Weather was going to turn on us to get to the next destination so our Captain decided to leave Newport early to bit the storm. The boss drove the rental car and took the ferry while we took the yacht Pretty odd. They got in to a little adventure that w

Der groe Wetterbuddha ist mir am heutigen Tag wohlgesonnen und beschert mir zumindest keinen Regen. Ich kann also ab 8.30 Uhr im chinesischen Stil noch einmal Hangzhou erkunden. Mit meinem klapprigen Fahrrad starte ich also meine Erkundungstour rund um d

Got the wonderful suggestion from my boyfriend James that we start a travel blog together and keep a track of our trips and travels and of our expanding adventures as we get to see and learn more about our mysteriously beautiful planet. Being a bit of a

Deuxime ville en compagnie de Dan l'english Hamilton Ville qui ne valait pas plus qu'Auckland a mes yeux car beaucoup trop de gros buildings et de d'industries Malgres cela j'ai su trouver un lac qui valait le dtour mais que beaucoup de personne

Premiers FishChips neozelandais face l'ocan de Raglan C'etait aussi le soir d'une clipse totale mais comme je suis hyper doue je l'ai pas vraiment vue et je ne sais donc pas quoi a ressemble

Facebook's emotion study reveals it is hopelessly disconnected from emotional reality: that people get upset when people they care about are unhappy

• Alex Hern: The final straw for Facebook?

This weekend we learned that Facebook had deliberately manipulated the emotional content of 689,003 users' news feeds as part of an experiment to see what kind of psychological impact it would have. For one week in January 2012, some users saw chiefly positive stories (kitten videos, brownie recipes and assorted LOLs), while others were force-fed despair (breakups, health woes and seal-clubbing holiday snaps). And guess what happened?

"The results show emotional contagion," decided the scientists.

The Data Retention and Investigatory Powers bill is the most tedious outrage ever, right down to the dreary acronym. But oh, the horrors it will bring …

David Cameron cares about your safety. It's all he ever thinks about. It's his passion. He's passionate about it. Every time David Cameron thinks about how safe he'd like to keep you, passion overcomes him and he has to have a lie down. With his eyes shut. A bit like he's having a nap and doesn't care about your safety at all.

Right now he's so committed to keeping you safe, he's rushing something called the Drip bill through the House of Commons. Drip stands for Data Retention and Investigatory Powers and critics are calling it yet another erosion of civil liberties and … see, I've lost you because it's just so bloody boring. Maybe it's just me, but whenever I hear about some fresh internet privacy outrage my brain enters screensaver mode and displays that looped news footage of mumblin' Edward Snowden and I automatically nod off only to be awoken shortly afterwards by the sound of my forehead colliding sharply with the table.

Ukip has made thousands from merchandise on its online store. What could the other parties learn from it?

It can't be easy trying to fund a political movement in the current climate, when politicians are about as popular as a wasp in a submarine. You'd have more luck organising a whip-round for President Assad. That's why politicians are forced to suck up to billionaire donors, who expect them to tailor their policies accordingly, thereby further widening the gulf between parties and the public.

But wait. Not all parties are alike. The Daily Telegraph has revealed that, last year, Ukip made a whopping £80,000 from flogging branded merchandise to the public from its online store.

I decided to introduce my son to video games. We soon found one he liked … and I mean really, really liked

So I decided to introduce my two-year-old son to the world of video games. Before you accuse me of hobbling my offspring's mind, I'd like to point out that a) television is 2,000 times worse, so shove that up your Night Garden and b) I also decided to counterbalance the gaming with exposure to high culture. For every 10 minutes of Fruit Ninja during daylight hours, he'd get 10 pages of a critically acclaimed novel at bedtime. We're currently halfway through The Magus by John Fowles, which he's enjoying immensely. He finds some passages so moving that his protracted sobs drown out my reading completely, and when I return to the beginning of the chapter to start again, he leaps up screaming, trying to snatch the book out of my hands with delight.

