guardian.co.uk, formerly known as Guardian Unlimited, is a British website owned by the Guardian Media Group. Georgina Henry is the editor. It contains nearly all of the content of the newspapers The Guardian and The Observer, as well as a substantial body of web-only work produced by its own staff, including a rolling news service.

As of May 2011 it was the second-most popular UK newspaper website after MailOnline (dailymail.co.uk), with 2.8m unique visitors per day, and 51.3m per month, behind the MailOnline's 4.4m and 77.3m.

The site is made up of a core news site, plus a network of niche websites covering subjects including media, environment and technology, sport, education and the public sector. guardian.co.uk is notable for its engagement with readers, including long-running talkboards and, more recently, a network of weblogs. Its seven blogs were joined on March 14, 2006 by a new comment site, Comment is free (see below), named after the famous quote by The Guardian editor, C. P. Scott. Articles (like the talkboards until their sudden closure on 25th February, 2011) accept comments without pre-moderation, although posts on Comment is Free are moderated after the event. All now require registration for comments.

Blind Guardian is a German power metal band formed in the mid-1980s in Krefeld, West Germany. They are often credited as one of the seminal and most influential bands in the power metal and speed metal subgenres. Blind Guardian is a part of the German heavy metal scene that emerged in the mid-1980s.

The band's lyrics, written by vocalist Hansi Kürsch, are inspired by the fiction of fantasy authors such as J. R. R. Tolkien, Michael Moorcock, Robert Jordan and George R. R. Martin as well as traditional legends and epics. Over the years, a running theme has developed personifying the band members as travelling bards, leading some fans to refer to the band affectionately as "The Bards".

Blind Guardian was formed in 1984 in Krefeld, Germany, by Hansi Kürsch (vocals, bass) and Andre Olbrich (guitar) under the name Lucifer's Heritage. The band first released two demos in 1985 and 1986, despite undergoing chaotic lineup changes: Markus Dörk (guitar) and Thomen Stauch (drums) were replaced by Christof Theißen and Hans-Peter Frey, respectively. Finally, in 1987, Marcus Siepen joined and Thomen came back to form the lineup which would stay consistent for the next 18 years.