Are baby products the secret to better skin? 15 toiletries worth trying

Life and style | The Guardian

With gentler formulas and lower prices, children’s toiletries can work just as well for adults. From nappy rash cream to nourishing bath milk, these are the products that have earned a place in my routine

There may be plenty of worrying headlines about children using adult beauty products from younger and younger ages, but what about the reverse?

I’ve been a beauty editor for more than a decade, but when I had my first child in 2020, I was immediately impressed with the body washes, bath products and moisturisers designed for babies, particularly as someone with eczema and sensitive skin. The products’ gentler, often fragrance-free formulas are easier on my skin, tend to cost less, and result in a less cluttered bathroom, since we can all use the same things. These are the ones I’m still using – on the entire family – five years on.

August 21st 2026, 8:59 am

Can’t beat them? Eat them! Ten of the tastiest garden weeds

Life and style | The Guardian

Edible weeds grow in abundance in our gardens, streets and parks. With a little know-how, you can harvest delicious, nutritious, free greens

Did you know that free food grows in our gardens, streets and parks without being planted by us? Not only does this food hide in plain sight, we’re encouraged to remove it from our gardens and throw it away. I’m talking about edible weeds, otherwise known as wildflowers. You may not be able to eat weeds into submission, but using them in the kitchen is a good excuse to welcome them into the garden.

We walk past edible weeds without a second thought, yet they’re nutritious and available for much of the year. They return of their own accord every year, either perennially or by seed, making it easy to familiarise yourself with them and learn how to cook.

August 21st 2026, 6:44 am

To the friends who were there when I became a full-time carer – your kindness has carried me through

Life and style | The Guardian

When her mum fell ill, writer Minreet Kaur’s life was turned upside down. Overnight, she had to become a full-time carer – and at times, she felt isolated and unable to care for herself. Here, she thanks the friends who were there to pull her through

Dear friends,

I know I’ve thanked you many times before, and even now I still do. You’ve always said there’s no need, but when I sit back and reflect on the last three years – the years since my life changed when I became a carer to my mum after she was diagnosed with cancer – I realise there will always be a need. Gratitude doesn’t run out. It stays with you.

August 21st 2026, 6:44 am

‘Tuscany may be beautiful, but do they sell sticks of rock?’: readers’ favourite UK holidays

Life and style | The Guardian

Your best UK breaks include an island off Mull, a rail journey along the County Antrim coast and Dorset’s best-kept secret

• Tell us about your favourite under-the-radar European city – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

Mudeford feels like one of England’s best-kept secrets, the sort of place visitors from abroad might never imagine exists here. Golden sand and sparkling water give it an almost Mediterranean feel, while Hengistbury Head adds beautiful coastal walks and wide-open views. Our perfect day is simple: arrive early, wander along the headland, let the children play on the beach, then stop at one of the relaxed cafes for lunch or an ice-cream. My tip is to take the little ferry across the harbour – it turns an already lovely day out into a proper seaside adventure.
Priti Singer

August 21st 2026, 4:28 am

Experience: I fell 12 metres while bouldering and smashed my pelvis into pieces

Life and style | The Guardian

It was clear it was broken. I could feel the bones grinding together as the paramedics strapped me to a gurney

Growing up in Utah, I was so active that my parents nicknamed me “The Blur”. My older siblings introduced me to rock climbing while I was still at primary school. By the time I was 15, I was hauling myself up cliff faces.

One summer’s day in 2014, when I was 17, my friends and I went paddleboarding on a lake. My friend Trevor and I decided to climb one of the rocky boulders overlooking the water, and jump in.

August 21st 2026, 3:44 am

The best mattresses in 2026: sleep better with our 14 rigorously tested picks

Life and style | The Guardian

From luxury Simba and Otty mattresses to brilliant budget buys, here’s what we recommend – and how to know if you’ve found a good deal

• The best mattresses for back pain
• The best mattress toppers, tested

A good mattress improves your sleep, say mattress makers – and they would, wouldn’t they? But they’re right. The older I get, the more I know it. When I was 20, I could sleep anywhere: a friend’s floor, a sofa – even a phone box one night. These days, I won’t get a single one of 40 winks if I’m not lying on a decent mattress. Comfy but firm, cosy but breathable, and with lots of cool spots for my feet.

Today’s best mattresses promise all this and more. Pocket springs are still around, but they face stiff – well, medium-firm – competition from hybrid mattresses that combine springs and memory foam for the ideal balance of comfort and support.

Best mattress overall:
Otty Original Hybrid

August 20th 2026, 7:27 pm

The best LED face masks in the UK, tested: 12 light therapy devices that are worth the hype

Life and style | The Guardian

They claim to fix fine lines, blemishes, and redness – but which stand up to scrutiny? After consulting dermatologists and putting them to the test, we have crowned a brand new number one

• The best anti-ageing creams, serums and treatments

LED face masks are booming in popularity – despite being one of the most expensive at-home beauty products to hit the market. They claim to either reduce the appearance of fine lines, stop spots or calm redness, with some even combining different types of light to enhance the benefits.

However, it’s wise to be sceptical about new treatments that are costly and non-invasive, and to do your research before you buy. With this in mind, I interviewed doctors and dermatologists to find out whether these light therapy devices work.

Best LED mask overall:
CurrentBody Multi Light Therapy LED mask

Best budget LED face mask:
Silk’n LED face mask 100

August 20th 2026, 7:27 pm

You be the judge: should my partner stop hogging my side of the bed?

Life and style | The Guardian

Pádraig has a favourite side, whereas Dave likes to sleep farthest from the door. Help us put this argument to bed
• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

I sleep better on the left side of the bed. I shouldn’t have to swap just because we’ve moved to a new flat

August 20th 2026, 7:27 pm

‘The only way is up’: cycling Norway’s mountainous ‘Milky Way’

Life and style | The Guardian

The Mjølkevegen was once used to bring milk from high pastures to the towns below. Now cyclists are discovering the road’s breathtaking panoramas of peaks and lakes, dotted with cosy inns

‘Norway is a hilly country,” shrugs Glenn Roar Berge. He’s not wrong, though he is fond of an understatement. I’m in Valdres in southern Norway to explore the cycle routes that skirt the edges of Jotunheimen national park. Glenn from Jotunheimen Travel is our guide, a born-and-bred local of these mountains.

For most of our three-day ride, we’ll be following the Mjølkevegen, or Milky Way, a 155-mile (250km) route from Vinstra in the north to Gol in the south. It was developed after the second world war, when increased demand for fresh milk meant connecting the mountain farms with the towns below. While farming continues, the road has been embraced in recent years by gravel cyclists, (typically riders on drop-bar bikes favouring unpaved roads and trails), looking for a multi-day adventure far from towns and cities.

August 20th 2026, 7:27 pm

Reality bites: what actually makes a difference when sending your kids to university

Life and style | The Guardian

Electrical retailer AO is helping both parents and students feel ready for the new academic year. Here, a mum of two shares her experience of kitting out her kids with essential tech and navigating the whirlwind of university life

Looking back, there were a few mistakes made in the build-up to getting my sons settled at university. I was in my mid-50s, a mum of two, and while I was proud to be packing my first son off to the Midlands and then, three years later, his younger brother up north, the many unknowns of student life in unfamiliar cities made me anxious.

I remember that nagging ache in the pit of my stomach as the dates for their departures approached. Would they thrive or struggle, and how could we, as parents, support them at a distance? Would all that freedom and independence derail any actual academic goals? You want them to make lifelong friends, have an enriching cultural experience, discover there’s a great big world out there and hopefully even get a degree. But, as we found, a few reality checks are needed.

August 20th 2026, 7:27 pm

Thursday news quiz: A Clacton zero, a departed hero and a whopper Virgin Mary

Life and style | The Guardian

Test yourself on topical news trivia, pop culture and general knowledge every Thursday. How will you fare?

Tim Martin may have spent the better part of a decade trying to convince people that leaving the EU was the only way to secure cheap pub grub, but credit where credit is due: JD Wetherspoon is banning people from blasting out TikToks, videos and music on speakerphone in its pubs. The pub chain has not, however, banned you from asking Thursday quiz questions out loud and then showing off that you know your feral hogs from your escaped macaques. So get to it. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 261

August 20th 2026, 7:27 pm

Açaí, chipotle and gnocchi – and other words you are probably mispronouncing

Life and style | The Guardian

The English language can seem designed to trip us up, whether we’re greeting a colonel or travelling to Worcestershire. Here are some of the biggest stumbling blocks

Name: Açaí.

Age: First imported to western countries from South America as freeze-dried pulp in the 1990s.

August 20th 2026, 7:27 pm

The best hair oils for glossy, healthy looking locks

Life and style | The Guardian

They’re all the rage, but which scalp serums, oils and capsules can be counted on for nourishment and serious shine?

• The best hair masks for every budget, tested

Hair oil has become increasingly popular, with countless celebrities and influencers lauding its ability to smooth, protect and support hair growth. Some apply hair oil to their scalp, others to their strands; some apply oil to wet hair before styling, others use it on a finished style. With so many uses, it’s worth thinking about your goals before buying.

I’ve worked my way through 11 bottles, from a cheap-and-cheerful £9.99 to a steeper £65, to bring you this list of the best hair oils. Whether you’re looking for thick, nourishing oils to help nurse damaged hair to life or a featherlight option to add shine and scent to your strands, there’s something on this list for you.

August 20th 2026, 7:27 pm

Watermelons in Bristol: how UK heatwaves are affecting growers

Life and style | The Guardian

Most allotment holders say the heat has meant more work for smaller crops, although some have found a silver lining

After a summer of repeated heatwaves and exceptionally dry weather in the UK, rain has brought some relief this week, but drought remains widespread and experts warn it will take weeks of sustained rainfall for water supplies to recover.

