Super Furry Animals: Dark Days/Light Years

From this record's elaborate title, one might assume Super Furry Animals have embarked on a sprawling concept album for the credit-crunch era. But they haven't. Reconvened after numerous side projects - including the Mercury-nominated Neon Neon, Acid Casuals and The Peth, fronted by the actor Rhys Ifans - this band has actually made its brightest and boldest record in years. Clocking in at just under 60 minutes, it may be long, but it's never boring. Dark Days/Light Years is said to have grown out of riffs and grooves that the band has been working with for several years, and it shows. Unlike their uncharacteristically concise last album, Hey Venus!, this has acres of breathing space. Cardiff in the Sun and The Very Best of Neil Diamond show the Welsh rockers taking their time and carving out some epic songs in the process. There are plenty of psychedelic pop tunes too. Inaugural Trams, which features a German rap from Franz Ferdinand's Nick McCarthy, is by far the most immediate track. Meanwhile, the optimistic Helium Hearts - in which Gruff Rhys sings, "it's cool to find what keeps us all together" - shows this band at its best. In fact, this latest release doesn't just break new ground, it also sounds like the most fun these boys have had since 2001's Rings Around the World. As an outfit with a reputation for regularly switching styles, they have also succeeded here by keeping their music rooted in a feeling that is comfortably familiar, but as ever, undeniably bonkers.

Paatal Lok season two

Directors: Avinash Arun, Prosit Roy

Stars: Jaideep Ahlawat, Ishwak Singh, Lc Sekhose, Merenla Imsong

Rating: 4.5/5

How to protect yourself when air quality drops

Install an air filter in your home.

Close your windows and turn on the AC.

Shower or bath after being outside.

Wear a face mask.

Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.

If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.

Iran's dirty tricks to dodge sanctions

There’s increased scrutiny on the tricks being used to keep commodities flowing to and from blacklisted countries. Here’s a description of how some work.

1 Going Dark

A common method to transport Iranian oil with stealth is to turn off the Automatic Identification System, an electronic device that pinpoints a ship’s location. Known as going dark, a vessel flicks the switch before berthing and typically reappears days later, masking the location of its load or discharge port.

2. Ship-to-Ship Transfers

A first vessel will take its clandestine cargo away from the country in question before transferring it to a waiting ship, all of this happening out of sight. The vessels will then sail in different directions. For about a third of Iranian exports, more than one tanker typically handles a load before it’s delivered to its final destination, analysts say.

3. Fake Destinations

Signaling the wrong destination to load or unload is another technique. Ships that intend to take cargo from Iran may indicate their loading ports in sanction-free places like Iraq. Ships can keep changing their destinations and end up not berthing at any of them.

4. Rebranded Barrels

Iranian barrels can also be rebranded as oil from a nation free from sanctions such as Iraq. The countries share fields along their border and the crude has similar characteristics. Oil from these deposits can be trucked out to another port and documents forged to hide Iran as the origin.

* Bloomberg