Features

‘In setting any crossword clue, always, always think of the solver’

After 53 years compiling The Observer’s beloved weekly Azed crossword, Jonathan Crowther is going monthly. He tells us about the art of the perfect clue and the community of puzzlers

‘Monetised standing’: the art of being a film extra

'Monetised standing': the art of being a film extra

The man in seat 11A and our obsession with sole survivors

Vishwashkumar Ramesh emerged alive from the Air India crash that killed everyone else on board. What lies behind our fascination with sole survivors?

Around the UK in 19 local dishes

From Bedfordshire’s chocolate toothpaste to Lancashire’s pie barm, join us on a tour of UK food traditions

Maurizio Cattelan: the art world’s enfant terrible

Bananas taped to walls, gold lavatories and suicidal squirrels – Maurizio Cattelan’s work intends to provoke, shock and amuse. But is it even art? Andrew Anthony leans in to the iconoclastic Italian

Jimi Famurewa: ‘If there was a Toblerone, it meant dad was back’

Food was always present – but my father wasn’t

The magic of wild camping on Dartmoor

Sebastian Hervas-Jones rejoices in his legal right to go wild camping on Dartmoor

London’s love affair with the ‘queen of Substack’

Emily Sundberg’s fans call her the ‘queen of Substack’. So what is it about her New York City business digest that appeals to readers in London?

‘Isn't that you, Ted?’: Finding the man in the Francis Bacon painting

Stephen Smith meets the man in the painting and helps to solve a 50-year art world mystery

Joel Golby: Men, masculinity and Mounjaro

More and more men are choosing to use weight-loss drugs. Why?

The giggle map of the UK: in comedy, location matters

Ken Dodd, a Liverpudlian, famously tailored his jokes for regional audiences, but do today’s entertainers still find their acts go down differently in Bath or Leeds, or Glasgow?

You’re not just getting old. Restaurants are getting noisier

Bare concrete walls, open kitchens and tinny speakers mean it is harder than ever to hear your fellow diners. Meet the people fighting for quiet...

A table for... Simon Russell Beale

The actor’s latest role is in the gory Titus Andronicus. ‘It’s not really a lunchtime play,’ he says