From a cranberry katsu curry to a dozen thickly glazed doughnuts, the biggest chains are getting Christmassy. I found out which seasonal meals will leave you carolling and carousing – and which will leave you cold

By now, most major fast food outlets will have launched their festive special. There is no established framework for what “festive” means, and no recognised metrics of Christmassyness. It could be indicated by a lurid green/angry red colour in a place you’re not expecting it (McDonald’s Grumble Pie, I’m looking at you); or an existing thing, made into a more seasonal shape, or the introduction of a quintessential Christmas ingredient, such as a brussels sprout (though seriously, food giants, get over yourself if you think it’s cinnamon – this is an autumn spice).

I am not here to critique the essentials of fast food (I love it). If you want someone who will come over like the critic in Ratatouille, you’re just going to have to go and rewatch Ratatouille. I am merely here to eat six festive specials, and ask myself: do I feel Christmassy, punk?

Even Steve Smith struggles under lights and selection of Will Jacks is the right approach by the tourists

There has been a lot of discussion over the past week about day-night Tests, how to approach them and whether they produce quality cricket. Stuart Broad described them as a lottery but Australia’s outstanding record would suggest that actually the best team normally prevails, and skill should win the day. The question for England is whether they have it in them to dominate in relatively unfamiliar conditions, to win key battles at key moments and to take control.

I remember the day-night Test in Adelaide in 2017, when I was with the England team as batting coach. I personally enjoyed the spectacle and felt it was a good challenge for the players. We lost that match despite going into it having played four first-class games and the first Test in Brisbane, so we had a volume of cricket under our belt. A pink-ball Test was something new, but the players all felt they were up to speed in terms of match cricket. This England side are nowhere near, and that is a concern. You need what I call your match-head on, and that only comes from playing matches. I’m firmly of the view that you can have all the nets sessions you want, but it’s not the same – when you play a loose drive in the nets there is no consequence, a lack of precision goes unpunished. In a match you have to walk off.

It contains enough steel to go round the world twice – and even has a fake breeze to flutter the stars-and-stripes flag in its lobby. If this colossus is just the first of a new breed of bulky supertalls, is Britain next?

Among the slender needles and elegant spires of the Manhattan skyline, a mountainous lump has reared into view. It galumphs its way up above the others, climbing in bulky steps with the look of several towers strapped together, forming a dark, looming mass. From some angles it forms the silhouette of a hulking bar chart. From others, it glowers like a coffin, ready to swallow the dainty Chrysler building that trembles in its shadow. It is New York’s final boss, a brawny, bronzed behemoth that now lords it over the city with a brutish swagger.

Fittingly, this is the new global headquarters of JP Morgan, the world’s biggest bank. The firm enjoys a market capitalisation of $855bn (£645bn), more than Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup’s combined, and it looks as if it might have swallowed all three inside its tinted glass envelope. Last year, for the first time, it made more than $1bn a week in profits. Chairman and chief executive Jamie Dimon likes to boast of its “fortress balance sheet”, and he now has an actual fortress to go with it – built at a cost, he revealed at the opening, of around $4bn. He has certainly made his mark. It would be hard to design a more menacing building if you tried.

From the trauma and triumphs of Olympic cyclist Bradley Wiggins to the secret life of a match fixer

The Chain
Bradley Wiggins, (HarperCollins)
The Tour de France winner’s autobiography begins with him sneaking into his walk-in wardrobe and doing a line of coke off his Olympic gold medal: the final emblematic descent from his crowning summer of 2012. And yet for all the personal lows chronicled here – addiction, self-harm, the collapse of his marriage, the haunting memories of his difficult father and of a coach who sexually abused him – this is not your classic misery memoir. Disarmingly honest and roguishly humorous, it is a journey of rediscovery: a man knocked sideways by the toxic winds of sport and celebrity, finally learning to stand straight again.

The Escape: The Tour, the Cyclist and Me
Pippa York and David Walsh (Mudlark)
In a previous life Robert Millar was one of this country’s greatest cyclists: a stern Glaswegian who won the King of the Mountains jersey at the 1984 Tour de France. Now known as Pippa York, she returns to the race in the company of the journalist David Walsh. It’s a freewheeling, fascinating read that defies genre: part travelogue and part memoir, it dances between present and past, sporting observation and self-reflection, drugs that help you cheat and drugs that help you live. And for all the pain and anguish that gets unlocked here, this is a book without a bitter or hateful bone in its body.

This year’s outstanding tracks – from post-punk rap to indie-disco and operatic pop – as voted for by 30 Guardian music writers

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When his book Notes on Being a Man was released last month, it raced to the top of the bestseller lists. The US author, tech entrepreneur and podcaster explains his theories on dating, crying – and the rise of Donald Trump

It takes balls to title your book Notes on Being a Man. And, superficially, Scott Galloway could easily be lumped in with a dozen other manosphere-friendly alpha-bros promising to teach young men how to find their inner wolf. He is, after all, a wealthy, healthy, white, heterosexual, shaven-headed, 61-year-old Californian who made his name and fortune as a successful investor and podcaster.

But in reality, he is almost the opposite: liberal, left-leaning and surprisingly sensitive. The guy who advises his readers on “how to address the masculinity crisis, build mental strength and raise good sons” has been described as a “progressive Jordan Peterson”, or “Gordon Gekko with a social conscience”.

Mark Rutte’s response comes after Vladimir Putin’s comment that Russia was ‘ready’ for war with Europe

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is now briefing the media after the commission’s weekly meeting, presenting the bloc’s plan to help fund Ukraine’s continuing fight against Russia.

I will bring you the key lines here.

Vincent Chan, 45, pleads guilty to 26 offences from 2022 to 2024 including attacks on four young girls

• Warning: this article contains descriptions of offences readers may find distressing

A man passed vetting to get a job at a London nursery where he sexually assaulted toddlers, some during their nap time, while they were in his care.

Vincent Chan, 45, who worked at a north London branch of the Bright Horizons nursery group, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to 26 offences from 2022 to 2024, including attacks on four young girls whom he sexually assaulted and offences relating to more than 25,000 indecent images of children.

PM responds to report that Nigel Farage told donors he expects Reform could do an election deal with the Conservatives

This is from Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, on Nigel Farage’s denial of the FT story. (See 9.33am.)

A handy reminder that in 2019 Farage did a deal to put Boris Johnson in No10 and push through his disastrous Brexit deal.

But instead of taking responsibility, of course Farage plays the victim.

Failings of legal system mean 97 people were unlawfully killed, but no one will be held accountable

When the Independent Office for Police Conduct published the final report on its mammoth investigation into the Hillsborough disaster, the response from bereaved families and survivors was conflicted.

Some of the IOPC’s findings could be regarded as historic, in particular that 12 former officers would have had cases to answer for gross misconduct, including Peter Wright, the chief constable of South Yorkshire police at the time of the 1989 disaster.