Like any self-respecting 2014 toddler, he can swipe, pat and jab at games on a smartphone or tablet, but smartphone games aren't real games. They're interactive dumbshows designed to sedate suicidal commuters. And they're not just basic but insulting, often introducing themselves as free-to-play simply so they can extort money from you later in exchange for more levels or less terrible gameplay. Either that or they fund themselves with pop-up adverts that defile the screen like streaks on a toilet bowl.

Russia v Ukraine, Isis, Boris Johnson, Cliff Richard and Ebola – there's not much to be cheerful about right now, though the ice bucket challenge is working overtime

Ah. Right. Looks like I picked a bad week to draw inspiration from current affairs for this knockabout comedy column. The news is rarely a warehouse of carefree chuckles but at the moment it's like an apocalyptic playlist on perpetual shuffle, with one harrowing crisis overlapping another. Palestine, Libya, Syria … it's all horrifying and upsetting. Not a single nice thing has happened all year, except the recent stealth launch of Cadbury's Wispa Biscuits, and even "stealth launch of Wispa Biscuits" sounds like a terrible euphemism for breaking wind.

The planet is currently playing host to countless alarming crises. There's the nail-biting tension of Russia v Ukraine, a depressing standoff overseen by facial-expression-avoider Vladimir Putin. I don't know if all the strings connecting Putin's face muscles to his brain were accidentally severed during a tragic smiling accident years ago, but I've seen brickwork convey more emotion.

The first rule of panic mode is you don’t talk about panic mode. And this is purely for personal reasons, but I don’t want Scotland to reject us

It used to be unthinkable. Now it’s thinkable. In fact, in some minds, it’s already been thought. Scotland might be voting yes to independence and splitting from the rest of the union. I’m not Scottish, and I’m therefore powerless to intervene, although I would personally prefer Scotland to stay – but only for entirely selfish and superficial reasons. Reason one: I’d rather not be lumbered with a Tory government from now until the day the moon crashes into the Thames. Two: I quite like Scotland and the Scottish, so it’s hard not to feel somehow personally affronted by their rejection. Why did you just unfriend and unfollow me, Scotland? What did I ever do to you? What’s that? Sorry, you’ll have to slow down a bit. Can’t understand a word you’re saying. Don’t you come with subtitles?! Ha ha ha! No, seriously, come back. Scotland? Scotland?

Apparently the consequences of a split in the union could be calamitous. The skies will fall and the seas will boil and the dead shall rise and the milk will spoil. There will be a great disturbance in the force. Duncan’s horses will turn and eat each other. Starving ravens will peck out your eyes halfway through the Great British Bake Off. Your dad will give birth to a jackal full of hornets. And in London’s last remaining DVD shop, Gregory’s Girl will quietly be re-categorised as “world cinema”.

The all-new iPhones and Apple Watch can be easily avoided but there’s no escaping iOS 8

The past few weeks haven’t been great for Apple. First they were implicated in the stolen celebrity nude photo disaster, which reminded everybody how easily clouds leak. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think the iPhone is generally marketed as a diabolical timewasting device with the potential to wreak a grotesque and devastating invasion of your personal privacy. They tend to focus more on all the cool colours it comes in.

Then they launched the horrible-looking Apple Watch, which does everything an iPhone can do, but more expensively and pointlessly, and on a slightly different part of your body. Only an unhealthily devoted Apple fanatic could bear to wear a Apple Watch, and even that poor notional idiot would have to keep putting their iPhone down in order to operate the damn thing. It’ll scarcely be used for telling the time, just as the iPhone is scarcely used for making calls. It’s not a watch. It’s a gaudy wristband aimed at raising awareness of Chinese factory conditions. Or a handy visual tag that helps con artists instantly identify gullible rich idiots in a crowd.

Exaggeration is the official language of the internet. Only the most strident statements have any impact. Oversteer and oversell, all the time

The other day I was talking to a music fan who’d recently gone to see one of Kate Bush’s widely praised live appearances. Naturally I was keen to hear a first-hand account of this era-defining event, so I asked what it was like.

