Stilettos are fine for an evening out, but wearing them all day, every day could cause permanent damage

‘If you’d asked me that 15 years ago, I would have said: ‘Absolute nonsense – it’s all genetics and shoes aren’t responsible for any problem,’” says Andrew Goldberg, consultant orthopaedic foot and ankle specialist at the Wellington hospital in London. But viewing 3D scans that show how people’s feet look while standing in their shoes changed his mind completely.

He took two scans of a person’s feet – one barefoot and one in high heels – and the difference was striking. In the high heels, the toes were crowded together, the big toe showed a bunion, and the smaller toes were clawed, gripping for balance.

Arsenal and City march on, Sunderland enjoy bragging rights, and Ekitiké gives Liverpool fans a much-needed lift

Mikel Arteta had the option to frame things differently. The Arsenal manager was even teed up to do so with a generous question in the press conference that followed his side’s 2-1 win against Wolves on Saturday. Had his team shown the toughness of champions by recovering from a 90th-minute concession to steal all three points? “That’s something very positive but I don’t put it down to resilience,” Arteta replied. It was of a piece with him essentially reading the riot act to his players. They had not turned up at the start, he suggested, and the less said about the closing stages, the better – apart from the last-gasp winner. It is rare to hear Arteta be so critical but he knew his team had got away with one and he wanted them to know, too. Arsenal have a rare blank midweek before they go to Everton for another 8pm kick-off next Saturday. The standards must be higher. David Hytner

Match report: Arsenal 2-1 Wolves

Match report: Crystal Palace 0-3 Manchester City

Match report: Sunderland 1-0 Newcastle

Match report: Liverpool 2-0 Brighton

Match report: West Ham 2-3 Aston Villa

Match report: Chelsea 2-0 Everton

Culture is not immune from the advances of the hard right – but it isn’t too late for resistance

Into the pale stone wall of the Kennedy Center, above its elegant terrace on the edge of the Potomac river, are carved bold and idealistic sentiments. “This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor. To further the appreciation of culture among all the people, to increase respect for the creative individual, to widen participation by all the processes and fulfillments of art – this is one of the fascinating challenges of these days.” Those are the words of John F Kennedy, after whom the US’s national performing arts centre is named. The impulse to build it came from Dwight D Eisenhower; it was given JFK’s name after his assassination; and it opened in 1971, to the music of Leonard Bernstein and the choreography of Alvin Ailey, in the presidency of Richard Nixon. The Kennedy Centre, in short, was designed to be bipartisan, a place of gathering for Democrats and Republicans alike, a proud showcase of the best of America’s dance, opera and music.

For 50 years it carefully trod that line, its board balanced by members of Congress from both sides of the political divide. But it turns out it can take just months to unravel half a century of high-minded purpose.

Charlotte Higgins is the Guardian’s chief culture writer

Who’s that daring young farmyard animal on the flying trapeze? The creatures of Mossy Bottom have been put on stage by ‘edgy’ circus stars Circa – but the burlesque shearing had to go

‘It’s a family drama,” says Yaron Lifschitz. “It’s kind of a minor key, gently comic version of the Oresteian trilogy. Without the dismemberment and murder and purple carpets.” Lifschitz is talking about his latest production for Circa, the acclaimed Australian contemporary circus group. Is it a Greek epic? A state-of-the-nation drama? A searing emotional journey? Nope, none of those. It’s a fun, family circus show based on that cheeky cartoon character Shaun the Sheep.

You might not think the antics of an anthropomorphic flock of farm animals can be compared to Aeschylus, but Lifschitz sees characters bound together as family with different personalities, friends and enemies, having to work out how to live together. Shaun the Sheep has been a huge success since the character originated in Wallace & Gromit: A Close Shave in 1995. The stop-motion series launched in 2007 has been broadcast in more than 50 countries, and had multiple spin-offs including two feature films and another one in the pipeline.

Timothée Chalamet’s live-wire striver using ping pong as his ticket out of normie American life is just one of many wonders in this extraordinarily rich tale
• The best films of 2025 in the UK
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When reports started to emerge that Timothée Chalamet was going to play a ping pong champion in a film called Marty Supreme, the world (including this correspondent) rolled its eyes. Was Hollywood’s most annoying actor going to go for broke in what promised to be the most irritating film of all time? Well I am here to hold up my hand and say that first impressions couldn’t have been more wrong. Marty Supreme is one of the most exciting, indeed sensational films of the year, and if the Guardian film critics’ poll wasn’t a democracy, many of us would made it No 1 by some distance.

