information, and confusion in terminals. We acknowledge that the long queues and waiting times have been unacceptable.”

Terrifying break-in

Becca Farley, 27, from Eastleigh, Hampshire, was enjoying a getaway in Benidorm with her family when she encountered intruders in their accommodation. The family had shelled out £2,500 for their week-long retreat.

On their final evening, amidst hotel notices about an impending power outage, Becca headed to their room to charge mobile phones ahead of their journey back. She recounted the unsettling moment: “As I got in the lift these two teenagers got in the lift with me and just pressed my floor level. I honestly didn’t think anything of it because there’s five rooms per floor, so I just assumed they were going to one of them.”

However, the situation took a turn when the youths exited the lift before her and made a beeline for her room, which was propped open with a shoe. Initially confused, Becca thought she had got off on the wrong floor, but she quickly realised that wasn’t the case.

“It happened all quite quickly and they just strolled straight into my room,” she said. Becca decided to follow them inside and confront them.

“But I just didn’t really think and went straight into the room and shouted ‘What are you doing in my room? Get the f*ck out, get the f*ck out, get the f*ck out’.” Thankfully, the teenagers did.

Yet, the ordeal hadn’t ended—the youth hammered on the door shortly after while Becca remained barricaded inside. “I was absolutely petrified,” she confessed.

“I know it sounds silly and people have said you should have done this, you should have locked them in the room, you should have decked them but at that moment I think it was just that invasion of privacy. This is supposed to be your safe place when you are away, you’re away from home, we don’t travel all that often so we were really shaken.”

READ MORE: ‘Struggling’ mum ditches regular diets to lose 4 stone with 3 children under five

The Love Island contestants have only been in a villa for a week – but they’re already spilling all their deepest secrets to one another, as Toni opens up on her NFL encounter

It’s been an eventful week in Love Island – with the Islanders engaging in some intense conversations. Yesterday, Yasmin asked whether Dejon would have a threesome with her and Toni, and today the conversation continued with Toni’s shock revelation.

During a chat at the beanbags during tonight’s episode, the naughty trio were back with their intimate conversations, as Toni made a wild confession.

The star, who resides in Las Vegas told Yasmin and Dejon she had previously had a threesome with an NFL player and a p**n star. That’s not all, as she said the encounter took place in a room full of people.

“Me, p**n star, NFL player, infront of a whole party,” Toni admitted. Dejon and Yasmin were left in shock as Dejon asked: “Everyone was watching?!” Toni then confirmed they were, although she didn’t reveal the name of the NFL player.

Like Dejon, fans took to X, formerly known as Twitter to express their shock as one tweeted: “nfl player??? #LoveIsland” tweeted one shocked fan, while another penned: “in front of everyone with a p**n star & NFL player wtf?!”

However, Dejon’s Meg was left less than impressed with the chat, as she pulled Toni and Yasmin for a chat. She told them she didn’t appreciate the trio having sexual chats, deeming it “disrespectful”.

The group failed to make amends during their chat – as Meg told the rest of the girls she felt like “a mug”.

It’s not the first time Dejon has been in trouble this week. Dejon, Harry and Shea landed in hot water when their plan was exposed during Monday night’s challenge. The trio ‘rigged’ the game to make sure they kissed who they fancied. Dejon kissed Malisha, Harry kissed ex Shakira, as Shea kissed Tommy’s partner Megan.

It didn’t go down well with Helena, Meg and Megan, who decided to get revenge on the boys with their own ‘gameplan’. Before new bombshell Harrison arrived in the villa with Toni, the trio decided to pretend they were interesting in getting to know him to scare the boys.

“Even if we don’t think he’s [Harrison] fit, shall we be like, ‘Oh he’s a bit of me’?” Helena asked the girls, as Meg agreed: “All this game playing they’ve been doing [the boys].”

However, it looks like their gameplan may have back fired, as the boys also had Harrison on their mind. Tommy wondered if Harrison will come in and try to break up a strong couple, but Dejon added: “To be honest, the more he does, the more leeway we’ve got to cause havoc!”

Harry then responded: “If he goes and kisses Helena, I’m flying mate! That’d be so good, I didn’t even think of that!”

Love Island 2025 airs every night at 9PM on ITV2 and ITVX. * Follow Mirror Celebs and TV on TikTok ,Snapchat ,Instagram ,Twitter ,Facebook ,YouTube and Threads .

There are rare moments in the culture when a children’s book resonates with everyone. Parents who buy the book for their kids find themselves moved by a story that is not intended for them but somehow speaks to them. Peter Brown’s “The Wild Robot” is one such book.

