5+ hour, 17+ min ago (214+ words) Separate rooms | Downsizing homes | Nigel Farage | Hong Kong fires | Idle Working Men's Club All five "homes for downsizers" (Fantasy house hunt: Homes for downsizers, 28 November) are larger and more expensive than the one I've happily inhabited for many years. And I have to ask: from what palace might one be downsizing to a three-bedroom, three-bathroom apartment in St'John's Wood, London?Anne CowperBishopston, Swansea Samuel Johnson was wrong. Patriotism isn't the last refuge of a scoundrel. It is the penultimate refuge; hiding behind the term "banter" is the last refuge of the scoundrel (Three more ex-pupils at school with Nigel Farage reject "banter' claims, 25 November). Prof Stephen FarrallSheffield Hong Kong authorities wasted no time in arresting those they hold responsible for last week's fatal fire in tower blocks. Here, eight years on, still'no arrests over Grenfell.John KendallPresteigne, Powys If we're…...

14+ hour, 27+ min ago (751+ words) Exclusive: French artist planning to cover bridge over Seine in tribute to Christo and Jeanne-Claude The enigmatic French artist JR will undertake what he says is his biggest ever challenge next year when he "wraps" Pont Neuf, the oldest standing bridge across the Seine River in Paris, in a tribute to a monumental art project by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. For three weeks next June, the 232-metre (761ft) long bridge will be wrapped in fabric, 40 years after the married artists known for their large-scale, site-specific environmental installations did the same thing. In an exclusive interview with the Guardian in his Paris studio, JR said the project " titled the Pont Neuf Cavern " was "100% the most challenging thing I've ever done". "Suddenly, I realised I could actually wrap this bridge and create a real cave in it. "You're going to see this big rock…...

3+ day, 9+ hour ago (649+ words) The late Australian artist "wanted to challenge orthodoxy in everything he did, says Sue Cramer, his wife and co-curator of a new survey of his playful, rigorous career John Nixon, the late Australian avant-garde artist, would sometimes save the shells from his boiled eggs and sprinkle them across blank paint, creating his own starry night. Other times hed set himself rules, such as painting only in orange for five years. It was 1996 and he was becoming a father, so he wanted a streamlined practice " plus, what other artist was associated with orange? These anecdotes " just two among many " reflect not only Nixons lifelong frugality, idiosyncrasies and strategies, but his steadfast blending of art into everyday life for more than 50 years. His hardline minimalism never feels stifling or overwrought, but rigorous and playful, critical yet fortuitous. "Through his life and work…...

4+ day, 4+ hour ago (659+ words) A former sailors" haunt has been reimagined by more than 40 creatives for the closing weekend of the Fremantle biennale First built about 1870 and renovated during the gold-rush era, for almost a century this building was a magnet for wharfies and crewmen, with its 31 rooms and a raucous sailors" bar known as the Cockpit. But despite being in the centre of Fremantle"s busiest street, this historical relic has largely remained empty and off limits for decades. Left: Sculptural artist Abdul Rahman Abdullah"s work, In the name, draws on his childhood when the scarcity of halal meat brought animal slaughter and butchery into his family"s suburban backyard. Right: A chandelier forms part of his work Wednesday"s Child But on 29 and 30 November, the public are invited inside for Room Service, a maze of performances and installations that forms part…...

4+ day, 4+ hour ago (659+ words) A former sailors" haunt has been reimagined by more than 40 creatives for the closing weekend of the Fremantle biennale First built about 1870 and renovated during the gold-rush era, for almost a century this building was a magnet for wharfies and crewmen, with its 31 rooms and a raucous sailors" bar known as the Cockpit. But despite being in the centre of Fremantle"s busiest street, this historical relic has largely remained empty and off limits for decades. Left: Sculptural artist Abdul Rahman Abdullah"s work, In the name, draws on his childhood when the scarcity of halal meat brought animal slaughter and butchery into his family"s suburban backyard. Right: A chandelier forms part of his work Wednesday"s Child But on 29 and 30 November, the public are invited inside for Room Service, a maze of performances and installations that forms part…...

