Show up, speak up … and just be nice. Here is one anonymous server’s advice for a happy meal

Hospitality is in a right state at the moment, what with the seemingly never-ending shitshow of rising rents and rates, extortionate VAT, higher staffing, produce and utility costs, and all those other well-documented socioeconomic pressures (don’t mention the Bre*it word, please). So the last thing those of us who work in this beleaguered industry need right now is to be kicked in the proverbials by the very people we rely on perhaps more than anyone. And, yes, by that I mean you, our lovely customers. So here is some advice on how to avoid infuriating your serving staff.

Turn up …
Pre-Covid, most restaurants didn’t have the balls to take card details or charge for late cancellations and no-shows, but that’s all changed now (thank God). If you buy a ticket to the football or a gig, say, you’ll be out of pocket if you can’t be arsed to turn up. Why should restaurants be any different? What’s more, even if we have charged you a cancellation fee, remember that we’ve still lost out on drink sales and service charge.

As told to Bob Granleese

Undercover reporter gets a taste of the sprawling fraud industry in which cryptocurrencies play a crucial role

• Five firms including Autotrader and Just Eat investigated over fake review failings

The holiday flat near(ish) the Roman ruins of Pompeii was “disgusting”, and smelled of “a mix of dampness and sewage”, according to one reviewer on Google Maps. I never visited, but I gave it five stars.

I did the same for a DoubleTree by Hilton hotel across the River Thames, an Ibis budget hotel in east London that is part of the Accor group, a central Travelodge and the nearby Hyatt Place – some of the best-known hotel brands in the world. Scattered in there were requests for reviews for hostels and B&Bs in Genova, Naples, Maastricht, Krakow and Brussels. For a few days I had a new job: writing fake reviews on Google Maps in exchange for cryptocurrency.

In Mexico and Spain, leaders who have capped public costs have been rewarded at the ballot box. As another cost of living surge arrives, it may be a policy our leaders are unable to resist

Politicians are not supposed to meddle with prices. Even though much of politics is about whether voters can afford things – especially in an era of recurring inflationary shocks – ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union’s planned economy four decades ago, the orthodoxy across much of the world has been that only markets should decide what things cost.

As the hugely influential Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek argued, in a complex modern society, information is too dispersed among potential sellers and buyers of goods or services for government to make informed and correct decisions about the prices of those goods. Hence, his disciples say, the inefficiency of state-run economies, from post-colonial Africa to the eastern bloc.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

Lots of us aren’t very keen on bats. But the more we find out about them, the more amazing they turn out to be

Bats have a bad rep: in a recent survey by the Bat Conservation Trust (BCT), 46% of people expressed negative feelings about bats. But just look at them! Bat carer Liz Vinson, a volunteer with the BCT, calls them “little furry humans with huge jazz hands. They have individual characters: some are divas; some are bone idle.”

Shirley Thompson, BCT’s honorary education officer, has been championing bats since the 1980s. “I still think they’re magic,” she says. “The more you find out about them, the more you realise what amazing creatures they are.”

Show draws almost entirely from collection of Lancashire schoolteacher Peter Smithson, a fan since he was 10

Peter Smithson’s wife, Belise, has never minded when he receives a corset from Japan or a pair of fur-trimmed knickers and they are not for her.

“No, she’s never seen it as strange,” said Smithson, a chemistry teacher and Vivienne Westwood supercollector. “She has never judged it. She gets it. She knows it is part and parcel of who I am.”

With two unprecedented trial defeats, big tech firms face crisis akin to that faced by cigarette makers in the 1990s

In the span of just two days, the most powerful social media company in the world faced a more severe public reckoning than it has in years.

Jurors in California and New Mexico gave back-to-back verdicts this week that for the first time ever found Meta liable for products that inflict harm on young people. For years, lawmakers, parents and advocates have raised red flags over how social media can hurt children, but now the tech firms are being held to account via court rulings that could set long-lasting precedents.

Israel Katz says his country will step up its attacks and Iran will pay a ‘heavy price’

More now on India slashing taxes on diesel and petrol amid the global disruption in energy supplies: finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the move would “provide protection to consumers from rise in prices”.

The country is one of the world’s largest crude oil importers and relies on foreign suppliers for more than 85% of its oil needs, with Russia being the biggest supplier.

Narjis, one of 121 children killed in Lebanon this month, wanted to be a doctor and ‘was like a blossom’, her mother says

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Rania Jaber told her husband that if God blessed them with a daughter, she would be named Narjis, Arabic for daffodil. After having twin boys, Jaber wanted a little girl she could dress up.

Jaber got her girl and made good on her promise: Narjis was born in 2020. Her mother was delighted to find that just like her namesake flower, her daughter’s hair was light. Narjis seemed “wise beyond her years”, Jaber said, recalling how her daughter would comfort her whenever she would cry.

Yousef Pezeshkian’s daily social media posts reveal no state secrets, but expose questions dominating Iranian society

An Iranian keeping a diary expressing his doubts about the war’s outcome, even shedding a tear over its impact on his grandmother, might not seem extraordinary but for the fact the diarist is the son of the president.

Apart from fierce loyalty to his father, Masoud Pezeshkian, the former heart surgeon elected to the presidency in 2024 who he says he has not seen since the war started, Yousef Pezeshkian’s daily reflections on social media chart how the war effort is going, its impact on ordinary Iranians and how he believes the fight could be made more effective.

Former talent agency boss had closer relationship with sex offender than thought, and supported him after 2009 arrest

A female executive at the top of the modelling industry had a close friendship with Jeffrey Epstein and introduced him to women on the agency’s books, a Guardian investigation has found.

Until last November, Faith Kates ran Next Management modelling and talent agency, which has represented the likes of Alexa Chung, Milla Jovovich and Billie Eilish, a position she held for decades as the founder of the business. She stepped down quietly just weeks before the first major Epstein files were released, saying she intended to focus on charity work.

18 July 2009 10.18am

I am and will always be your friend...Unconditionally...will always be there for you.

5 September 2009 7.47pm

Thinking of you a lot and hoping you are finally enjoying some please [sic] and quiet..know you are always in my thoughts and prayers. You are a good friend my dear friend..

5 September 2009 7.54pm

thanks,, lets get back to work.