I was a chemistry student, my days spent boiling, titrating and stirring. But after that night, I formed a double act with a friend, writing jokes and making a radio show, before heading off to Australia …

Although I loved my time at Nottingham University, I didn’t go there with much intention of doing anything with my degree in chemistry afterwards. Not only was it full-on, I wasn’t particularly good at it. In an experiment to examine the incubation of goat’s blood, I accidentally added 10 times too much hydrogen peroxide. Blood shot out of the flask and splattered all over my face like a scene from The Sopranos. I can still hear my professor’s screams.

But that’s OK, because I hadn’t really gone to university to win the Nobel prize, I’d gone to experience the culture of the mid 90s. British dance music – through acts such as Orbital, Leftfield, Underworld, Faithless and the Chemical Brothers – was exploding. Britpop was happening around me: (What’s the Story?) Morning Glory was released the week I went to uni. My entry to this smorgasbord of cool happened when, in our second year, Ant and Dec announced a live show up in town.

From Copenhagen’s cycle lanes and Vienna’s shared parks to Barcelona and London’s unfulfilled potential, better living is close at hand

The angry rumble of a speeding SUV. The metallic smog of backlogged traffic. The aching heat of sun-dried neighbourhoods baking in an oven of concrete and asphalt.

For most people, the mundane threats that plague our environments are likely to annoy more than they spark dread. But for scientists who know just how dangerous our surroundings can be, the burden of knowledge weighs heavy each day. Across Europe, environmental risks cause 18% of deaths from cardiovascular disease and 10% of deaths from cancer. Traffic crashes in the EU kill five times more people than murders.

Trump has shown erratic and bizarre behavior throughout the year, leading to questions about his mental acuity

In an address from the White House in December, Donald Trump claimed that, over the past 11 months, his administration had brought “more positive change” than any government in US history.

“There has never been anything like it,” Trump added.

America is respected again as a country. We were not respected with Biden. They looked at him falling down stairs every day. Every day, the guy’s falling down stairs.”

I said: ‘It’s not our president. We can’t have it.’ I’m very careful, you know, when I walk downstairs for – like I’m on stairs, like these stairs, I’m very – I walk very slowly. Nobody has to set a record, just try not to fall because it doesn’t work out well. A few of our presidents have fallen and it became a part of their legacy.

We don’t want that. Need to walk nice and easy. You not have – you don’t have to set any record. Be cool, be cool when you walk down, but don’t, don’t bop down the stairs. That’s the one thing with Obama, I had zero respect for him as a president, but he would bop down those stairs, I’ve never seen – da da da da da da, bop, bop, bop, he’d go down the stairs, wouldn’t hold on. I said, it’s great, I don’t want to do it. I guess I could do it, but eventually bad things are going to happen and it only takes once, but he did a lousy job as president.”

In this week’s newsletter: Pushing Buttons readers on their favourite games of the year, from Death Stranding 2 and Arc Raiders to Ghost of Yōtei and more

Happy holidays, Pushing Buttons readers! Once again, we are approaching the cherished time of year between Christmas and New Year when we might actually have the time to play some video games. I hope Santa brought you something new to play, instead of taking one look at all the unplayed games in your Steam library and putting you straight on the naughty list.

Over the past few weeks you have been sending in your favourite games of the year. I maintain that you readers have excellent taste: there’s crossover with our own Guardian games of the year list, but also plenty here that I haven’t played myself. Thank you to everyone who sent in a recommendation, and I hope you find yet another game to add to your pile of shame among the following suggestions. I’ll be back next week with a year-in-review issue – in the meantime, go enjoy yourselves!

TG Jones took over stores six months ago but consumers have noticed little change or investment

“It’s just the same.” Six months on from the sale of WH Smith’s high street business, the name above the door may have changed to TG Jones, but many shoppers have not noticed a splurge of investment or change.

“The layout is the same and what they are selling is the same,” says Gillian Parsons as she exits TG Jones on a busy high street in the market town of Hitchin, Hertfordshire, where a steady flow of visitors are picking up cards, wrapping paper and the odd present in the week before Christmas.

From Sinners to F1 to Highest 2 Lowest, Guardian writers pick the scenes that stuck with them the most this year

Spoilers ahead

Disclosure: I covered auto racing for years and still follow Formula One skeptically. I definitely went into F1: The Movie knowing what I was in for, an answer to the hypothetical: what if the bougiest sport on God’s green earth was turned into a western? But you can’t help going along for the ride once Brad Pitt starts filling the frame with his blue-eyed winks, wry smiles and Butch Cassidy swagger. I should’ve been more indignant about this martinet sport making a literal hero out of the biggest rogue on the grid. But I left disbelief in parc fermé as Pitt’s Sonny Hayes bumped and nicked his way to the season finale at Abu Dhabi to much consternation before his wingman (Damson Idris) takes up the ticky tactics at Yas Marina circuit and winds up sacrificing himself and producer Lewis Hamilton (not again!) to help Sonny win his first race and thwart a hostile takeover of their fragile team. And when the lights went up at my desolate midday screening, it was just me still on the edge of my seat and my disbelief still firmly off track. Andrew Lawrence

Exclusive: Reform leader promotes Direct Bullion – but experts say commodity is not for everyday investors

Nigel Farage has been criticised over his £400,000-a-year second job promoting the idea that people should buy physical gold and put it into their pension pots.

Farage is paid more than four times his MPs’ salary for the four-hour-a-month job at Direct Bullion, where he has featured in Facebook and YouTube videos.

Chi Onwurah speaks out after Marco Rubio accused five Europeans, including two Britons, of ‘seeking to suppress American viewpoints they oppose’

A senior Labour MP has accused the Trump administration of undermining free speech after Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, announced sanctions against two British anti-disinformation campaigners.

Chi Onwurah, the chair of parliament’s technology select committee, criticised the US government hours after it announced “visa-related” sanctions against five Europeans, including Imran Ahmed and Clare Melford.

Exclusive: Donna Ockenden paid highly for advice in relation to the biggest review of maternity failings in NHS history

The midwife leading the biggest inquiry into maternity failures in the history of the NHS is charging NHS England up to £26,000 a month for her advice through her company, the Guardian can reveal.

Donna Ockenden, who has been chairing a review into maternity failings at Nottingham university hospitals NHS trust since 2022, is paid an £850 daily rate for every 7.5 hours she works.

Strikes were latest violation of year-long ceasefire and targeted what Israel said were Hezbollah sites

Israel has carried out several airstrikes in southern Lebanon on what it said was Hezbollah infrastructure, as a new year’s deadline for the Lebanese state to disarm the group in the south of the country loomed.

Israeli warplanes bombed the valleys of Houmin, Wadi Azza and Nimeiriya in the southern Nabatieh area on Wednesday morning. Residents reported that Israeli drones continued to hover over the area and other areas of south Lebanon and its eastern Bekaa valley after the strikes.