From the 47-year-old runner who needs a double hip replacement to the 27-year-old CrossFitter with a ruptured ACL, those who push their bodies too hard often regret it. What are the lessons for the rest of us?

Jonathan Price has always been active and exercise-focused. Growing up in south Wales, rugby was his first love. Through school, university and beyond, he also surfed, rowed, played squash and ran competitively – on track, in 10k races and cross-country. Career and family demands meant that much of this fell away in later years, but the running stuck. He found time for marathons, half marathons – “I’d run a half marathon every weekend just for fun,” he says – and, through the working week, regular 30- or 40-minute runs to manage stress and clear his head. “I travel a lot for work,” says Price, now 50, a company CEO. “With running, all you need is a pair of running shoes and you can do it anywhere.”

By his mid-40s, though, Price’s body was beginning to object. He wasn’t recovering so well. “I could run just fine but I’d be in pain for two or three days afterwards,” he says. On top of this, every six months or so, his lower back seemed to seize up completely. A physiotherapist thought it was “tight hip flexors” and pointed Price towards “hip opening” exercises, designed to reduce stiffness and increase range of motion. Someone else prescribed him muscle relaxants, but the pain only deepened, and his range of movement continued to dip. Finally, in the summer of 2023, a chance encounter with a hip surgeon led to the diagnosis of osteoarthritis and, at the end of that year, Price, then 47, had a double hip replacement.

It took a heatwave to get me to shed my shame and my sleeves, but now there’s no stopping me. Life is cooler in every way

‘Aren’t you hot in that?” was the question that plagued my summers as a teenager. I would never bare my arms; instead, I would cover up with a trusty black cardigan. Even T-shirts felt too revealing, too tight on the arm, too clinging to the body. I needed layers to feel comfortable. Well, comfortable isn’t the right word. I was never comfortable, despite telling everyone: “No, I’m not hot. I don’t really feel the heat.”

In my 20s and 30s, I collected a hot-weather capsule wardrobe of T-shirt dresses in various sizes, all baggy and sleeved. But why? I’m someone who should know better. I’ve read the books, I’ve shared the memes. I know, from body-positivity activists, that you don’t have to deny yourself the joy of being at the beach or pool just because a magazine tells you you have to get yourself “beach-body ready”: slimmer, hairless, perfect.

The new film extols the value of a rules-based world order. That’s far more radical than any casting decision

• Peter Swallow is Labour MP for Bracknell, and the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on classics. Before his election, he was a classics teacher and academic

For years, a small but vocal corner of the extremely online right has looked to the ancient world to justify its polluted brand of politics. The classicist Donna Zuckerberg (sister of Facebook founder Mark) wrote a book about it way back in 2018 called Not All Dead White Men – a deep dive into the corners of the internet where misogynists pretend ancient philosophy can justify their hatred of minorities.

You would think that these self-appointed guardians of the ancient world would be excited about a blockbuster retelling one of its greatest pieces of literature, the Odyssey. Especially when Christopher Nolan’s film has been getting rave reviews, “the vast majority … written by men”, as the Guardian’s Catherine Shoard has pointed out. The Odyssey is an action-packed thriller with a fight scene every five seconds. In many ways (and I don’t mean this as a criticism of Nolan; I loved the film for all its flaws), it’s a movie designed to appeal to their tastes. And yet.

Peter Swallow is Labour MP for Bracknell, and the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on classics. Before his election, he was a classics teacher and academic

Three decades after he channelled his heroin addiction into the cult classic Trainspotting, the Scottish author has discovered the joys of yoga, breathwork and standing desks. But is he quite as ‘Zen’ as he claims?

By rights, Irvine Welsh ought to be photographed somewhere gritty, looking grumpy, he says: “That’s the brand.” Beside a graffitied wall or at the docks, with a beanie pulled low, and definitely not smiling. But here he is, clear-skinned and wholesome in shorts and a T-shirt, drinking tea and – it’s hard to think of anything more off-brand – talking about the health benefits of yoga. Given his reputation for having lived in the worlds his books portray, he should or could look a lot worse. He guffaws at this, eyes a delighted blue, and repeats the phrase as if he’s found a new personal tagline: “Could look a lot worse!”