For people growing their own fruit and vegetables, it has been a challenging and sometimes surprising season. The Guardian spoke to growers across England about how they are adapting to a hotter, drier climate.

August 20th 2026, 7:27 pm

​My coastal road trip confirms that seaside ​food ​still ​beats ​fine ​dining

Life and style | The Guardian

​A​ family holiday shaped by salt air, seagulls and unpredictable weather proves that the seaside serves a kind of joy no restaurant can engineer

Sign up here for our weekly food newsletter, Feast

There are few things more powerful than the smell of salt, vinegar and hot oil carried on a sea breeze. Or sugar-coated doughnuts, still warm in a grease-stained paper bag. Such distinctly British perfumes are the smell of my summer, because my family and I are road-tripping through the UK and Ireland. We are embracing as much of coastline as we can, while battling seagulls and unpredictable weather along the way. And, unlike the carefully curated dining experiences we seek on holidays abroad, seaside food has always been wonderfully simple. It is rarely elegant, but it is pure comfort and nostalgia.

First up, fish and chips, in my opinion, they remain the undisputed king of Britain’s coastal cuisine. Every seaside town insists that theirs is the best (so far, the finest I’ve tried were in Yorkshire, but I am prepared for that to change on this holiday). If you are at home this summer, or not near a British seaside, you can, of course, have a go at making your own. Tim Hughes’s and Felicity Cloake’s recipes are as authentic as they come, along with a crisp beer batter for firm white fish. For a slight twist, Yotam Ottolenghi’s fish and spiced sweet potato chips is an excellent, inspired dish. Either way, all options deliver.

August 20th 2026, 7:27 pm

Experiencing the perimenopause has many alarming downsides. But it can be sexy, too…

Life and style | The Guardian

When Christie Watson put on an HRT patch she found herself thinking about sex, all the time. What was going on?

I began using HRT patches at 42, after a seemingly catastrophic breakdown that resulted in my climbing into a Sainsbury’s fish-finger freezer. My mental health was horrendous. I felt totally outside my own skin, dissociated, and that I’d lost my sense of self. I told a therapist that I related to Mrs Dalloway, a chronically depressed – and arguably narcissistic and bourgeois – fictional Virginia Woolf character. She suggested that these feelings could all be down to perimenopause, a term I’d only heard of vaguely, in passing, even as a former nurse. Perimenopause, she told me, can be an extremely rocky road, lasting up to a decade before menopause itself.

My GP didn’t bat an eyelid at my bizarre symptoms, but offered me low-dose HRT patches and described the side-effects as minimal in most people. Some women experience breast tenderness or feeling sick, or headaches but, she said, this usually settled down. I hoped the patches would lead to fewer perimenopausal symptoms and a balancing out of my mood, some comfort and at least some realism.

September 11th 2022, 5:32 am

Sunday with Rev Richard Coles: ‘I’ve discovered crustless quiche with salad’

Life and style | The Guardian

The writer, former pop star and retired vicar goes to other people’s churches and tries not to judge, then it’s soup and sarnies for supper

Up early or late? When I was in my 20s and ran off to London nightclubs, I was an owl. Now I’m older and my chance of getting past a bouncer has decreased, I’ve turned into a lark.

Sunday breakfast? After I got ordained, the day of rest became a day of work. I’d get up with coffee at 6am for morning prayer and sometimes treat myself to smoked mackerel pâté on toast – although I’m not sure that made my breath delightful for the early communicants.

September 11th 2022, 4:30 am

My mother died 25 years ago and I am still not over it

Life and style | The Guardian

Accepting your grief, no matter how long ago it happened, will make it easier to live with

The dilemma I am 50 years old, live a privileged life with my husband and our two children and really don’t want for much. My mother died very suddenly when I was 25 – she was 61. Her death was from a heart attack. We had no clue that she was gravely ill. My father died of bowel cancer in 2020, aged 81.

While it was very sad to see my dad’s decline, I felt able to come to terms with his illness and subsequent death. However – and the reason I’m seeking guidance – I don’t think I ever have really learned how to deal with my mum’s death. Even now, tears are coming to my eyes as I write this. How can this be right after 25 years? I should be over it.

September 11th 2022, 4:27 am

Blind Date goes to Beijing: ‘I wanted to hold her hand … too fast!’

Life and style | The Guardian

In a global dating special, Xiaoyu, 24, manager trainee, meets Iris, 28, medical industry

What were you hoping for?
To start a new relationship in Beijing.

September 11th 2022, 4:27 am

A holiday in Ireland sends my son on a flight of fancy

Life and style | The Guardian

A ferry trip takes on a mythic hue for my little Londoner who is lost in the wonders of his homeland

For a day trip, we take the car five minutes over the water from Ballyhack to Passage East in Waterford. The boy is bewitched by the car ferry and keeps asking to see the captain, in the manner of a food critic asking to see the chef so he can stand up and shake his hand. Spotting the gruff, smoking man in an orange jacket who might meet this description, I decide he might puncture his mythical regard for this notional figure and tell him the captain is too busy charting our course with his lieutenants to speak with us right now. When given the option between fact and legend, like any Irish person who finds themselves working involuntarily for the Irish Tourist Board, I decide I must print the legend.

By the time you’re reading this, my son will have started primary school. There, in the real world, he may already have come home in flames, started speaking in dockworkers’ slang, or undergone a tattooed induction into a local biker gang. But, here and now, in the blissful past, we are enjoying a week’s holiday in Wexford, in Ireland’s southeast.

September 11th 2022, 4:27 am

Is digging a tunnel under your house the perfect life escape? | Eva Wiseman

Life and style | The Guardian

The Mole Man of Hackney certainly thought so, perhaps he was on to something

There are places you return to in your dreams, a great-aunt’s cottage or primary school canteen, repurposed by your subconscious as a location for flirtation, horror or something dental. Since I first learned about it in the early 2000s, when I lived down the road, one of mine has been the Mole Man’s house.

He was William Lyttle, a civil engineer who liked to dig. In his Hackney home he dug and dug, burrowing and nibbling through the earth, hollowing out a web of tunnels and caves, some 26ft deep, some hung or strewn with objects, like bath tubs, old fires and TV sets. There was also a boat down there, and the wrecks of three Renault 4 cars.

September 11th 2022, 4:27 am

Etles Uyghur, London: ‘You’ll be well fed, and learn a little along the way’ – restaurant review

Life and style | The Guardian

Visit this classy Uyghur restaurant for lessons in culture and geography, and tasty chicken piled high

Etles Uyghur Restaurant, 424 Finchley Road, London NW2 2HY (020 7431 5698). Starters £7.50-£9.99, mains £12.50-£16, big plate chicken £30, desserts £4.50. Unlicensed

The menu at Etles Uyghur restaurant, located at the leafier Golder’s Green end of London’s Finchley Road, is not just a thrilling list of edible promises. It’s also a subtle lesson in physical and human geography. Obviously, there’s no pork listed because of the predominantly Muslim culture of the Uyghur people, which the Chinese government has been attempting to annihilate so brutally, for so long. Nor is there much in the way of fish because Xinjiang province, home to the Uyghurs, is far from the sea. Here it’s all about beef, lamb and chicken.

September 11th 2022, 4:25 am

Killer house plants and other myths

Life and style | The Guardian

People like to believe some really mad things about gardening. Here’s three recent howlers

As a scientist who is fascinated by horticulture, I am often deeply torn by gardening advice. Sometimes, I feel we are incredibly constrained by established rules that lack any real basis in evidence and which can not only put people off growing but actively set them up for failure. Breaking free of these, and embracing the fact there are as many gardening techniques as there are gardeners, is therefore essential to progress the art form.

However, just when I start putting myself firmly in the “horses for courses” camp, something inevitably comes up – usually starting on social media, then swiftly recycled in slots on daytime telly – that gets the geeky pedant in me exploding in Hulk-like fury. Perhaps nowhere is this more the case than in the world of houseplants. So, in order to protect my screens at home from my urge to throw objects at them, here are the top three howlers I have seen this season.

September 11th 2022, 4:25 am

‘Everyone thinks this little old lady is hysterical’: the older TikTok stars with millions of follow

Life and style | The Guardian

When 92-year-old Lillian’s video went viral, no one could believe it – least of all her… Introducing the older generation taking TikTok by storm

TikTok? Why not? That is my motto. Making our channel was my grandson Kevin’s idea from the start. It’s his fault that I’ve got nearly 5m followers. We were just sitting in the kitchen one day and he filmed me chatting. I can barely remember what I said – I think something about clocks? That’s what I thought he was telling me to do: tick tock, a clock! It was meant to be a joke, but overnight that video got 1m views or something ridiculous.

September 10th 2022, 3:11 pm

‘We took the acid at 6pm – the awards started at 6.30’: the inside story of the wild early days of L

Life and style | The Guardian

In an extract from former editor James Brown’s memoir, he remembers the chaotic, drug-fuelled chaos of working on the original 90s lads’ mag

• Interview: ‘We flew so close to the sun our trainers melted’

“No you get it. It’s your turn.”

“Fuck you, I’m telling you to get it.”

September 10th 2022, 11:45 am

Savoury cooking with late summer fruit – recipes by 10 Greek Street

Life and style | The Guardian

Make the most of summer produce while you still can: greengages take mackerel to another level, while peaches are the soft sell for pork chops with runner beans

It’s late summer, and with that comes arguably some of the finest produce: intensely sweet fruit such as peaches and greengages, which can be incorporated into our savoury cooking. Paired with bold, rich meat or fish, the flavour of the fruit comes alive and becomes the star of the show. These dishes are to be enjoyed while taking in the last of the summer warmth, with a glass of wine and in the company of friends and family.

