SwayBlog

China This article is more than 15 years oldChina's Ugly Betty 'not ugly enough'This article is more than 15 years oldBeauty is in the eye of the beholder - and so, it appears, is ugliness. A Chinese television company seemed to be striking a blow for the unsightly when it announced it would screen its own version of Ugly Betty. But now "Ugly Wudi" faces a backlash, with newspapers and internet users complaining that the star of the show is too good-looking for the role.

Business This article is more than 4 years oldJames Dyson buys £43m penthouse in SingaporeThis article is more than 4 years oldPurchase comes months after British inventor revealed plans to move firm to city-state Billionaire inventor James Dyson has bought a £43m luxury penthouse, thought to be the most expensive flat in Singapore, months after the prominent Brexit supporter announced plans to move his company from the UK to the island city-state.

MexicoMexican cartel provided wifi to locals – with threat of death if they didn’t use itCriminal group charged $20-$30 a month to about 5,000 people as gangs diversify into sectors other than the drug trade A cartel in the embattled central Mexico state of Michoacán set up its own makeshift internet antennas and told locals they had to pay to use its wifi service or they would be killed, according to prosecutors.

PoetryObituaryPeter Orlovsky obituaryMember of the beat generation, poet and lover of Allen GinsbergThe writer Peter Orlovsky, who has died aged 76 of lung cancer, spent more than four decades as the companion of Allen Ginsberg, arguably the highest profile US poet of the postwar years. Orlovsky's own literary legacy was modest in scale – his best-known collection was Clean Asshole Poems and Smiling Vegetable Songs, published in 1978 – and inevitably overshadowed by his lover's lofty stature and prolific output.

Pass-around party food: Rachel Roddy’s mussels stuffed with garlic, herb and parmesan breadcrumbs. Photograph: Rachel Roddy/The GuardianPass-around party food: Rachel Roddy’s mussels stuffed with garlic, herb and parmesan breadcrumbs. Photograph: Rachel Roddy/The GuardianA kitchen in RomeStarterThese steamed mussels are served with herby breadcrumbs stuffed into their half-shells, making them ideal Christmas party finger food Eat more mussels. For a while I had this written on a Post-It stuck to the fridge.

Radiohead: the story so far – in pictures Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email As Radiohead announce a new tour, and with rumours of an imminent ninth studio album, here’s a look at the band’s career – from Thom Yorke’s ever-changing hair styles, to a rare band selfie Guardian music @guardianmusic Tue 15 Mar 2016 10.

FictionReviewA young American woman loses herself in Casablanca in an intoxicatingly strange quest for anonymity‘You have not been yourself lately,” the narrator of Vendela Vida’s new novel says to herself. Or maybe the narrator says it to the character: the story is told entirely in the second person, a decision that is strikingly odd at the start, then quickly becomes part of the alienating texture of this intoxicatingly strange novel. This “you” compels the reader into a very disquieting question from the first page – who am I?

The ObserverFictionReviewThe inheritance of a house in Oxford leads to the unearthing of generations-old secrets in this deft and thrilling novelWhen Oliver Mittell unexpectedly quits his job in the City, he offers to organise the renovation of a house in Oxford that his girlfriend, Kate, has recently inherited from an elderly, estranged relative. The house, Oliver soon realises, is the repository of family secrets stretching back generations and his discovery of a diary from the 1920s compels him to unearth the truth about the home’s former inhabitants.

The ObserverFictionReviewIt's just not good enough. There's plenty of evidence that women would be prolific consumers of pornography if only it was aimed at themThere are few things I like more than being alone in a foreign hotel room, lying on the bed and flicking TV stations from the porn channel to The Antiques Road Show before turning back to the porn again via the Cartoon Network. I like to watch heterosexual porn - I like the fakeness of the locations (often a ranch house in the San Fernando Valley with wicker chairs and pot plants).