“The first half was great,” she said. “But the second half got a bit boring.”

It’s a stealth adventure with nowhere to hide and hundreds of respawning enemies waiting to attack you the moment you stand out in any way

I haven’t always been the kind of man who plays videogames. I used to be the kind of boy who played videogames. We’re inseparable, games and I. If you cut me, I’d bleed pixels. Or blood. Probably blood, come to think of it.

Games get a bad press compared with, say, opera – even though they’re obviously better, because no opera has ever compelled an audience member to collect a giant mushroom and jump across some clouds. Nobody writes articles in which opera-lovers are mocked as adult babies who never grew out of make-believe and sing-song; obsessive misfits who flock to weird “opening nights” wearing elaborate “tuxedo” cosplay outfits.

If the fashion industry truly cared about the future of our planet, it would issue a solitary line of unisex, one-size-fits-all smocks, then shut down for good

So then. Alongside “eating a sandwich” and “holding up a copy of a newspaper”, we now have to add “wearing a T-shirt” to the growing list of Ordinary Things Ed Miliband Somehow Just Can’t Do. The other week he was pictured in Elle magazine wearing the Fawcett Society’s “This Is What a Feminist Looks Like” T-shirt. Last Sunday the Mail claimed those T-shirts are stitched together in a Mauritian sweatshop by women earning 62p an hour.

A T-shirt. He can’t even wear a T-shirt without somehow condemning both himself and any surrounding witnesses to ridicule. What’s going to trip him up next? A doorknob? Next week he operates a doorknob so badly he fractures his wrist, and as the medics wheel him to the operating theatre, they accidentally knock an ageing war veteran off a waiting room chair, leaving him groaning in pain on the floor, at which point Miliband insists they stop his gurney so he can lean over and help the guy up, but he forgets about his fractured wrist, so as the 96-year-old decorated-war-hero-and-humbling-inspiration-to-us-all gingerly grabs his hand, Miliband abruptly screeches a barrage of agonised obscenities directly into his face, causing him to hit the floor again, fatally this time, in front of the world’s media, oh and also Miliband does a frightened little wee at the end, and they film that too.

The John Lewis and Sainsbury’s ads have kickstarted an earlier-than-ever festive season in which we’ll shop or click our way to bankruptcy chasing 15% off the top Christmas products. But beware of My Friend Cayla …

Hey, remember when Christmas used to last 12 days? Now it’s so bloated it’s virtually an epoch, lasting twice as long as the year it falls in. The early-warning signs keep changing: not so long ago the start of the holiday season was signified by the release of the Christmas edition of the Radio Times. Now it’s the annual unveiling of the John Lewis ad, which this year features a boy arranging for a trafficked overseas bird to be smuggled into the country inside a small container and presented like a gift-wrapped object to the laddish penguin mate who exists only in his troubled mind. They say psychopathic murderers often start their “careers” by doing ghastly things to animals: hopefully they’ll keep the storyline going year after year, as his illusory brain-penguin commands him to carry out increasingly hideous yuletide ceremonies, until eventually the advert consists of nothing but him appeasing the Penguin King by dancing in the moonlight wearing a necklace of ears and eyeballs, all of it seen through the sights of a police marksman positioned on the roof of a neighbour’s evacuated home.

But this year, the John Lewis ad has been overshadowed by gargantuan supermarket and noted humanitarian anti-war campaigner J Sainsbury PLC, and its tear-jerking period piece in which a perfectly good war is ruined by a tragic outbreak of football.

From flooding to Benefits Street, the rise of Ukip to the Apple Watch, the year was filled with huge, grim events. We could all use a lie-down over Christmas

So 2014’s almost done, and unless you got married, or had your firstborn, or won a Subaru filled with Maltesers in a radio phone-in, it’s unlikely to be a year you’ll remember fondly. It was filled with huge, grim events. So is every year, of course, but in 2014 it seemed there were fewer light moments to offset the enveloping dread. And everyone seemed angry, all the time. A whole planet, gritting its teeth. Hundreds protesting. Thousands marching. Millions waiting to attach their internalised rage to a hashtag at a moment’s notice. We could all use a lie-down over Christmas.

