Navigation aid from 16th century was on seabed for centuries before being bought and sold in US and Australia

It spent hundreds of years languishing on the seabed off the Isles of Scilly in the far south-west of Britain before being hauled back to the surface by divers and setting off a circumnavigation of the world.

Finally the Pednathise Head astrolabe – a rare example of a 16th-century navigational instrument once used by sailors to determine latitude – is back on Scilly after being rediscovered on the other side of the Atlantic.

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The after-school TV series ran from 1989 to 2006, launched the careers of Ant and Dec and was like nothing else on TV. As ITVX streams every single episode, we look back at its highlights

Very quietly, ITVX is making a case for itself as one of the best streaming services around. All of Lost is there. All of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is there. It’s the only place in the UK to watch every episode of Documentary Now , which is quite possibly the best show streaming anywhere. As of last month, you can even use ITVX to watch Space Live – 4K footage of Earth seen from the International Space Station , a spectacle exactly as stunning as it sounds.

And, if that wasn’t enough, now there’s Byker Grove too. Last month it was announced that ITV had secured the rights to the show, which originally aired on BBC One, and as of Sunday it will host all 18 series. If you’re as old and creaky as I am, it will provide you with a near fatal dose of nostalgia.

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Feeling thankful is increasingly touted as a cure-all, but sometimes there are reasons not to be grateful

The word “gratitude” is everywhere these days. On mental health leaflets and in magazine columns, emblazoned on mugs and motivational posters. All this is the result of more than two decades’ research in positive psychology which has found that having a “gratitude practice” (usually jotting down three to five things you are thankful for most days) brings a host of psychological and physical benefits .

I don’t want to seem, well, ungrateful. I’m a sceptical historian, but even I was persuaded to take up the gratitude habit, and when I remember to do it, I feel better: more cheerful and connected, inclined to see the good already in my life. Counting your blessings, whether that’s noticing a beautiful sunset or remembering how your neighbour went out of their way to help you earlier, is free and attractively simple. But there’s the problem. In our eagerness to embrace gratitude as a cure-all, have we lost sight of its complexity and its edge?

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Royal Opera House, London
In an engaging triple bill, a new work from Cathy Marston explores the emotional charge of Britten’s Violin Concerto, while works by Justin Peck and George Balanchine showcase the simple joy of dancing to great music

When choreographer Cathy Marston was commissioned to make a new one-act work for the Royal Ballet, she intended to create something abstract, just dancing to music – admittedly not the usual style of the woman who brought us Jane Eyre, Hamlet, Atonement and other narratives – but in the end the music she chose wouldn’t let her do it. Benjamin Britten’s Violin Concerto was written from 1938-39, his backdrop; the beginnings of the second world war, Britten – a pacifist – moving to the US with his lover Peter Pears, and the death of the composer’s mother. All these things have found their way into Marston’s piece, Against the Tide, and all for the better.

William Bracewell plays the unnamed protagonist, his dancing instinctive as ever, the whorls of his mind played out in the twisting and untangling of his body. Here come military men, with rigid demeanour and clenched fists, and Matthew Ball with satin shirt and seduction; there is Bracewell torn between duty, beauty and freedom. You can feel his torment, it reads like one long dark night of the soul.

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In a culture of therapy-approved ‘forgiveness’, the author’s new memoir shows how hilarious long-delayed vengeance can be

“A lot of people have died, so I can actually say these things without destroying somebody’s life. Except for the people whose lives I wish to destroy.” Thus spake Margaret Atwood in a recent interview about Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts, in a clip that has gone viral. “They deserve it,” she says, of the people she hasn’t said such nice things about. Asked if she likes holding a grudge, she replied: “I don’t have a choice. I’m a Scorpio.”

Part of the clip’s appeal is Atwood’s icily sardonic delivery: you can understand why a recent review of her autobiography describes her as “ a literary mafia don ”, reminding those who have crossed her that she knows who they are, even if they remain unnamed, or pointing out that they may well be dead by now anyway. It reminds me a bit of the writer who once said to me: “If you wait by the bend in the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will eventually float past”. Not a Buddhist proverb, for obvious reasons.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist

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The actor moved to LA 22 years ago. Now she’s back in the UK to star alongside Bryan Cranston in All My Sons. She talks about the frightening rehearsal schedule, how she’d work again with Mike Leigh in a heartbeat, and why she’s taking up boot-making

Marianne Jean-Baptiste arrives at the rehearsal space in  Southwark, south London, and immediately announces that she’s exhausted. It wouldn’t be surprising if nerves were getting the better of her; she’s seven days into a three-week rehearsal period for a new production of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, which is brutally short by anyone’s standards. Peeling off unnecessary layers of clothes – it’s not a cold morning – she says jet lag has been messing with her circadian rhythms since she flew in from Los Angeles 10 days ago. “I woke up at 3.17am and was like: fucking hell, it’s early. I lay there for a while, running lines from the play in my head. Then I thought: ‘Just get up and marinate the chicken.’ I made some ginger and lemon tea and finally went back to bed at 5.30am – better to rest and meditate even if I couldn’t sleep.” She was just dropping off when the alarm went off at 7am.

These days it takes a lot to lure Jean-Baptiste away from her home in Los Angeles, where she has lived with her husband and two daughters full-time since 2003. She loves coming back to her native London to see family and friends, but LA has a slower pace, optimism, a vast ocean – and, for a long time, it offered better opportunities to work. Her breakthrough role as the optometrist in search of her birth mother in the 1996 Mike Leigh film Secrets & Lies brought a Golden Globe nomination and she became the first Black British woman to be nominated for an Academy Award. She memorably played Doreen Lawrence in the 1999 TV movie The Murder of Stephen Lawrence, but then – nothing much. Most offers of work came from the US.

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Prince Buster’s Al Capone changed the Madness singer’s life and Aretha Franklin is his go-to at karaoke, but what song makes him cry?

The first song I fell in love with
Judy Teen by Cockney Rebel. I’d seen Steve Harley on Top of the Pops and liked his look, with the mascara and bowler hat, like Alex from A Clockwork Orange. One day, me and my mates decided to cycle to Salisbury Plain. I had a transistor radio tied to the handlebars and Judy Teen came on. Unfortunately, the batteries ran out when we got to Swiss Cottage [in north London] … and my legs ran out at the same time!

The first single I bought
The Wall Street Shuffle by 10cc, from Woolworths in Camden Town. Later on, we used to pinch records, but I paid my dues for a while.

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Each family cabin gets its own episode in the eerie Summerwater. Plus: Sally Wainwright’s Riot Women ends with a bang! Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, Channel 4

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Jackson’s songs are back on charts and biopic trailer racked up 116m views in 24 hours, yet there is a certain hesitation

Michael Jackson ’s voodoo classic Thriller was high on Billboard’s Hot 100 in the week of 15 November, handing the 16-years-gone King of Pop a record for having a Top 10 hit across six different decades. Simultaneously, Jackson also broke records for receiving 116m views in 24 hours for the trailer of a new biopic, Michael, set for release in April.

Millions of fans may be excited and primed for a Jackson biopic. For comparison, the trailer beat out Taylor Swift ’s Eras tour preview and it will join a procession of recent music biopics about Bruce Springsteen, Amy Winehouse , Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley and Elton John. The most successful of all – the Freddie Mercury and Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody – took in nearly a billion dollars at the box office.

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