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.

‘We were swept up in the moment and full of testosterone. The 90s wasn’t a time when men were encouraged to be sensitive’

We were hanging out with the lovely producer George Drakoulias at Abbey Road. He said, “We’re going to bring in some instruments for you guys” – and replaced the fairly low-budget ones we’d been playing. I was given this beautiful 1960s Fender Jazz bass.

Both left and right have it in for Britain’s capital. But is London a stabby wasteland, a den of faceless bureaucrats, or just a mess of overprivileged wokerati?

‘I’ve seen no evidence of Andy being anti-London,” the capital’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, told the Evening Standard last week, which is quaint and adorable: evidence is so 2009. This is all about feels. Some feel that the prime minister disfavours the capital because he frequently mentions that neoliberalism hasn’t delivered a fair deal for the north of England; tacitly, then, someone’s deal has been unfair in the other direction, and that would be the south, which must be London. Where else would Burnham mean – Hastings? The institution of No 10 North gestures audibly towards there being some problem with the OG Downing Street, and the use of the words “Whitehall” and “Westminster” as anything but geographical denominations – connoting “faceless” or “out of touch” or “rigid” or “having contempt for the ordinary person” – gives strong anti-London vibes, since Whitehall and Westminster are, indisputably, in London.

You could group all that as leftwing shorthand. For those moments when you want to describe a shallow, mammon-worshipping society, lurching blindly from one shiny, meaningless prize to the next, empty of proper feeling for others or for nature, “London” pretty well covers it.

Whether it’s budget barbecues or clever travel pillows, here are the favourites defining your summer

• Don’t get the Filter delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

July’s hitlist paints a picture of a month well spent. A barbecue and nifty wine cooler sleeve suggest alfresco evenings, while a bargain tent and cool box point to camping trips. Sensible but stylish walking shoes and a trusty water bottle also suggest time spent in the great outdoors.

All in all – despite the climate crisis-charged heatwaves and hosepipe bans – it sounds like you’re making the most of the summer. From a cooling mattress topper to a cheap-and-cheerful mascara, here are your favourite things from last month.

At last! It’s time for our invertebrate of the year competition as voted for by you. Today, the common woodlouse – come back on Tuesday to find out who else made the top 10

***

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.

Admission may undermine Farage’s account of circumstances surrounding £5m gift from crypto billionaire

• UK politics live – latest updates

Nigel Farage has admitted he held talks about the possibility of returning as Reform UK’s leader months before the 2024 general election, potentially undermining his own account of the circumstances in which he received a £5m gift from a crypto billionaire.

It was reported at the weekend that Farage had struck a deal with the party’s then leader, Richard Tice, and the convicted fraudster George Cottrell to return to frontline politics.

Juan Jesús Vivas says influx seen as ‘at least encouraged or permitted’ by Rabat, as Spain demands EU solidarity

• Explainer: why is Ceuta a migration flashpoint?

A growing chorus of voices have accused Morocco of helping to fuel the crisis in Ceuta, with the leader of the Spanish enclave describing last week’s border crossings as an attack on Spain’s territorial integrity that was seen as being “if not orchestrated, at least encouraged or permitted by Morocco”.

Spain’s interior ministry said late last week that 48,300 of the roughly 50,000 people who had turned up in Ceuta, a tiny Spanish territory in north Africa, had been sent back to Morocco. The extraordinary influx had overwhelmed the city of 84,000 and set off a political crisis across the EU as some member states laid blame on Spain.

Benjamin Lewis, who believed drinking blood would prolong life, will be kept in hospital for treatment

A man fascinated with vampires and graveyards who apparently believed he would live for ever if he drank blood has been detained in hospital after being caught dumping animal corpses outside churches in a British forest.

Benjamin Lewis, 48, left the bodies of sheep and deer on the doorsteps of churches in the New Forest in Hampshire, frightening parishioners and upsetting farmers whose livestock he stole and slaughtered.

Tributes paid across industry to provocative journalist who died after short illness

The writer and broadcaster Rod Liddle, a prominent columnist for the Sunday Times and the Sun, has died after a short illness. He was 66.

Liddle, whose provocative style attracted praise and criticism, also wrote for the Spectator magazine and earlier in his career edited BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.