‘Fabian grew up the inner-city where it was hard for him to pursue his love of horses. He’s set himself the goal of becoming a five-time Olympic gold medallist’

When I was about 16, I went to Bradgate Park in Leicestershire with a couple of friends. We were there as sunset approached and the landscape became illuminated by beautiful golden-hour light. There were deer and stags all around and I asked one of my friends if I could borrow his camera. It must have been quite annoying for him because I remember wandering off, trying to capture this feeling of mystery and magic.

That was the moment I first really felt a sense of excitement for photography and image-making. Before then, I’d visited many museums and art galleries with my mum and was inspired by some of the art we saw. I was particularly drawn to portraits by Vermeer and Rembrandt. I’ve never been good at drawing or painting, but having a camera gave me a tool to express that creative energy.

After a long day of exploring, swimming or hanging with grandparents, games from Fortnite to Super Mario are a good way to wind down. Sometimes I play along, too

We’re a week into the school summer holidays here in England, and I wonder how many parents who started out determined to keep their children completely away from screens are now beginning to feel the strain. When my sons were much younger, I often had these idyllic images in my head of day trips to the seaside, back garden treasure hunts, paddling in the river, visiting relatives … an endless series of character forming experiences which I imagined in grainy Kodachrome colours. Then I’d be faced with the reality of having a job, and also the, let’s say, limited attention span of my sons. Those boys could rocket through a host of formative activities in a few hours leaving a trail of muddy boots, half-finished crafting projects and tired grandparents in their wake. Sheepishly, we’d end up allowing some Fortnite time to catch our breath.

There is so much pressure and guilt around children and gaming, especially during long school breaks, and I think we need to seriously redress our outlook as a society. I harbour many lovely memories of gaming with my sons during hot August days; drowsily loafing about building ridiculous mansions in Minecraft or laughing ourselves stupid in Goat Simulator . We would always take the Switch on holiday with us, so that in the evenings, when we went out for meals, there would be an hour or so where my wife and I could linger over a glass of wine, while the boys silently played Super Mario together. We still managed to build sand castles, go swimming and explore unfamiliar towns, but games provided a way to wind down and enjoy something familiar.

Derelict property built for textile designer Bernat Klein in 1972 goes for £279,000 after starting price of £18,000

A coalition of design and conservation charities has won an auction to buy a threatened modernist building in the Scottish Borders after a fiercely contested bidding battle.

The group, headed by the National Trust for Scotland, paid a final hammer price of £279,000 for the Bernat Klein Studio near Selkirk in an online auction on Wednesday morning. The final price of the property, which has lain unused and derelict for more than 20 years, could be in the region of £336,000.

Jermyn Street Theatre, London
The fictional island of Sirene is home to a tangled web of lovers in this fun and frolicking adaptation of Compton Mackenzie’s novel featuring a fantastic cast

Compton Mackenzie’s lesbian novel was published in the same year as two other canonical queer tomes that eclipsed it: Virginia Woolf’s Orlando and Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness.

Here, it is adapted into an arch musical comedy by Sarah Travis (score) and Richard Stirling (lyrics). It feels befitting of Mackenzie’s rather madcap interwar story featuring a Bloomsbury-style group of lesbians on the fictional island of Sirene.

Neeson plays the son of Leslie Nielsen’s Lt Frank Drebin, appearing opposite Pamela Anderson in this enjoyable, at times very bizarre, spoof of 80s LA action movies

Here is Liam Neeson doing a rumbly-menacing voice even sillier than the one he did in Taken – and he now presumably must decide whether, like Leslie Nielsen before him, he will pivot to spoof comedy full-time. To be fair, Neeson has more career capital to lose than Nielsen did. He deadpans it impeccably, but perhaps doesn’t quite have Nielsen’s eerie innocence. In any case, it doesn’t stop this reboot of the Naked Gun franchise from being a lot of fun: amiably ridiculous, refreshingly shallow, entirely pointless and guilelessly crass. It is a life-support system for some outrageous gags, including sensational riffs on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sex and the City, and one showstopping are-they-really-gonna-do-it reference to OJ Simpson, who featured in the original films.

David Zucker, co-creator of those and the Airplane! films, is reportedly dissatisfied with this new version from the team of director Akiva Schaffer and co-writers Dan Gregor and Doug Mand. A spoof of a spoof is always going to be a potential problem, but Schaffer et al canter entertainingly through their succession of absurdist scenarios – and at one stage contrive a classic Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker homage: a moment of mayhem followed by a wide-shot of people queueing up obediently for violence, like Airplane!’s line of (hitherto unseen) passengers.

Founded in London in 1972, the Sylvia Young theatre school helped shape careers of singers and actors from Amy Winehouse to Billie Piper and Nicholas Hoult

Sylvia Young – the founder of a theatre school that taught the likes of the singer Amy Winehouse, the EastEnders actor Adam Woodyatt and the James Bond star Lashana Lynch – has been hailed as a “true visionary” after she died aged 86.

Her daughters Alison and Frances Ruffelle said it was with great sadness that they confirmed the death of their mother, who “passed away peacefully” on Wednesday.

From the Washington Post to CBS, companies are caving to Trump. This is how democracy dies

The latest casualty of Donald Trump’s efforts to silence media criticism is Eduardo Porter, one of the most thoughtful and intelligent critics of his heinous regime.

On Tuesday, Porter wrote his last column for the Washington Post. In a widely circulated email, he explained why he was leaving the Post :

Jeff Bezos and his new head of Opinion are taking the paper down a path I cannot follow, directed toward the relentless promotion of free markets and personal liberties … I have no idea to what extent this is driven by Mr Bezos’ fear of what Donald Trump could do to his various business interests, most of which are more valuable to him than The Post.”

As someone who has always been a proud employee of this network, I am offended. And I don’t know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company … I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. It’s a big fat bribe. Because this all comes as Paramount’s owners are trying to get the Trump administration to approve the sale of our network to a new owner, Skydance.”

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com . His next book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America , will be out on 5 August

Thief: The Dark Project converges with Kafka, Gogol and Tamagotichis in this immersive sim with a giant personality

Planning is half the fun in immersive sims. Titles such as Thief and Dishonored drop players into clockwork worlds where there are emails or letters to be read, vents to wriggle through, and desperate situations to overcome with smarts and social engineering as much as sheer violence.

You could argue that all that’s been missing from the genre until now is a colossal policeman whose lanky body rises hundreds of feet into the sky, and who can look down at you and see absolutely everything you’re doing. Luckily, the new game from the Russian developer Tallboys is here to fix that. In Militsioner, you have been arrested for some manner of nebulous crime and must now leave town as quickly as you can. Bribe the ticketmaster at the railway? Break a window to create a distraction? All classic immersive sim solutions. Sadly, there’s that policeman to deal with first, a melancholic but watchful giant who towers over the ravaged urban surroundings even when sat down with his hands resting on his knees.

Day went on to form More, whose members have paid tribute to ‘a huge part of the new wave of British heavy metal’, and later sang for a reformed Sweet

Paul Mario Day, the original vocalist for Iron Maiden, has died aged 69 after living with cancer. His bandmates in his subsequent band, More, shared the news, acknowledging Day as “a huge part of the new wave of British heavy metal” and “a well-loved figure in British rock music”.

Maiden bassist Steve Harris recruited Day in late 1975; the band gave their first live performance in Poplar, London on 1 May 1976 and then held a residency at a pub in nearby Stratford.