‘Like time-travelling’: readers tell of unexpected joys of V&A East Storehouse

The V&A has launched a new exhibition space, the V&A East Storehouse in Hackney, east London, which houses more than 250,000 objects and offers immersive experiences alongside more than 100 small, curated displays. As well as browsing the exhibits that are on show, visitors have the option to choose up to five via the “order an object” service and have them delivered to a study room for a private viewing. (That’s if they’re movable – if not, you go to them.)We asked visitors for their highlights – here are some of them.Backdrop for the Ballets Russes production of Le Train Bleu, 1924Le Train Bleu, the Picasso backcloth for Ballets Russes, was an amazing surprise

‘Let’s learn from that history’: opera looks to luddites for how to deal with AI

If you ask artificial intelligence when in history we can learn lessons about the global challenges of AI it does, thankfully, agree with the composer Ben Crick: 200 years ago in the north of England.Crick believes we could all benefit from knowing more about the luddites, the “Industrial Revolution machine-wreckers”, and we need to draw lessons from them to address what is, for some, the biggest existential question of our time.“This sudden and abrupt increase in technology which is affecting the labour market, has already happened here,” Crick said. “It happened in 1812, it happened in places like Bradford and Huddersfield, which were tiny hamlets and then all of a sudden they were massive, sprawling cities.“This question has been asked before – in the north of England

My cultural awakening: Ratatouille helped me overcome my insomnia

I have never been good at silence. When it’s quiet, my brain fills the gap with racing thoughts. It wasn’t until lockdown, when I was 27, that I was diagnosed with ADHD and autism, but looking back it made sense: the fidgety teenage nights, the late-night TV marathons, the constant need for background noise.As a kid, my insomnia was brutal. When I couldn’t sleep, all I wanted to do was get up and do something, but I shared a room with my sister so I just had to lie there, still and frustrated

From the BFI London film festival to Taylor Swift: your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead

BFI London film festival8 to 19 October The annual smorgasbord of cinema returns to the UK capital (and beyond, via various regional satellite screenings), offering a selection of the best major international festival premieres, from Cannes to Venice. Catch the latest from Richard Linklater and Lynne Ramsay, as well as Guillermo del Toro’s new Frankenstein.UrchinOut nowHarris Dickinson has been making a name for himself as a homegrown British star on the rise able to hold his own opposite the likes of Zac Efron (The Iron Claw) and Nicole Kidman (Babygirl). But here he steps behind the camera for his directorial debut, about a young hustler (Frank Dillane) struggling to make a life for himself on the streets of London.HimOut nowStarring Marlon Wayans, Tyriq Withers and Julia Fox, this new sports horror from Jordan Peele’s production company … wait, what? “Sports horror”? Yep, that’s the genre, mashing tropes from sports movies and horror together, to give us a story about a would-be American football star who enters a world that isn’t all it seems

Stephen Colbert: Trump using the shutdown to ‘punish anyone who didn’t vote for him’

Late-night hosts covered the second day of the government shutdown, claiming Trump and his loyalists are using it for nefarious reasons.On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert said there was “no end in sight” to the shutdown and that “Uncle Sam is already selling feet pics” in desperation.Trump has blamed Democrats, and he is “using it as a way to squash things he doesn’t like”, Colbert said, adding that “it’s not a shutdown, it’s a shut-pertunity”.It’s the result of a disagreement over healthcare, with Democrats trying to push for benefits to be reinstated for many Americans under the Affordable Care Act.Republicans “control all three branches of government, but somehow none of this is their fault” and Colbert said Trump was using it to “punish anyone who didn’t vote for him”

The Guide #211: What the world is watching, from Brazilian telenovelas to superheroes made of red bean paste

A little while ago the Guide looked at the wave of international post-apocalyptic dramas washing up on our shores, bringing tales of climate catastrophe, violent autocracy and alien invasions from as far afield as Argentina, Nigeria and Korea. As well as revealing just how terrified the whole world is of the prospect of institutional collapse, it also – somewhat more positively – underscored what a globally connected industry TV is in 2025. Streaming networks, satellite channels, YouTube and hooky pirate streams can instantly serve up local content from every continent (Antartica excepted, though I’d love to hear if there’s a penguin mob drama from King George Island that I’ve missed).Still, as intermingled as TV is these days, there are still so many programmes that will probably never reach our shores despite being absolutely massive with their domestic audiences. So this week we wanted to shine a light on those shows by asking some of the Guardian’s foreign correspondents and contributors what people are watching in the countries they cover