Are you feeling festive? If not, here are some great and unexpected shortcuts, from fish pie to ‘intermittent wrapping’ to watching a seasonal film every day of December

If I haven’t wrapped up warm and wobbled around in circles, it isn’t Christmas. I can measure out my life in London’s ice rinks. Broadgate Circus in the early 00s, because it was cheapest and I was skint. Several seasons of Skate at Somerset House with my ex, because it was our “romantic” Christmas tradition (actually, he hated skating). This year, I’ll be mixing old and new: Hampton Court Palace, where people have been skating since the 1800s, and the inaugural Skate Leicester Square. As long as there’s a mug of something mulled afterwards, I’m happy. Rachel Dixon, travel writer

Years ago, a regrettable ex-boyfriend bought me a merman Christmas tree ornament so bizarre that it short-circuited my brain, unleashing something primal within me. Ever since, I have scoured department stores, gift shops and the darkest reaches of the internet for more mermaid baubles, like some kind of gay Gollum. I now have more than a hundred, including a flautist mermaid, several Santa Claus mermen and (my favourite) a merperson who is somehow also a pig and a ballerina. Unboxing my treasures at the start of December is both the first gladdening sign that Christmas is upon us and – arguably – a cry for help. Joe Stone, lifestyle editor, Guardian Saturday magazine

Following every dizzying spin of Chalamet’s table tennis hustler, Josh Safdie’s whip-crack comedy serves sensational shots – and a smart return by Gwyneth Paltrow

This new film from Josh Safdie has the fanatical energy of a 149-minute ping pong rally carried out by a single player running round and round the table. It’s a marathon sprint of gonzo calamities and uproar, a sociopath-screwball nightmare like something by Mel Brooks – only in place of gags, there are detonations of bad taste, cinephile allusions, alpha cameos, frantic deal-making, racism and antisemitism, sentimental yearning and erotic adventures. It’s a farcical race against time where no one needs to eat or sleep.

Timothée Chalamet plays Marty Mauser, a spindly motormouth with the glasses of an intellectual, the moustache of a movie star and the physique of a tiny cartoon character. He’s loosely inspired by Marty “The Needle” Reisman, a real-life US table tennis champ from the 1950s who was given to Bobby Riggs-type shenanigans: betting, hustling and showmanship stunts. The movie probably earns the price of admission simply with one gasp-inducing setpiece involving whippet-thin Chalamet, a dog, a bathtub, cult director Abel Ferrara in a walk-on role and a scuzzy New York hotel room. Talk about not being on firm ground. Similarly disorientating is the climactic revelation of Chalamet’s naked buttocks prior to one of the most upsetting displays of corporal punishment since Lindsay Anderson’s If….

Labour backbenchers have been cheering it as a win for the most vulnerable in society. In fact it was aimed at the bond markets

The charge is a grave one: that Rachel Reeves has just lied to Britons, spooking them into paying billions in extra taxes that she can splash out on higher benefits. However hyperbolic, this isn’t the usual Westminster sparring; this time, someone might get hurt. A week ago, critics of Reeves and Keir Starmer were, rightly, calling their budget “chaotic”. Today, it’s denounced as lies, and Kemi Badenoch is demanding the chancellor quit.

It’s an accusation that demands straightforward answers, so let me give mine. Did the chancellor tell lies? On the available evidence, no. There were no whoppers, no falsehoods, no porkies. But despite Starmer’s comments yesterday, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to see here and we can all move along. Reeves did mislead the public about the factors shaping her decisions. Was it all to funnel cash to “benefits street”, as the Tories claim? No, and the figures prove it.

Reeves has sustained another hit to her reputation but, if facts still have anything to do with politics, Badenoch should call off her lynch mob. Perhaps the resignation yesterday of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) chief, Richard Hughes, over the leak of its own documents will quench SW1’s thirst for blood.

Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist

After I was paralysed in a climbing accident, I discovered how inconsiderate, illogical and incompetent many wheelchair providers can be

I was lying on my back in an east London hospital, sometime in August 2023. I don’t know what day it was, exactly; by that point I’d mostly given up caring. My phone rang. I managed to answer, even though I had largely lost the use of my hands. (Luckily, a member of staff had left it lying on my chest.) Also, I wasn’t feeling great. In the early stages of coming to terms with the fact I was paralysed, I had just been informed that the doctors wanted to drill a hole directly into my guts, inserting a plastic tube to drain away my urine, effectively making my penis redundant. It was proving quite a lot to take in.

Nonetheless, I answered.

Jon Ridgeon is overseeing World Athletics’ reach for a younger audience but has to battle it out with football and F1

It really is quite the scene. Midnight in Tokyo, Usain Bolt is DJing and the launch party for the World Athletics Ultimate Championships is in full swing. And then the World Athletics chief executive, Jon Ridgeon, walks up to me and says: “I read your recent Guardian column, and I thought it was very unfair.”

Imagine Gary Lineker going in two-footed, having never picked up a yellow card in his career. This is the track and field equivalent. Ridgeon, a former world silver medallist over the 110m hurdles, is one of the smartest and most reasonable people in sport. He is saying, in a polite way, that he is really rather annoyed.

Many uncertain about the future after losing everything in the country’s deadliest natural disaster for years

When the rains began, Layani Rasika Niroshani was not worried. The 36-year-old mother of two was used to the heavy monsoon showers that drench Sri Lanka’s hilly central region of Badulla every year. But as it kept pounding down without stopping, the family started to feel jittery.

Some relocated to a relative’s house, but her brother and his wife decided to stay behind to collect the valuables. As they were inside, a landslide hit the family home.

Justice secretary suggests he will stick to Levesen’s recommended three-year sentence threshold, after ‘cabinet feedback’

• UK politics live – latest updates

David Lammy is expected to back down from removing jury trials for all but the most serious charges of murder, manslaughter and rape, but trial by jury will still be radically reduced for more minor offences.

The UK justice secretary said there had been “cabinet feedback” on the plans and suggested on Tuesday he was minded to follow the recommendation in a report by the retired senior judge Sir Brian Leveson that “either-way” offences likely to result in a sentence of three years or less should be dealt with by the magistrates courts or a new judge-only division.

Exclusive: Rising flood risks driven by climate change could release chemicals from ageing sites – posing threats to ecosystems

• ‘I kept smelling a horrible nasty smell’: the risks of England’s old dumping grounds

Thousands of landfills across the UK and Europe sit in floodplains, posing a potential threat to drinking water and conservation areas if toxic waste is released into rivers, soils and ecosystems, it can be revealed.

The findings are the result of the first continent-wide mapping of landfills, conducted by the Guardian, Watershed Investigations and Investigate Europe.

Disclaimer: This dataset may contain duplicate records. Duplicates can arise from multiple data sources, repeated entries, or variations in data collection processes. While efforts have been made to identify and reduce duplication, some records may remain.

Talks come after Witkoff led US discussions with Ukraine at weekend amid European concerns that Kyiv will be pressured to make concessions to Moscow

• US-Russia talks may pile pressure on Kyiv to make concessions, says EU foreign policy chief

• See all our Ukraine war coverage

In parallel to Witkoff’s meeting in Moscow, we will also follow Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first visit to Ireland.

He has arrived in Dublin last night, and has a busy schedule today, paying a brief visit to the country’s new president Catherine Connolly, before meeting with key government figures including the taisoeach, Micheál Martin, and addressing both chambers of the Irish parliament in the afternoon.

Richard Hughes takes ‘full responsibility’ for watchdog error as Starmer attempts to secure chancellor’s position

The chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility has resigned after a damning internal inquiry into the leak that threw Rachel Reeves’s budget into chaos described it as the “worst failure” in the institution’s history.

The departure of Richard Hughes, who said he took “full responsibility” for the watchdog’s failure to handle sensitive information, dragged the rolling recriminations over the budget into a fifth day.