He taught maths and walked across Europe, trying to leave his demons behind. As he goes back on tour aged 83, the folk-pop legend explains how he came back to singing

As Art Garfunkel is keen to point out, “I am a singer – there, use that as the title of your article” – but he was never just a singer. “I’ve been an actor. I am a writer,” he continues. “I’ve walked across countries, taken freighters across oceans. I’ve read the dictionary. I’ve read two books a month for 60 years: Darwin, Herodotus, Balzac, Proust, Tolstoy. I’ve taught maths. I have two great kids and I’m a grandfather, but it always does seem to come back to the singing.”

Which is understandable, given that in Simon and Garfunkel (with songwriter Paul Simon) he sold more albums than any other pop duo in history. Garfunkel’s oft-called “angelic” tones powered classic chart-toppers including The Sound of Silence and Bridge Over Troubled Water, and he became a successful solo artist. However, until a year ago, he was hardly singing at all and hadn’t toured since 2019. “I found myself lying on a pillow in a dream state, thinking about the meaning of being alive,” he reveals. “What is my day? What am I supposed to do with myself?”

There’d been no morning sickness, cravings or tiredness. My mum didn’t believe I’d had a baby – even after seeing her on FaceTime

When I was 19, I went to college in Texas, where I met my ­boyfriend Preston. It was 2023 and I had big plans. After ­finishing my degree in criminal justice, I wanted to go to law school. I wasn’t in a rush to get married or have kids. My mum had drilled into me a fear of getting pregnant at a young age. I was on the pill and careful with contraception.

In May 2025, I took a trip to London, returning to campus in August after the summer holidays. I noticed I was slowly gaining weight; by January this year I’d gained 10lb. I put it down to my late-night snacking and lack of exercise.

Abandoned by the company they worked for, let down by Labour and their unions – now they watch their friends turn to Reform for answers

After everything, why would anyone still back Nigel Farage? In some of the comments below my piece last week about Reform UK, I spot the usual answers: Farage’s supporters are dim, racist, deplorable. Yet away from Westminster and the news cycle, Reform voters are being manufactured – not with headlines or crypto funds but through the failure of institutions they once trusted to protect them. To see what I mean, leave SW1 and go 40 miles up the road, to Luton.

In a deserted hotel bar, five men are reminiscing about how their world ended. Their minds are on a Friday afternoon in March last year, as the place where they had worked for two or three decades apiece, making friends and even meeting future wives, is about to shut for good.

As polls point to victory in Saxony-Anhalt for AfD party promising deportations, people face agonising choice: stay or go

As the Bible study session wrapped up, leaving worshippers to mingle over cake and coffee, Fatemeh, 44, fought back tears as the conversation turned to Sunday’s state election in Saxony-Anhalt.

“I worry about it every day,” she said. “I can’t stop thinking about my son and what might happen to us.”

Fatemeh worries about what might happen after the elections. Photograph: Christian Jungeblodt/The Guardian

Sell-off raises concerns of higher borrowing costs for households. Here’s what it could mean

The bond market sell-off has sparked fresh fears of higher borrowing costs for UK households. We look at what the turmoil in financial markets could mean for your mortgage, pension and savings.

British Museum, London
The greatest battle ever depicted in art is here at last – and it hurtles along, making your heart pound with its sense of doom and destiny, culminating in fires and corpses on a battlefield full of pathos

It should not work. It should not even exist. Nothing about the Bayeux tapestry makes sense according to any norms of art: its creators couldn’t do proper portraits or pictorial depth or landscapes or any of the sophisticated things we associate with timeless masterpieces. When they depict a church, they have to write what it is: Ecclesia. But these artists – or who knows, perhaps she was a single artist – created something so stupefying and delightful, so abundant in visual thrills, horrors and humour, it beats almost everything else ever painted or carved – let alone embroidered on a strip of linen.

And now here it is, in front of my eyes, close enough to touch if it wasn’t behind a glass screen of such high quality you never catch a reflection. The British Museum’s display of this wonder is perfect. It’s laid out in its case, the length of a gallery, which you reach after some archaeological foreplay involving armour, quotes from chronicles and info screens. Then you see the colours of the tapestry below you from a parapet – russets, greens, yellows – after which you simply start at the beginning and follow the story rightwards. Surrounded by darkness and picked out by finely adjusted lighting, the Bayeux tapestry shines. My only quibble is the ethereal soundtrack – shouldn’t there be drums, oliphants, troubadours?

James Orr and Dan Jukes, aides to Nigel Farage, stepped down after an investigation by Channel 4

Nigel Farage has been speaking about the undercover donations investigaton. He says the party has “broken no laws” and has not “taken any dodgy money”.

In a separate interview, on Times Radio, Lee Anderson, the Reform UK chief whip and party chair, insisted there was no chance of Nigel Farage resigning over the undercover investigation into party donations.

I don’t think Nigel has got any questions on this. The two people involved, they have gone. They have left the building. I keep saying this time and time again. They have gone. That is the right thing to do. They are not coming back and Nigel is going nowhere …

Nigel is an honest man. I have known him for many years now. The party has done the right thing by launching this investigation. Nigel will be on the main stage later on explaining our first 100 days in government. He is not going anywhere. The country needs him.

Energy secretary could recommend new North Sea drilling next week, as ministers also consider approval for Rosebank oilfield

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Ministers are poised to approve a controversial new gasfield in the North Sea this month, according to government sources, and are considering approving a major oilfield later this year.

Miatta Fahnbulleh, the energy secretary, will give her recommendation to approve the Jackdaw field off the coast of Aberdeen as soon as next week, according to people close to the decision, and the formal approval could follow a week after.

Exclusive: As millions of people face hosepipe bans, many companies are not required to report, let alone cut, use of public supply

Less than 1% of businesses in England use more water than the daily needs of 10 million people, as millions of households face hosepipe bans and three-quarters of the country is in drought.

Businesses across England use 2.6bn litres a day from the public water supply, which includes potable and non-potable water provided by water companies. In total, businesses account for about 30% of public supply use, with two-thirds of their consumption in water-stressed areas, according to Mosl, the organisation that operates England’s business water market.

President cites Donald Trump’s suggestion that he might reconsider US support for British sovereignty, and threatens swifter sanctions on British oil interests

President Javier Milei has said “winds of change favourable” to Argentina’s claim to the Falkland Islands were “blowing around the world” in a televised address, citing signs that Donald Trump might reconsider the US position on the islands’ sovereignty.

“Recently, President Trump declared that the US is re-evaluating its historic position in relation to the Malvinas,” he said, using the Argentinian name for the islands.