A tender-hearted fable about a robot who washes ashore on a remote island and goes native, the 2016 middle-grade novel from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers has spawned two sequels and last year’s hit (and Oscar-nominated) adaptation from DreamWorks Animation, with book sales for the series topping 6.5 million worldwide. Brown has now created a picture book titled “The Wild Robot on the Island,” a gateway for those still too young to read the original work.

“This new book gave me a chance to create these big, colorful, detailed illustrations, while still maintaining the emotional tone of the novel,” says Brown, who is Zooming from the Maine home he shares with his wife and young son. “I’ve added some little moments that aren’t in the novel to give younger readers an introduction and when they’re ready, they can turn to the novel.”

“The Wild Robot on the Island” picture book is geared for a younger audience than Brown’s earlier children’s novels featuring Roz the robot and friends.

(Peter Brown / Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

The new book’s mostly-pictures-with-some-words approach is a return to Brown’s earlier work when he was creating charming fables for toddlers about our sometimes fraught, sometimes empathetic attitude toward nature. In 2009’s “The Curious Garden,” a boy encounters a patch of wildflowers and grass sprouting from an abandoned railway and decides to cultivate it into a garden, while 2013’s “Mr. Tiger Goes Wild” finds the title character longing to escape from the conventions of a world where animals no longer run free. This push and pull between wilderness and civilized life, or wildness versus timidity, has preoccupied Brown for the duration of his career, and it is what brought Brown to his robot.

“I was thinking about nature in unlikely places, and the relationships between natural and unnatural things,” says Brown, a New Jersey native who studied at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design. “And that led to the idea of a robot in a tree.” Brown drew a single picture of a robot standing on the branch of a giant pine tree, then put it aside while he produced other work. But the image wouldn’t let him go: “Every couple of months, I would think about that robot.”

Brown began researching robots and robotics, and slowly the story gestated in his mind. “Themes began to emerge,” says Brown. “Mainly, the idea of this robot becoming almost more wild and natural than a person could be. That was so fascinating to me that I wanted to let this thing breathe and see where it took me.”

Brown knew the involved narrative he had imagined wouldn’t work in picture book form; he needed to write his story as a novel, which would be new territory for him. “When I pitched the idea to my editor, she basically said, ‘Pump your brakes,’ ” says Brown. “If I was going to write, I had to include illustrations as well. The publisher thought it was a bit of a risk. They wanted pictures in order to sell it, because of what I had done in the past.”

(Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

Brown locked himself away out in the wilds of Maine, in a cabin with no Wi-Fi, and got down to it. “I was nervous, and my editor wasn’t sure, either,” says Brown, who cites Kurt Vonnegut as a literary influence. “I realized there was no other option but for me to do it. And once I got into it, I had a blast.”

Like all great fables, Brown’s story is deceptively simple. A cargo ship full of robots goes down in the middle of the ocean. Some of these robots, still packed in their boxes, wash ashore on a remote island. A family of otters opens one such box, which turns out to be Roz, Brown’s wild robot. As Roz explores this strange new world, she encounters angry bears, a loquacious squirrel and industrious beavers, who regard her as a malevolent force. But the robot’s confusion, and the animal’s hostility, soon dissolve into a mutual understanding. Roz is the reader’s proxy, an innocent who acclimates to the complex rhythms of the natural world. Eventually she is subsumed into this alien universe, a creature of nature who allows birds to roost on her chromium shoulder.

“Roz has been programmed to learn, but her creators, the men who built her, don’t expect her to learn in this particular way,” says Brown. “And so she uses that learning ability to mimic the animals’ behavior and learns how to communicate with them. Roz is the embodiment of the value of learning, and part of that is adapting, changing, growing.”

The story isn’t always a rosy fairy tale. There are predators on the island; animals are eaten for sustenance. Real life, in short, rears its ugly head. “It gets tricky. Life is complicated, right?”, says Brown. “But thanks to Roz’s influence, all the animals discover how they are all a part of this interconnected community.”

Roz adopts an abandoned gosling that she names Brightbill, and the man-made machine is now a mother, flooded with compassion for her young charge. Their relationship is the emotional core of Brown’s series. At a time when the world is grappling with the increasing presence of robotic technology in everyday life, Brown offers an alternative view: What if we can create robots that are capable of benevolence and empathy? Roz reminds us of our own humanity, our capacity to love and feel deeply. This is why “The Wild Robot” isn’t just a kid’s book. It is in fact one of the most insightful novels about our present techno-anxious moment, camouflaged as a children’s book.

