News

Wikipedia

Artists grow out of their appeal in different ways. For a child or teen star, this can be a transitionary period we watch with bated breath just waiting for the car crash, the chaos and the outrageous behaviour we love to condemn. An older artist, or indeed a band, who appeals largely to teenagers and younger people may try to resist this transitionary period altogether, attempting to sustain the same sound or image that gained them their popularity in the first place; but often they find themselves struggling to cling to the limelight when commercial tastes change, or their initial fanbase grows up and loses interest.

Then there are the artists who may have grown out of their appeal some time ago, but linger in our consciousness, gaining undeserved press attention purely due to their ridiculous antics. Former Oasis star Liam Gallagher and all-around-brat Justin Bieber are prime examples of this,...

Hadrian's wall, Culloden, the poll tax, Jacob Rees-Mogg: yes, England has inflicted an awful lot of angst and pain on Scotland down the centuries – but, look, we still don't want you to leave

1 Sorry for calling every last one of you "Jock". We now know it's offensive, especially if you're a woman.

2 So sorry for the years of heartless Conservative governments that you never voted for that ripped the heart out of the Scottish mining, steel and shipbuilding industries, butchered public services and imposed an unwonted, dismal neo-liberal ethos on a land to which such a callous political and economic philosophy was inimical.

3 And for making you guinea pigs for Margaret Thatcher's disastrous poll tax, inflicting it on you a year before England and Wales, and then – somehow! – forgetting to backdate the rebate for the tax when it was abolished in the early 90s.

4 Sorry for the 1746 Dress Act that banned tartan,...

Each week we ask readers to tell us about venues close to their hearts. Today, a lost art deco cinema in Northern Ireland

Location

The exuberantly characterful Tonic cinema, first opened in 1936, was ensconced on a prime site near the centre of one of Northern Ireland's more prosperous coastal towns. Its prestigious location would, however, eventually work against it, as would the advent of the video cassette recorder.

The building

"Everything is art deco now", Anjelica Huston told Jack Nicholson's none-too-cerebral hitman in Prizzi's Honor, to which Nicholson replied, "Art who?" But we lucky patrons of the Tonic knew about art deco. The Tonic's elegant curves, its assertive buttresses and long smooth flanks, were as familiar to us as the waves on the shores of nearby Belfast Lough.

Split between lowly stalls and exalted circle, there were seats for 2,500 people, making this Northern Ireland's biggest as well as its most beautiful cinema.

Will Smith's daughter Willow has one of the hit songs of the year, and Jay-z says she's at the start of an 'incredible journey'. But is it all still too much too young, asks Caroline Sullivan

Willow Smith only turned 10 in October, but you'd hardly have guessed it from watching her on the Ellen DeGeneres show on Us television last week. It was the debut TV performance of her first single, Whip My Hair, and she pulled it off with the unsettling poise – and

voice – of someone twice her age. DeGeneres accurately called the track "one of the hottest songs of the year" – it sold 137,000 downloads in the Us in its first week and is expected to be a hit here, too.

Whip My Hair is an energetic pop/R&B tune in which Willow cocks a snook at "the haters" and urges "all my ladies" – this probably means...