The Guardian aims to publish recipes for sustainable fish. Check ratings in your region: UK; Australia; US.

James Mossman is head chef of 10 Greek Street, London W1, which this year celebrates its 10th anniversary.

September 10th 2022, 10:43 am

Vince Cable: ‘Dancing makes me happy. I still have lessons once a week’

Life and style | The Guardian

The politician, 79, on reading romantic fiction, racism in the 1960s, fear of water and getting called ‘old’

My earliest memory is the rag and bone men going down the street with a horse and cart. I was three. My other vivid memory was a year later, 1947. The Ouse, which often floods in York, flooded the streets where I lived. We had to walk around on planks on upturned buckets.

Bettering yourself was the dominant aim in life. I was part of a highly aspirational family. My father was ambitious for me. I was encouraged, mostly positively, sometimes in a more aggressive way, to work hard and go to university. We were what would be called respectable working class. The great ambition was to rise up the social scale and become middle-class professionals, which is what we did.

September 10th 2022, 10:43 am

Which was the ill-fated sister ship of the Peter Pomegranate? The Saturday quiz

Life and style | The Guardian

From the pH of water to Nordic combined, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz

1 Which writer from Stamps, Arkansas, appeared on a US stamp in 2015?
2 Mec Vannin campaigns for which island’s independence?
3 Which was the ill-fated sister ship of the Peter Pomegranate?
4 Alfredo Stroessner ruled which country for almost 35 years?
5 Which two sports feature in Nordic combined?
6 What ends with “thankful feelings after the storm”?
7 What is the pH value of pure water?
8 Which character was born in York with the surname Kreutznaer?
What links:
9 Beas; Chenab; Jhelum; Ravi; Sutlej?
10 Piaffe; passage; pirouette; half-pass?
11 Weak; strong; gravitational; electromagnetic?
12 Songkran; Tet Nguyen Dan; Nowruz; Rosh Hashanah?
13 New Zealand’s capital; Victoria’s capital; Pennsylvania’s second city?
14 Elvis Presley; Tony Bennett; Jimi Hendrix; Ice-T; Shaggy; James Blunt?
15 Betty Draper; Cira Manzon; Layla El-Faouly/Scarlet Scarab; Dot Cotton?

September 10th 2022, 7:43 am

‘It was -10 in the air, but nearly 40 degrees in the water’: Magali Chesnel’s best phone picture

Life and style | The Guardian

The French photographer on the joys – and difficulties – of taking pictures in Iceland’s Blue Lagoon

It wasn’t until Magali Chesnel was on her flight back to Geneva that she figured out why the people she’d seen swimming earlier that day had been wearing bin bags on their heads. After a week of solo travel around the south of Iceland, the French photographer had spent the morning at the famous Blue Lagoon geothermal spa, just a short drive from the airport. Returning home, she realised her hair had turned coarse and brittle from the silica in the pools. “If you ever visit, use hair conditioner! Or a garbage bag!” she warns.

While she expected the shots she took of the bag-wearing bathers to be her favourites, it was actually this one that came out best. The six Icelandic teenage boys were laughing, chatting and drinking ice-cold slushies in 38C water in a scene that later reminded her of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper. “I studied art when I was younger. I like my photos to have an element of confusion; are they a photograph or a painting?” Chesnel says.

September 10th 2022, 7:43 am

Loaded founder James Brown on lads’ mags, lairiness and living to tell the tale: ‘We flew so close t

Life and style | The Guardian

The magazine he created became synonymous with bad behaviour in the 90s. Is the enfant terrible of British media now a reformed character?

‘Where do you want to start?” says James Brown, gesturing towards his hearing aids. “I can’t hear anything from all the gigs, my eyes have gone from screens, my teeth are fucked, I’ve got arthritis in my hands, I’m overweight, my knees are knackered, the X-rays of my legs look like a broken bottle … ” He trails off for a second, then smiles. “But apart from that, I’m all right!”

He genuinely means that last bit: a life in magazines might have left Brown feeling like a “beaten up old car”, but he seems to be doing pretty great at the moment. We meet at his beach house near Rye. When I arrive, his girlfriend and youngest son are just off for a spot of blackberry picking – what could be more idyllic?

September 10th 2022, 7:43 am

‘I’m not a shaman – I just want to help people’: shoe designer Patrick Cox on his psychedelic toad a

Life and style | The Guardian

The celebrity shoemaker was a fixture of the 90s London scene, then after the collapse of his business – and his mental health – he found salvation from a very unlikely source ...

‘This morning in my garden I picked literally kilos of tomatoes. What am I supposed to do with kilos of tomatoes?!” asks Patrick Cox, once one of the most famous shoemakers in the world, as he drives me to his home in Ibiza, which he shares with his beloved pit bull, Titus. “It’s got solar panels and a well. So I’m pretty much completely off grid, which is the dream.”

Once, this would have been Cox’s nightmare. “Getting up at 5am to do the gardening? When I was 30, I’d have been like: ‘What the fuck is wrong with you?!’” he says, and makes one of his bend-forward-at-the-belly big laughs. Back in the 90s and early 2000s, Cox, now 59, was shoemaker to the moneyed – through his high-end Patrick Cox line – and the masses, with his cheaper, mega-selling brand Wannabe, whose chunky loafers became the defining footwear of the era. Spindly stilettos by Manolo Blahnik might have made more appearances on Sex and the City, but at their peak Wannabe loafers sold 1m pairs a year. Cox’s handsome, impish face was frequently photographed at all the A-list parties. He was Elizabeth Hurley’s plus-one on the red carpet, best friends with Elton John and David Furnish. “I was the last one every night to hang up my disco shoes,” he says. He wasn’t nicknamed Party Pat by Janet Jackson for nothing.

September 10th 2022, 7:43 am

Joe Sugg looks back: ‘I’d like to stay curious and unafraid of new things, just like that little boy

Life and style | The Guardian

YouTuber and actor Joe Sugg recreates an early acting gig and reflects on the highs and lows of social media fame

Born in Wiltshire in 1991, Joe Sugg is a former roof thatcher turned social media star, actor and author. Inspired by his vlogging sister Zoe, otherwise known as Zoella, he won a place in the Brit Crew – a cohort of UK content creators who dominated YouTube in the 2010s – thanks to his peppy personality and pranks on his long-suffering roommate. With more than 26 million followers across his social media platforms, he has since become a finalist on Strictly Come Dancing, launched emerging talent agency Margravine Management, and performed in London’s West End and the BBC drama Syndicate. His book Grow, about the importance of connecting to nature in a digital world, is released on 15 September.

This is me on set for the BBC period drama Cranford. My aunty or mum must have taken the photo. We’d heard that the film crew was coming to our village, Lacock, and wanted extras for the show, so my whole family went back to the 1800s for the day. I was only in one scene, standing in the background looking shocked as a man with a broken arm walked in to see a doctor, but it was very exciting. Especially as Harry Potter was also filmed in our village a few years before – I’d tried to get picked as an extra for that, too, but didn’t make the cut.

September 10th 2022, 7:43 am

Free to focus: expert advice on employee distractions and how to remove them

Life and style | The Guardian

When people are distracted, they’re more likely to trip up – and even cause data breaches. Here’s how to reduce the noise, and help staff regain focus …

With more of us working from home more often, online security is a bigger concern for businesses than ever. But rather than dramatic attacks from outside sources, 90% of data breaches are actually caused by human error, says security firm Zivver. Distractions at work (be it at home or the office) are among the factors that create errors that can lead to these data breaches. We asked three experts about the issues that can dent productivity, disrupt employees’ focus and compromise security – and how to mitigate them.

Communications overload
Tech companies have come up with multiple tools to help us communicate – but when it comes to focus and productivity, they can hinder as well as help.

September 10th 2022, 7:43 am

Tim Dowling: My friend has a bad cases of tomato envy – and my life is complete

Life and style | The Guardian

Thanks to our freakish Neapolitan summer I’m in tomato heaven. But then so is the bloody squirrel …

It is early in the morning, and I am waiting to be picked up to play at the last of the summer festivals. Through the window I see my bandmate James’s car pull up. By the time he’s completed a three-point turn I am outside on the step, banjo in hand.

“I just saw your enemy, the squirrel,” he says.

September 10th 2022, 7:43 am

‘If sex is on the cards, you barely ever remember it’: non-Brits on the boozy truth about dating in

Life and style | The Guardian

As part of a global romance special, we asked five people living in Britain what it’s really like to step out with the locals

• Britons on the awkward truth about dating abroad

Nobody ever makes a move, no matter how drunk you both are

Alice Pfeiffer, 37, French
Growing up in Paris, the capital’s reputation as the city of love is made abundantly clear. As for the reality, only one thing is true: flirtation is everywhere. Like many French women, I’ve been given phone numbers on the Métro, in the queue at Monoprix and even at funerals. They come from men and women, and it’s led me to some curious dates, most recently one with a pharmacist who brought aspirin as gift – “In case I hurt you!” she said with a wink.

September 10th 2022, 7:43 am

Blind Date goes to Amsterdam: ‘I’d seen her before – it’s a very small place’

Life and style | The Guardian

In a global dating special, Daisy, 28, project manager and dog sitter, meets Cooper, 28, barber

What were you hoping for?
A lovely lad with a bit of banter, and a dining experience chez Graham’s Kitchen.