The author kept his underlying fable intact in the new “Wild Robot” picture book.

(Peter Brown / Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

“Technology is a double-edged sword,” says Brown. “There’s obviously a lot of good that is happening, and will continue to happen, but in the wrong hands it can be dangerous.” He mentions Jonathan Haidt’s bestselling book “The Anxious Generation,” and Haidt’s prescriptions for restricting internet use among children, which Brown endorses. “I don’t have a lot of answers, but I just think we need to reinvest in our own humanity,” he says. “We have to make sure things are going in the right direction.”

In subsequent books, the outside world impinges on Roz’s idyll. “The Wild Robot Escapes” finds Roz navigating the dangers of urban life and humans with guns, while a toxic tide in “The Wild Robot Protects” leaves the animals scrambling for ever more scarce resources. None of this is pedantic, nor is it puffed up with moral outrage. Brown knows children can spot such flaws a mile away. Like all great adventure tales, Brown’s “Wild Robot” stories embrace the wild world in all of its splendor, without ever flinching away from it.

“In the books, I just wanted to acknowledge that the world is complicated, and that people we think are bad aren’t necessarily so,” says Brown, who is currently writing the fourth novel in the “Wild Robot” series. “Behind every bad action is a really complicated story, and I think kids can handle that. They want to be told the truth about things, they want to grapple with the tough parts of life.”

Love Island 2025 contestant Harry Cooksley got on the bad side of viewers this week on the ITV2 series, so much so several fans wanted him to leave the villa after his latest actions

One Love Island star could be set for a looming exit from the villa if fans have their way.

Harry Cooksley faces calls to be dumped from the show after his “player” actions during the latest episode. Not only did he lie to current partner Shakira about a televised moment, but a “naughty” comment he made to Helena was also picked up on.

Earlier in the episode, Harry snuck off with Helena to the Hideaway and they joked about heading back there in secret when everyone was asleep. Harry ended up telling Shakira all about his flirting with their co-star, but he didn’t exactly admit to all that went on.

Then when it came to a game of dares, Harry gave Helena a lap dance. It’s what he said during this and then did after that sparked annoyance with fans, but also Shakira.

Harry was heard whispering the word “Hideaway” into Helena’s ear, while Shakira was sat right there. She watched them awkwardly as he made the remark, clearly hoping to head to the private room later.

Then as the ‘dance’ came to an end, he sat down and put his hand on Shakira’s leg, as well as Helena’s leg. When Shakira learned about this she wasn’t happy and called him out.

READ MORE: Love Island LIVE: Hideaway passion sparks couple swaps as Islander told to ‘run’

He denied the recorded moment had happened before asking Helena about it. He’d also made it seem as though Helena was doing all the flirting.

Viewers tuning in were left infuriated with many calling for Harry to leave the show. Others spoke about his “wild” comment to Helena while Shakira was in earshot.

One fan posted on X: “Is nobody going to talk about how Harry literally lied to Shakira’s face, saying Helena stuck it on him when he did the exact same. And whispering ‘hideaway’ to Helena in the game. GET HIM OUTTT!!”

Another fan agreed: “Get Harry out my villa.” A third viewer posted: “I just need all the men out of the villa right now,” as a fourth fan posted: “I need Harry, Helena, Ben, Blu and Meg all dumped.”

Other viewers commented on the comment, with one saying: “Harry whispering ‘Hideaway’ in front of Shakira was wild and so weird,” as another said: “He did NOT just whisper hideaway to Helena when Shakira’s right next to them.” A further comment read: “WoooooW whispering hideaway is naughty.”

It comes as viewers confessed they think they already know which former Love Island star is set to enter the famous second villa, Casa Amor. Sophie Lee was axed from the show on Tuesday night in a brutal dumping, after her partner Harry was stolen by Shakira. Sophie’s exit left fans stunned with many gutted to see her go so early on.

But some viewers are now convinced her time on the show isn’t over. With a recent series seeing a dumped girl return to the villa for Casa Amor, viewers are now speculating Sophie will be back on the show in a matter of weeks, as a bombshell in the second villa.

Taking to X, fans guessed the twist would happen with one fan writing: “I reckon Sophie will re-enter the villa as a bombshell by the end of next week at the latest or she will re-enter in Casa Amor.” Another said: “Dw Sophie you’ll be back in 4 weeks for Casa Amor.”

A third viewer begged: “Nah bring Sophie back for Casa Amor she deserves a chance.” A fourth fan agreed: “Bring her back for casa amor!!” as a fifth viewer posted: “Gutted for her and bring back Sophie as a bombshell or Casa Amor.”

