few for northern eastern england, a few for northern ireland. clear skies elsewhere. there is just the ireland. clear skies elsewhere. there isjust the risk ireland. clear skies elsewhere. there is just the risk of some ice forming as it will be a cold night with a touch of frost in some places. then put two of the weekend, more sunshine here but elsewhere rather cloudy. a little bit of wintriness over the mountains in the north of scotland. a cold show to things, particularly when you factor in the wind across hello this is bbc news. the headlines... some health experts say it's likely the rise in strep a cases is linked to young children not mixing as much due to the pandemic. six children in england and wales have died recently after contracting the infection. almost 20% of unaccompanied child migrants from albania who've come into the care of kent county council in southern england this year have gone missing. charities fear they could become the victims of trafficking. the former government minister

conor burns has been cleared of misconduct, and he'll have his conservative party whip restored. a newspaper in greece says the british museum and the greek government have been in secret talks over a possible return of the elgin marbles. and at the world cup, the knock—out stage starts in less than an hour's time with the us playing against the netherlands. now on bbc news, the big interviews: nick cave. # i am beside you. # look for me. # i try to forget. in your conversations with sean o'hagan for the book,

you talk about the album ghosteen as an imagined world where arthur, your son, could be. was it your desire to create that album for him or actually for you as a family? you never have any concrete reason why you make a record. you go in and pull tiny threads together and hopefully come up with something. you don't have a grand plan. because the whole thing is so difficult and so tenuous, the process of making a record. # i think they're singing to be free. there was something that was going on with that particular record that was different than other records. and it became a kind of parallel mission to me within that record, within the state of mind that i was where i felt that it was a place that arthur could inhabit on some level. # look for me.

# if i could move the night, i would. # and i would turn the world round if i could. # there's nothing wrong with loving something. # you can't hold in your hand. the music is so beautiful. there is nowhere for you to hide it. you are so front and centre. and it is very revealing and exposing, in a way, to be that person that is out there in front of the music, when you are thinking about things that are so painful. i think there is a lot of pain but there is a lot of... i think most of the songs just have this lovely upward lift,

the trajectory of the songs is, they all seem to move upwards like that. so there was a lot i got from that in a very positive... there is a weird joyfulness about ghosteen that is often overlooked. # well, the moon won't get a wink of sleep. # if i stay all night and talk. in the conversations, you talk about a very definite difference between being spiritual and being religious. you know, i think religion asks something of us. it asks something of us. and spirituality is a little bit more of amorphous, and we can all be spiritual and we are all spiritual and, like, well, of course

we are all spiritual. but religion requires... it's spirituality with rigour. it requires something of us. and that action, i think, is probably what it is all about. so, what does being religious require of you? for me, i am more inclined to do religious things, like go to church, pray. read scripture. i mean, i have always done these things anyway. even in my most chaotic times, i've done those sorts of things. but i feel that when i walk, when i read scripture or when i walk out of church, i feel less... i feel my scepticism is a little less. it is more distant. you put it at bay. yeah. but that struggle, the struggle

is very much where i am, in regard to religion and the ideas of god and christian ideas. it is a struggle. i have by no means arrived anywhere on that kind of thing. do you think that after�*s death strengthened your faith? yes. ——do you think that arthur's death strengthened your faith? yes. i think a lot of things happened. i think the writing of the book, weirdly enough, did that. the book itself starts with a... ..a kind of nervousness around questions of faith, and ends, ends more firm about those sorts of things. when i talk about... when we are talking about faith here, i am also talking about doubt. these two things, for me, go hand—in—hand. and, you know, a deep, ingrained scepticism i have towards these sorts of things.

