Volodymyr Zelensky says he feels “betrayed” by the US, after Ukraine had its access to Elon Musk’s military-grade satellite communications system restricted despite complying with Donald Trump’s demand to halt attacks on Russian oil refineries. The Ukrainian president, who met Andy Burnham at No 10 yesterday, told the FT that Kyiv would resume its long-range attacks on refineries, saying: “We’re done.” Russell Brand was a “ruthless, calculated and manipulative sexual predator”, prosecutors said at the start of his high-profile trial at Southwark crown court yesterday. The 51-year-old comedian and podcaster is facing three charges of rape, three of sexual assault and one of indecent assault alleged to have taken place between 1999 and 2009, all of which he denies. Aldi has beaten its fancier rivals to be crowned the winner of Good Housekeeping’s annual Christmas taste test, taking the top spot for everything from turkey and pigs in blankets to mince pies and Christmas pudding. Fellow German discounter Lidl scooped up 11 “best value” awards for festive products, including prosecco, roast potatoes and yule logs.

Does Britain want to work any more? I’m not talking about the 6.7 million claiming out-of-work benefits, says Alice Thomson in The Times, I mean those who have a job. Take civil servants, whose largest union, the Public and Commercial Services Union, just announced a vote on whether to strike unless a demand for a four-day week on full pay is met. Oh and they want a 10% pay rise, WFH enshrined as a “right”, and a promise that no jobs will be lost if AI is introduced to improve public services. It’s a joke. But what became known as “quiet quitting” during the pandemic is now standard in many professions.

Workers in the UK complain that their wages have stagnated compared with the US. But the average British worker now works fewer hours a year (1,533) than the OECD average of 1,736. In the US it’s 1,800 – seven more working weeks than the British. In Ireland, they work nearly three more weeks a year than we do. And Britons are more likely to have remained working from home since Covid than any other European country. And, in a way, who can blame them? Why slave away for a new car when one in six new models is now acquired through the Motability scheme – handed over to people on the maximum personal independence payment? Why work your guts out when you can receive disability benefits for food intolerance? Taxes are so high it’s easier not to bother with overtime. Meanwhile, Andy Burnham’s chief concerns appear to be alternative voting, bringing the UK back into the EU and lifting the ban on drinking in football stands. The prime minister needs to say how he will rekindle our motivation, stop taxing ambition, and “get the nation off the sofa”.

Kemi Badenoch appears to be enjoying the usual post-conference bounce in the polls, says Andrew McDonald in Politico, with More in Common putting the Tory leader’s net approval rating at an all-time high of +5 (though that’s still behind Andy Burnham on +11). What Conservative strategists will really like, though, is that when the pollsters showed respondents the section of Badenoch’s conference speech where she chided Reform UK over its “Englishness” debate, her rating jumped by 13 points and Nigel Farage’s fell by 11. Only one poll, of course, but all adding to the “confident vibes” kicking around in Tory HQ.

If you haven’t been able to get tickets to see the Bayeux Tapestry, says Matt Muir in Web Curios, or if you just don’t fancy spending 40 minutes grinding elbows with the slowcoach ahead of you, the British Museum has uploaded a high-res image of the entire embroidery to a special website. It has plenty of annotations explaining what the various “dun-coloured stick men” are up to, and what it all means. To see for yourself, click here.

October is Menopause Awareness Month, says Clare Foges in the Daily Mail. So how “menopause friendly” is your organisation? Do you drink out of special pink and purple cups? Have you been sent downloadable menopause “toolkits” or attended a Menopause Awareness bake sale? Countless celebrities have shared their own menopause stories, from Gwyneth Paltrow describing her “furious moods” to Halle Berry revealing that her doctors misdiagnosed her vaginal symptoms as herpes. As a 45-year-old woman presumably “not a million miles away from The Change”, I’m obviously grateful the subject is no longer shrouded in secrecy and shame. But collectively, these campaigns are recasting the average 40-year-old woman as a “ticking time bomb, shortly to suffer an emotional and physical explosion”.

New UK legislation brought in last year requires all companies with more than 250 employees to draw up a “Menopause Action Plan” by next spring. Set aside the lunacy of businesses spending precious time and resources “establishing Menopause Champions, Menopause Deputies and Menopause Committees”. What’s really frustrating is that this policy is based on dodgy data suggesting that menopausal women need lots of time off work. In reality, a rigorous study looking at 8,000 Australian women found that, in terms of work ability and days off work, menopause made no difference. “Zero. Zilch. None.” But most business owners won’t know that. They’ll read about “ladies becoming emotional wrecks” and hire men instead. Yes, employers should be understanding about menopause, just as they should be about any life difficulties. But in the decades-long battle for workplace equality, the notion that women in their 40s and 50s are all “at the mercy of our hormones” will only be a setback.

Lady Anne Glenconner, one of Princess Margaret’s ladies-in-waiting, spent much of her childhood at her family’s estate, Holkham Hall in Norfolk, says Sophia Money-Coutts in The Telegraph. The “vast Palladian pile” was so large that for breakfast the footmen would put raw eggs in a bain-marie in the kitchen then immediately set off for the nursery. By the time they arrived, the boiled eggs would be “perfectly cooked”.

Brazil’s decades-long tradition of novelty political candidates is alive and well, say Mauricio Savarese and Diarlei Rodrigues in the Los Angeles Times. Among the names on ballot sheets in this month’s elections were Tsunami Grandmother, Samurai Taxi Driver, Henrique Barack Obama, Mick Jagger and Plínio Trump. The custom began in 1959, when around 100,000 voters in a council election in São Paulo voted for Cacareco, a rhinoceros in the city’s zoo. Neighbouring Peru has a similar tradition: the winner of a recent mayoral election in the Andes was one Hitler Mussolini Simeon Flores.

It’s a PhotoTat, says Fintan Hogan in The Times: a new kind of tattoo that can be switched on and off using a UV light. University of Colorado scientist Carson Bruns has used a novel “photosensitive pigment” to create ink that turns transparent under normal torchlight but re-emerges when exposed to UV rays. The idea is to allow “self-conscious body art fans” to clear the decks for a job interview or dinner with the in-laws. “Whenever you decide you don’t want it to be showing any more,” he says, “you just turn it off.” And if you don’t want it at all? “Just never turn it on again.”