In 2010, faced with the closure of their local library, a Buckinghamshire town’s locals turned to an unconventional tactic – borrowing every single book – to defend a cherished community space. MAT COWARD tells the story

Tyrannosaurs in Thailand, colonialism as videogame, and a feminist gem from 1936

MAT COWARD looks at the Hamburg parsley — a species rarely cultivated here but popular, with good reason, in Eastern Europe

Good Cop vs Bad Fascist fantasy, a guilty witness, Scottish witchcraft, and Camino de Santiago shocker

While advocating the aubergine or eggplant’s case for a space on your windowsill or patio, MAT COWARD suggest prayers might be required too

After 58 fishermen were lost in the so-called ‘Triple Trawler Tragedy,’ four women led a grassroots revolt that forced the government to overhaul Britain’s deadly deep-sea fishing industry. MAT COWARD tells the story

Japanese innovation, Costa Rican skullduggery, Glasgow Central suicide, and good deeds punished in London

MAT COWARD takes a look at some of the options for keen gardeners as we enter 2026

A deeply pleasing festive crime wave

A WWI hero, renowned ornithologist, medical doctor, trade union organiser and founder member of the Communist Party of Great Britain all rolled in one. MAT COWARD tells the story of a life so improbable it was once dismissed as fiction

MAT COWARD tells how 18th-century scholar and revolutionary democrat Joseph Ritson turned a medieval outlaw into England’s people’s hero — soon to be gracing panto halls around the nation

Commiserations if you failed this year, MAT COWARD offers six points which, if followed religiously, will ensure you succeed next year