As a 600-page doorstopper celebrates their groundbreaking costumes, gigs, sleeves and videos, the duo talk about ‘side-stepping the pop-star thing’ – and the naked trampolinist EMI had to censor

In 1988, when he was 20, Wolfgang Tillmans tore an A0 poster off a building site hoarding and nailed it to a wall in his flat in Hamburg. It was advertising Pet Shop Boys’ new album, Introspective, and consisted of thick vertical bars in different colours. “It was just so cool in the context of the time,” the artist says today, admiring how the pop group had gone “one level more abstract”.

Around the same time in Doncaster, teenager Alasdair McLellan – now an A-list fashion photographer – was impressed by the clothes of Pet Shop Boys’ keyboard-player Chris Lowe; for instance the cap, stripy T-shirt and Issey Miyake glasses on the cover of their single Suburbia. “I always thought he was the best-dressed man of the 80s,” McLellan says. “Obviously, he just stood there playing the keyboard and I always noticed what he was wearing, especially all that sportswear stuff. He just seemed to do it better than everyone else.” McLellan couldn’t get style magazines in his village, so his visual education came from pop and the music press. “I got into photography through album covers, Smash Hits and NME.”

Day-one rights to statutory sick pay and paternity leave begin on Monday, and that fits the pattern. From my own life, I know people’s anxieties, and I will respond

• Starmer attacks Greens, saying vote for Labour rivals puts new workers’ rights at risk

This week 27 years ago, a Labour government introduced the minimum wage. At the time, the voices of the status quo lined up against it, but Labour made a choice: to stand up for working people. My government is doing the same.

On Monday, the biggest strengthening of workers’ rights in a generation comes into force. For the first time, workers gain day-one rights to statutory sick pay and paternity leave. No one should be forced to choose between their health and their wages, or miss those first precious days with their child because of insecurity at work.

Keir Starmer is the UK prime minister

The heroine of Roman Holiday and Breakfast at Tiffany’s knew war and poverty, riches and fame, love and betrayal – yet claimed to have lived a ‘terribly boring’ life. Sean Hepburn Ferrer paints a very different picture in his new biography

Growing up, Sean Hepburn Ferrer says he never felt like the son of a movie star – but he very much is. His mother was Audrey Hepburn, one of the biggest names in the golden age of Hollywood, an Oscar-winner, a screen star and a fashion icon. Hundreds of millions of people all over the world recognise her from classics such as Roman Holiday, Funny Face and My Fair Lady – besotted with the way she laughs, dances, or poses tastefully in Givenchy couture.

Audrey’s image is so ubiquitous in posters, art prints, magazines, on handbags, keyrings or T-shirts, that the family has made hunting for her likeness into a game. “I must have made this crack to my kids,” Sean says. “We were probably waiting for a train or a plane that had been delayed: ‘Three minutes to find Grandma.’ And it became a thing. Now the kids are grown-up, but they do it on their own. I do it by myself and send a snapshot to my wife and we giggle privately.”

As a child, Gary Fisher was terrible at card games. How did he end up making his living from one?

Gary Fisher has always enjoyed a game of poker, but after he turned 60, his partner suggested he take it seriously. “She said, ‘You’re really good at it, but you don’t study. You just turn up and play.’” It wasn’t what Fisher expected to hear, but he set about researching the game, completed some online courses, got a coach – and now plays professionally.

So far this year, Fisher, who lives in London, has travelled to competitions in Cyprus, Marrakech, Amsterdam, Tallinn and Paris. He pays to enter, and has won $200,000 (£150,000) in prize money. “I’ve had a very good start,” he says. He is speaking on a video call from his hotel in Dublin where he is taking part in the Irish Open. Next he will travel to Melbourne.

Tell us: has your life taken a new direction after the age of 60?

Our world feels chaotic, confusing and unfair, but puzzles offer clear rules, solvable problems and reward for effort expended

Maybe you’ve noticed it too. Everyone seems to have become fixated on puzzle games. In the morning, over coffee, I play Word Wheel on the Guardian app. Over lunch, colleagues compare notes on Tradle, the game where you guess a country from its exports. Which place exports about 45% fish and 50% crustaceans? Greenland. Another friend can’t fall asleep without her nightly Sudoku ritual.

The online puzzle craze took off during the Covid pandemic, and it shows no sign of slowing down. New York Times subscribers now spend more time playing puzzles on the app than reading the news. Sales of quiz books hit a record last year, up 24% from 2024.

I suffered with my mystery illness for decades before gaining a diagnosis. Could retraining my brain be the answer?

By Hermione Hoby. Read by Alby Baldwin

Iran’s parliamentary speaker decries US president’s ‘reckless moves’ after expletive-ridden threat; Israeli PM says Trump ‘expressed his appreciation for Israel’s help’

• Trump warns Iran to reopen strait of Hormuz by Tuesday or face ‘hell’

• ‘Unhinged madman’: US politicians react to Trump Iran threat

A Japanese shipping firm said on Monday that an Indian-flagged tanker owned by its subsidiary had passed through the strait of Hormuz and was en route to India.

A spokeswoman for Mitsui O.S.K. Lines told AFP that the Green Asha – a liquefied petroleum gas tanker – had crossed the waterway.

Pakistan stands in solidarity with the brotherly people of the UAE and reiterates the urgent need for restraint and de-escalation in the region.

PM also criticises business figures and opponents of changes, many of which come into force on Monday

• Workers, pensioners and children: all better off. Ignore the critics – we really are standing up for working people

Keir Starmer has used a series of new workers rights that come into force on Monday to attack the Green party, saying a vote for Labour’s rivals puts such progress on sick pay, parental leave and zero-hours contracts at risk.

The prime minister also took a swipe at business figures and opponents of what he described as the biggest strengthening of workers’ rights in a generation, dismissing “vested interests” who had warned against them.

Union says new entitlements, part of Employment Rights Act 2025, will help lower-income households

Up to 9.6 million UK workers are to benefit from the changes to sick pay rules, according to unions. They say the policy has widespread support from voters despite pushback from some businesses.

From Monday, about 8.4 million workers who rely on statutory sick pay – the minimum amount employers must pay – will be paid from the first day of becoming ill rather than from day four, according to an analysis by the Trades Union Congress (TUC).

People encouraged to ‘come forward as normal’ when BMA members begin industrial action over pay on Tuesday

The NHS is urging patients not to put off seeking the care they need when resident doctors press ahead with strike action from Tuesday, a stoppage that the health secretary has called “disappointing”.

Tens of thousands of resident doctors in England are to stage a six-day strike after the government took a key part of its offer off the table.