The comments kept on coming with one reading: “They better bring Sophie back as a Casa bombshell. Justice for Sophie.” Another said: “BRING SOPHIE BACK FOR CASA AMOR!”

Love Island 2025 airs every night at 9PM on ITV2 and ITVX. * Follow Mirror Celebs and TV on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .

Climbing Mount Everest is a dream for many adventurers around the world – but the iconic mountain peak in Nepal is not just dangerous to climb, it’s also incredibly expensive

Mount Everest, the towering peak of the Himalayas, soars to a staggering 8,849 metres (29,032ft) above sea level. Each year, approximately 800 intrepid adventurers attempt to conquer its summit, facing numerous hazards from reliance on bottled oxygen to the threat of hypothermia and frostbite.

Climbers typically spend months acclimatising to the harsh conditions as they gradually ascend the mountain. The climb itself is gruelling due to the severe weather, high altitude, and sheer exhaustion that prevents many from reaching the pinnacle.

Since 1953, around 7,000 climbers have successfully reached the summit.

Embarking on this ascent isn’t just perilous, it’s also incredibly expensive. For those who’ve contemplated scaling Mount Everest, a TikTok user named @geogeek2_8 shed light on the true cost of climbing Everest, leaving viewers gobsmacked.

According to the content creator, you’ll need a permit from Nepal which will set you back $11,000 (£8,000). Additionally, you’ll need to employ guides and sherpas to help you navigate the brutal conditions, costing anywhere between $5,000 and $8,000 (between £3,700 and £5,900).

The necessary gear for the trek, ranging from boots to oxygen tanks and high-altitude equipment, can cost anything from $6,000 to $10,000 (£4,400 to £7,400).

And that’s before you’ve even set foot in Nepal. Flights to Lukla Airport, inclusive of grub and porters, can set you back anywhere from $4,000 to $8,000 (£2,900 to £5,900).

All in all, you’re looking at a total cost ranging from $26,000 to $37,000 (£19,300 to £27,462).

However, some reckon the Everest trek costs a fair bit more. According to Alan Arnette, who conquered Everest in 2011 and has reached “just below the Belcony” three other times, for most it will cost between $40,000 to $60,000 to scale Everest, but some people will fork out as much as $200,000.

Alan detailed how various operators compete on either price or luxuries and technologies, and guides have upped their rates. He also factored in budget for things like insurance, hotel, airport transport and jabs.

When quizzed if the price estimate was a tad low, GeoGeek responded: “There are still many less important costs that have not been included.”

From September, those aiming to ascend the world’s tallest peak during peak season (April to May) will have to cough up a hefty $15,000 (£11,100). For those wishing to climb from September to November, the fee is $7,500 (£5,500), and from December to February, it’s $3,750 (£2,700).

Many viewers were left astounded by the steep cost of ascending the famed peak, as seen in the comments on the video. “11k for a permit? Why?” someone questioned.

GeoGeek answered: “Mount Everest is inside Nepal’s territory, and the government regulates all climbs for safety, environmental protection, and revenue.”

Another chimed in: “With that much money I’d pay my bills and pay off loans! and sleep in my bed without being cold or no oxygen.

“People pay all that money to risk death?” questioned yet another baffled commenter. One more admitted their surprise: “Why did I think it was free?” Another wrote optimistically about alternative travel plans: “For that price I could see all of Europe, Asia and do a lower 48 state road trip”.

Doctor Who star Billie Piper has had an eventful and dramatic life off screen – including teen pop success followed by death threats and two controversial marriages

It’s fair to say Billie Piper has had a very rocky road to achieving stardom as a critically acclaimed actress, and her love life hasn’t been easy either. But she’s also amassed an impressive net worth and has welcomed three children.

The 42-year-old, who hails from Swindon, first became famous almost thirty years ago – as a mid-teens pop sensation. She then reinvented herself as an actor, playing companion Rose Tyler to Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor in the 2005 reboot of Doctor Who. Surprising critics and viewers with her screen talent, she continues to do so today.

And now, 20 years later, she has shocked us again. In this series finale, Ncuti Gatwa’s current Dr Who was regenerated to reveal Billie, thought to be the new doc. It’s a stunning return to the series that first made her acting name.

