Whitworth, Manchester
Hokusai’s breathtaking woodblock print may be ubiquitous today but, as this startling show reminds us, it’s also an apocalyptic vision of a world about to change

The printed images made in Japan between the 17th and 20th centuries, known collectively as “pictures of the floating world”, could be bought from a local bookshop for about the price of a bowl of noodles. Collected casually, like posters or magazines, these mass-produced media started out as sexy, charming and dazzling snapshots of Tokyo high-life for the vicarious enjoyment of those who could not afford it. Manufactured by workshops of artists and artisans, they made professional works of art available to ordinary people for the first time. They’re breathtakingly beautiful, and they changed the history of art.

The first and most enduringly popular subjects for these collectible prints were famous actors from the kabuki theatreand beautiful women, typically courtesans from the brothel district of Yoshiwara. By introducing us to the denizens of the floating world, the first half of this dazzling exhibition sheds light on the dreams and desires that drive popular culture. Kunichika’s portrait of an actor in the role of a “heavenly being” is as heart-throbbing and as gender-bending as Rudolph Valentino in a bolero vest. A “fashionable beauty” caught by Eizan in the process of applying her lipstick, a delicately turned ankle visible through the gap in her marvellously rendered gown, is erotic in a way that is unavoidably (and by design) voyeuristic. You could imagine stumbling upon this half-dressed model, glimpsed through an open door, in the pages of Vogue Italia.

Pep Guardiola’s team have ground down other title contenders in the past with their relentless winning streaks. But those days appear to have gone

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This has been a strange season for Manchester City. Every now and then, they’ve threatened to produce the sort of run that used to define them. They won eight games in a row from the end of November to the end of December, then six in a row in February. At which point the tendency has been for a sort of mental muscle memory to kick in and to think that, even if they haven’t been playing that well, even if this doesn’t look like the City sides of old, this is the start of one of those relentless bouts of form that has ground down challengers in the past. After all, some of those past runs began uncertainly.

But this is a very different City. Even Pep Guardiola sounded bemused after Saturday’s draw with West Ham , noting how “in the past always we found the way to win this kind of game … this season, the fact that we didn’t score goals for the amount of chances, it’s punished us”. He seemingly had no explanation for that, muttering about the “unfairness” of the world that his side had not got the results he feels their football has deserved.

This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com , and he’ll answer the best in a future edition.

Pat McFadden unveils £1bn youth employment scheme and appeals for support from backbench MPs who rebelled over welfare last year

Labour MPs have no reason to oppose a fresh government attempt to overhaul the welfare system, the work and pensions secretary has said as he unveiled a £1bn youth employment scheme.

The announcement by Pat McFadden – who said the public wanted the system to promote work and “value for money” – is seen as a prelude to a renewed bid to reform the welfare system after plans by his predecessor, Liz Kendall, were blocked by a Labour backbench rebellion last year.

‘Kerry’s spoken verse needed 39 takes spread over several months because she’d had her tonsils out’

People never believe me that Kraftwerk created Atomic Kitten. In 1996, my band OMD released Walking on the Milky Way, which I thought was one of the best songs I’d ever written. But in the age of Britpop, we were perceived as an 80s synthpop band, past our sell-by date. Radio 2 wouldn’t play the song and Woolworths wouldn’t stock it. I thought: “I’m functioning with one arm tied behind my back.” So my friend Karl Bartos of Kraftwerk said: “Why don’t you create a girl band as a vehicle for your songs?”

The red carpet raises all kinds of questions. What is the age range of a feather boa? Sequins: mutton or lamb? In the face of the carping and scrutiny, Paltrow has issued a bold sartorial retort

The 50s are an awkward decade for women on the red carpet. So, the Oscars , being the ultimate red carpet, are like a dramatisation of the awks, a silent movie told in One Dress After Another. It’s complicated by the convention that “over 50” and “in her 50s” are the same category for Hollywood , the existence of a greater age being so anathema to the condition of womanhood that it’s more tactful not to mention it. Sigourney Weaver (76) is an “Oscars over 50”, as is Goldie Hawn (80).

The case of Hawn was particularly confusing this year. When she was pictured alongside her daughter, Kate Hudson (46), they became the same age, it being semantically easier to pretend that “nearly-50 to 100” is a continuous phase of woman than to brook the idea of an age beyond “middle”.

A German tourist filed a lawsuit claiming he felt unpleasant symptoms after eating tacos with salsa at Los Tacos No 1

A German tourist’s attempt to pursue $100,000 in damages from a New York City taqueria whose salsa he found to be too spicy has failed after a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit.

In a complaint filed in October 2024, German national Faycal Manz said he was visiting New York City two months earlier when he stopped at the Times Square location of Los Tacos No 1.

Jeremy Piven is a celebrity hypnotist leading a client into dangerous waters in this Manchester-set affair also starring Pixie Lott and Aneurin Barnard

If films had past lives, Simeon Halligan’s memory-regression thriller might have been a glossy 90s psychological drama, a Twilight Zone episode, or even a tricksy Hitchcockian voyage. But in the 2020s, it gets to be a serviceable, low-budget Brit-pulp outing featuring Jeremy Piven who, where other big-name buy-ins might have phoned it in, authoritatively anchors the affair as a celebrity hypnotist leading a client into dangerous waters.

Traumatised Manchester journalist Jason (Aneurin Barnard, soon to be seen as the titular character in Duncan Jones’s Rogue Trooper) is to return to Syria, where six years earlier he witnessed jihadists slit a colleague’s throat. Probably a bad idea then, just before setting off, to volunteer on live TV to be hypnotised by Timothy Bevan (Piven), who claims to allow punters to access past incarnations. Jason is promptly transported into a scarlet, doorway-lined hall of horrors; one portal opens on to a scene of a horrific stabbing apparently committed by his previous self. So pregnant wife Claira (Pixie Lott) presses him to return to Bevan to get this door definitively locked and bolted.

Whether you want buildable or barely there, our beauty writer put 19 formulas through their paces – plus, makeup artists on how to apply it

• The best concealers for camouflaging blemishes and dark circles

As a makeup-loving teenager, I spent countless hours of my precious youth practising how to apply makeup, and spent more money than I dare to count buying products.

My cosmetics drawers quickly filled with fun mascaras, bronzers and eyeshadow palettes, but my choice of foundation was ruining the look of anything I applied on top. Whether it was oxidising and turning my skin orange, or mismatched formulation types causing the whole look to separate on the skin, getting a lasting natural finish seemed impossible. Had I spent a little more time picking out the best foundation for my skin type, I wouldn’t be haunted by so many embarrassing photos from my adolescence.

Best foundation overall:
Charlotte Tilbury Airbrush Flawless Foundation

Best budget foundation:
L’Oréal True Match foundation

The PM says the UK will not be dragged into wider war in the Middle East and pledges support to households struggling to pay for heating oil. Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey talk about what the government is doing to support people during the cost of living crisis and the fallout from the war. Plus a look at Brussels as the government works on another EU-reset to create closer ties