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

• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

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.

Sid Lowe is our Spanish football correspondent and has been covering an increasingly busy beat for years. He answered your questions on everything from the Champions League to La Liga … and lookalikes

trollercoaster asks: Why have so many Spanish clubs competing in the Champions League or European Cup been relegated? It happened with Real Betis and with Villarreal. We have seen leading Spanish clubs fall to the second division and even to lower leagues, see Deportivo.

Sid:

There are lots of elements at play here, and they are not all the same going back over time, as the structure of Spanish football has changed (collective TV deal, etc), while some clubs had their own specific issues (Depor’s success, built on money they didn’t really have, was what brought their fall, for example). The short-term reason for some teams – look at Athletic this season, for example – is that they don’t always have the resources for both competitions. There’s definitely a financial component to it. Villarreal’s relegation in 2012 was baffling but internally they had overspent – which is unlike them, a stable and financially strong club – although they did learn from that.

Look at the second division now and it is full of massive clubs (historically). Zaragoza are the really clear example … Sporting, Málaga, Depor, similar with Oviedo until last summer. Often laden with debt, often unready for the sudden fall off of income, etc …

I don’t know … I’m not sure that I feel that the people I bigged up (early) have started suffering better fates … have they? It might not have been that bad before. Or maybe it was, ha.

There’s a related issue here, actually, which is part of the daily battle … most pieces are on-demand, so to speak, (the desk asks about an issue or I suggest an issue or whatever), but on Mondays, the regular column linked to the weekend games, I more or less write what I want (over a 38-week season there might be three or four weeks when the desk suggests/wants a certain topic and I’m not totally mad: if it’s clásico weekend then very likely that will be the focus). Which is why you get Leganés or Levante.

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.

Pentagon chief said that the US is ‘reloading with more power than before’ and Iran has choice of ‘the easy way or the hard way’

• US and Iran in indirect talks to extend two-week ceasefire

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.

Scottish Retail Consortium blames rising supply chain and commodity costs as it also hits out at ‘relentless rises in statutory costs imposed by government’

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.

Retrial ordered in case of Benjamin Field, found guilty in 2019 of murdering Peter Farquhar, 69, in Buckinghamshire

A church warden who was jailed for life for the murder of a university lecturer has had his conviction quashed at the court of appeal and a retrial has been ordered.

Benjamin Field was jailed for at least 36 years in 2019 after being found guilty of murdering 69-year-old Peter Farquhar in Maids Moreton, Buckinghamshire.

Lisa Nandy says staff have been strongly affected as some express frustration that high-paid presenters and executives likely to be safe

The BBC’s sudden announcement of 2,000 job cuts has had a “very strong effect” on staff, the UK’s culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, has said, as employees expressed frustration that highly paid presenters and senior staff would not be the prime targets of the cuts.

Nandy, who has been having conversations with BBC staff during discussions about the broadcaster’s charter renewal, is understood to be keen for employees to be involved in making the cost-cutting plan, which will affect as many as 10% of the broadcaster’s 21,000 staff over the next three years.