But off screen, Billie has endured some tough times. Here, the Mirror looks back at her life so far, from her difficult teenage years, popstar fame, turbulent romances and impressive net worth…

READ MORE: David Tennant’s wife breaks silence on Billie Piper’s bombshell Doctor Who news

School friends with Amy Wineh

Billie’s gifts were evident at a young age, and at 12 years old she made the move from Swindon to London to attend the prestigious Sylvia Young Theatre School. Aimed at nurturing future talent, the institution has produced many household names, but not all pupils had an easy time of it – including Billie’s childhood friend Amy Winehouse.

During a recent episode of Jessie Ware’s Table Manners podcast, Billie offered some insight into what Amy was really like as a young girl. Remembering her as ‘super clever, super bright’, Billie revealed: “She was always cheeky. She was always like that, you know. She would do abstract stuff, and I really loved it.”

Sadly, Amy’s differences didn’t always go down well with her fellow pupils, and Billie remembers the iconic singer being badly bullied. She continued: “She got bullied quite a lot at school because she was doing her own thing, and she liked to push buttons, and do weird stuff. And I had a lot of space for that, but not many of the girls did. It wasn’t the easiest ride.”

Teenage fame struggles

Billie skyrocketed to pop stardom at the age of just 15 with her infectiously catchy 1998 anthem ‘Because We Want To’. She became the youngest artist to debut at number one in the UK Chart with the hit, and singles ‘Honey to The Bee’ and ‘Girlfriend’ followed.

Although many ’90s teens would have been green with envy, topping the singles chart at such a young age came with its challenges.

During a 2021 episode of Desert Island Discs, she recalled how strange it felt moving to her own flat before her 16th birthday, all while dealing with the surrealness of overnight fame. Speaking of her regrets, Billie told Lauren Laverne: “At the time, it felt really exciting and liberating and satisfied me with this quest to be a grown-up. It also felt extremely desperate and lonely sometimes.

“I was seeing and experiencing a lot of life at a very young age. Now, when I look back at it now that I have my own children, it seems unbelievably unsafe and plays in unhealthily to my parenting.”

Death threats

Billie also endured a horrific campaign of harassment in her younger years as a star. In 2001, a woman penned abuse-laden messages which she then read down the phone to Billie’s record company, Blackfriars Crown Court was told in 2001.

She called the teenage chart-topper a “whore” and warned of decapitation, dismemberment, burning, flogging and shooting. The abuse reportedly began because the woman thought the performer had given her a “dirty look” during a recording of a TV show, which she attended as an audience member.

Boyband heartache

Billie met Five singer Ritchie Neville when they were teenagers, having just been thrust into the spotlight with their respective pop careers. They were love’s young dream until Ritchie broke Billie’s heart when he cheated.

Ritchie said he was full of “regret” over his betrayal with a Russian beauty while on tour in the country – who subsequently sold her story to a British newspaper in 2000.

Speaking on the BBC documentary Boybands Forever he said: “It massively hurt somebody that I loved. I regret any pain I caused but equally I was 19 you know? I made a mistake. It ended a relationship.”

Wild age gap marriage

Billie married her first husband, Chris Evans, in 2001 when she was just 18 years old, a mere five months after their first date. Given that Chris was 16 years her senior, the age gap romance raised eyebrows at the time, but Billie looks back on their time together as a period of fun and healing.

Opening up with her former Doctor Who co-star on David Tennant Does A Podcast With…, Billie reflected: “I went and got completely hammered for three years with Chris Evans. So much fun – just living very hard. But with a lot of love and a big dose of curiosity and just, yeah – amazing time.

“It’s funny because everyone framed that period in my life as these sort of horribly debauched, irresponsible, me falling apart looking like s***, putting on weight. That was really important to me, that period of my life. I needed that. Me not looking perfect every day in a tabloid was the best way for me to heal.

“Every time there would be a picture of me looking completely groomed and manicured within an inch of my life, I can tell you I was completely unhappy and starving and dark on the inside. And I haven’t brushed my hair since!”

She added: “We really had a really amazing time together. I imagine it’s what your uni years feel like – sort of reckless, but you’re learning a lot. It was an incredible time and, not to undermine our relationship because we also had a very loving relationship. It wasn’t just ‘oh, we’re going out and getting f*****’ – we had a very caring and loving relationship.”

Their whirlwind marriage came to an end in 2004, amid rumours of ‘screaming rows’, but Billie and Chris are said to remain close friends to this day.

Kids and splits

In 2006, Billie entered into a relationship with Lewis actor turned right-wing activist Laurence Fox, with the couple tying the knot one year later. They went on to welcome two sons, Winston and Eugene before calling time on their marriage in 2016.

