
Watch: Huge fire engulfs main stage at Tomorrowland
No concerts were underway, and no injuries were immediately reported.
Footage showed flames and broad plumes of grey and black smoke consuming the main stage of the venue in the town of Boom.
Tomorrowland, which draws tens of thousands of visitors from around Europe to its festivals and events, was scheduled to start Friday.
Festival organisers said: "Our beloved Mainstage has been severely damaged.
"DreamVille (campsite) will open tomorrow (Thursday, July 17) as planned... All Global Journey activities in Brussels and Antwerp will take place as planned. We are focused on finding solutions for the festival weekend."
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The Independent
14 minutes ago
- The Independent
German passport e-gates won't change the reality: Brexit has been a disaster for British travellers
Great barrier grief: that is what the UK government promises to end, at least for British travellers to Germany. 'Millions of UK travellers to Germany will be able to use e-gates in the future thanks to a new agreement made between prime minister Keir Starmer and German chancellor Friedrich Merz today,' the Cabinet Office says. 'Germany will roll out the first phase of e-gates access for UK travellers by the end of August, starting with frequent travellers such as Brits with family in Germany or who travel regularly for business.' I have asked the Cabinet Office how this will work: how do the e-gates (or the staff in charge) know whether I have family in Germany? In the absence of a a cousin in Cologne or a daughter in Dresden, might I squeak in as a regular business traveller; I have also asked how frequently must I visit to qualify? In any event, once through the e-gates a smiling German official will need to stamp my passport– in accordance with what the UK demanded when leaving the European Union. Boris Johnson 's fearless negotiators insisted that we would become 'third-country nationals' not required to obtain a visa. Brussels capitulated to our wish to spend hours waiting in queues; to discover that rules on passports validity meant thousands would be turned away from planes; and to have our documents minutely examined to ensure we have not spent more than 90 days in the past 180 days within the Schengen area. Our illustrious status is shared with many other citizens, from East Timor to El Salvador. But unlike them, the British traditionally make tens of millions of journeys to the EU each year. We would love to make more of those trips by rail, but the tangle of red tape we negotiated means there isn't enough space for processing passengers at London St Pancras International, the Eurostar hub. Yet here's the the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, promising 'a direct connection linking London and Berlin' could be in place 'in just a matter of years'. The press was briefed that trains from the UK to Germany could be running by 2030. Allow me to present an equally plausible transport goal for the next five years: 'Personal jet packs for all.' The UK government is clutching at bureaucratic straws with claims such as 'Estonia has confirmed they will open up access at Tallinn airport in 2026'. Wise ministers surely know they should be yelling from the rooftops something that the most ardent Leave voter must accept: 'Brexit has proved deeply damaging for British travellers to Europe, and we need to fix it.' Tourists, students, business travellers and those with family in the EU have all suffered from the self-harm administered by Brexit. Your ease of access to the EU this summer depends on your DNA and/or birthplace. UK citizens wise enough to have ancestry in Ireland, north or south, can obtain an EU passport and regain all the travel freedoms we asked to be taken away.