September 9th 2022, 1:41 pm

Not just about the money: pioneering study reveals best and worst jobs in UK

Life and style | The Guardian

‘Full earnings’ account for wellbeing as well as financial reward – and make income gap look even worse

If you seek happiness, try captaining a ship or tiling walls for a living. But choose to be a judge, a housing officer or a theme park attendant, and prepare for a measure of misery.

Groundbreaking research into UK employees’ “full earnings”, which tries to account for wellbeing as well as cash income, has revealed the jobs where the reality of the working day undermines the benefit of salary and those that offer the greatest rewards in addition to salary.

September 9th 2022, 12:13 pm

Should Sunday opening restrictions be loosened in the UK? We ask an expert

Life and style | The Guardian

There are far more factors at play than overtime bonuses and religious considerations, says the CEO of the Association of Convenience Stores

Every so often the question is raised: are Sunday trading laws too restrictive? They were briefly loosened in 2012, for the Olympic Games, but Tory plans to change the rules failed in 2016 and 2020. I asked James Lowman, CEO of the Association of Convenience Stores, about it.

What are the Sunday trading rules?
Since 1994, in England and Wales, a store over 3,000 sq feet (280 sq metres) – roughly the size of a doubles tennis court – can open for only six consecutive hours on a Sunday between 10am and 6pm.

September 9th 2022, 12:13 pm

Blind Date goes to New York: ‘We hugged twice, which is basically a kiss’

Life and style | The Guardian

In a global dating special, Aaron, 28, artist, meets Robbie, 35, director of partnerships

What were you hoping for?
An interesting date, great conversation and a delicious meal.

September 9th 2022, 10:55 am

How do I cope with a friend who is vague and flaky? | Ask Annalisa Barbieri

Life and style | The Guardian

Some people are just rubbish at arrangements and also fear rejection, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t trying

I desperately need help with a very dear friend of mine, who is always late and hard to pin down.

We’ve been friends for more than 20 years. She is kind and funny. In some ways she is the friend with whom I feel I can be most myself. We don’t live far from each other, but trying to meet up is hell.

September 9th 2022, 10:11 am

‘My choices are limited’: over-50s turn to flatsharing in cost of living crisis

Life and style | The Guardian

Some choose to share for social reasons as stigma fades but many are priced out of living alone

Marie, 53, shares a flat with her friend and their family. It’s noisy and cramped and she is desperate to move into her own place but she can’t. Rents are high in East Sussex, where she lives, and the property market is highly competitive, with estate agents prioritising dual-income families.

“I’m looking all the time, I have to move,” she said. “It’s not conducive to my mental health or wellbeing here.”

September 9th 2022, 10:11 am

For richer or poorer: surviving a bumper wedding season (without going broke)

Life and style | The Guardian

For wedding guests, mixing love and money is precarious but mandatory. Here’s how to finesse your way through with finances, and friendships, intact

• Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email

Weddings are a thing of joy and getting to watch your friends tie the knot is an honour. But when five couples step up to the altar in one six-month period, that honour comes with a steep price tag.

It’s not just the gift that will set you back: there’s your outfit, the hen’s or buck’s (or both), plus accommodation and travel costs if it’s a destination do. If you’re in the wedding party, the bill rises dramatically – especially for bridesmaids.

September 9th 2022, 7:53 am

I have suppressed hatred for my stepmother. How do I have a relationship with my dad? | Leading Ques

Life and style | The Guardian

You say this woman set out to hurt your parents’ marriage, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith, but perhaps some of your anger is for your father too

• Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email

After years of trying to be the good daughter, I’m finally feeling really angry about my father’s affair when I was just a toddler. The woman became my stepmother and I’ve always tried to be amenable and just move on.

Now I’ve realised I have suppressed this hatred for a woman who set out to break up my parents’ marriage. How do I have a relationship with my dad if I don’t want anything to do with his current wife?

September 9th 2022, 7:53 am

Experience: I uncovered dinosaur footprints in a restaurant

Life and style | The Guardian

We found tracks from plant-eating dinosaurs with long necks and tails

I grew up in Chaozhou, a small city in southern China surrounded by mountains and sea. I was always fond of dinosaurs, and when I was in high school I set up the first website dedicated to dinosaurs in China.

Now, as a professor at the China University of Geosciences in Beijing, I’m also active on social media, with more than 6.2 million followers on [the microblogging website] Weibo, where I share updates on my research into dinosaur fossils and footprints.

September 9th 2022, 7:53 am

You be the judge: do I have to tell my girlfriend every detail about my friend’s stag do?

Life and style | The Guardian

He thinks she’s controlling; she’s worried he’ll go off the rails in Ibiza. Best man or bad boyfriend? You decide

• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a You be the judge juror

I am not going to behave like a teenager on this holiday. Raye should have more trust in me

September 9th 2022, 3:42 am

Is it bourgeois to like ‘good food?’ I went looking for answers

Life and style | The Guardian

I grew up working class and often ask myself: does what we eat define us? In West Virginia, a supper club is asking the same question

Amy Dawson grew up ashamed of the family ham.

It was pink and huge – close to 40lb – and sat on the kitchen counter, wrapped in newspaper throughout the winter. The ham had a hardened outside layer of dehydrated fat, which Dawson’s mom would cut into with a butcher’s knife, revealing a rich, ruby red inside. She would soak the meat she had sliced off and fry it up the next day for dinner, repeating those steps over the rest of the season.

September 9th 2022, 3:42 am

‘Cheap meals and dangerously affordable cocktails’: readers’ budget holiday tips

Life and style | The Guardian

Camping and cycling are classic cheap breaks, but tipsters also have ideas on home swaps, train trips and staying in Spain for nada
Scroll down to see the winning tip

In July we took our trusty supermarket-bargain tent to Ling’s Meadow, a small eco-campsite near the Norfolk-Suffolk border, for a short but fabulous break. Each spacious pitch has its own picnic bench and fire pit. Eco-conscious facilities include composting toilets and solar-powered lighting and shower. Waking up to the call of a yellowhammer and turning in to the screech of a barn owl was my idea of bliss. It’s a great base for exploring, including Knettishall Heath, the Suffolk Wildlife Trust’s largest reserve, just five miles away. We plan to return to Ling’s Meadow next summer.
Pitch for two £28, lingsmeadow.co.uk
Sharon Pinner

September 8th 2022, 2:10 pm

In and out of Spain and Portugal: a road trip up the Guadiana River

Life and style | The Guardian

Bristling with castles and old port towns, the river that forms much of the Iberian border is peaceful and characterful – and you don’t have to start off on a zipwire

Strapped into a harness, hands clamped to a metal bar, I flew – at terrifying speed along 720 metres of zipwire suspended over the Rio Guadiana – from Spain into Portugal.

I’d taken a boat from Alcoutim (on the Algarve side of the river) to Sanlúcar de Guadiana (in Andalucía). From there I was driven up to a launch platform on a rocky summit with jaw-dropping views of both countries. Did I scream? As I hurtled towards Portugal, I tried to focus on those views: two dazzling white villages, the wide green river below, a castelo on one side, a castillo on the other. It was all over in less than a minute, but thanks to the international time difference I gained an hour.

September 8th 2022, 2:10 pm

Gut instinct: how your diet shapes your mind

Life and style | The Guardian

There’s a reason our gut is known as the ‘second brain’ – what you eat has an effect on your mind

The idea that many of our emotions and feelings are linked to the gut is an ancient one. More than 2,000 years ago, the Romans made reference to what we today describe as a “gut feeling”. Now, modern science indicates that the gut may indeed play a role in mood disorders and our mental health.

The gut is covered in nerve cells known as neurons – cells that transmit signals to other neurons, and which are also fundamental to our brains. Research suggests that this network, known as the enteric nervous system, contains more than 100m neurons. This complex network of cells in our gut is able to function independently of the brain and spinal cord, and is often referred to as the body’s “second brain”.

September 8th 2022, 2:10 pm

Turnbull’s hobby, the Fall’s pope song, and Stevie Nicks’ atomic number – take the Thursday quiz

Life and style | The Guardian

Fifteen questions on general knowledge and topical trivia plus a few jokes every Thursday – how will you fare?

The fates have conspired to strike a vicious blow against the Thursday quiz, but despite being incapacitated, the quiz master has bravely mustered the strength from his sickbed to write 15 general knowledge and vaguely topical questions for your entertainment. There will be Kate Bush. There will be hidden references to Doctor Who. There will be jokes that people will then fact-check in the comments for some reason. There are no prizes, but let us know how you got on.

The Thursday quiz, No 72

If you think there has been an egregious error in one of the questions or answers, please feel free to email martin.belam@theguardian.com, but remember the quizmaster’s word is final, and genuinely he is off work with a fractured ankle so he won’t care.

September 8th 2022, 2:10 pm

‘More romantic, elegant, deep’: why Americans love Real Girlfriends in Paris

Life and style | The Guardian

It’s shades of Emily in Paris for six young women who, if not sipping wine or striking a pose, are looking for love in the French capital

Concealing ranch dressing in your handbag, worrying about the carbs in la soupe, wondering if you’ll ever find a French lover who likes to Netflix and chill: here are just a few of the new world-old world challenges the protagonists face in the first episode of Real Girlfriends in Paris, a reality TV show with its debut on 6 September on Hayu and Bravo.