In a recent interview with British Vogue the mother-of-two said of her controversial ex: “I’ve had to make some choices and a divorce speaks for itself. Or at least it should.” Laurence is often in the spotlight for his much-criticised views.

In the interview, she added: “I close everything down and keep a very strict routine with the kids so that there’s consistency.

“I keep them close. That’s all I can do. I try to keep people from telling me stuff but it’s really, really hard. I don’t read it but everyone wants to talk about it. Sometimes I have to say to people, ‘Please don’t bring this to me, now or ever’.”

She went on to have a relationship with former Tribes frontman Johnny Lloyd, and they welcomed their daughter, Tallulah, who they welcomed in 2019. After eight years together, they split in 2023, citing that their ‘relationship ran its course’.

In a candid chat aired on Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place podcast in 2021, Billie spoke about the difficulties of juggling motherhood with a hectic career. Billie shared: “Striking a balance is unachievable and as soon as you let go and just accept that, there are useful changes… I cry at the end of every day and spend an hour in bed saying, ‘I’ll be better tomorrow, I swear. I’m going to read my parenting manual tonight and everything will be better tomorrow.'”

In an open letter to Tallulah, published in Stylist, Billie reflected that she’d been so fearful of having a daughter, anguished by all she didn’t want her to experience, that she didn’t realise just how overjoyed she’d be by her arrival.

She wrote: “You have restored – without knowing it – all my faith in strong female energy. I want to learn from you and revel in your beauty. You are not just female, you are other. And from listing all of my anxieties above (there are many and I promise to always work on myself), I’m at my most calm and able around you. You are powerful.”

Huge net worth

After her time on Doctor Who in 2005, Billie picked up leading roles in Secret Diary of a Call Girl and I Hate Suzie, which she co-created alongside playwright Lucy Prebble, as well as starring in the Netflix drama, Scoop.

Not to mention her glittering stage career – winning Best Theatre Actress for Great Britain in 2014 and being honoured with a Laurence Olivier Award among countless other accolades for her lead performance in Yerma in 2017.

Following her impressive career, she has amassed an impressive net worth. The actress is estimated to have a net worth of $12 million (around £9 million), according to Celebrity Net Worth.

READ MORE: Chelsea Flower Show sees a ‘bouquet’ of Boden’s bright and bold must-have pieces for spring

JOJO SIWA and Chris Hughes have driven fans wild with an intimate backstage moment as her mum captures sweet moment on camera.

The pop star, 22, who just performed two shows in London, gave fans a behind-the-scenes look at her pre-show routine—with Chris, 32, right by her side.

8

8

8

8

8

In a post to TikTok JoJo gave fans an inside look into her pre-show routine, the former Big Brother star was seen in the video warming up and spending time with her dancers. 

JoJo captioned the post: “Pre show is always my favorite hour. Just pure chaos and love and energy warming up. What a beautiful perfect 2 shows in London this week wow.”

The clip showed JoJo getting ready before being joined backstage by her new beau Chris.

The singer is shown stretching whilst the camera pans to Chris who cheekily chimes “Stretch it off then” as he walks into the room.

The pair were later filmed by mum Jessalyn hugging each other, holding hands and putting bracelets on each other. 

Former Love Islander Chris also learnt her hit song Karma and is videoed singing the lyrics alongside her. 

Fans rushed to the comments, gushing over the pair’s sweet on-camera moment.

One user penned: “Chris is the biggest green flag ive ever seen, u two are the cutest (red heart emoji)”

Another chimed: “The way his hand stays on her leg after she gets off his lap.”

“Sweet christopher being JoJo’s number1 fan” added a third. 

“Chris singing your lyrics Love ittttt!” wrote a fourth.

JoJo recently sent fans wild at her London gigs this week after she told them onstage she had “never felt so ­special and so loved”.

She also went on to change the lyrics of Bette Davis Eyes to “Chris Hughes’ eyes” as he looked on, giddy and red-faced at a music venue in Shoreditch.

Chris could not attend the second of her two-night run there — but JoJo didn’t miss her moment to shout out to him, singing to his orange beanie which she had placed in the crowd.

It comes after Chris made the 12-hour flight from the UK to Mexico to support JoJo as she performed to fans in Mexico City.

He later posted cosy snaps of them together online.

The two were then spotted kissing while straddling a lilo at an adults-only hotel during a loved-up getaway there.

When JoJo later returned to London the pair had a emotional reunion at Heathrow airport as JoJo flew in from Los Angeles — Chris greeting her with a large bouquet of red roses.

