The Guardian - Life & Style • Jan. 18, 2026, 5:36 p.m.

Or will they have you in pieces? Today’s puzzles are all geometrical, and all from the mind of the UK’s most enduring and eloquent popular maths writer, Ian Stewart.

1. Bonnie Tiler Continue reading...

The Guardian - Life & Style • Jan. 18, 2026, 5:36 p.m.

From Clarissa Strozzi and Charles V to Tom Parker and Walt Disney, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz 1 What did LA plumber George Holliday videotape on 3 March 1991? 2 Named after a Greek god, what is Earth’s largest land biome?

3 Abigail, in November 2015, was the first what? 4 Which literary character says, “Come not, Lucifer!

I’ll burn my books!”? 5 Which Play School presenter sits in the House of Lords?

The Guardian - Life & Style • Jan. 18, 2026, 5:36 p.m.

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The Guardian - Life & Style • Jan. 18, 2026, 5:36 p.m.

Click here to access the print version. Normal sudoku rules apply, except the numbers in the cells contained within dotted lines add up to the figures in the corner.

No number can be repeated within each shape formed by dotted lines. Continue reading...

The Guardian - Life & Style • Jan. 18, 2026, 5:36 p.m.

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The Guardian - Life & Style • Jan. 18, 2026, 5:36 p.m.

Continue reading...

The Guardian - Life & Style • Jan. 18, 2026, 5:36 p.m.

I have paid two monthly £108 instalments but am now phone-less and out of pocket I ordered a £544 phone from Amazon. A tracking update later informed me that it “may be lost” and I could request a refund.

I pressed the refund option and was directed to customer service, which insisted I wait a week to claim. A week later I was told I needed to file an incident report from the email address associated with my account.

When I complied, the report was rejected as coming from an address that “didn’t meet certain security standards”. Continue reading...

The Guardian - Life & Style • Jan. 18, 2026, 5:36 p.m.

This was even though I had revoked my citizenship and now have dual British and German nationality I want to flag a discriminatory experience I’ve had with the Co-op’s will -writing service. I asked it to update a will it had drawn up for me in 2020, with my partner and our daughter as the beneficiaries.

I received no follow-up for two months. Continue reading...

The Guardian - Life & Style • Jan. 18, 2026, 5:36 p.m.

From postcode pricing to falling wholesale costs, the price you pay at the pump depends less on petrol itself than on where – and when – you fill up Why do petrol prices vary so much between filling stations? On the same road I’ve seen a 5p-a-litre difference on what must be an identical product, while the same chains charge differently from town to town.

Weird, isn’t it? Of all the things we buy, the price of petrol is probably the most transparently disclosed before we enter the retailer’s premises, and yet this only serves to leave us wondering why how much we pay can come down to where we live, or even on which side of the road we are driving.

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The Guardian - Life & Style • Jan. 18, 2026, 5:36 p.m.

Three trains, two buses and a ferry take our writer from Essex to Northern Ireland, to enjoy wild swims, whiskey, sandy beaches and the Giant’s Causeway Oystercatchers fly off as I step through stalks of storm-racked kelp for an icy dip in the winter-grey sea. Actually, the water feels unexpectedly warm, perhaps in contrast to the freezing wind.

But it’s cold enough to do its job: every nerve is singing and I feel euphoric. I’m exploring the Antrim coast, which has some of the UK’s finest beaches, and proves excellent for a sustainable break – even in the stormy depths of winter.

Ballygally Castle is a great place to start and offers a Sea Dips and Hot Sips package that includes dry robes, hot-water bottles and flasks. The affordable castle, celebrating its 400th birthday this year, is perhaps Northern Ireland’s only 17th-century hotel.

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