Retailers report strong sales of jodhpurs, riding boots and paddock-ready blazers – but is it ‘class passing’?

It’s a sport traditionally associated with mud and manure, but now the equestrian world is finding itself in fashion’s spotlight.

Jodhpurs and riding boots are galloping up the style charts, even if some fans of the trend have never set foot inside a yard. Blame Rupert Campbell-Black and his Rutshire set, but the Rivals effect is in full swing.

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Treat yourself with kindness and compassion, and you may find some comfort in learning from other people’s experiences

• Every week Annalisa Barbieri addresses a problem sent in by a reader

I recently became deaf as a result of meningitis. I’ve got the cochlear implant and I’m doing therapy to hear well again. I was already very shy and insecure , and, though I’ve managed to get on with my life , I now feel even more insecure and a little bit of ashamed of my condition. I am constantly asking people to repeat themselves or write down whatever they’ve said so I can understand. How can I feel more confident about this new aspect of my life?

I’m not going to offer platitudes such as “you have nothing to be ashamed of” because, although you very much don’t, me telling you different would just be very dismissive of your emotions. People often don’t want to let you explore those sorts of feelings, because they think it might be painful for you. But it’s only by mining deep into them that you can even start to process them, which is vital to minimising trauma as best one can.

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Employment tribunal rules 15,000 drivers for private hire-hailing app are not self-employed contractors

Thousands of Bolt drivers have won their legal claim to be classed as employees and could be in line for compensation of more than £200m.

An employment tribunal ruled that 15,000 Bolt drivers were not self-employed contractors who ran their own businesses.

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Group expects ‘strong financial performance to continue’ as it announces €350m share buyback scheme

Strong demand for transatlantic travel has boosted the profits of British Airways owner, International Airlines Group, (IAG), with the UK national carrier outperforming rivals despite widespread European flight delays.

Operating profits for the peak summer season were up about 15% on last year to €2bn (£1.7 bn) , with BA achieving a 20% margin, even with labour costs 14% higher than in 2023.

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Government is looking into gaps in eligibility criteria that mean family and employees of branch owners cannot claim

The postal minister has said that family members and employees of post office branch owners who have not been eligible to make claims over the Horizon IT scandal may be allowed to apply for compensation.

Gareth Thomas told the inquiry into the scandal on Friday that the government has been looking into the “gaps” in the eligibility criteria for those wanting to make claims under the four redress schemes being administered by the Post Office and the government.

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Kamala Harris and Tim Walz had an opportunity to win a demographic that swung toward Trump – but they didn’t fight for it, says the author

In the months leading up to election day, pollsters were fixated on one demographic: young men . This group, often elusive in political data, was showing signs of a notable swing toward Donald Trump and away from the progressive viewpoints of young women.

Traditionally a policy wonk, Richard Reeves became an unlikely media mainstay this election cycle , sought after by those trying to decode the concerns and motivations of these gen Z male voters. Reeves is president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, which he started in 2023 to create research-based approaches to bettering the education, mental health, and work and family life of men. Many of the institute’s policy proposals were outlined in Reeves’ 2022 book Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It.

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Linbury theatre, London
Sophie Laplane’s If at First switches so fast stylistically that it might be garbled, while Mthuthuzeli November’s The Waiting Game stages an existential crisis

Sophie Laplane’s new ballet, If at First, is more like 10 different ballets in one. It has a soundtrack that skips wildly between genres – Beethoven to avant jazz to new music by Tom Harrold – as if there’s a glitchy skip button somewhere, jerking from one playlist to another. The only constant is a white crown passed around the stage, anointing characters in turn, mirrors held up to reflect their glory.

This double bill from Ballet Black is titled Heroes in reference to Laplane’s piece, attempting to honour small acts of heroism in the everyday, but the piece has so many facets as to become garbled, pulling from one mode to the next without a sense of who, what or why. The stylistic switches mean we might jump from sultry female duet, to two sweet but tragic lovers, then a gracefully feisty couple where one throws off the other’s body as if to say “good riddance” and then comes back for more, all interspersed with scenes of chaos. A king is crowned, and then a queen, but then the realisation comes: why venerate one person when we can all be heroes? Amen to that.

There’s been quite a change of personnel at Ballet Black in the last couple of years, with a new roster of talented young dancers, but senior members most impress – especially Isabela Coracy, a dancer of presence and composure. Another longstanding company member, Mthuthuzeli November, has now moved mostly into choreography, and his piece The Waiting Game is revived and reworked for the second half of this show, its original run having been truncated by Covid. In The Waiting Game, November has staged an existential crisis. Ebony Thomas gives a fine performance as a man trapped in the purgatory of daily routine, questioning what it’s all for. Thomas cowers in a corner then lurches and leaps as November’s choreography covers the stage with bursts of speed and a myriad of influences. It’s a journey, for sure, and one that takes a thoroughly unexpected turn into more meta territory, revealing the ups and downs of ego, the pressure and duty of a performer’s life. In November’s telling, sometimes it’s heroic just getting through the day.

• At Linbury theatre, London , until 10 November; then at The Lowry, Salford , 20-21 November

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Convenience stores are a neat and functional retail institution in Japan, where customers can access the daily essentials, from buying breakfast to paying bills

Kenji Yamamoto was unsure that his business would survive when he opened Japan’s first convenience store in a Tokyo neighbourhood in May 1974. The 7-Eleven outlet he ran with his wife stocked tinned food and detergents, items that most people had previously bought from supermarkets. His first sale was a pair of sunglasses.

Half a century later, it is not only the Yamamotos’ bright red and orange uniforms that have changed. Convenience stores – or konbini – are no longer a late-night alternative to early-closing supermarkets, but a retail institution that millions of Japanese people could not imagine life without.

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A paean to a much-maligned but remarkably versatile grape

Grenache is the ultimate all-rounder. A red grape native to Aragon in Spain, where it’s called garnacha, it can make everything from pale rosé to fortified wine; it’s even used in cava. If there was one grape to take to your desert island, it would have to be grenache, not least because you’d never get bored.

Grenache’s very adaptability means that it has historically been seen as a workhorse, with none of the glamour of, say, pinot noir or syrah. But that’s slowly beginning to change thanks to winemakers such as Justin Howard-Sneyd, a former supermarket wine buyer who now makes wine at Domaine of the Bee in Roussillon. “If you love the perfume and sexiness of pinot noir, but appreciate a riper, rounder style of wine, then I don’t think you need to look much further than grenache,” he says of the grape’s appeal. If you want to know what Howard-Sneyd means, try his excellent The Bee-Side ( Hic! has the 14.5% 2022 for £23.75 ).

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