8

8

8

A stunning beach in the UK has been going viral after people noticed that it looks just like the beaches that line the shores of the Caribbean, with crystal-clear waters and golden sand

Discover a slice of the Caribbean on UK shores with Cornwall’s stunning beach that’s making waves on TikTok. Whisking yourself away to a sun-kissed sandy beach and gazing at crystal-clear waters while bronzing your skin is often reserved for holidays abroad. But what if you could soak in all that holiday bliss without jetting away from the UK?

A hidden gem along the UK coastline has started creating a buzz on social media for looking remarkably similar to a Caribbean paradise. With its pristine blue waters and golden sands, it’s easy to mistake this Cornish hotspot for a tropical haven a world away.

READ MORE: Award-winning gut health brand cuts 25% off ‘life changing’ bloating-busting sachet

The place shaping up to be the country’s answer to Caribbean escapes is none other than Pedn Vounder beach. This idyllic spot grabbed attention on TikTok, thanks to a share by @carbisbayhotelandestate – representing the luxe Carbis Bay estate in St Ives, which boasts its own exclusive strand.

Lucky for beachgoers, the appealing stretch featured in the viral post welcomes the public. Perched on the Penwith peninsula’s southern tip, Pedn Vounder ticks all the boxes for an exotic beach experience without leaving UK territory.

For those tempted to check out Pedn Vounder, it’s worth noting a few key insights. The secluded beauty spot experiences the ebb and flow of tidal shifts – ensuring the beach area disappears under the waves at high tide.

Moreover, reaching this hidden coastal treasure requires traversing by boat or executing a “challenging climb” down some steep rocks due to its remote setting.

Pedn Vounder, a picturesque beach in Cornwall, is gaining popularity among naturists despite not being officially designated for nude sunbathing.

Visitors are warned with signs stating “naturists may be seen beyond this point” as they make their way down to the cove, which has become an unofficial spot for those who prefer to soak up the sun in the nude.

Explore Cornwall advises that the beach can get “very busy” during the summer and school holidays, suggesting an early visit before the children break up for summer.

The website also notes: “The beach is south-facing with high cliffs on either side so it gets the best sunshine in the middle of the day and is in the shade from late afternoon.”

Reviews from previous visitors to Pedn Vounder are overwhelmingly positive, with one Google review exclaiming: “Totally mind-blowing. What a fabulous colour of water, totally loved it.”

Another visitor was equally impressed, remarking: “The best and most amazing beach you can find in the UK. This place made us think we were in the Caribbean.”

A third satisfied tourist wrote: “Beautiful beach with azure blue water, nice sand, cliffs either side and plenty of space. Water was amazing to swim in.”

Soap star marks major milestone as Maria Connor and shares what has kept her on the show so long

Samia Longchambon says she’s proud to have played Coronation Street “strong woman” Maria for 25 years – and even answers to her character name now. She’s been a Weatherfield staple playing the unlucky-in-love hairdresser since she was 17.

Only coming in on a three-month contract, Samia, 42, looks back at her “wild times” as Maria and what’s kept her on the ITV soap so long. “If someone had said at the start that I’d be around this long, I would have laughed,” she said. “I thought maybe I’ll be a jobbing actress, or go to university, or become a director when I’m older.

READ MORE: Coronation Street character to make dramatic return – and it’s bad news for one teen

“Playing Maria for 25 years is a surprise, but I think Corrie can be quite addictive once you get here. The people make it such a nice atmosphere to be a part of.”

Samia says she’s played Maria for so long she’s taken on the moniker too. “Maria’s my second name now,” she laughed. “I literally answer to ‘Maria’ as easily as I do to my own name. I get it – we look alike, after all! And she’s trying to be a good mum, as am I.”

But she says that’s where she hopes their similarities end. “She’s had quite a colourful past!” explains Samia. “Maria has had some wild times over the years. Now she seems to have settled down a bit with Gary. I don’t know if that’s going to be forever, because you just never know in Corrie.

“I feel like I’m quite proud of her, how she’s overcome some massive obstacles in her life, and she still seems to have kept her sanity throughout it all. I’m not sure I would have been able to do that. I think she’s one of Corrie’s ‘strong women’ now.”

Away from Corrie, Samia is married to Dancing On Ice skater Sylvain, 44, and mum of two to Freya, 15, and Yves, nine. Meeting her future husband on the ITV skating show in 2012, she insists it wasn’t an instant connection.

“It wasn’t love at first skate for me and Sylvain,” she said. “I was too busy learning to move around on the ice to be thinking about anything like that! Things between us didn’t start until months after we first met.”