and the faith that i feel is that occasionaljourneying away from that scepticism into something else. and i find that really a powerful place to be, especially imaginatively and creatively. in the book, you say that religion can be a shepherding force that holds communities together. there is an argument to say that religion is not always a force for good. that is very true and there are many arguments why religion is not a force for good. but when i walk into a christian church, i walk into something that i feel i belong to. it is my thing, it is something that i was raised in as a child, there is a sense of nostalgia, a sense of safety about that. i don't step into that and deny anyone else their religious beliefs or whatever. itjust feels like it is my place, and i don't say that in any divisive or nationalistic weight

or anything like that. ijust never connected to eastern religion, let's say. you know. that was too spiritual, in a sense. so i neverfound the language, the aesthetic, anything about it particularly compelling, for me, personally. and i always found something in the figure of christ that was deeply compelling to me. it always was. even as a child. # i don't believe in an interventionist god. # but i know, darling, that you do. 1997, the song, into my arms,

"i don't believe in an interventionist god." and you have also, as you say, changed your idea about faith and doubt. i mean, that particular song, if you know, that particular song to me feels like a person on the point of conversion. i think that's what that song is saying. # well, not to touch your hair and your head leave you as you are. # he felt he had to direct you and direct you into my arms. but it's a good, serviceable song because it, well, it services the atheist and the believer. and pretty much everyone can kind of play that at a wedding or a funeral or whatever. it's done me very well, that song. because it's kind of a broad church, shall we say, and, and everyone can collect within that song. but for me, it's essentially a religious song and it's that

i don't believe in god, it's that i don't believe in an interventionist god. # into my arms. # oh, lord. # into my arms. the red hand files, which seem like a kind of act of generosity and i wonder if they came directly out of your son arthur's death. no. well, in the sense that i didn't know how to speak about arthur. i was getting a lot of people writing to me in response to arthur's death, telling me their stories. not so much in sympathy but rather, this is what happened to me, this is what might happen to you. that was, i saw those as these kind of momentary flashes of light that i grabbed hold of and felt... i felt helped by those responses.

and so some i think a couple of years later, i just started up the red hand files. in a more general kind of way. ask me anything. i'm a musician, ask me anything. but the questions very quickly became about other things. and it wasn't. .. it was both me and the audience pushing pushing the conversation outwards. it seemed like it was a salve for you and a salve for the people that were writing the letters. it was, yeah. when you say it was an act of generosity, i think that works the other way too. i feel that when people write in to the red hand files and spend a lot of care and attention around what they write to me, they are acts of generosity as well. and i mean, you get thousands of requests. it's a difficult decision, isn't it?

because you can't answer them all. you can't answer. yeah, no. i have to balance them and look at... you know, i mean, sometimes there's several in a row that are kind of grim and i try and lighten the mood with another one and so forth. so it is a little bit of a balancing act. and i wonder in that sense if there's anything that's off limits that you would have to answer? yeah, there's a lot of things i won't answer, mostly because i don't think those questions have necessarily come in good faith, i would say. and so i don't... there's too much in there of of value to write about. i wonder if the red hand files were a form of ministry. well, i wouldn't. . . that seems a little highfalutin. you know, i never saw it in that way. i think the red hand files for me was a way to learn how to articulate certain things that were going on me with the help of the

people who wrote in. so it felt like something we were doing together and that that's been enormously helpful. and i think it's been helpful to other people, too. and that's. .. ..how to write about something. it's actually quite difficult, quite different than how to speak about something. and i think with sean's book that we wrote together, i learned how to through these conversations, how to speak about these matters as well. issue number 210. is such an endeavour a fool's errand for someone of my age? it was, by any measure, a fool's errand.