Telegraph
15 minutes ago
- Telegraph
The unexpectedly high-end homewares you can find on the high street
Designer-quality homeware normally comes with a price tag to match – but if you know where to look, there are some gems to be found on a budget this season. Several high-street brands have been raising their interiors game by introducing elevated materials, collaborating with well-known designers and producing limited-edition ranges with thoughtful decorative details. Here are some key collections to have on your radar. Zara Home x Collagerie The debut collaboration between the British shopping platform Collagerie and the Spanish fashion brand Zara was a sell-out success last summer; and the second collaboration, which has just launched, looks to be just as covetable. Designed by Collagerie's chief creative officer (and former British Vogue fashion director) Lucinda Chambers, the collection demonstrates her flair for combining bold colours in a way that looks effortlessly chic, never garish, and her knack for pinpointing the details that give a piece a high-end, handmade look. 'To push the boundaries both in terms of colour juxtapositions and materials and design is very important for Zara Home and Collagerie,' says Chambers, who describes the process of working on the collection as 'joyous'. 'To make things that resonate, excite and stand out as beautiful standalone pieces as well as the collection as a whole is key.' The pieces include furniture, textiles, ceramics and wall art, in earthy tones and tactile textures, with prices starting from £7.99. We predict the blankets, the stripey woven chair and matching footstool, and the chunky ceramic serving dishes that could have come from a market in Deia, will be this year's runaway hits. John Lewis Pieces from John Lewis's autumn-winter 2025 collection are already starting to drop, and its Modern Luxe range is one to look out for. Sofas and armchairs with chocolate-brown velvet upholstery and sleek chrome frames have a loungy, 1970s vibe, and the wooden furniture pieces have a particularly upscale look. Burl wood – which has a distinctive, knotty grain and a glossy lacquered finish – is set to be a key element of the coming collection, and pieces such as the burl walnut coffee (£399) and bedside table (£349) look far more expensive than they are. A little table lamp with a marble base called Porcini isn't exactly cheap at £200, but would potentially cost three times that price elsewhere. H&M Home Shop wisely at H&M and you can find accessories that will elevate a room, yet cost just a few pounds. Clever collaborations with high-end partners – most recently, a summery collection with the Caribbean hotel Palm Heights – help to lend the brand a more luxurious look, but its own-design pieces also include plenty of gems. Right now, there are some chic pieces in materials such as marble, velvet and corduroy, including a marble side table and floor lamp, both £99.99, and trays, kitchenware and candlesticks from £6.99. Look out for table linens too – an embroidered tablecloth is a steal at £39.99. Next Home Next hasn't always been known for a luxe style, but it has recently been quietly upping the ante with its N Premium range. The neutral palette of the furniture and textiles help to give a more expensive look: standout current pieces include an oak and marble side table for £399, a curved oak-veneer bedside table for £475, and a brass ceiling light for £150 that could pass for a far pricier designer version. Next's collaboration with the interior decorator Nina Campbell has produced a collection with a designer edge, but in an entirely different style, with colour, pattern and decorative detail: the lighting and storage pieces are especially good. M&S If you associate M&S homewares with a slightly fusty look, you might be surprised to see some of its more recent accessories. As with its fashion collections, the company is clearly targeting a younger, trend-conscious shopper, and producing its own versions of certain zeitgeisty pieces that have been all over Instagram – chequerboard and stripe motifs on textiles and ceramics, and table lamps with scalloped shades, for instance. Its ongoing collaboration with Kelly Hoppen has also produced some designer ceramics and hotel-inspired bedding and throws. Anthropologie American brand Anthropologie can be relied upon as a source for limited-edition pieces that you won't spot in everyone else's house. Its Hale furniture collection, with tables and storage pieces covered in a leafy botanical print, is a case in point – although with a starting price of £898 for a chest of drawers, it's at the upper end of the high street price range. The tableware comes at more of a pick-me-up price: the current Benedita collection of hand-painted stoneware with a pretty bow motif starts from a more accessible £12.


