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Karl Bushby, the British man walking around the world, is almost home. The former paratrooper set off from Chile in 1998. He walked through the Americas, crossed the frozen ocean from Alaska to Russia, and last year became the first person to swim the Caspian Sea between Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. These are all huge achievements in their own right but for Bushby they were just sections he had to complete to finish his epic journey.

Originally scheduled to finish in 2006, Bushby is now 56 and still going. Geopolitics has played its part, with Russian and Iranian visa rejections some of the main causes of delay.

He arrived in Budapest last month and with the English Channel being the only obvious remaining obstacle to navigate, he should be back in Humberside by this time next year.

Stephen Smith finds out who he is and what's kept him going for so long.

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Dame Mary Berry has been teaching Brits to cook for more than half a century. Aged 90, she remains a staple on our screens at Christmas.

Born in Bath in 1935, Berry was the middle child of two brothers. She struggled in school and studied Home Economics class instead of Maths.

Berry left school with no qualifications but continued to pursue her love of cooking, training at the famous Le Cordon Bleu school in France.

In 1971, she began her TV career with slots on shows like Collector’s World and Good Afternoon with Judith Chalmers, where she’d teach viewers how use newfangled items like freezers and tinfoil.

Over the next four decades, Berry would go on to write dozens of cookbooks, feature in and present her own cooking programmes, and teach thousands to cook in her Aga lessons, which she hosted in her own home.

But it was her role as a judge on Bake Off that introduced her to a new generation of viewers, and cemented her as one of the nations best-loved cooks.

Stephen Smith looks back on her decades-long career.

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David Harewood, who turned sixty this week, returns as Othello for the third time on stage. It’s a role he first took on in 1997, becoming the first black actor to play the part at London’s National Theatre.

Growing up in multicultural Birmingham in the sixties and seventies, he was born to immigrants from Barbados.

Described as gregarious by his teachers at school, Harewood showed an interest in entertaining from an early age and subsequently trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of the Dramatic Arts.

In his early twenties, he had a psychotic breakdown, something he spoke about in a recent documentary.

A string of roles in TV and film followed. And then came his breakthrough role as CIA agent David Estes in the acclaimed hit US TV show Homeland.

Mark Coles looks back at his career.

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Stephen Smith profiles the former racing driver and marketing guru who's turned around McLaren's fortunes and led them to Formula 1 glory. Born in California in 1971, friends and colleagues paint a picture of a fiercely competitive man with ‘noble intentions’.

After dropping out of high school Zak Brown’s life changed after meeting former F1 world champion Mario Andretti when he was 15. He traded watches he’d won on the Wheel of Fortune game show to buy a go-kart.

Brown won races as a driver but never really hit the big time. He then set up the world’s most successful motorsports marketing company before being lured to the F1 grid by McLaren in 2016. The team were in dire straits and in serious need of a cash injection. In less than 10 years, Brown has completely turned around the team’s fortunes and led them to back-to-back constructors’ championships. But will his refusal to favour one of his two drivers cost both of them the drivers’ championship?

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Presenter: Stephen Smith

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The Coventry MP who left the Labour party and joined Jeremy Corbyn's new left-wing ‘Your Party'. Zarah Sultana's husband and friends tell us how her upbringing shaped her politics and reveal her questionable taste in music. 'I think she would describe her taste as no taste', claims her husband Craig Lloyd. She was born in Birmingham to political parents who were both members of the Labour party. Her father even took her on a Labour party delegation to the occupied West Bank when she was a student, an important trip that inspired her to join those campaigning for a free Palestine and she's continued campaigning ever since. Her political career hasn't always been smooth sailing, leaving the Labour party over a row about lifting the two-child benefit cap. However her friends say she is driven by something deeper than her own career aims, she's trying to reshape British politics.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene is a darling of MAGA. But this week a disagreement with Trump over the Epstein files has seen him brand her as a traitor.

Born in 1974 in the suburbs of Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene had a conventional upbringing. She graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in Business Administration, and later owned her family’s construction business and a stake in a CrossFit gym.

But like so many Americans, Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign was a turning point for Marjorie Taylor Greene. In 2020, the newly-styled ‘MTG’ ran for election in her home state, winning a seat to the House of Representatives. Soon she was a recognised name on the national stage, known for her provocative style and endorsement of conspiracy theories.

In the years since, MTG has aligned herself so closely with the president that some called her ‘Trump in heels’. But her campaigning for the release of the Epstein files has caused a rift between her and her one-time hero.

Stephen Smith spoke to Professor Gina Yannitel Reinhardt, senior POLITICO staff writer Michael Kruse, QAnon expert Gabriel Gatehouse, political scientist Andra Gillespie and Atlanta Journal Constitution columnist Patricia Murphy, about career, her life in politics and what this rift could mean for her future.

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David Hockney has died aged 88. This programme was broadcast in 2025.

David Hockney is arguably Britain’s most loved living artist. He's known as a colourful character, not only because of his vibrant, colour rich paintings of Californian landscapes, glittering blue pools, and thick Yorkshire woodlands, but also his own carefully curated image from the 1960s- bright blond hair and oversized thick black round glasses.

He delights in using new technology to create; from the polaroid, to the fax machine, and his iPad.

Now, more than 60 years into his career, aged 88, David Hockney is not slowing down.

His image has recently been depicted by drones in a light-show in the skies above Bradford, in a colourful tribute to the city’s most famous son.

Becky Milligan speaks to his muse, the textile designer Celia Birtwell, art historian Marco Livingstone, dancer and contemporary Wayne Sleep and art critic Waldemar Januszczak.

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Afua Kyei, Chief Financial Officer at the Bank of England, has been named Britain's most influential black person.

She grew up in South London, reading copious numbers of Enid Blyton books and listening to Boyzone, got 6 A levels and went to university a year early. She studied chemistry at Oxford and Princeton, but then had a change of heart . She became a chartered accountant and - in 2019 at the age of just 36 - she was appointed Chief Financial Officer at the Bank of England, the Bank's youngest and first ever black executive officer in its 325 year history.

Mark Coles looks back at the life of this year’s most influential Black Briton talking to Afua's friends, family and colleagues to discover how she combines parenting four children under the age of nine with balancing the books at the Bank of England.

Presenter: Mark Coles

Photo credit: Nick Moorhead

As Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership of the Labour party comes under increasing pressure and criticism, we profile a man who may well be waiting in the wings.

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Sanae Takaichi is the first female prime minister of Japan.

Once the drummer in a heavy metal band, she is now a staunch conservative, tough on immigration and against same sex marriage. More Iron Lady than Iron Maiden, the 64-year-old models her strong leadership style on Margaret Thatcher.

She entered politics in 1993, the same year as future prime minister Shinzo Abe. A loyal ally, she quickly rose the ranks in his cabinet. After several unsuccessful leadership attempts, she finally became prime minister on October 21st 2025.

To some this is a victory for women in Japan, but others see her conservative views as evidence there is still a long way to go.

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