August 20 – October 30, 2022

September 16 – October 29, 2022

Dotun, Andy and Lars Sivertsen don their tuxedos for another episode of your one-stop shop for all things European football.

Karim Benzema secures yet another bit of glitzy jewellery with a deserved Ballon d’Or win, so we celebrate his amazing year. We also assess Xabi Alonso’s tough start to managerial life and wonder what various German and French welterweights can do to challenge the heavy hitters.

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Why eastern India's upcycling handicraft, kantha, is now booming globally

Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson star in The Banshees of Inisherin

September 15 – October 22, 2022

September 16 – October 21, 2022

Before this September, I hadn’t heard from Yara in months. They’re an Iranian journalist who has reported for the country’s most prominent newspapers and publications. We first met in New York in 2018 and bonded over the difficulties that come with reporting on Iran: they were rightly afraid of being arrested for their work, and I’ve been afraid that I will no longer be able to return to the country where I was born due to writing about it from abroad. As the Islamic Republic began to escalate the crackdowns on journalists, activists, and civil society, Yara—a pseudonym I’m using to protect their identity—was forced to leave Iran. But when their father was diagnosed with cancer, they had to return. They messaged me to say they were going back and let me know I likely wouldn’t hear from them. If the authorities knew that Yara was communicating with me, an Iranian dual national who works for the New York Times, they could accuse them of conspiracy, spying, and a whole host of other nonsensical charges. I worried about Yara, but I knew their silence meant they were safe. 

In September, a twenty-two-year-old Kurdish woman named Mahsa Amini died after being detained in Tehran by the so-called Morality Police for breaking the “hijab rule.” On Twitter, a photographer named Niloofar Hamedi posted a photo of Amini unconscious in a hospital bed, with tubes coming out of her mouth, a swollen face, and dried blood on her ears. Her image enraged Iranians and sparked mass demonstrations. The protests are now in their fifth week and have spread to more than eighty cities and towns. It’s both the largest and most widespread uprising that the Islamic Republic has seen in its forty-three-year history. Many of us, familiar with the state’s history of lethal crackdowns, were waiting nervously for them to begin. Arrests have already started, as have periodic internet shutoffs. Hamedi is now in solitary confinement in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison.   

On September 26, during the third week of the protests, I finally heard from Yara. They had just been arrested and interrogated at the Ministry of Intelligence. “They will take me to jail for about two years due to my reports,” Yara wrote. “But I am not scared, something like hope is rising among us, hope for changes, for women, life, freedom, for visiting you in Tehran soon.” They said it may be a month or two until they have a court date and are sent to prison. In the meantime, they wanted to collaborate on another story. They sent me their notes and wrote, “Keep our fingers crossed that the internet will work tomorrow.” 

We’re back with a bonus Ramble! Marcus, Luke and Jim are here to do forty minutes on Inter Miami’s playoff loss. Poor Fizzer. 

We just about get to some midweek Premier League too, as Adama Traoré reminds us he’s at Wolves and Brighton can’t buy a goal. Tonight, Eddie Howe’s hoping to avoid a dizzy stick headbutt from Duncan Ferguson and Steven Gerrard’s feeling the pressure ahead of a trip to the Cottage.

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From declining ratings to cancellations, are soap operas facing extinction?