i had made some ceramic pieces when i was a teenager, and they were not bad. but there was nothing to suggest that i had any particular talent with clay. still, my mother liked them, so i thought it might be fun to make some more. get your act together. and if you do and warren, mardy, jim, and i ever get around to making a new grinderman record, you can come and play on it. grinderman, as a matter of policy, only work with the very old, the out of shape and the extremely foolish. we are the obscene and joyous embodiment of a fool's errand. and we are waiting. there is no time to waste. love, nick. that is a particular act of generosity! he can come and play with us. i mean, anyone can come and play with grinderman. this my other group. but you have to be old and you have to be irrelevant. another question which again,

a man wrote to you and talked about a musician that had passed away and the fact that a supreme courtjustice in america who he really despised loved this musician, and he was very annoyed about that. and he was appalled that this musician was liked by this judge because it kind of negated, he thought, i think, what he thought of the musician. do you believe that your music is for everyone? i mean, would you ever say, no, i really i don't want that audience. i mean, look, i get a lot of pushback from what i write, and i got an enormous amount of pushback with that particular question because it opens with, i've you know, i've cast my mind around and i can't come up with a single person that i wouldn't want to listen to my music and that got, or that didn't deserve on some level to listen to my music. and i got a lot of

rage back about that. and people saying, what about this person and what about that person? but the point i was really trying to make in that particular letter is that music is fundamentally a good thing and it makes people better, in my view. so...um...so... even if there is someone that you might consider deplorable or despicable, i think that they that. . .that they might be listening to my music feels that they may be a little bit better by the end of the record. i don't know. that's what i was trying to put forward. i guess it's more that i don't want my music ever to be used as a form of punishment or that i deny my music to, to certain people because of where they stand, politically. i mean, where do you even begin with something like that? you know, where do you draw the line anyway? well, i mean, i suppose the whole

thing about separating art from the artist as well is another, the flip side of looking at that. and so, you know, i suppose the most recent one of that would be new kanye, you know, is accused of anti—semitism, so therefore, you know, should you be listening to his music or should he actually be be shunned? i mean, are you completely open on that? well, on some level, i don't care what kanye has to say on things, but i...but i do love kanye's music. ifind anti—semitism in particular... . . particularly distasteful. and so it's very disappointing to hear these remarks and such sort of obvious... ..boring, kind of reductive tropes that he's actually peddling to be incredibly disappointing. however, it's a personal choice as

to whether you can go on and listen to that person's music. i personally can. i love kanye's music. i feel that he's done the best music of anybody in some time. the most interesting, challenging, bold music. and maybe... i mean, this is a complex argument, but maybe there's something to do with a transgressive personality that... ..that makes a person willing to take certain kind of risks with their music. because kanye does that. and it's... it's exciting. that aspect of what he does is exciting, but no way... you know, what he was saying is obviously... ..disappointing. # cindy is my honey. # the sweetest in the south. # when we kiss, the bees would all swarm around our mouth. # and we'll get on home.

as you get older, you're more self reflective, do you think? yeah. well, of course you wouldn't want to be the other way. some people are. but do you think you... do you think you are more open to people? i, i... i don't know if i say this in the book, but i think after my son died, i personally think i became an actual person and that before that happened, i was an incomplete or unformed human being. i had a very narrow view of the world, a much more strident view of the world. # i travel around. # i don't know why.

i # don't know how. # but she is nobody�*s baby now. there seemed to be some correlation between my stridency about things and my lack of understanding about things. in fact, the less i knew, the more opinionated and certain i would become. and there's something that happened when my son died that smashed all that to bits and i could see the world in a much more... ..nuanced way, i think. and a much more empathetic way. because in a way, griefjust becomes part of who we are. yeah, i think so. i think that that's our common bond, is that we all... have a... particularly as we grow older, we are all kind of creatures of loss or grief.

you said in faith, hope and carnage, we are, each of us, imperiled insofar as anything can turn catastrophic at any time. do you think that's true? that we're never really equipped? to deal with that dreadful loss and shock, you know? you know, it seems to me that... grief is notjust one thing. it's notjust how you feel about the loss of one thing. it's a kind of. i find all the griefs tend to kind of collect around the new thing. that sounds terrible the way that that came out. but i think we get better at it or we get more used to the state of that state of being. you know, i remember my mother who died. she was 93 and people

were just dying all the time around to her friends. it was you know, she would say such and such died today and. two months later, such and such died today, you know, and. and she's just grieving everybody. and. which is what the very olds do. and it's... i don't think she's plunged back into that same thing again and again. i think you just become. ..these kind of, i don't even say, this is sounding depressing, but it's not meant to be. but i think we just become. used to it as a part of. living, you know. your wife, susie, says it takes great courage to be happier. did she say that? she's clever.