As one may presume from the title of the show, the programme follows six American women in their 20s and 30s, looking for meaning, for a change and, mostly, for love. As different as Anya Firestone, Emily Gorelik, Margaux Lignel, Kacey Margo, Adja Toure and Victoria Zito’s backgrounds are (respectively: a tour guide, a design management student, an aspiring entrepreneur, an English teacher, a Cornell graduate and a fashion designer), the one thing they have in common is their passion and monolithic vision of Paris. As the trailer’s voiceover points out, these nouvelles Parisiennes are adrift in “the most beautiful city in the world … a fairytale” – that is, an enchanted, heavily Disneyfied and filtered vision of France, which features the women performing Parisian-ness to a T: drinking wine round the clock, wearing trenchcoats and berets, eating crepes, loudly discussing sex. A choice of cliches so familiar and vivid that local press immediately labelled it “the reality TV version of Emily in Paris”, with French Elle declaring it “directly inspired” by Darren Star’s comedy drama. What do the two have in common? Both shows are seen, by the French media, as a “guilty pleasure” that “one loves hating” – for their glorious inaccuracy (Paris limited to a handful of bridges and mimes, emaciated women smoking in turtle necks, not to mention an entire alcoholic population).

September 8th 2022, 2:10 pm

Dining across the divide: ‘On paper we’re as far apart politically as it is possible to be’

Life and style | The Guardian

Will a small-c conservative and an anarcho-communist make it through lunch?

• Fancy dining across the divide? Find out how to take part

Ailsa, 44, Newcastle

Occupation Former research scientist, now trainee physiotherapist

September 8th 2022, 11:10 am

Lochs, camera, action: a tour of Scotland’s stunning film and TV locations

Life and style | The Guardian

Scotland’s cinematic landscapes and historic cities have provided the backdrop for countless on-screen tales – and there’s no better way to celebrate its Year of Stories 2022 than to take a tour round these real-life locations

Scotland has long been a source of inspiration for film-makers around the world, who look to the country’s immense landscapes and unique history to aid their storytelling. Whether it’s tales of love and romance or epic battles based on actual events, Scotland has played a central role in numerous productions on both the big and small screen.

One of the most popular settings for film-making that places emphasis on stunning scenic shots is the Scottish Highlands, which will likely bring to mind a range of characters including Thomasina the cat, William Wallace in Braveheart, Harry Potter and even James Bond. The Jacobite steam train, which travels from Fort William to Mallaig along the West Highland line, plays a starring role as the Hogwarts Express in all eight Harry Potter films, thanks to the now iconic shots of the magical train crossing the stunning Glenfinnan viaduct. Meanwhile, Sam Mendes’s Skyfall has 007 returning to his Scottish roots, with much of the action taking place in Glencoe, where Bond grew up. Scenes from the film were shot in dramatic locations such as Glen Etive, near the peaks of Buachaille Etive Mor and Buachaille Etive Beag.

September 8th 2022, 5:55 am

Phillip Schofield: how the TV presenter gave a fresh spin to Putin’s propaganda

Life and style | The Guardian

A competition to pay a viewer’s energy bills on ITV’s This Morning attracted so much controversy that even the Kremlin took note

Name: Phillip Schofield.

Age: 60.

September 7th 2022, 11:26 am

From local Chinese restaurants, to housing estate chippies: meet the food writer celebrating where w

Life and style | The Guardian

Jonathan Nunn steers clear of the upmarket eateries beloved by critics. Instead, in his latest book, he edits a collection of essays about London’s overlooked places

https://vittles.substack.com/

‘I always get nervous when people ask me to choose a restaurant, because I know deep down it’s a test,” says the food writer and editor Jonathan Nunn. We’re meeting for lunch to discuss London Feeds Itself, a collection of essays exploring the spaces where Londoners eat, and I have asked Nunn, the collection’s editor, to suggest where.

September 7th 2022, 8:25 am

How do you make your sustainability pledges real instead of just empty words? – video

Life and style | The Guardian

Find out how data can hold the key to becoming a more sustainable and more profitable business.

Find out more at sap.com/sustainability

September 7th 2022, 5:53 am

Nicole Kidman’s biceps, Davina McCall’s six-pack: could you get ripped in your 50s?

Life and style | The Guardian

On magazine covers, billboards and TV screens, middle-aged celebrities are flaunting their fat-free, perfectly toned muscles. How hard is it for the average fiftysomething to measure up? And what will it do to the rest of your life?

Could Nicole Kidman possibly be real? That was the question springing from her photoshoot for Perfect magazine, in which the 55-year-old adopts a power victory pose, flexing arms like a bodybuilder, her biceps taut, huge, extremely detailed. She looks like an anatomical drawing, and as if she could pull a truck out of a swamp. I was bewitched by her legs. It’s difficult to see muscle definition, head on, on a leg. Oh boy, not any more. The Daily Mail said she looked “decades younger” than her age, which is not true, since we don’t tend to age one another by our arms (it’s all in the eyes, folks). What she does look is absolutely ripped, in her 50s. She looks like an elite athlete, as does Davina McCall, 54, with her rock-hard six-pack and even Huw Edwards, 61, who caused a stir by showing off his toned torso on Instagram.

There has been a trend for visible strength in the female form in the past few years, driven by millennials, who exercise differently. They focus on body-strength training and urban calisthenics, using online coaches, motivational Instagram communities and better, less fat-depositing lifestyles. Yet the important difference is in their sexual politics.

September 7th 2022, 3:53 am

A moment that changed me: As my parents argued, I watched reggae on TV and felt transported

Life and style | The Guardian

Seeing people in Jamaica dancing in the street made me want to join them, and began a lifelong love that led me to become a DJ

I heard reggae for the first time when I was 10, in the summer of 1972. My expat father was home on leave from Hong Kong, visiting my mum and I in our Devon bungalow. He had just broken the news that I was to be sent away to boarding school and Mum was upset. There was shouting and tears. In the midst of it all, I hunkered down in front of the evening news.

What I saw took me by surprise. In a place called Jamaica, people were dancing in the street to steel pan and reggae, and on the backs of tooting lorries. The celebrations were for the 10th anniversary of the island’s independence – and in that moment, with the row over my future raging above me, all I wanted was to be sucked up into the television screen and transported 4,500 miles to the other side of the Atlantic to be there with them.

September 7th 2022, 3:53 am

Dirt, dead skin, 10m dust mites: maybe it’s time you cleaned your mattress – here’s how

Life and style | The Guardian

Worried about asthma or eczema? It could be time to break out the baking soda and vacuum cleaner

Name: The mattress.

Age: The oldest mattress is believed to be 77,000 years old. It was discovered in South Africa and was made of reeds and rushes.

September 6th 2022, 11:40 am

Don’t say ‘sandwiches’: how to give your lunchbox a lift

Life and style | The Guardian

Think noodles, crunchy veg and pasta salad – and, when you make dinner, keep one eye on tomorrow’s lunch

• Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

What makes a good lunchbox?
Emily, Croydon

In short: leftovers. We all want to avoid turning on the oven or stove too often – to save both energy and time – so make dinner with one eye on tomorrow’s lunch. “Keep your lunchbox in mind at all times,” advises Georgia Levy, author of the recently published Let’s Do Lunch. “What can you do to your dinner to make it lunchbox-friendly?” Roast veg, for example, could reappear between two slices of bread with cheese, herbs and “something crunchy”, which could be anything from shredded carrots or cabbage (a quick slaw, say) to a handful of crisps.

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

September 6th 2022, 9:40 am

Nigel Slater’s recipe for summer bean and tomato soup with gochujang

Life and style | The Guardian

Add plenty of herbs for a delicious late summer soup

Peel and roughly chop 1 medium-sized onion. Peel and finely slice 1 fat clove of garlic, or 2 smaller ones. In a medium-sized saucepan, warm 2 tbsp of olive oil, stir in the chopped onion and garlic. Cook over a moderate heat until pale gold and soft. You can expect this to take a good 15 minutes. Stir regularly, so the onion and garlic don’t burn.

Roughly chop 450g of tomatoes (you could use canned tomatoes if you prefer, but the flavour will be less intense) and stir into the onion and garlic. Let them soften over a moderate heat for about 10 minutes, squashing them a little with a wooden spoon to release their juices. Stir in ½ to 1 tbsp of gochujang.

September 6th 2022, 7:37 am

‘Clothes to lie in’: what Boris Johnson’s carefully tailored chaos tells us about the man

Life and style | The Guardian

Our former prime minister’s scruffy outfits are clothes in which to get away with lies. And they are symbols of patriarchal power

It’s nothing, what Boris Johnson wears: suit, shirt, tie, socks, shoes. It’s how he dresses that matters, what his clothes mean, and our reactions to it. We, after all, acquiesce to the societal codes within which he seeks his power.

Johnson’s clothes are an easy target: shambolic, unkempt, scruffy. He’s dressed this way since his schooldays at Eton college, more than four decades of consistent insolence. There’s a photograph of 15-year-old Johnson mid-pillow fight at Eton, the fanciness of his schooluniform disregarded. Johnson was the 20th prime minister from that public school (and the 55th PM).

September 6th 2022, 7:23 am

Five things every employer should know about making hybrid really work

Life and style | The Guardian

With staff coming to expect new ways of working to remain permanent, here are five ways businesses can improve the employee experience

Two years on from the first national lockdown, it’s fair to say that our working lives have been upended. What for years was deemed impossible has proved perfectly workable.

Now, employees expect to mix virtual and in-person work and to spend roughly half their time in the office each week, according to recent analysis by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), published by Virgin Media O2 Business.

September 6th 2022, 5:53 am

As a new parent, I'm trying to be a better friend to those who cannot have children | Rhiannon Lucy

Life and style | The Guardian

I know that having a baby is hard, but I’m also aware that the grief of not being able to have a child can be so much harder

“It’s as if you are pressing your nose against the sweet-shop window of life, and you’re never ever going to be on the other side.” Jody Day is describing involuntary childlessness. The author and founder of Gateway Women, a global friendship, support and advocacy network for childless women, tells me about what she describes as the “friendship apocalypse” that can happen between women when one is able to have the children she dreamed of and the other doesn’t. After realising that children weren’t going to happen for her as a result of “social infertility” (which means not having children due to circumstance rather than medical issues and is the most common reason for childlessness), Day experienced profound grief. In the process, she lost friends.