Over the three decades since his cult debut, Trainspotting, was published in 1993, Welsh’s fiction has explored with humour the darker side of life. Drugs, clubs, alcohol, violence … often alongside psychological or social deprivation. Despite being 17 novels and four short-story collections into his career, selling more than 6m books globally, he remains best known for his first. It achieved, he says, “what most writers want to achieve in a lifetime – the big zeitgeist book that goes into the culture”.

Canadian stuntwoman is only 4ft 6in and stood in for star to make the giant Laestrygonians appear even bigger

A 35-year-old stuntwoman is one of the great unsung heroes of Christopher Nolan’s new blockbuster The Odyssey – standing in for Matt Damon and displaying what the actor called “the greatest arms I’ve ever seen”.

Canadian Devyn Dalton was the Hollywood star’s stunt double in a pivotal scene in the film where Odysseus (Damon) and his men are confronted by the Laestrygonians, giant armoured cannibals.

It has 12 movements, 200 musicians and aims to unite America. The great US trumpeter and composer talks about his All Rise symphony, his jazz great mentors – and learning humility from his wife

At Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh, Wynton Marsalis is hard to spot. When he first played this venue, in 1984, he was the prodigious 22-year-old soloist out front, blowing Haydn’s trumpet concerto under the baton of Lorin Maazel. Tonight he is embedded in the machinery: half-hidden behind ranks of strings and woodwind, a black-suited figure in the heart of his own symphony.

It’s a strange way for a composer to behave – especially one whose public persona has long been associated with certainty, polemic and the upright authority of a man who can make any argument sound like a moral law. Yet Marsalis seems almost pleased by his disappearance. “It’s my piece,” he says, as we talk in his hotel room the next morning, “but it’s not my show.”

Party’s deputy leader accused of a possible failure to declare an interest, commissioner says ⁠on ​its website

• UK politics live – latest updates

Britain’s ⁠parliamentary ⁠standards watchdog is ​investigating ⁠Reform UK’s ⁠deputy ​leader, ‌Richard ‌Tice, over ‌a possible failure to declare ‌an interest, ​the commissioner said ⁠on ​its website ​on ​Monday.

The watchdog did not provide details of the allegation under investigation, aside from ⁠saying it was opened on 28 July and will be conducted by the parliamentary commissioner for standards, Daniel ⁠Greenberg.

Explosives used to move a large rock and let more water flow to cool nuclear power plant

Meanwhile, we have an update from Greece, as hundreds of Greek firefighters battle a wildfire northwest of Athens for a fourth day after blazes fanned ⁠by strong winds gutted ⁠homes, thousands of hectares ​of farmland and pine forests, and forced emergency evacuations by land and sea, Reuters reported.

Strong firefighting forces assisted by water tanks and 21 aircraft were deployed near the communities of Kandili ​and Agia Skepi early on Monday as plumes of ‌thick black smoke and red flames ‌engulfed lush pine forests, Reuters images showed.

• FAW says Fifa president has lost its confidence

• Pressure continues to build after doomed World Cup plan

The Football Association will formally withdraw its support for Gianni Infantino’s re-election as the Fifa president, adding to the mounting pressure on his crisis-hit tenure. In a significant development, the FA will write to Fifa confirming it no longer backs Infantino for a fourth term in charge, having previously offered its endorsement. Their move comes after the Welsh FA dropped its backing for Infantino’s candidature.

More European countries are expected to follow suit in an attempt to force his resignation. The Football Association of Finland became the first country to withdraw its support last week.

Iranian spokesperson says there are no plans to receive or send a delegation following US president’s assertion that talks would take place on Monday

• Trump says Iran talks set for Monday

Michel Issa, the US ambassador to Lebanon, said on Monday that he was “encouraged” that the US-brokered peace talks between Israel and Lebanon are ongoing in Rome.

“A great deal of technical work remains to ensure civilian safety on the ground. There is a meaningful difference between drafting an agreement on paper and implementing it responsibly — moving too quickly risks jeopardizing the very civilians this process is meant to protect,” Issa said in a statement.