Daily Mail
15 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Ulrika Jonsson, 57, admits she finds men 'less attractive' since going sober as she opens up on her 'very different' sex life
has admitted she finds men 'less attractive' since going sober as she opened up about her 'very different' sex life. The actress, 57, who marked one year of sobriety in June, discussed what her dating life has been like since ditching the booze. Ulrika, who is single, said although sex is a 'better experience' sober, she feels the nerves a lot more since not drinking. Asked by Spencer Matthews on his Untapped podcast if she thought being sober was going to have a negative effect on her sex life, she said: 'Yeah - although I kind of knew that sex sober would be better. 'But of course all your inhibitions go when you've had a drink, so sex becomes easier to sort of facilitate or bring about, or participate in, but the enjoyment side of things is very different when you're sober. 'So that's been quite interesting too. 'I would never have had a date without having one drink. That's the lubricant. That's the social lubricant you just need to ease yourself into a date.' She continued: 'Not having a drink and going on a date, it's hard - it's really hard because people are not as attractive. 'You just become a little bit more available I guess - it is easier.' Ulrika said that after struggling on the first anniversary of her sobriety last month, she's now confident it will continue for good. She said: 'I really struggled around the anniversary of my sobriety, because everyone was like 'Well done'. This is like the rest of my life. I believe that I will never drink again.' Ulrika thinks she might possibly be able to have just one drink now and not return to her bad ways, but she does not intend taking the risk of that not being the case. She said: 'I do not want to take the risk. There's every chance that I could have a glass of wine today but then when the shit hits the fan again is that going to be my default setting that I go back to that. 'At the moment, the way I feel now just over a year on, is the very thought of drinking rum or something because something has gone bad makes me feel sick. I don't want to. Asked by Spencer Matthews on his Untapped podcast if she thought being sober was going to have a negative effect on her sex life, she said: 'Yeah - although I kind of knew that sex sober would be better' 'But at the beginning when I'd go out for a Sunday lunch, a roast of whatever, and people are sitting there with their glasses of red, I'd be 'that would be so nice'. 'So my belief is that this is forever. I couldn't think like that at the beginning. 'At the beginning you're going 24 hours, 48 hours, I've done a week, I've done a month. 'That's why I think coming up to a year was a bit disappointing - because it was like 'this goes on and bloody on, this sobriety'.' And Ulrika says as well as not being drunk her whole opinion of herself and her life has now changed. She said: 'What a massive change it's made for me as a person, as a being. My mindset, my approach has completely changed. 'I thought I wasn't very good at life, I wasn't cut out for it, and I was just a pretty average to rubbish person. 'I'm tapping maybe into the person that was there, that I didn't think existed. I thought I was shit. My opinion of myself was never very high. More in a self-deprecating way. 'I always felt below, and I don't feel that any more. 'I didn't think I'd get to this age. My dad died very suddenly when he was 53. Pensions and all that I was 'don't worry about that, I'll be dead before then'. I always say that to the kids and they'd say 'Mum, stop saying that', 'I definitely won't be here'. 'And now suddenly finding a new desire to live and finding out new things about myself and what I'm capable of and my strengths. 'I still want to have a lot of sex, and I want to have a lot of fun. The kids can wipe their own arses now so I can be free to do my own thing. 'And now wanting to catch up on the years of negative thinking that I lost, of sort of having a negative view of myself. 'I was also really f***ing angry when I was drinking. I was angry about everything. I was angry about what was happening to me, what someone was trying to do in terms of my life, that I was trying to find a solution to 'You look at other people's lives and think 'f**k you with your perfect life', and 'f**k my life. Now I start the morning with a gratitude list and it changes the whole face of everything. I actually send it to a person who I know. 'You always find something and having done that you're just like 'You know what...' - whereas before I might have started the day 'Oh my God, look at the bloody brush dropped on the floor'.' Ulrika, who said she has had therapy on and off for 30 years, said she might have been able to stop drinking temporarily in the past, but it would not have lasted - because she had to reach a stage first where she was also more content with herself and understood her behaviour. She said: 'I could definitely stop drinking, but would I be able to keep off that without learning about myself, like cleansing myself emotionally - learning about why I'm doing things 'I think that that, in tandem with giving up the drink, has been crucial for me. My behaviour has changed so much, but I've found this inner peace.' Ulrika said regularly meeting with others in her situation had helped her achieve that. She said: 'I rely on a support group and I probably do about three meetings a week. 'Sometimes I go to one and do a couple online. 'I've been quite religious about attending them. Christmas Day I attended a meeting, Easter Sunday, just to get away from people who were drunk.' The mum of four children, Cameron, 30, Bo 25, Martha, 20, and Malcolm, 17, added: 'For me now sobriety is my priority, even though I used to say 'Oh my children are my priority'. 'Without my sobriety I can't be there for my children, or something awful might happen, or whatever else.'