SwayBlog

Vegan food and drink This article is more than 4 years oldBanana blossom: the next vegan food star with the texture of fishThis article is more than 4 years oldSainsbury’s is to include the flower, which hails from south-east Asia, in its ready meals Following on from beetroot burgers and jackfruit curries, the next star of the vegan “meat” world hails from the gardens of south-east Asia and looks somewhat like an artichoke.

Christian BaleThe actor, famous for playing brooding, damaged men, is back playing, well, a brooding, damaged man in the gritty western Hostiles. He talks about why the film industry has to change, balding up to play Dick Cheney – and why he will never, ever, do a romcom The interview’s first surprise is that a chubby, grungy figure is occupying the Beverly Hills hotel sofa reserved for Christian Bale. The impostor sports a shaved head, heavy paunch, worn black T-shirt and khaki camouflage trousers.

Comedy filmsReviewChris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges and LIl Rel Howery try, and fail, to bring life to a shoddily assembled family movie incapable of delivering baseline cheer For a child on Christmas morning, there’s no disappointment greater than ripping the paper off a present to find that Mom and Dad skimped on quality control – a wish for the latest MP3 player granted as a brandless kidney bean capable of holding a total of 16 songs, or a SpongeBob plushie labeled “Rectangle Friend” with one eye pointing the wrong way due to substandard Taiwanese assembly.

‘Just because you could persevere with a toxic relationship, job, religious faith or political allegiance doesn’t necessarily mean you have to.’ Illustration: Martin O'Neill/The Observer‘Just because you could persevere with a toxic relationship, job, religious faith or political allegiance doesn’t necessarily mean you have to.’ Illustration: Martin O'Neill/The ObserverThe ObserverWork & careersPoliticians, media moguls, doctors, teachers and even Harry and Meghan have all thrown in their hats. So is grit and perseverance over?

It began with a philanthropic couple buying a swamp but has become one of the world’s boldest experiments in restoring degraded habitats, bringing wildlife and landscapes back from the brink Read more in our Wild world series by Patrick GreenfieldChapter oneThe return of the jaguarIt took about three seconds for piranhas to devour part of her left foot, biologist Deborah Abregü recalls, as we sit waiting for pizzas to cook on an open fire in Argentina’s El Impenetrable national park.

Book of the dayBooksReviewGlobal heating has spurred some peculiar changes in plants and animals from the Caribbean to the Rockies In June 1802, the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt ascended the inactive volcano Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador. As he climbed from tropical rainforest towards the snow-covered peak almost 21,000ft above sea level, he acquired a new vision of nature, interwoven with “a thousand threads”. It was like taking a journey from the equator to the poles: an entire world of diversity collapsed on to this single mountain, a “microcosm on one page”.

How we madeMovies‘River Phoenix was like a 13-year-old James Dean. There was so much soul there’ Kiefer Sutherland, played Ace MerrillThis was the only audition where I did the reading and was hired right there in the room. I absolutely adored Spinal Tap, so to get that kind of affirmation from a director like Rob Reiner at that time in my life was really powerful. Rob and I both agreed very strongly that there was no mushy side to this guy [villain Ace Merrill].

Corfu holidaysRough Guides founder Mark Ellingham returns to Corfu after a 30-year absence, and although he can no longer sleep on the beach and live on £1 a day, the island is just as good as he remembersCorfu was where it all began for me, for a lifetime of travel. When I was 17, I spent a month hitching down through Italy with a schoolfriend, and took the night ferry over to the island from Brindisi.

Temperature CheckEnvironment This article is more than 2 months oldWhat does a Jordan Peterson conference say about the future of climate change? Apparently we’re headed towards ‘human flourishing’This article is more than 2 months oldGraham ReadfearnAttendees of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship were treated to a grab-bag of cherrypicked talking points from some speakers that ignored the risks of climate change Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast Rightwing figures from around the world descended on London last week for the inaugural conference of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) – a sort of quasi-thinktank fronted by the controversial Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson.