This is the day when politicians and amateur commentators talk more doggybollox than on any other day of the year

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Neither actually. It’s a bizarre hybrid, an altered hallucinogenic universe. Where up is down and down is up. Everything always slightly out of reach.

A world otherwise known as “the day after the budget”. A day when politicians and amateur commentators are guaranteed to talk more doggybollox than on any other day of the year. A day when everyone gets their 15 minutes of shame.

It’s important to express your disagreement: for their sake as much as yours, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. But first decide on what you aim to accomplish

• Read more Leading questions

How do I respond to someone who contributes to a conversation with “I’m not racist, but … ” and then inevitably proceeds to say something racist, such as talking about immigrants on benefits or getting priority for housing?

I’m referring to social occasions with people that I am not necessarily close to but rather acquaintances I may bump into semi-regularly. I feel myself getting simultaneously angry and tongue-tied and I mostly sit with my frustration to maintain some sense of harmony in the group.

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As L’Atalante is re-released, we count down the best movies set largely on ships, boats, barges, yachts, steamers and trimarans. Submarines banned, as they’re under water

Stephen Sommers’ sci-fi horror pulp follows a bunch of scene-stealing character actors playing mercenaries hired to destroy the cruise ship Argonautica for insurance purposes. But a giant mutant octopus has got there first! Among the potential cephalopod fodder are Treat Williams, Kevin J O’Connor, and Famke Janssen as a jewel thief.

Cherries fans wait on word of Semenyo, Gueye’s red card could leave Everton blue and Nuno needs new plans

With Thomas Frank, Bryan Mbeumo, Yoane Wissa, Christian Nørgaard and Mark Flekken leaving Brentford in the summer, the Bees looked the established club most likely to go down, thereby allowing a promoted one to stay up. In the event, though, they’ve made a solid start to life under Keith Andrews, more or less alternating wins and losses to sit 13th in the table, five points above the relegation zone. Burnley, on the other hand, find themselves roughly where most people thought they’d be: second-bottom having lost three games in a row. As it happens, they’ve not been that bad, asking difficult questions of more exalted opponents with tidy midfield play, before succumbing to defeat anyway. Ultimately, conceding two goals a game is not sustainable, but it’s worth noting that one of Burnley’s three league victories came against Sunderland, a side whose physical, intense and forward-thinking style is not dissimilar to Brentford’s. If they can get their passing going, they’ve a chance. Daniel Harris

Brentford v Burnley (Saturday 3pm, all times GMT)

Manchester City v Leeds, Saturday 3pm

Sunderland v Bournemouth, Saturday 3pm

Everton v Newcastle, Saturday 5.30pm

Now a hugely popular photographic genre, many women pay thousands to have intimate portraits taken of themselves by a professional. What do they get out of it?

A few hours into Brittany Witt’s boudoir shoot, with the mimosas kicking in and the music going strong, the photographer asked: “How do we feel about some completely nude photos?” Witt was lying on the bed in lingerie, in a studio in Texas, and hadn’t considered nudity an option. “I was like: ‘OK, we’re on this trust path.’” She undressed. The photographer, JoAnna Moore, covered Witt with body oil and squirted her with water, then asked her “to crawl across the floor with my full trust,” Witt says. “I did so. The pose was nude, and it was completely open. I wasn’t covered with a sheet. It was all out, it was all open, and it brought that worst level of self-doubt. I was terrified.”

Witt, 33, has come to see that terror as an important part of her experience. She used to be a competitive weightlifter. “I had a very masculine aura. I showed up in strength,” she says. At school and work – in the construction side of the oil and gas industry – she was “type A – scheduler, planner, had everything together, kind of led the group”. A turbulent home life when she was growing up led her to develop robust protection mechanisms which, in adulthood, acted as a block to relationships – issues she had been addressing with a life coach. But in that moment, on all-fours in Moore’s studio: “I felt those protections stripped away. There was nothing to hide behind, literally, figuratively.”

Twenty years after the first face transplant, patients are dying, data is missing, and the experimental procedure’s future hangs in the balance

In the early hours of 28 May 2005, Isabelle Dinoire woke up in a pool of blood. After fighting with her family the night before, she turned to alcohol and sleeping tablets “to forget”, she later said.

Reaching for a cigarette out of habit, she realized she couldn’t hold it between her lips. She understood something was wrong.

Flagship Labour plan to be replaced with six-month threshold after Peter Kyle vows to not let businesses ‘lose’ under new law

A flagship policy that would have given workers the right to claim unfair dismissal after their first day on the job is to be ditched by the government in favour of a six month-threshold.

In a U-turn constituting a direct breach of Labour’s manifesto, the government said it had brokered a deal between six of the country’s biggest business groups and trade union leaders to shake up its plan for the biggest upgrade in employment rights for a generation.

Labour MPs welcome scrapping of two-child benefit cap but worry about hefty future tax increases on constituents

Rachel Reeves has been warned that her plans for tax rises and spending restraint in the run-up to the next general election resemble a work of “fiscal fiction”, as MPs expressed concern about the impact of her budget on their constituents.

A day after the chancellor’s statement, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said Reeves had chosen a high-risk strategy by backloading the squeeze to just before voters go to the polls in 2029.

One other member of the guards, Andrew Wolfe, is still fighting for his life, according to the president

Sarah Beckstrom, one of the national guard troops shot in Washington DC on Wednesday, has died, Donald Trump said on Thursday.

“Sarah Beckstrom of West Virginia, one of the guardsmen that we’re talking about, highly respected, young, magnificent person … She’s just passed away. She’s no longer with us,” Trump said in his first live remarks since the shooting.

Health secretary responds to speech given by GP committee leader accusing Labour of ‘gaslighting’ behaviour

Wes Streeting has accused the British Medical Association (BMA) of being “impossible” and issuing “misleading” information in an escalation of tensions with the doctors union.

In an unusual move, the health secretary wrote on Thursday to England’s 50,000 GPs to convey his frustration with the BMA over recent changes that from last month made it easier for patients to contact them online between 8am and 6.30pm Monday to Friday.