As Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights gets a boost from a new film adaptation, we survey the surprising, seditious and sensual ways in which prose has influenced pop

The oeuvre of Katy Perry occasionally has some profoundly unexpected inspirations: California Gurls is spelt in homage to Big Star’s September Gurls, while Firework was based on, wait for it, Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, specifically the line about how his favourite people “burn like fabulous yellow roman candles”.

To help combat the impact of screen-time creep, the Countdown word supremo has a few suggestions

• Children’s vocabulary shrinking as reading loses out to screen time, says Susie Dent

Children’s vocabulary is shrinking as reading loses out to screen time, the Countdown lexicographer Susie Dent has suggested, as she urged families to read, talk and play word games to boost language development.

Dent, who also co-presents Channel 4’s Secret Genius with Alan Carr, is fronting a new campaign – working with an unexpected partner, Soreen malt loaf – aimed at boosting children’s vocabulary at snack time.

Reading.

Listening to audiobooks.

Sharing word stories and routinely going to the dictionary to find out where words come from.

Playing word games and puzzles, in print, online, with board games, or in the car.

Having conversations while doing active tasks with your child such as cooking or walking.

Asking your child to invent a new word, or to share the latest slang in their class.

Learn another language.

kerfuffle One of Soreen’s choices, kerfuffle is from Scots that describes a commotion or fuss. Children love it because of its sound, but it also adds a touch of humour to an otherwise tricky situation.

mellifluous Not only does this word have a pleasing sound, fulfilling the very quality it describes, but its etymology is also gorgeous – mellifluous comes from the Latin for flowing like honey.

thrill I chose this one because of its secret life. Something thrilling today is always positive, but in its earliest incarnation, to thrill meant to pierce someone with a sword rather than with excitement. The literal meaning of thrill was a hole, which is why our nostrils began as our nose-thrills, or nose holes.

apricity This is one of the many words in the Oxford English Dictionary that were recorded only once before fading away like a linguistic mayfly. Apricity, from 1623, means the warmth of the sun on a winter’s day. The word is as beautiful as the sensation it describes.

susurrus Say this word out loud and you will know its meaning instantly. Susurrus comes from the Latin for whispering and describes the rustling of leaves in a summer breeze.

bags of mystery This Victorian nickname for sausages always makes me smile. It was inspired by the fact that you can never quite know what’s in them.

snerdle English has a vast lexicon for snuggling, from nuddling, neezling and snoozling to snuggening, croodling and snerdling. Each of them expresses the act of lying quietly beneath the covers. Mind you, if you lie there a little bit too long, you could be accused of hurkle-durkling, old Scots for staying in bed long after it’s time to get up.

splendiferous Another of Soreen’s picks, this word has a distinct touch of Mary Poppins about it. In the middle ages it meant simply resplendent, but since the 19th century it has been a humorous description of anything considered rather magnificent.

ruthful The historical dictionary is full of lost positives – words whose negative siblings are alive and well while their parents have faded away. As well as being gormless, inept, unkempt, uncouth and disconsolate, you could in the past be full of gorm, ept, kempt, couth, and consolate. Best of all is surely ruthful, the counterpart to ruthless which means full of compassion.

muscle Another word with a hidden backstory, and this one often makes children laugh. In ancient times, athletes would exercise in the buff in order to show off their rippling muscles (the words gym and gymnasium go back to the Greek for exercise naked). To the Roman imagination, when an athlete flexed their biceps, it looked as though a little mouse was scuttling beneath their skin. Our word muscle consequently comes from the Latin musculus, little mouse.

After a week when it seemed all but over for Keir Starmer, John, Pippa and Kiran unpack how the prime minister survived – and what it means for Labour in the long run

Everything you need to know about buying ski gear: our fashion expert’s top budget brands for goggles, gloves, salopettes and jackets

• How to dress in cold weather

Skiing is expensive. From your lift pass to your equipment hire, transfers, travel and accommodation, it’s not a particularly accessible sport. Luckily, there are ways to curb your spending if you’re heading to the slopes – one of which is your choice of ski gear.