The year started badly for Britain when the sky decided to waterboard the lot of us. It rained incessantly throughout early January; big grey raindrops the size of cupboards. The government issued snorkels to anyone under 5ft 4in, while areas of Devon were submerged for so long the residents evolved gills and blowholes.

Products I’ve made up for the sheer giddy thrill of it include Total Farage Plus, which skilfully Photoshops the Ukip leader into whatever you’re looking at

This week it’s the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, an annual opportunity for tech companies to unveil their latest gizmos during January’s traditional slow news week, thereby picking up precious coverage that might otherwise be spent detailing something – anything – more important than an egg whisk with a USB port in the side.

At the time of writing, the show is yet to kick off, although some of the offerings have already been unveiled – such as “Belty”, the world’s first “smart belt”, which monitors your waistline and tells you when it’s time to lose weight, just like a mirror or a close friend might. More excitingly, it adjusts to your girth (again, like a close friend might), and will tighten or loosen itself according to your current level of blubber. No word yet on whether it’s possible to pop a Belty round your neck and order it to squeeze you into the afterlife, but there’s no reason they can’t incorporate that feature in Belty 2.0, except maybe on basic ethical, moral and humanitarian grounds.

Researchers have created a version of Mario that experiences basic emotions – now he needs a purpose that affects the real world

• It’s-a-me, Mario! And soon I’ll be playing my games without your help …

January is traditionally a fairly sleepy month, current affairs-wise, but a horrified gawp at the news confirms that 2015 has already had one heck of a morning. Clearly it takes a lot to knock a garish underage sex allegation involving Prince Andrew off the news agenda, but the Parisian terror attacks managed it, partly because the horror of it all warranted such blanket coverage, but also because the resulting conversation about freedom of speech is taking up so many column inches, there’s scarcely room to run anything else. There hasn’t been this much furious debate about the merits of a cartoon since the introduction of Scrappy Doo.

(Fun imaginary scenario: in a bid to revive their flagging ratings, ITV launch a live, feelgood Saturday night version of Celebrity Pictionary. But chaos ensues when Paddy McGuinness pulls the first card from the deck to discover it requires him to sketch the Prophet Muhammad.)

The prime minister has refused to go head-to-head with Ed Miliband – and the multi-party debate we are getting will be a 90-minute cry for help on behalf of the democratic system

Last week, Germany chose its entry for this year’s Eurovision: Heart of Stone, performed by Andreas Kümmert, former winner of the German version of The Voice (which is known as The Voice of Germany in its native country, rather than Die Stimme von Deutschland. Presumably the producers didn’t want to put viewers off by making it sound too German).

After wailing his guts out and winning the public vote, Kümmert abruptly announced, on live TV, that he didn’t actually want to “do” Eurovision after all, and awarded his “prize” to the runner-up instead. A chorus of boos broke out. German boos. Buhen.

For somebody who did less for Britain than, say, Olly Murs, we’re making a dreadful fuss of our late monarch

Who’s your favourite dead king? For me it’s a toss-up between King Henry VIII (likes: Greensleeves, beheadings) and Nat King Cole (likes: chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose). Those are definitely my top two.

Below them, there’s King Kong, King George III, Good King Wenceslas, and about 500 other assorted types of king before you get to Richard III. Never warmed to him. Don’t know why. I’ve just never really been into Richard III. Maybe it’s his Savile-esque haircut, or the fact that his name is widely used as rhyming slang for fecal matter, or just the way he’s routinely depicted as a murderous, scheming cross between Mr Punch and Quasimodo; a panto villain with nephews’ blood on his hands.

What sort of person can’t decide who to vote for, but can rate how much they like whatever they’re hearing out of five, and wants to sit there tapping a button accordingly?

As the general election scuttles closer, the campaign grows more confusing by the moment, so it’s good that last week’s seven-way leaders’ debate brought some much-needed mayhem to the situation. Not so long ago we were bemoaning the lack of choice in a two-party system. Now we’ve got option paralysis.