“I began to find it incredibly painful to be around my friends with children. And I also realised that I had been the one doing the work to maintain friendships. And when I stopped doing that, when I stopped keeping up with their children’s birthdays, with likes on Facebook, with just making sure I was included – what happened? Crickets. It was like I had dropped off the planet. I heard from practically nobody. It was an incredibly lonely period of my life.”

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist and author

September 6th 2022, 4:39 am

No snags, no spills, no sweating: how to wear vintage clothes without ruining them

Life and style | The Guardian

With the right reinforcements and under the right circumstances, you can wear an antique garment without wearing it out

• Too precious to put on? How to decide whether to wear an antique garment
• Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email

Once you have decided it’s OK to wear an item of vintage clothing, there are a few things worth keeping in mind that can help extend the garment’s life.

Given that all wear might damage the item, a risk-averse mindset is a good approach.

September 6th 2022, 4:39 am

School uniforms – good or bad? Either way, the system makes us suffer | Zoe Williams

Life and style | The Guardian

The annual ritual of buying school uniform has been more hellish than ever this year. Isn’t there a better alternative?

School uniform becomes a hot-button issue at this time of year, for obvious reasons: half the country is bankrupted by it, and the other half wonders why they have to dress their kids up like pretend executives on polyester wages, and there’s a fierce debate on Mumsnet about whether it’s bad for equality (so expensive), or good (at least you don’t have to buy other clothes). Then they’ll get distracted and never resolve the issue. I don’t think it can be resolved – it’s an empty signifier. Whether uniformed or not, inequality between children will persist for as long as inequality between adults does, and sure, send them to school naked in an awareness-raising exercise, but; don’t kid yourself that this is the solution or even the beginning of one.

Even if you can’t get aerated about uniform, you still have to buy it. The system for purchasing it is abstruse, and it is stacked against you, and there is no gaming it, and sometimes I think the people who don’t know there is one are happier in the long run. In my local uniform shop, there are three queues: an orderly, short one, for the people who have an appointment; a longer one full of anguish, for the people who arrived late for their appointment; and a wild, tumultuous one, like the last airlift out of a war zone, for the people who didn’t realise you needed one. There is zero solidarity between the queues, which is a shame, because once you get inside, you’re really going to need it.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

September 6th 2022, 4:39 am

My wife and I haven’t had sex for five years. Must we settle for the occasional peck on the lips?

Life and style | The Guardian

We already fight over the smallest things. How can we tackle this problem without breaking up?

I am a married man with three kids and have been with my wife for nearly 18 years. At the beginning of our relationship we had a healthy and fulfilling sex life – I wouldn’t claim it to be Kama Sutra levels but we had fun. However, since having children, our intimacy has all but stopped. We last had sex five years ago and these days all we do is have the occasional peck on the lips. I don’t know where to start with trying to fix the relationship or whether I should even try. Is it possible to live together without that element of the relationship? Lately it’s clear that we are frustrated and picking at each other over really small things. I fear opening up the conversation will lead to a bigger challenge. The last thing I want is for us to break up.

You are insightful and know what you do and do not want, but things will not improve without a touch of bravery. Perhaps you are afraid that one or both of you might become angry and offer an ultimatum. Try to broach the conversation gently, avoiding any tendency to be judgmental or apportion blame. People rarely take umbrage when a partner expresses their true feelings (different from thoughts or judgment) and clearly asks for specific change. Take it step by step. For example, you might first say: “I love you very much and truly value our marriage, but I have been feeling sad and am filled with longing about a precious aspect of our relationship that somehow got lost. Would you please agree to at least discuss this? Please help me understand.” Then listen carefully to what she has to say. This problem will not be fixed quickly, but if you can both share your feelings it will help you towards a better understanding and resolution.

Pamela Stephenson Connolly is a US-based psychotherapist who specialises in treating sexual disorders.

If you would like advice from Pamela on sexual matters, send us a brief description of your concerns to private.lives@theguardian.com (please don’t send attachments). Each week, Pamela chooses one problem to answer, which will be published online. She regrets that she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions.

Comments on this piece are premoderated to ensure discussion remains on topics raised by the writer. Please be aware there may be a short delay in comments appearing on the site.

September 6th 2022, 4:39 am

The ultimate comfort food? Miserable shoppers rediscover sliced white bread

Life and style | The Guardian

As the world falls apart, sales of childhood favourites such as Hovis and Kingsmill are booming. So much for home baking and artisanal sourdough …

Name: Sliced white bread.

Age: 94.

September 5th 2022, 12:08 pm

‘I couldn’t date a climate change denier!’ The couples who bond – and split – over love for the plan

Life and style | The Guardian

From debates about plastic bags to guilt about bringing children into the world, environmental issues are increasingly shaping our relationships

When Mitzi Jonelle Tan first saw Jon Bonifacio at a student council meeting at the University of the Philippines in 2017, she knew she liked him. But it wasn’t his good looks or sense of humour that got her swooning: it was his interest in climate activism. “I looked at him and knew we could be activists together,” she says. They went on to spend four years together as a couple, and even after splitting up earlier this year they remain close.

For Tan and Bonifacio, both 24, who are climate activists for the Fridays For Future movement, finding a partner with shared values isn’t optional – it’s a must. “Of course there are reasons I love her outside our climate work,” says Bonifacio. “But it’s a fundamental part of our relationship.” They are not alone.

September 5th 2022, 10:54 am

My online chess addiction was ruining my life. Something had to change | Stuart Kenny

Life and style | The Guardian

I didn’t like the person it was making me, but a few strategic moves later, the calm and mystique of the game returned

Perhaps it was when I missed my bus stop so I could finish a three-minute game of online blitz chess that I realised I had a problem. Or when, instead of getting off at the next stop, I started another game on chess.com. I certainly had no qualms about the resulting half-hour walk home, narrowly avoiding lamp-posts as I continued to line up ill-fated pre-moves against anonymous opponents.

Blunder. Resign. New game.

Stuart Kenny is a freelance travel journalist and editor

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com

September 5th 2022, 10:54 am

The people making a difference: the climate activist fighting fossil fuel giants

Life and style | The Guardian

Nick Hodgkinson gave up his job when his health worsened, and began campaigning to halt climate change. Now it is his turn to be treated

Nick Hodgkinson has a dark sense of humour, which comes in useful during his climate change activism.

Take the time the 59-year-old was protesting with Extinction Rebellion outside the Houses of Parliament. Hodgkinson, a retired charity worker, has motor neurone disease (MND). He uses a heavy, motorised wheelchair and has a tracheostomy tube in his neck that connects to a ventilator, meaning he communicates mainly through typing on his phone.

September 5th 2022, 8:38 am

How we met: ‘We were walking around with huge grins. And they say older people can’t fall in love!’

Life and style | The Guardian

Alison, 83, and Michael, 92, began exchanging letters after her husband’s death in 2010. Three years later they finally met for the first time …

When Alison’s husband died in 2010, she wrote to one of his oldest friends to let him know. Although she had never met Michael she knew he had been a close friend of her partner and, sure enough, he immediately wrote back. As well as reminiscing about her husband, Alison and Michael – now 83 and 92 – opened up about their own lives, too. “We shared our history and I learned that Mike played the violin and flute,” says Alison. “At Christmas he told me he was dancing round the kitchen to Bach with my letter in his hands.”

“Alison’s letters were something to look forward to,” says Michael, who at the time was living in Sheffield and caring for his wife, who had dementia. “I was very busy and only used to take two hours a week for myself. She was so nice and we had a lot in common. We soon discovered we had the same values and politics.”

September 5th 2022, 6:38 am

‘I was promiscuous – that’s murder on marriage’: Loudon Wainwright III on sex addiction, booze and f

Life and style | The Guardian

The singer-songwriter fought with his father, fell out with children Rufus and Martha and drove away his first wife before the honeymoon was even over. At 76, has he finally made some kind of peace with the world?

Whisper it: Loudon Wainwright III is happy. The great curmudgeon of popular music has spent 50-plus years picking at old scabs, showcasing his selfishness and documenting his tortured relationship with his famous family. But he has finally made a hopeful album. Sure, we still hear from the Wainwright of old; the tragicomic misanthrope who quotes Sartre’s “Hell is other people” in the song Family Vacation, about his need to take a holiday from his family. But Lifetime Achievement shimmers with grace, acceptance and, dare we say it, love.

When I mention it, Wainwright sounds a little embarrassed. He ums and ahs, coughs and splutters his way to an admission of sorts. “Yes,” he says apologetically, “there are a number of songs that would make you wonder what’s happened here. It’s not the usual cynical nihilist that we’ve grown to love over the years. There is an optimism. The last few years have been good to me.”

September 5th 2022, 4:52 am

‘My jewels are my superhero suit’: Slick Rick on hip-hop bling

Life and style | The Guardian

The London-born New York rapper Slick Rick talks us through the history of rappers’ accessories, and shows off his collection, from gold teeth to diamond eye patch

I have been telling stories through my attire and adornments for as long as I’ve been telling them with beats and rhymes. Jewels are my thing and every piece in my collection is attached to a fun story and deserves its own Wikipedia entry.

I was born in Mitcham, a neighbourhood in south London with a sizeable Jamaican community, in 1965. Looking back, I can say that Mitcham, and England more generally, had a huge influence on me as a writer and a poet. I absorbed the fact that the country was a monarchy, which is probably one of the reasons why, when I started making records, I often referred to myself as Rick the Ruler or Richard of Nottingham. Britannia also had a huge impact on me, style-wise. The Kangol hats. The king’s crown and regal cape.