There are several reasonably priced brands that provide quality for a fraction of the price of luxury labels. Sure, you won’t be buying the most technologically advanced gear – if you’re a seasoned skier tackling extreme weather off piste, a high-street jacket probably won’t cut it – but if you’re a touch more fairweather, like me, these products will do the job just fine. And some brands offer a high spec for a relatively reasonable price, too – the North Face and Tog24 always put performance first, for example.

From Yoko Ono to Frida Kahlo, from Louise Bourgeois to Artemisia Gentileschi, women have long been capturing the unvarnished truth about their own bodies – and that’s why my novel Female, Nude weaves them into the plot

‘If you want to paint, put your clothes back on!” That was how Carolee Schneemann summarised the critical response to her 1975 performance piece Interior Scroll, which she had performed nude standing on a gallery table. After making a series of life model poses, she removed a scroll from her vagina and began to read her manifesto. In doing so, Schneemann asked an important question: “What does it mean for a female artist to be both the artist and the life model?” Or as she put it: “Both image and image-maker?”

The female nude, as depicted and objectified by the male artist, has dominated western art for centuries. Despite decades of feminist efforts, that interaction between the great male genius and his female model – sometimes muse – remains a subject of perennial fascination. To enter a gallery, or to open a university textbook, is to be confronted with a parade of idealised naked females by male artists from Rubens, Titian and Botticelli to Picasso and De Kooning.

Capitalism cares about our species’ prospects as much as a wolf cares about a lamb’s. But democratise our economy and a better world is within our grasp

We have an urgent responsibility. Our existing economic system is incapable of addressing the social and ecological crises we face in the 21st century. When we look around we see an extraordinary paradox. On the one hand, we have access to remarkable new technologies and a collective capacity to produce more food, more stuff than we need or that the planet can afford. Yet at the same time, millions of people suffer in conditions of severe deprivation.

What explains this paradox? Capitalism. By capitalism we do not mean markets, trade and entrepreneurship, which have been around for thousands of years before the rise of capitalism. By capitalism we mean something very odd and very specific: an economic system that boils down to a dictatorship run by the tiny minority who control capital – the big banks, the major corporations and the 1% who own the majority of investible assets. Even if we live in a democracy and have a choice in our political system, our choices never seem to change the economic system. Capitalists are the ones who determine what to produce, how to use our labour and who gets to benefit. The rest of us – the people who are actually doing the production – do not get a say.

Vincent Chan admitted a series of crimes against young girls in his care as well as women over nearly two decades

A paedophile former nursery worker has been jailed for 18 years at Wood Green crown court for the “wicked” sexual abuse of young children.

Vincent Chan abused young children in his care – engaging in physical sexual abuse, taking obscene photos of them and creating others using software – as well as taking obscene images of himself in a classroom. He also set up cameras to watch women changing or going to the toilet, and sexually assaulted a woman while she was asleep.

• FA assessing whether he brought game into disrepute

• Manchester United co-owner told by Starmer to apologise

The Football Association will look at whether Jim Ratcliffe brought the game into disrepute through his claims that the UK has been “colonised” by immigrants.

The Manchester United co-owner, a billionaire based in Monaco, caused widespread anger with his comments and has been called on by Keir Starmer to apologise. His remarks have not gone unnoticed within the FA, which will examine further before deciding whether he has broken any rules.

Florida judge rejects BBC move to put off disclosing internal documents relating to spliced version of 2021 speech

President Trump’s multibillion dollar lawsuit against the BBC over the editing of one of his speeches has been set for a year’s time.

In a blow to the corporation, the Florida judge has also rejected the BBC’s attempt to put off disclosing internal documents relating to the episode of Panorama that contained the spliced version of Trump’s 2021 address.

Information appears to contradict court testimony by banker in 2025 over nature of ties to convicted sex offender

The former Barclays boss Jes Staley was named as a trustee of Jeffrey Epstein’s estate until at least May 2015, according to documents that appear to contradict court testimony given by the banker.

This month the Guardian revealed that US prosecutors had reviewed allegations of rape and bodily harm against Staley, who denies any wrongdoing. He has never been charged with a crime related to the allegations.