Seventeenth-century riverside cottages with a warren of tiny spaces have been transformed into a sanctuary for modern living

At first glance, you might think it was its good old-fashioned period charm that convinced Lee Thornley to splash his cash on this 1650s double-fronted cottage in Poppleton, a tranquil village on the outskirts of York. However, it was more than good looks that persuaded Thornley, founder of the tile company Bert & May, and his partner, Phil Brocklebank, to make this their forever family home with their two daughters, Lyla, 14, and Iris, 11, plus dogs Tilly and Molly.

“It ticked boxes that most houses don’t,” says Thornley. “The River Ouse is literally at the bottom of the garden, so it had the potential to offer a very different way of life. For example, yesterday I was messing around setting up a makeshift mooring, and we regularly take kayaks or paddleboards out on the water. Sometimes I even pick up the girls from school by boat. I love the headspace it provides.”

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UK foreign secretary, asked about calling the US president-elect a ‘sociopath’, says ‘there are things I know now that I didn’t know back then’

This is what David Lammy, the foreign secretary, told the BBC’s Newscast podcast about how the government would respond to Donald Trump’s plan to impose tariffs of at least 10% on imports from Britain and other countries. Economists say this could halve UK growth .

Asked if the government would seek an exemption, Lammy said he hoped Trump would realise his plan would be counter-productive. He said:

We will seek to ensure and to get across to the United States – and I believe that they would understand this – that hurting your closest allies cannot be in your medium or long term interests.

Not even vaguely. I’ve got to say, I found him to be a very gracious host.

He did offer me a second portion of chicken. He was very generous, very gracious, very keen to make sure that we felt relaxed and comfortable in his surroundings. He was funny. He was warm about the UK. Very warm about the royal family. I’ve got to tell you, [he] loves Scotland …

I suppose what I’m saying is I’ve met the man and in the end diplomacy – actually, just common manners – is in particular building relationships [with] people. And I think he’s someone that we can build a relationship with in our national interest because we must.

He didn’t seem to think it mattered a few weeks ago.

Look, I think that what you say as a backbencher and what you do wearing the the real duty of public office are two different things. And I am foreign secretary. There are things I know now that I didn’t know back then, and that’s the truth of it.

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Firm issues another profit warning after review into ‘understated’ build costs in south division

Shares in the FTSE 100 housebuilder Vistry plunged on Friday after it issued a second profit warning in as many months and said cost overruns on building projects were worse than previously thought.

Vistry was the top faller on the blue chip index of stocks, with shares down 18%, wiping about £500m off the value of the company.

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• Former England cricketer was on fishing trip in Australia
• ‘At the end of the day Crocodile Beefy survived,’ he joked

Ian Botham, the former England cricketer, has survived a fall into crocodile-infested waters on a fishing trip in Australia’s Northern Territory after he was rescued by his close friend and Ashes rival, Merv Hughes.

Botham, 68, got his flip-flops tangled in a rope as he tried to board a boat and fell into the Moyle River during the pair’s four-day fishing trip.

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I wear it for peace, for the killed civilians – and for all the conscripts, including my relative, who were forced to fight

Remembrance Day looms large in my family. Two generations of my mum’s family were conscripted: my great-grandfather in the first world war; my grandfather, still a teenager at the time, in the second.

He survived the fighting but never entirely recovered. Mum still cries when she thinks about what he experienced. His regiment was sent to liberate the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where he helped bury hundreds upon hundreds of the Nazis’ victims. “He never spoke about it,” she told me, “but he would wake up screaming.”

Phineas Harper is a writer and curator

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It was surrounded by eight babies. With its long spindly legs, it looked like a crab

After a terrible sleep, I raised my head and noticed drops of blood on my pillow. My earache must have been more serious than I thought. In January this year, my husband and I had been trekking in one of South Africa’s national parks. For the last few days of the trip, my ear hadn’t felt right and was extremely itchy, but I had put it down to travel running down my immune system.

We flew home to Singapore. I was hoping the irritation would settle, but after six days I couldn’t ignore the pain any more. That night, as I was about to go to bed, I told my husband that I was going to go to the doctors. He sprang off the sofa, as if a lightbulb had gone off in his head.

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The Booker-winning author on the the joys of Flann O’Brien, the magic of EL Doctorow, and having doubts about Richard Dawkins

My earliest reading memory
My mother taught me how to read. I was happy enough in school but at some point she must have realised that I wasn’t learning anything; I think I was seven. So my earliest memory of reading is sitting with my mother at the kitchen table, looking at a comic called Sparky. Her finger was under a word in one of the speech bubbles, and I recognised it, and the next one, and the next. I was up and running. By the end of the next day, I’d finished Nietzsche and had moved on to Dostoevsky.

My favourite book growing up
When I was 10 or 11 I probably knew Richmal Crompton’s Just William off by heart. There were two things about the book that I loved, and still do: William always got away with it, and the adults were idiots.

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Fixture clash with men means women need a new home for Champions League game but did it really have to end this way?

When the Carabao Cup quarter-final draw took place on 30 October, it set in motion a series of unfortunate events. Both Arsenal’s and Tottenham’s men’s teams were drawn at home, against Crystal Palace and Manchester United respectively. A week later, the dates of the fixtures were released, with Arsenal scheduled to host Palace on Wednesday 18 December and Tottenham playing the following evening, policing issues dictating that the north London sides cannot compete on the same night.

The problem? Arsenal’s women were scheduled to host Bayern Munich at the Emirates Stadium in the Champions League on 18 December.

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