It had its moments. Nigel Farage complained about foreigners with HIV who enter Britain and immediately start wolfing down expensive medicine: greedy as well as sick. You’d think Farage might welcome immigrants with grave illnesses on the basis that they’re less likely to hang around as long, but apparently not. Say what you like about him – say it, write it down, daub it in 3ft-high cherry-red letters up the side of a prominent overpass on his regular commute if you must – but it’s undeniably refreshing to see a politician determined to speak his mind, indifferent to the absurd constraints of spin or basic human empathy. Never mind HIV sufferers – how much is Britain spending on refugees with cancer? Maybe he could put that statistic on a sandwich board and patrol the country in it, perhaps while ringing a bell and loudly commanding passersby to picture a nation under his command.

We’ve had the bloodletting of the Ed Wedding. Now we’ve got the full-fat Tory government that virtually no one predicted

It was supposed to be more complicated. After the vote, they said we’d have to get out the constitutional slide rule to try to work out who’d won. The Wikipedia entry on “minority government” experienced a huge spike in traffic. There were more bitter arguments about legitimacy than five seasons of Jeremy Kyle. Everyone agreed the election would herald the gravest constitutional crisis since the abdication, or that time Jade Goody slagged off Shilpa Shetty on Big Brother. Many said Ed Miliband was certain to become prime minister.

Yep. That’s what they said.

As the anthology series Black Mirror returns, its creator explains what fuels the show’s twisted tales – and tells us where we’re going wrong with technology

A sadistic version of The X Factor where contestants perform for their own freedom. An immersive experience where criminals are subjected to the same terrors they inflicted on their victims, in front of a baying audience. A grotesque cartoon demagogue using TV and social media to obtain power. No, these aren’t scenes from the first term of a Donald Trump presidency, but something only marginally less traumatising, and infinitely more likely to happen: Charlie Brooker’s techy anthology series Black Mirror, a show its creator describes as made up of “deliciously horrible ‘what if’s”.

Related: Black Mirror review – Charlie Brooker's splashy new series is still a sinister marvel

Related: Modern tribes: the Pokémon Go aficionado

The Black Mirror creator invents exciting products to transform your life – from the workout that makes you feel like a saint to the world’s cleverest toilet

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but happiness is in sharp decline. Many people blame technology for our woes, and it’s not hard to see why. The internet is nothing but deranged screeching and fascist memes sitting atop a plateau of moldering desperation masquerading as ironic meaninglessness. No one has smiled in real life since 2011. But wait! Silicon Valley is waking up to the negative effect its products can have on us, and like the good Samaritans they are, they’re unveiling a whole new range of products aimed at making us feel good about ourselves. Here is an exclusive look at just a few of the cool gizmos and rad gadgets due to be unveiled at next year’s CES Consumer Electronics Show and featured in news reports, and then in shops, and then in your house before you even know it.

Jedes Bild ein Hingucker: Hier sind die besten Fotos der vergangenen Tage.

Viele Bluetooth-Kopfhörer liefern gute Klangqualität, sagt Peter Knaak von der Stiftung Warentest. Worauf Sie beim Kauf achten sollten.

Nach der Zwangspause wollen nun viele möglichst schnell wieder fit werden. Doch Mediziner warnen davor, es beim Einstieg zu übertreiben - vor allem nach überstandener Krankheit.

Silke Weitendorf war das erste Mädchen, das in Deutschland Pippi Langstrumpf lesen durfte. Später wurde sie Astrid Lindgrens Verlegerin. Hier erzählt sie, was die Schriftstellerin und ihre berühmteste Figur gemeinsam hatten.

Annalena Baerbock und Robert Habeck warnen vor einem gesellschaftlichen Rückschritt infolge der Coronakrise. Was würden sie tun, wenn sie an der Macht wären?

Pro Tag ein Foto, und das ein ganzes Jahrzehnt lang: Der US-Amerikaner Dustin Bowen hat seine Tochter Julie seit ihrer Geburt täglich fotografiert und daraus ein Video gemacht.