6+ day, 15+ hour ago (580+ words) Competition-winning apartment building plans should be approved twice as quickly by NSW councils, and will be three to six storeys high Airy Scandinavian interiors, shaded balconies, light-filled courtyards " could these be Sydney's next art deco apartment blocks or red brick walk-ups? The New South Wales government has launched nine new mid-rise apartment building pattern book designs, which it hopes will support the construction of 112,000 homes in the "missing middle" over the next five years, through its controversial low and mid-rise (LMR) reforms. The designs, among the winners of the government's pattern book design competition, come after the release of eight low-rise home drawings in July. The mid-rise apartment designs unveiled on Monday range from three to six storeys, including four designs for small lots, three designs for large lots and two designs for corner lots. The cross-ventilated and energy-efficient pattern…...

6+ day, 20+ hour ago (586+ words) Competition-winning apartment building plans should be approved twice as quickly by NSW councils, and will be three to six storeys high Airy Scandinavian interiors, shaded balconies, light-filled courtyards " could these be Sydney's next art deco apartment blocks or red brick walk-ups? The New South Wales government has launched nine new architect-designed mid-rise apartment building pattern book designs, which it hopes will support the delivery of 112,000 homes in the "missing middle" over the next five years, through its controversial low and mid-rise (Lmr) reforms. The designs, among the winners of the government's pattern book design competition, follow the release of eight low-rise home drawings in July. The mid-rise apartment designs unveiled on Monday range from three to six storeys, including four designs for small lots, three designs for large lots and two designs for corner lots. The cross-ventilated and energy-efficient pattern…...

1+ week, 2+ day ago (367+ words) He may now live in Germany, but he loves returning to Britain, not just to put on a show, but to enjoy the weather, the food, the humour " and the selfie-takers in galleries The perhaps unlikely answer is that you welcome the selfie-taker with outstretched arms, or at least give a convincing impression of doing so. "No, I don't have problem with that," says Cragg, albeit faintly, as if he's thinking about the people who might be crossing the threshold of his latest show, which just opened in London. "People are bound to respond in different ways." Although he didn't see eye to eye with his father about sculpture, Cragg considers it a waste of time to make busts of the famous, or the likeness of a horse. "For me, representing exactly what's in front of you is a senseless…...

2+ week, 4+ day ago (583+ words) It could be more probing, but this wild documentary about the Cro-Mags founder is an eye-opening account of a life on the edge He looks like a human pit bull, says a friend. You don't have to be a fan of early hardcore punk to enjoy this documentary about the incredible life of Harley Flanagan, founder, bassist and vocalist of the New York band Cro-Mags. By the age of 13, Flanagan was the drummer in the Stimulators, playing with Madness and the Cramps. He was punk's Artful Dodger, with a bit of Animal from the Muppets thrown in; hammering away behind the drums, bare chested, with a mop of hair. As another talking head puts it: punk didn't shape him, he shaped punk.Flanagan was born in 1967 to a drug-addict mother (he was that baby on a dirty mattress on the…...

2+ week, 6+ day ago (270+ words) Prince's Purple Rain guitar was in the corner of the studio and his lava lamps were everywhere. You couldn't help but be inspired' We did She Drives Me Crazy with David Z in Prince's studio in Paisley Park, at which point we changed the title from She's My Baby. I'd never sung falsetto before, but we were labelmates with Jimmy Somerville so he might have been an influence on the way I sing it. The way I elongate some of the words " "I can't help mysel-el-elf" and so on " isn't proper language but rules are there to be broken. She Drives Me Crazy went Top 5 in the UK and was the first of our two US No 1s, but it was bittersweet for me. When it was a hit I was reading Money by Martin Amis and my girlfriend chucked me,…...