Losing her dad in 2009, who had French as his second language, Samia feels he had a hand in her finding love.

“I think my dad sent Sylvain to me,” she explained to Prima magazine. “He loved France, and his sister Samia, who I’m named after, lives about an hour away from where Sylvain grew up in Lyon. Once we got to know each other, I was like, ‘Oh, this is weird.’ There were so many common threads with him that I was like, ‘I feel like my dad just sent you.’”

Continuing her skating now, Samia says she’s much better at it now the pressure is off. And would be up for another reality show to push her out of her comfort zone.

“When it comes to other TV shows, I say ‘never say never’ to anything,” she said. “I’ve spent a lot of my life being scared because of anxiety. A challenge is always good.”

Samia has been open about her struggles with anxiety – sharing her story with her followers. But says yoga and meditation have helped her cope better. She explained: “I can ruminate over things for a long time, and have it ruin weeks of my life, to the point where I can’t eat because of anxiety – so when it’s bad, I do what I can to stay busy. I did a CBT [cognitive behavioural therapy] course, which also helped. Sometimes, it does get the better of you, but you just have to accept it and think, ‘This too shall pass.’”

Being in the public eye has opened Samia up to some negative comments, and says they sometimes get the better of her. “I’ve had to deal with loads of trolling over the years, it’s usually when Maria’s caught up in something that’s not great and people forget that I’m not this character! It’s not nice – this industry can be hard if you’re not thick-skinned, and I’m not,” said the actress.

“So I have to discipline myself with social media – reading mean comments can feel like picking a scab; you don’t want to read it, but then you do end up reading it, and it ruins your day. Historically, there’s been a couple of times I have responded to trolls. Weirdly, though, I find that most people back down and apologise when you call them out. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,’ they might say. And I’ll think, ‘Well, I’m a human with feelings, and it hurts – but it’s fine, let’s move on.’”

The July 2025 issue of Prima is now on sale or read here.

Follow Mirror Celebs on Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .

The Ibiza resident posted a video of unruly passengers aboard an easyJet flight from Luton to the Spanish island which ended with police meeting the plane on the runway

A woman has laid into English tourists after she was stuck on a flight to Ibiza with unruly passengers.

Posting online, the Ibiza resident shared footage of the boisterous Brits online, insisting that they shouldn’t have been allowed on the easyJet plane in the first place.

In a no-holds-barred message alongside a video of the packed plane where passengers could be seen banging on luggage compartments above them and yelling ‘Come on Ibiza’, the Spanish speaker said: “My flight from London to Ibiza was absolutely horrible. I was scared.”

She added that people were “standing, screaming, guys hitting each other, drinking bottles of alcohol one after the other and stopping the flight attendants from doing their job. Real hell. This video is just the end because I couldn’t film what happened during the journey.

READ MORE: Spanish seaside city with ‘five-star’ attractions is one of the best for a holiday

“It was a really wild 2.5 hour flight. This shouldn’t be allowed.” Erika said that those who had drunk too much alcohol should not be allowed on flights.

“We don’t want this type of tourism in Ibiza, they should stay at home. I had a very bad time and the flight attendants unable to do anything,” she added.

The woman added in comments to a local Ibizan newspaper that she had complained to the flight attendants: “I’m not afraid of flying because I’ve flown around the world but I had a panic attack because it was like being in a pub, in a nightclub, but in the air,” she continued.

She claimed the two male air stewards and an air stewardess on board had asked some passengers for their documentation, but were met with shouts of ‘f** off.’

A spokesperson for easyJet said: “We can confirm that flight EZY2307 from Luton to Ibiza on 16 May was met by police on arrival due to a group of passengers behaving in a disruptive manner. The safety and wellbeing of passengers and crew is always easyJet’s priority. Whilst such incidents are rare we take them very seriously and do not tolerate disruptive behaviour onboard.”

The footage was posted on Saturday, a day before thousands of people marched in the Canary Islands’ cities as part of a new anti-mass tourism protest. Locals in the Balearic Islands, which include Ibiza, are due to stage their protest on June 15.

Over the weekend, fed-up locals made their frustrations clear in the Canary Islands as peak tourism season nears, with an estimated 7,000 people marching through the streets and promenades in Santa Cruz, the capital of Tenerife, alone. The massive protests have been echoed on each of the territory’s six other islands, including Lanzarote, Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura, with organisers saying the sun-kissed Spanish islands, which are extremely popular, especially with British tourists, “have a limit”.

There have been long-running tensions in holiday destinations across Spain due to the pressure large numbers of tourists put on local resources and property prices.