For it turns out that Marty Supreme is a character drama of quite remarkable richness, its excitement and sensation deriving from the nervous energy of its protagonist – who is indeed a ping pong player called Marty – but plying his trade in the decidedly non-quirky early 1950s where our hero, played by Chalamet, is essentially trying to use this non-traditional sport to plot a way out of the dullness and grind of his normie life, where he is on track to become a manager of a shoe store. Marty (whose last name is not actually Supreme, but the amusingly alliterative Mauser) is a pretty dislikable individual: happy to abandon a girl he gets pregnant, throw a fit when he loses a match, and think he can talk his way out of any kind of difficulty. But such is his verve, charisma and never-say-die attitude, he carries you with him.

Former Manchester City youth coach faces his role model Enzo Maresca in Carabao Cup quarter-final against Chelsea

When it comes to Cole Palmer, a montage of magical moments spring to Brian Barry-Murphy’s mind, but one episode, a little more than four years ago, particularly sticks. Barry-Murphy was in charge of Manchester City’s under-21s on the evening when Palmer – fresh from replacing Bernardo Silva as an 89th-minute substitute in a 2-0 Premier League win against Burnley – strolled across the bridge at the Etihad Campus and reported for duty at the academy stadium, scoring a sensational hat-trick in a 5-0 victory over Leicester.

It is a story Barry-Murphy, now in charge of the League One leaders, Cardiff, recounts given Palmer could be in the opposition team when Chelsea visit in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals on Tuesday. “He said to Pep [Guardiola] and [his former assistant] Rodolfo Borrell the day before the game: ‘There’s an under-21 game tomorrow night, if I don’t get on, can I play?’” Barry-Murphy says with a smile.

• Approval expected next year; US investors interested

• 27% of Prem’s commercial rights were sold to CVC in 2019

Prem Rugby is planning to launch a tender process to secure external investment in the competition after it has received formal approval from the Rugby Football Union to become a closed franchise league, which it expects will happen next year.

The English top division engaged the investment bank Raine Group and the accountancy firm Deloitte to conduct a review of the sport’s finances and potential funding options this year, and is preparing to go to market in the second quarter of 2026.

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

• Average mortgage for UK first-time buyer hits record high of £210,800

Natiowide also reports that the price gap between houses in the more expensive south and the cheaper north of England has shrunk to a 12-year low this year.

This was partly due to the London housing market lagging behind.

London was the weakest performing region in the first nine months of the year with annual growth averaging 1.3%.

This was part of a wider trend that saw house price growth in the northern regions of England outpacing the southern regions. As a result, the price differential narrowed to its lowest since 2013. The average price of a home in northern regions of England is now almost 58% of that in the southern regions, well above the lows of c48% seen in 2017.

“Looking ahead, we expect housing market activity to strengthen a little further as affordability improves gradually (as it has been in recent quarters) via income growth outpacing house price growth and a further modest decline in interest rates.

We expect annual house price growth to remain broadly in the 2 to 4% range next year.

“The changes to property taxes announced in the Budget are unlikely to have a significant impact on the market. The high value council tax surcharge is not being introduced until April 2028 and will apply to less than 1% of properties in England and around 3% in London.

The increase in taxes on income from properties may dampen buy-to-let activity further and hold down the supply of new rental properties coming onto the market, which could in turn maintain some upward pressure on private rental growth.”

At least 16 people including one of the alleged gunmen died at the shooting in Sydney on Sunday, aged between 10 and 87

• Follow the latest live updates on the Bondi beach shooting

• Bondi terror attack: full report

• What we know so far about the Bondi terror attack

At least 16 people were killed and more than 40 wounded when gunmen fired on a Hanukah celebration in Bondi beach, which Australian police and officials are describing as a terrorist attack.

In the latest update on Monday morning, the New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, confirmed 16 people, including one of the alleged gunmen, have died, and 42 people injured in the shooting were taken to hospital.