Das Streamingportal Joyn versucht sich an einem Datingformat: "M.O.M - Milf oder Missy" lässt zwei Männer aus Frauen verschiedenen Alters wählen – und versumpft in faden Klischees. 

Der Kabarettist Sebastian Pufpaff tritt nun notgedrungen ohne Publikum auf. Hier spricht er über die Stille nach der Pointe - und über den Angriff auf das Team der "heute-show".

Auftritte mit spektakulären Illusionen und exotischen Tieren haben das Magierduo Siegfried & Roy weltberühmt gemacht. Nun ist Roy Horn im Alter von 75 Jahren gestorben.

Er gehörte zu den einflussreichsten Musikern in der Frühphase des Rock 'n' Roll, inspirierte die Beatles und Elvis Presley. Nun ist der US-Sänger Little Richard mit 87 Jahren gestorben.

In den Vorständen deutscher Firmen sitzen kaum Frauen - und deshalb fehle "eine Instanz für Zweifel", sagt die neue Wirtschaftsweise Monika Schnitzer. Männer unter sich einigten sich leichter auf "eine genehme Sicht der Dinge".

Erstmals hat sich das Bundesverfassungsgericht gegen den Europäischen Gerichtshof gestellt. EU-Kommissionspräsidentin Ursula von der Leyen prüft nun ein Vertragsverletzungsverfahren gegen Deutschland.

Sie hatten den europaweit härtesten Corona-Lockdown. Wie sich die erste Woche der "Phase 2" in Italien anfühlt, beschreibt unser SPIEGEL-Korrespondent vor Ort.

"Stoppt Gates", "Legt den Maulkorb ab", "Widerstand": In mehreren deutschen Städten haben Bürger gegen die Corona-Beschränkungen protestiert. Auf Abstandsregeln nahmen nicht alle Rücksicht.

An American woman goes to the police in Las Vegas. She claims she has been raped by an athlete: global football star Cristiano Ronaldo. What really happened has never been resolved because lawyers settled the case with a payment of $375,000 by the Real Madrid star. By SPIEGEL Staff

Community gardeners and other activists in Berlin are helping the Transition movement to take root in the German capital as part of its worldwide campaign for a sustainable society.

An animated reality check of the man who claims to be the greatest U.S. president ever.

British pop singer Morrissey has accused DER SPIEGEL of falsely quoting him in a recently published interview. The magazine stands behind its reporting and has made the decision to post the audio online in response.

Canadian accident investigator Larry Vance claims to have solved the mystery of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. In an interview, he explains why he believes the plane's captain deliberately ditched the aircraft.

Christine Simon-Noll is active helping refugees in Hamburg's HafenCity neighborhood. She says it is getting much tougher to find volunteers. In an interview, she outlines what needs to happen in order to ensure successful integration.

Joint activities, joint projects and improved cooperation: SPIEGEL ONLINE and SPIEGEL WISSEN are looking for the best ideas for creating a vibrant neighborhood. Send us your proposal by August 31!

Waffles for everybody, a children's hotel, a community beer garden: We have narrowed down the Social Design Award submissions to a shortlist of 10. Which one is your favorite? It's time to submit your vote for the Audience Award.

A DER SPIEGEL reporter committed large-scale journalistic fraud over several years. Internal clues and research have provided significant evidence against reporter Claas Relotius, who has since admitted to the falsifications and is no longer employed by DER SPIEGEL. Other media organizations may also have been affected.

Claas Relotius wrote many seemingly excellent feature stories for DER SPIEGEL, but unfortunately most of them apparently contain fabricated passages. We are sorry about what has happened and we are investigating with the requisite humility.

Claas Relotius, the DER SPIEGEL journalist outed this week for churning out fraudulent stories, wrote for the magazine about the U.S. town of Fergus Falls. Two locals fact-checked his reporting, and their verdict is devastating -- a perfect example of how DER SPIEGEL's editorial safeguards failed.