The extraordinary untold story of Freddie Mercury: Mary Austin on her best friend – and love of her life

Premium of nearly 10% paid by housebuyers comparable with cost of a cheaper private school over seven years A house near a top state secondary school costs an extra £40,000 on average, according to research that reveals education premiums that rank alongside some private school fees. The average property in a postcode district that includes a top 50 state secondary commands a price tag of £415,791, compared with £375,217 across the wider local authority areas in which those schools are located, a UK-wide analysis by the estate agent Yopa found...

The last time she displayed a sculpture in public in Britain, someone covered it in white paint. But, undeterred, the acclaimed artist is a placing a black woman in Trafalgar Square Tschabalala Self is relentlessly positive and unstoppably optimistic. The US artist is waiting for the unveiling of Lady in Blue, her new sculpture for the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, London, a towering, colourful painted bronze of a black woman striding (positively, optimistically) into the future. Self seems resolutely hopeful about the work, which is pretty impressive considering what happened to her last public sculpture in the UK. “Yeah,” she says, speaking from her home in upstate New York. “I mean, that was a completely racist act.” In 2022, Self unveiled Seated at Coal Drops Yard in King’s Cross, London. Like Lady in Blue, it was a vast, brightly painted bronze depiction of a black woman, this time seated demurely on a chair. After being shown at Coal Drops Yard without incident, it was moved to the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea, where the reception wasn’t quite as warm. “Within the first week,” says Self, “it was spraypainted white, but only on the skin of the sculpture.” As vandalism goes, it doesn’t get much more pointed, or racist. “The first feeling I had was just pain that my sculpture had been harmed. That someone had enacted violence on an object I had imbued with love and affection.”..

Swinton takes a dead man’s identity, Glasgow’s heir to Billy Connolly heads on tour and Gillian Anderson, Keira Knightley and Natalia Osipova all hit the stage • See all of our unmissable autumn arts recommendations here..