On the face of it, you’d have thought being employed to make fun of Henry VIII and his cronies would be one of those jobs with an extremely high rate of attrition. Depending on who you ask, between 57,000 and 72,000 people were executed during the 37-year reign of the Tudor monarch, including two of his wives and a great many of his courtiers. But Will Somers, who was the official court “fool” – not to be confused with jester – survived Henry, his son Edward (who executed five people), his eldest daughter Mary (288) and died peacefully during the reign of Elizabeth I (200).

A new biography of Somers gives hints as to why. Rather than exhibiting a rapier-like wit, which might easily have got him into trouble with the notoriously irascible king, he appears to have been a literal punching bag for Henry or his senior courtiers. And it’s hard to cut someone’s head off if you’ve become used to boxing their ears. It just doesn’t seem fair.

Just recently we ran a series of stories with the catch-all title, Women’s Health Matters. The response from readers showed us there’s a huge demand for more stories in this vein. This week we published an important piece about the little spoken-of condition of vulval cancer. Because of popular taboos about discussing genitalia, vulval cancer is often missed when most cases are preventable. This article will tell you what to look out for and what to do if you detect any of the signs.

As I write this, an estimated 88,000 of the 120,000 ethnic Armenians who lived in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh have fled after Azerbaijan, whose territory surrounds the enclave, launched a military assault this week. The assault followed nine months during which the only access the people of Nagorno-Karabakh had to Armenia, a thin strip of land known as the Lachin corridor, was blockaded, causing severe shortages of food, medicines and fuel. It’s a complicated situation that dates back to the collapse of the Soviet Union and appears to be far from resolved.

This week we also considered why Suella Braverman is mistaken when she says the UN Refugee Convention is not “fit for purpose”, we said goodbye to unforgettable actor Michael Gambon, we offered advice to anyone who finds themselves in a toxic work environment, and we discussed why changing the age of consent would miss the point when it comes to protecting young people from predatory sexual behaviour.

Meanwhile, thanks to our friends and colleagues around the world, we have this tribute to Salif “Domingo” Këita, one of the early greats of African football, why the smell of freshly baked bread or rainfall can transport us back in time (with a nod to Marcel Proust) and be good for the health of our brain, and – from our newest partner in the global Conversation, Brazil – why the UN and multilateralism are in trouble and what the global south can do to help.

Do try to also make time to listen to the concluding part of our podcast series looking back at the Oslo accords, featuring an interview with Yossi Beiolin, one of the Israeli negotiators.

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