Stout clobber? Guinness tie-up features £1,295 ‘pub carpet’ jumper

Brand enlists JW Anderson to help brew up 17-piece range of luxury fashionwear, from ‘beer towel’ shorts to branded trousers and topsYou too can look like a pub carpet – and for the bargain price of £1,295. Such sartorial elegance – perhaps an option for anyone stepping out to celebrate St Patrick’s Day this week – is the aesthetic love-child of a partnership between Guinness and the luxury clothing brand JW Anderson.The tie-up, launched earlier this month, allows fashionistas to get their hands on a range of Guinness wear that exploits the continuing metamorphosis of the “black stuff” from unfashionable pub staple to social media status symbol.The 17-piece range features everything from elasticated shorts that look like a beer towel (£440) to an £850 Irish wool jumper, featuring the Guinness harp logo set against a cloudy cream that nods subtly to the head on a well-poured pint.The range is fronted by the actor Joe Alwyn and the rapper Little Simz, and “pulls from vintage brewery uniforms, Irish pub interiors and archival graphics, translating them into denim workwear, twisted jeans, towelling sets and knitwear”

Relief for some of Britain’s poorest lands at right moment to cushion Iran aftershocks | Heather Stewart

It doesn’t involve warships, drones or strategic oil stocks, but one of Labour’s most potent weapons for containing the economic aftershocks from the Iran war for the UK is about to be unleashed: the scrapping of the two-child limit.If the cost of essential goods spikes as a result of high oil prices it is the poorest households who will be the most exposed.The timing is purely fortuitous, but ministers are about to write to parents in more than half a million such homes to let them know they are likely to receive an average of £440 extra a month from April. These are families with three or more children, claiming universal credit.“It’s massive,” says Alex Clegg, an economist at the Resolution Foundation thinktank

One of Britain’s last major chemical plants at risk as energy prices surge

The American owner of one of Britain’s last major chemicals plants has said he will close the site if energy prices remain at their current levels for the next three months.Peter Huntsman, whose family built Huntsman Corporation into a global chemicals empire, said the recent jump in gas prices fuelled by the Iran conflict was “another nail in the coffin” for European heavy industry.“If today’s economics were to stay in place for the next three months, I would shut down my [UK] facility and I’d be importing product from China or the United States,” he said.The factory in Wilton, on Teesside, employs about 80 people and makes aniline, a chemical used in everything from car seats to aircraft components. It is one of the last surviving plants of the former Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), Britain’s largest manufacturer for much of the 20th century

‘The chef is a metre away from you’: the cosy allure of micro-restaurants

It started with the portion sizes, as all-you-can-eat buffets were reduced to bite-size small plates. Then the menus started to decrease, with pages of dishes shrinking to an A5 sheet of paper.Now restaurants are undergoing another round of downsizing. Micro-restaurants, which usually seat fewer than 20 people, are gradually spreading across the UK.The focal point is the communal table

Rate rises, helium shortages, EV sales spikes: how is the disruption in Iran’s strait of Hormuz affecting Australia?

The Middle East conflict is causing huge disruptions to energy supplies, with knock-on effects reaching far beyond petrol prices.While the initial US-Israeli strikes on Iran drew a muted response from global markets due to expectations it would be a short conflict, there are now questions over whether the US has a clean exit strategy that would guarantee a stable resumption of trade through the crucial strait of Hormuz.Here are five ways the “largest supply disruption in history” in global oil markets is affecting Australia, from the cost of crucial imported goods to the purchasing decisions made by consumers.There was already a strong shift to electrified vehicles before the war on Iran disrupted energy markets, with new battery vehicles selling at nearly double the rate from a year ago, according to February automotive data.James Voortman, chief executive of the Australian Automotive Dealer Association, says car yards have been selling even more EVs since petrol prices started to rise

‘The sums don’t add up’: UK farmers struggle as Iran war drives up costs

The small green oilseed rape plants are buffeted by the wind on a blustery spring day. Sown last August, the crop is starting to shoot up and should be ready for harvesting in July, when it can be turned into cooking oil or biofuel.The peaceful 230-hectare (568-acre) arable farm owned by James Cox on the edge of the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire is a world away from the conflict in the Middle East. However, the consequences of US and Israeli strikes on Iran – and Tehran’s retaliation – are already rippling out to affect Cox and Britain’s other food producers.The prices of crucial farming inputs such as fuel and fertiliser have skyrocketed, just at a time when their use will increase in the coming weeks as the spring planting season gets under way and farmers use their tractors more