she also said time to be amused by the way that point about it. it takes courage to be happy. and i think that's a really interesting thing to see. yeah, well, it's. it's a defiant position. happiness very often. and it's hard earned and it's not. it's a deep thing. happiness is a deep thing because... because i don't think there is such a thing as simple happiness. i think you lift the lid and there's all sorts of stuff going on underneath. a person's ability to be optimistic about the world. and... you know, so so to me, happiness is a is a... i agree with her. i agree with everything she says. but it is a form of defiance, i would say. and you practice that defiant, i would say. so, you know, i'm basically a, ,

a happy pefsoh, you know. # take a little walk to the edge of town. # and go across the tracks # where the viaduct looms like a bird of doom as it shifts across. you're all having a moment and a connection with new fans through the theme for peaky blinders. you know, in a way, much like the kate bush has it with stranger things. yeah. i mean, that's not recent. that's been going for four years. and that song, which is, to be perfectly honest, not my favourite song, i've got to say. there's a lot of songs that i prefer playing live, let's say,

but the response to that song is sort of massive. so we continue to play it and. i find different ways to do it. and, you know. but yeah, that's been. following us around like a. you know nasty old dog but doing but you know it does it's good for us. # they call me the wild rose. # but my name was eliza day. just before i finish your personal also with great friendships that last many years. and back to your work with kylie minogue, which was in the �*90s. yeah. i mean, would you do work again with kylie, would you? sure. you know, i mean, i've worked

with a lot of people. i've sung withjohnny cash and, you know. but i really think it was that record i did with kylie minogue, which i really hold in a very special place in my heart, because we both took an enormous risk to do that. she was instructed, i think, i believe, by the people around her, don't go near this guy. you just don't want to be associated with nick cave, especially back then. you know, i wasn't in showroom condition, shall we say. and but it was also people saying, you're going to do a record with kylie minogue, you must be crazy. so there was a jeopardy for both. yeah, there was a potential for disaster for both of us. but she just entered into that and in a you know. with just a whole lot of love. and it was really an amazing thing and it worked really well. so we've remained, even though we don't see each other very often,

we've, we love each other, i think, genuinely. you know, and it's always a joy to see her. and if she wants to make another record, then maybe there's a where the wild roses grow apart too, or something like that. maybe she could write to you in the red hand files. nick cave, thank you very much. it is a pleasure, thank you. # into my arms. # oh, lord. # into my arms.#

it is feeling quite cold this weekend and it stays cold and depart to the weekend with strong easterly winds and a few showers feeding in off the north sea, all tied in with a gigantic area of high pressure sent across the north—west of pressure, some cold circulating it. some clearer spells as well where temperatures are likely to drop below freezing so where we see showers and where sky is clear afterwards, there isjust the risk of some ice in places, watch out for that. sunday, a similar story, of some ice in places, watch out for that. sunday, a similarstory, more proud around generally. a better picture for scotland and northern ireland, some sunshine here, it in areas they pick a cloud and most of the showers, a little bit of a wintry mix in scotland and again it will feel cold, particular when you factor in the wind.

this is bbc news, i'm martine croxall — the headlines: health officials warn parents to look out for symptoms of a condition caused by strep a — six children have died in england and wales after contracting the infection. 39 unaccompanied albanian children who have come into the care of kent county council this year have gone missing — raising fears of human trafficking. a newspaper in greece says the british museum and the greek government have been in "secret talks" over a possible return of the elgin marbles. the former government minister, conor burns, has been cleared of misconduct — and he'll have his conservative party whip restored. and, at the world cup, the round of 16 kicks off with the usa facing the netherlands — the winner will face argentina or australia, who meet later this evening.