September 5th 2022, 4:52 am

A new start after 60: Diabetes left me depressed and scared to leave home. I still climbed Kilimanja

Life and style | The Guardian

Devanshi Mavani was looking forward to travelling when she retired from accountancy. Then came the diagnosis that threw it all into question

The morning that Devanshi Mavani reached the top of Kilimanjaro, the conditions were bitter. She had set off, like most hikers, the night before to time her arrival at the summit with the sunrise. Immediately, heavy snow began to fall. “Normally people see Kenya on the other side. When we got to the summit, we saw nothing,” she says. “It was like a ski slope. But I was crying with happiness.”

Just 17 months earlier, this trip had seemed impossible. In May 2017, Mavani returned home to Leicester after visiting her younger sister in Oxford and began to feel unwell. Each day was worse than the one before. “But you don’t get flu,” her sister said, and told Mavani to go to a local chemist for tests. The pharmacy sent Mavani straight to her GP, and the GP called an ambulance.

September 5th 2022, 4:52 am

Brighton beautiful: a lavish renovation of a Regency townhouse

Life and style | The Guardian

A once dilapidated period home by the sea is now bursting with exotic murals and ornate furnishings

You can tell someone’s heart and soul has gone into this busy but beautiful family home in Brighton. “I love collecting things, I love shopping and I love clutter,” says owner and designer Kate Powell. She admits these are some of the reasons she opened a shop, after running out of space at home. Upcycled, restored, reclaimed, inherited are all key to her distinctive style.

Kate and her husband, Toby, bought the dilapidated listed Regency townhouse 10 years ago, with its “big, square imposing rooms, which are easy to make look beautiful”. The couple loved the area and proximity to the beach, plus the house rare find of a propertyhad a garden and drive. However, they hadn’t realised the enormity of the project, the house being “pretty grotty and in need of a complete overhaul. We got the survey and I almost had a nervous breakdown looking at it.” A team of builders moved in for a long eight months while the family remained at their old home round the corner, “a huge stretch financially”, so that everything from flooring to fireplaces could be restored. A basement flat was renovated and re-introduced to the main house, which now has five bedrooms and two bathrooms.

September 4th 2022, 7:42 pm

Sunday with Rachel Parris: ‘There’s a class divide in how my husband cooks the meat’

Life and style | The Guardian

The comedian on bacon butties, daytime TV and church bribes

Up early? I’d love a lie-in, but our one-year-old, Billy, gets us up at 6.15am every day. He’ll play on our bed, so there’s still a lazy Sunday feeling, plus it’s nice remembering what mornings are and having more of the day available.

Sunday breakfast? Bacon sandwiches, avocado on toast – I’m trying not to sound like a millennial stereotype, but it’s true.

September 4th 2022, 7:42 pm

Special ‘source’: the secret behind a bestselling veg lasagne

Life and style | The Guardian

What does it take to make one of the nation’s favourite vegetarian prepared meals? Karen Edwards, author of The Planet-Friendly Kitchen, hears how the the dish is the result of art, science and a lifetime of experience

With an estimated 5-7% of people in the UK following a vegetarian-based diet, according to market researcher YouGov, food producers across the country have readjusted their ready-to-cook portfolios to include more vegetarian and vegan options.

Charlie Bigham is one man who has embraced this planet-friendly evolution, and the results – a tasty selection of vegetarian dishes – have gone down well with customers.

Charlie Bigham’s vegetarian lasagne, based on a lentil and mushroom ragu and topped with Somerset cheddar

September 4th 2022, 7:36 pm

Darren Hayes looks back: ‘What you can’t see is how unhappy I was’

Life and style | The Guardian

The Savage Garden singer on his violent father, embracing his sexuality and performing with Pavarotti

Singer-songwriter Darren Hayes was born in Brisbane in 1972. His journey to stardom began in 1993, when Hayes responded to an advertisement in a newspaper written by Daniel Jones, a local musician searching for a vocalist to front his covers band, Red Edge. Hayes and Jones would go on to form the duo Savage Garden, releasing only two albums but selling more than 25m records globally and creating some of the definitive ballads of the 90s: Truly Madly Deeply, To the Moon and Back and I Knew I Loved You. Hayes went on to forge a successful solo career, and his new album, Homosexual, is out on 7 October. He tours his greatest hits in March 2023.

This photo isn’t what it appears to be. It looks like a sweet setup of a 12-year-old boy smiling in his bedroom with the world on his lap and a poster of his favourite artist behind him. What you can’t see are the other rooms in that house, with holes in the walls patched up with putty. Or how unhappy I was, with a violent alcoholic father who would physically abuse my mother.

September 4th 2022, 7:36 pm

‘We had such trust, we feel such fools’: how shocking hospital mistakes led to our daughter’s death

Life and style | The Guardian

Martha was 13; her whole life stretched out ahead of her. But our faith in doctors turned out to be fatal. This is what I wish I’d known

At the start of last summer, my 13-year-old daughter Martha was busy with life. She’d meet her friends in the park, make silly videos on her phone and play “kiss, marry, kill”. Her days were filled with books and memorising song lyrics. She’d wonder aloud if she might become an author, an engineer or a film director. Her future was brimming with promise, crowded with plans.

By the end of the summer she was dead, after shocking mistakes were made at one of the UK’s leading hospitals.

September 4th 2022, 7:36 pm

Lerpwl, Liverpool: ‘From the off they are pushing the tasting menus’ – restaurant review

Life and style | The Guardian

Despite the laidback vibe and ambitious cooking, Lerpwl would rather you did things their way

Lerpwl, Britannia Pavilion, Albert Dock, Liverpool L3 4AD (0151 909 6241; lerpwl.com). Tasting menus £50 and £90, plus supplements. Snacks £3.50-£9, plates £9-£24, desserts £9, wines from £31

Recently, I was emailed by Liam Barrie, one of the brothers behind Lerpwl in Liverpool. Might I consider reviewing the restaurant that he and Ellis Barrie had opened in 2020? Not only might I consider it: I had considered it feverishly, multiple times, and with good reason. The Barrie brothers have a great story. As very young men they turned a small café, by a remote mobile home park in Anglesey, into what quickly became a point of gastronomic pilgrimage. The Marram Grass was reputedly a place that took North Wales’s finest ingredients and turned them into edible wonders. Now they had moved to the city and taken over a space in the redbrick mercantile palace which is Albert Dock for Lerpwl, the Welsh for Liverpool.

September 4th 2022, 7:36 pm

My husband has had a stroke, but I hate feeling like his carer | Ask Philippa

Life and style | The Guardian

Ask if he would accept help from a physiotherapist – for your sake. You’re in crisis mode so he won’t be able to change his way of coping at the moment

The question My husband had a mild stroke several months ago. He’s a 60-something scientist and used to solving everything with his mind, but he has had to work hard physically to recover his walking. He’s gone from a wheelchair in hospital to a walker at home and is now using a cane. But he’s getting frustrated at his slow progress as he wants to think his way out of this and not exercise his way back to health.

I feel like I’ve been nagging him to do his exercises and feel more like his mother than his wife these days. I find myself getting angry and resentful at times, because he’s not sharing anything emotionally with me (he never was good at it before, so I don’t know why I would expect it now) and I feel very remote from him.

September 4th 2022, 7:36 pm

Stuck in a rut with your wine? Here are some great alternative choices

Life and style | The Guardian

We all like our tried and trusted favourites, but there’s a world full of wine varieties out there to try

Barco del Corneta Cucú Verdejo, Castilla y León, Spain 2021 (£18, thesourcingtable.com) According to Wine Grapes, Jancis Robinson, Julia Harding and José Vouillamoz’s definitive reference work on the subject, some 1,368 vine varieties are used to make wine in the world. And yet, most of us, it would seem, limit our drinking to a bare handful, rarely straying from our tried and trusted favourites, most of which, with the exception of Italian pinot grigio (or, if we’re drinking something with bubbles, prosecco’s glera), are French in origin. Nothing wrong with that, and, given that the grape variety itself is but one of several influential variables that shape a wine’s character, you could limit your drinking to one or two of the more protean varieties (chardonnay and syrah/shiraz, say) and never get bored. In the back to school spirit of attempting a fresh start, however, any of you who might be looking for something to ease you away from sauvignon blanc could do worse than trying Barca del Corneta’s similarly vibrant, exceptionally bright-fruited and enlivening verdejo.

Les Andides Saumur Blanc, France 2020, (£9.99, Waitrose) Other sauvignon alternatives, which also have the advantage of being among the best value white wines around, are the pungently green but cool-mountain-stream crisp and racy whites from Gascon, southwest France. Made from armagnac’s colombard, Pujalet Côtes de Gascogne 2021 (£6.29, Waitrose) is all lemony zip and gooseberryish tang, while Tesco finest St-Mont 2019 (£7, Tesco) is mostly made of the great gros manseng bringing a more tropical lilt (or Lilt) to the bracing mix. If you’re stuck on chardonnay, on the other hand, my tip for varying your vinous diet would be to make your way through the fantastically varied world of chenin blanc. At its best in the Loire and South Africa, chenin can be bristlingly zippy with fresh gren apple fruit in unoaked examples such as Les Andides from Saumur or the more tropical Zalze Bush Vine Chenin Blanc 2021 (from £6.45, Waitrose, Asda, Morrisons). But like chardonnay, it also works very well with oak, in toasty, honeyed, but satisfyingly clean-cut wines such as Stellenrust Stellenbosch Manor Barrel Fermented Chenin Blanc 2020 (£14, Tesco).

