Sid Lowe is our Spanish football correspondent, based in Madrid, and has been covering an increasingly busy beat for years. He answers your questions

proevpete asks: Hi Sid. How has La Liga and Spanish football more broadly changed since you started your reporting career? And how has the actual reporting of it changed in that time as well?

Sid:

There are loads of elements to this, not least as it’s a long time, and there have definitely been big shifts economically and so on, and obviously a lot of it is societal, which is being played out everywhere not just here.

I think some parts remain the same, the quality of the football, the taste for technique (in very broad terms, as there are a million caveats), lots of players coming through … you can see shifts in the national team of course: they were like England, the “big” team that never won and that has changed. Obviously, I think the big difference between Spain and elsewhere (well, England in this case), is the dominance of two teams … and yet that does not entirely eclipse the other clubs, some of which are very big, and I’m always very conscious of giving space and proper attention to the “other 18”. They often feel abandoned by Spanish media/society, I think. In terms of reporting, that’s central to it.

Thank you. And hello everyone. Tea made, so I’m ready. (Which, erm, maybe undermines this first question/answer a bit).

I suppose the simple answer is: people. And, in truth, while I do think Spain is special and there are lots of very good reasons to believe it’s different, who knows, it might have worked out the same way if somehow I had ended up in Italy or France or Germany or wherever. The practical answer, which takes in the language and, from there, I guess the affinity, is that I did Spanish at school (as well as French).

For decades, Wildings was the poshest shop in town. But since it closed down in 2019, the storied building has fallen into disrepair and been commandeered as a drug den and a skate park. What happened?

I’m standing outside a lift in a department store in Newport, Wales, looking at the sign, wondering where to go. Stay on the ground floor for shoes, giftware and presents, ladies’ accessories and Estée Lauder? Or up to the first floor for furniture and ladies’ fashions – Annabelle, Tigi-Wear, Autonomy? It’s the second floor for cookshop and homeware. Lingerie is on three, plus Alfred’s coffee shop and tea room. Maybe I’ll go straight there for a cappuccino and a ponder …

But nothing happens when I press the button. The panel is hanging from the wall by its wires and doesn’t look safe. I’d be nervous about stepping into this lift. Plus, it’s dark. I’m using the torch on my phone to read the sign. There’s no giftware on this floor, no presents, no cosmetics counter. Once, this floor would have smelled of perfume; now, it’s musty, cold and empty. Because, on 19 January 2019, after 144 years of trading, this department store, Wildings, closed its doors for ever.

(Play It Again Sam)
Unsettling breathing, arrhythmic clatter, gloomy piano and military snares underpin a Beefheartian portrayal of a boorish warmonger on the band’s ominous return

Even by the standards of a band noted for their unhurried approach, Massive Attack’s recorded output has dwindled to a trickle in recent years. They’ve seldom been out of the press, but less as a result of their music than their political campaigning: frontman Robert Del Naja was among the 500 people arrested at last Saturday’s Palestine Action protest. It is six years since they last released any new music – a trio of YouTube videos on which their music effectively acted as a soundbed for spoken-word pieces about global system change – and a decade since they released something you could actually buy, a single called The Spoils. Their most recent album, Heligoland, came out in 2010: Taylor Swift was still a country star, Harry Styles was still at school, Instagram and TikTok had yet to be launched.

It means that any new release automatically carries a sense of event, particularly if you’re old enough to remember how significantly Massive Attack altered the musical landscape of the 90s. You could formulate an argument that their debut album, Blue Lines, was the single most influential British album of its era: it spawned an entire subgenre, trip-hop, in its wake; 35 years on, you can still hear its echoes everywhere, from the mainstream pop of Billie Eilish and Lana Del Rey to the nu-soul of Joy Crookes and Greentea Peng to the endless swathes of anonymous “lo-fi beats” that get millions of streams on Spotify.

Dougie and Teresa don’t see eye to eye when it comes to supermarket packing. You decide whose argument checks out

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She says if you’re bagging stuff at the checkout, you’re holding up the people behind you

He just doesn’t understand the system. The packing shelves at the back are there to help customers

If you have to consult the Reddit thread ‘am I too old for Coachella?’, then the answer is probably ‘yes’

This morning, over breakfast, in the course of discussing the week’s news, I happened to say the word “Coachella” in front of my two scornful 11-year-olds, whose heads snapped up from their screens in unison. “How have you heard of Coachella?” said one in amazement. “How have you heard of Coachella?” I replied. They exchanged a look with which I’ve become increasingly familiar – namely, the “here we go” look reserved by the very young for the very middle-aged. “What is Coachella, then?” I said, to which they replied: “It’s where influencers go.”

This is, of course, an accurate summary of what the California music and arts festival has become in the 27 years since its inception, but that’s not why I bring it up. The festival, which is running this week, has featured Jack White, FKA Twigs and Sabrina Carpenter, but most of the publicity has gone on the audience; specifically, on the attendance of Justin Trudeau, the former prime minister of Canada, who, along with his girlfriend, Katy Perry, was photographed dancing to Justin Bieber and squatting chairless on a kerb, red plastic cups perched on their knees.

Francia Márquez, the country’s first Black vice-president, opens up about the strains in her relationship with the president and the obstacles she has faced: ‘The Colombian state is a racist state’

In the historic centre of Colombia’s capital, Bogotá, a gallery of portraits at the vice-president’s official residence displays the faces of all former vice-presidents since the country became a republic in 1886. All of them are white.

When the current president and vice-president leave office in August, the wall will include an Afro-Colombian face for the first time: Francia Márquez, 44, the first Black woman to become vice-president in a country where at least 10% of the population is Afro-descendant.

Israeli minister says pair to speak after ‘many years of total disconnect’ but reports say that Lebanese were not aware of plans first outlined by Trump

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Iran has stopped all petrochemical exports to prioritise domestic supply and prevent shortages of raw materials, Reuters reported.

The state-owned National Petrochemical Company ordered firms to suspend exports until further notice.

SNP leader and first minister launches election manifesto as party fights to remain in power at Holyrood

Swinney says this is a manifesto for the whole of Scotland.

He confirms that the SNP would argue for the Scottish power to have more control over energy policy (still largely reserved to Westminter). He says:

The problem is not that we do not have the energy. The problem is that Westminster has the power. This election is our opportunity to take those powers and put them into Scotland’s hands.

ONS figure for February suggests Britain was gaining momentum before conflict dashed hopes of recovery

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UK GDP expanded by a stronger than expected 0.5% in February, official figures show, suggesting the economy was gaining momentum before the onset of war in the Middle East dashed hopes of recovery.

The jump, reported by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), was significantly bigger than the 0.1% forecast by economists. January’s flatlining figure was also revised up, to 0.1% growth.

Ukrainian president says nearly 700 Russian drones and 19 ballistic missiles mostly targeted Kyiv, Odesa and Dnipro

Responding to Zelenskyy’s comments on sanctions (10:06), the European Commission said that “giving any relief in terms of sanctions … vis a vis Russia is not helpful in maintaining the pressure” on Moscow to end its aggression against Ukraine.

“It should be ironic that Russia is actually benefiting from the war in the Middle East,” the commission’s chief spokesperson Paula Pinho told reporters.