World would be a ‘better place’ if US took over Greenland, says Nigel Farage

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The world would be a “better, more secure place” if America took over Greenland, Nigel Farage said at Davos, while insisting that he still believed in the sovereignty of nation states.During a panel at the World Economic Forum’s “America House” in the Swiss ski resort on Wednesday, the Reform UK leader said he had “no doubt” that the world would be safer if a “strong America” was in Greenland “because of the geopolitics of the high north, because of the retreating ice caps and because of the continued expansionism of Russian icebreakers, of Chinese investment”.Speaking just after Donald Trump appeared to rule out taking position of Greenland by force, while doubling down on his demand to annex the “big, beautiful piece of ice”, Farage insisted that while he “agreed strategically” with Trump he believed in “nation states … not globalist structures”.“[I]f you believe in the nation state and not globalist structures, you believe in sovereignty,” he said.“And if you believe in sovereignty, you believe in the principle of national self-determination.

”He added: “You must respect the rights and views of the Greenlanders, because that is what national self-determination is, and that’s a key part.”Farage is a longtime critic of Davos, describing it in a video as a place where decisions are made that “bow down to the European Union” and calling the attenders “people deciding our futures in Swiss ski resorts”.During the forum he insisted that stance had not changed.“For those of us at Davos that are fighting the globalists, belief in national self-determination is at the root of what people like me, albeit the minority here, believe in,” he said.“So I think that’s really, really important.

”Asked about the rise in popularity of Reform in the UK, Farage referred to the “moral decline” of Britain and said people were disenchanted with politics and wanted an alternative to the Conservatives and the Labour party,Positive polling ratings represented “a Britain that is in very serious decline, economic decline, social decline, even moral decline, in many ways, in knowing the difference between right and wrong,And so people are desperate for something different,” he said,Farage said “young entrepreneurs, our highest taxpayers, many of our best businesses” were deserting the country, adding that while there was “a long way to go … I think we’ve got every chance of winning the next election,I really do.

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Seth Meyers on Trump: ‘It shouldn’t be this hard to make sense of what the president says and does’

With most late-night hosts on holiday, Seth Meyers mocked Donald Trump’s secondhand Nobel peace prize and his incoherent logic for taking over Greenland.Seth Meyers returned to the Late Night desk on Monday evening – Martin Luther King Jr Day in the US, for which other late-night shows remained on break – with a quick rundown of yet another weekend of unfathomably stupid updates from the White House.In the past few days, Trump “threatened to invade Greenland, which is a part of Denmark, because he didn’t win the Nobel peace prize, which he thinks is decided by Norway, which it’s not”, Meyers said. “For more on this, it’s time for ‘Seth Rubs His Temples and Tries to Dissociate for 15 Minutes.’“The news has once again gotten dumber and more exhausting,” he continued

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Mama Does Derby review – Virginia Gay’s Town Hall takeover is ambitious, entertaining and irresistibly warm

Sydney’s Town Hall has transformed into a tennis court and a beach for recent iterations of the Sydney festival; this year, it’s a roller derby rink, with a moving set and music stage, and a live band belting covers.Inside the ornate Victorian interior of Centennial Hall, an oval flat track has been installed; on either side are stadium-style seating banks. This is the set for Mama Does Derby, the new family dramedy from Adelaide’s Windmill Production Company, premiering in Sydney ahead of Adelaide festival.There’s something thrilling about seeing art in unusual spaces, and about seeing familiar places rendered strange and wonderful through art. This has become the bread and butter for city festivals over the past decade, offering the thrill of the catch-it-while-you-can live communal experience as a counterpoint to our increasingly isolated lives

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My cultural awakening: an Eddie Izzard routine inspired me to learn French – and get a job with the EU

Until the age of 13, I had never taken much interest in school French lessons. I had visited the country a couple of times, on family driving holidays to Brittany and Normandy, but my parents did all the talking and I didn’t see the point of learning le and la, soixante-dix or quatre-vingts. It was just something on the curriculum that I had to do.Then, one evening at home, in Stirlingshire, Scotland, with everyone else in bed, I sat on the sofa and put on a VHS of Eddie Izzard’s standup show Dress to Kill. My parents were fans and I’d caught a glimpse on TV and thought it looked funny

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The Guide #226: SPOILER ALERT! It’s never been easier to avoid having your favourite show ruined

Don’t be alarmed by the image above. I can assure you that this newsletter features no spoilers for the current season of The Traitors. We won’t be discussing the shocking departure of REDACTED, or the nefarious actions of EXPUNGED, or the fact that CENSORED is the wife/half-brother/hairdresser of NAME REMOVED. Relax, you are in a hermetically sealed Traitors safe space here.Indeed, what has gradually dawned on me while watching this latest series is how relatively straightforward avoiding spoilers has been

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Hijack to Robbie Williams: the week in rave reviews

Idris Elba battles bad guys on the Berlin underground, while the former Take That star reconsiders his Britpop years. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviewsApple TVSummed up in a sentence Idris Elba returns for a second series of the thriller that sees him unfortunately ending up on a vehicle taken over by terrorists – this time, the Berlin metro.What our reviewer said “Another rollicking ride.” Lucy ManganRead the full reviewFurther reading Idris Elba knighted in new year honours list also featuring Torvill and DeanBBC iPlayerSummed up in a sentence This surprisingly moving documentary charts the strained relationship between Chris Eubank and his boxer son, Chris Eubank Jr, ahead of a fight between the latter and Conor Benn – the son of the elder Eubank’s great rival, Nigel.What our reviewer said “It really is enough to make you weep, as the camera unobtrusively captures these men so loved by each other trying to connect, to understand and make each other understand, watching them reach out and pass each other, missing only by inches

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From 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple to A$AP Rocky: your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead

Another visit to the UK’s putrid zombie aftermath, and the polymath rapper returns after eight years with a collb-packed blockbuster28 Years Later: The Bone TempleOut nowIt would have been hard to imagine in 2002 that 28 Days Later would spawn something so different (and that’s probably a good thing; who wants identikit sequels?). The post-apocalyptic UK is now almost unrecognisable in this Nia DaCosta-directed, Alex Garland-scripted instalment, with violent tribes competing for scant resources.Rental FamilyOut now In this Japan-set drama from director Hikari, Brendan Fraser plays an actor hoping to land a decent role after appearing in a hit toothpaste commercial. He is hired by a company that provides family stand-ins for events, leading to some unexpectedly genuine connections.The Voice of Hind RajabOut nowUsing real audio footage, this Gaza-set film dramatises the death of six-year-old Hind Rajab, who was trapped on the phone for three hours in a car surrounded by six relatives killed by Israeli forces, only to be shot dead herself, after soldiers fired 335 rounds of ammunition into the car and the ambulance that came to collect the little girl, also killing two paramedics