September 4th 2022, 7:36 pm

Once upon a time in Mexico… renovating an old house in Mérida

Life and style | The Guardian

Layer upon hidden layer revealed its different incarnations

La Rosa, a house in the historic centre of Mérida, capital of the Mexican state of Yucatán, exudes a sense of the past and reflects its historical surroundings. It is something its owner, architect Lucía Rios Santos, was keen to see safeguarded when she and her husband came to renovate it. “Every room offered a space that had a history to tell. We felt that the story must be rescued and preserved,” she says.

She tells the tale of its construction during the 1940s: “A man called Cristobal Duran, Don Boxol to his neighbours, bought the land and built a family home here, which was also a grocery. For more than 70 years his shop was the grocery store of the neighbourhood and some neighbours still fondly remember childhoods spent swimming in the water tanks, and renting bicycles from him.”

August 7th 2022, 12:18 pm

Readers reply: is running up and down a hill better for you than running on the flat?

Life and style | The Guardian

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts

Is running up and down a hill better for you than running on the flat? Or does the downhill bit being easier counteract the uphill bit? What about running down a hill and then up, when you’re already tired? Steve Henderson, Wythenshawe

Send new questions to nq@theguardian.com.

August 7th 2022, 9:31 am

Are soulmates a real thing?

Life and style | The Guardian

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts

Are soulmates a real thing? Michaela McKinley, Macclesfield

Post your answers (and new questions) below or send them to nq@theguardian.com. A selection will be published next Sunday.

August 7th 2022, 9:31 am

Clever use of water in the garden saves untold time and effort

Life and style | The Guardian

You’d be amazed at how much time some gardeners spend watering

OK, I’ll admit it, I’m a bit of a data geek. As so much gardening advice is based not on systematically tested ideas, but received wisdom, I find doing a bit of measuring and recording can often reveal some surprising results. One of the simplest methods I have found is timing how long I spent doing different indoor and outdoor gardening tasks and noting how they stack up. While I was pretty sure watering was going to come out top in terms of time investment in the growing season, even I was astonished that 70% of my time spent in the garden was dedicated exclusively to holding a hose. If you are anything like me, finding water-wise ways to irrigate will not only save you an enormous amount of time, but reduce your bills and help the planet, too.

Probably the most straightforward and sustainable way to reduce water usage is to ditch growing in containers in favour of the ground. The huge relative surface area to volume ratio of pots means that they will not only dry out far faster than open ground, but will also be subject to wider temperature fluctuations, which can further exacerbate water loss. This is particularly the case in containers with porous surfaces, like fibre-lined hanging baskets or unglazed terracotta, and the smaller the pot, the more thirsty your plants will be.

August 7th 2022, 4:32 am

Sunday with Nadia Sawalha: ‘I do a big roast dinner and post it to Instagram’

Life and style | The Guardian

The actor describes her busy Sundays, with yoga, HRT and anxiety-reducing talk radio

What time are you up? My alarm goes off at 7.30am – our family does a live show for our YouTube channel each morning. Bleary-eyed, we walk the dogs and buy the papers to review. No breakfast, though, we do the 16/8 intermittent fast, and only eat in an eight- hour window.

What’s next? Mum and Dad live next door. I always cook a savoury dish and a sweet one during the YouTube show, so they’ll come over afterwards and we’ll eat while the kids are still sleeping. In the early evening, everyone comes back – my sister and my partner’s mum, too – and I do a big roast dinner and post it to Instagram.

August 7th 2022, 4:29 am

Bare with us: why naturism in Britain is booming

Life and style | The Guardian

One of the unexpected results of the pandemic has been the rise of nudism – so much so that British Naturism is experiencing the fastest growth in new members in 100 years

It was summer 2021 and Nick Mayhew-Smith pressed into the bosky depths of ancient woodland outside Hastings. When he got to the centre, he undressed and perched on an accommodating mossy log. Slowly, he recalls, nature started to quicken around him. It was like a romantic tableau of a nude in the woods, he says – except the naked human subject was carrying a packet of nuts and a sensible backpack.

The pandemic had left the 53-year-old London-based guidebook writer run ragged with work and homeschooling, and a naked stroll in a quiet woodland seemed just the ticket to restore his shattered nerves. “If you sit somewhere remote, fully naked and perfectly still, wildlife starts to get used to you,” Mayhew-Smith, a naturist for three decades, explains. “Birds hop closer, squirrels and badgers emerge: you become, and this is the best way to put it, part of nature. It’s a magical experience, and it really comes into its own in times of stress.”

August 7th 2022, 4:29 am

Sohaila, London: ‘It’s charming, the food is great’ – restaurant review

Life and style | The Guardian

A social enterprise has opened its first restaurant – but eating here is far from an act of charity

Sohaila, 232 Shoreditch High Street, London E1 6PJ. Small plates £4-£9, larger plates £11-£15, desserts £7, wines from £32

We live in desperate times. The Nusr-Et Steakhouse in Knightsbridge, famed for its hyper-expensive gold leaf-wrapped steaks has, according to the hospitality industry website Code, had to abandon using gold leaf. Just as with chickpeas and vegetable oil, there are supply-chain issues. So now they’re just flogging stupidly expensive steaks without any precious metals at all. Where’s the joy in that? They don’t even have that Salt Bae bloke, the one with the shades and the signature salting move, like Rod Hull’s Emu, “bare naked and disgracing himself by vomiting down his own neck” (yes, I’m quoting myself; I can’t improve upon that). He’s at one of his 15 other restaurants, where they are still pointlessly, performatively wrapping steaks in gold leaf so rich people can hate themselves just a little bit more.

August 7th 2022, 4:29 am

For women, finding time to exercise is just the first hurdle

Life and style | The Guardian

It’s on with the T-shirt and homely trainers every other day

I started running to impress my neurologist. I downloaded the little app, where Jo Whiley would cheer me on across the weeks, and I put on a T-shirt and some homely trainers, and chucked myself out of the door. And adorably, I continued to do so every other day, even after I’d told my neurologist, twice, even after I’d completed the app – instead, I listened to podcasts about for example, “What this smalltown US police department did wrong,” and “Hey, did you know some people can smell dementia?” and, while I sweated my way past the allotments and up to the lake, “Let me tell you about this lady from the olden days – boy did she have chutzpah!”

I have never been a PE type. I detest yoga, I find it very horrible. I lack the competitiveness necessary to play a team sport and the idea of going to “the gym”, a place so aesthetically moribund, so heavy with the weight of other peoples’ vanity and regrets, repels me. Yet earlier this year, when the neurologist suggested I make some “lifestyle changes” before she started me on the big drugs for my migraines, I decided to give running a go – the least bad option from a badly stained menu.

August 7th 2022, 4:29 am

I was driving home from a drawn-out breakup with someone else, thinking about him

Life and style | The Guardian

Meandering in and out of deflating dating situations, Imi Timms realised one friend has become her barometer for a decent bloke

We were sitting on the sun-drenched stairs at university when I flopped news of an upcoming date into our conversation. I was chatting with an old friend and a friend we’d just made, and the comment was directed towards the new guy. We were getting along too well and I wanted him to know about my existing situationship.

My relationship wasn’t exclusive but I’ve always struggled with the concept of seeing two people casually at once. I didn’t like the idea of living my own version of The Bachelorette; with far fewer helicopters and untouched cheeseboards.

August 7th 2022, 4:29 am

Thorn in your side? How to avoid the most common garden injuries

Life and style | The Guardian

Gardening is a healthy pursuit, but it has its risks, from back pain to poisonous plants. Here’s how to stay out of the danger zone

My earliest memory of an accident in the garden came when, aged four or five, my parents hired a power scythe to cut the meadow we rented from the church next door. As my dad paused for a second, the rickety old engine coughed, knocking the brake free, and the scythe lurched toward a disobedient child standing where he’d been told not to. I remember my dad shouting at me to move but my little legs were frozen. As it struck, I tumbled in a blur until he lifted me from danger. I’m forever grateful to him for saving all the parts of me that I might not now have.

But not all gardening injuries are of such high-drama. Through my 30 years of gardening I’ve had my fair share of cuts and falls. I’m not particularly clumsy – it’s just that bountiful gardens carry bountiful risk, as the 300,000 people a year who go to hospital from gardening injuries can attest. But we must persevere because gardening is good for us, physically and mentally. With that in mind, here are the most common gardening injuries – and how to avoid them.

August 6th 2022, 3:31 pm

Quiet quitting: why doing the bare minimum at work has gone global

Life and style | The Guardian

The meaninglessness of modern work – and the pandemic – has led many to question their approach to their jobs

Bartleby is back, although no doubt he would prefer not to be. This time, Herman Melville’s reluctant Wall Street scrivener has returned in the form of TikTokers who have embraced “quiet quitting”.

Rather than working late on a Friday evening, organising the annual team-building trip to Slough or volunteering to supervise the boss’s teenager on work experience, the quiet quitters are avoiding the above and beyond, the hustle culture mentality, or what psychologists call “occupational citizenship behaviours”.

August 6th 2022, 3:31 pm

Sara Pascoe looks back: ‘I often tell myself I am funnier the uglier I look’

Life and style | The Guardian

The comedian recreates a photo of her first time on stage and looks back at her shaky path to stardom

Born in Dagenham in 1981 and raised in Romford, Sara Pascoe is one of the UK’s leading standup comedians. Known for weaving whimsical comedy into routines about science and politics, she began on the comedy circuit in 2007, and was nominated for the Edinburgh award in 2014. Pascoe went on to become a TV panel show fixture on shows such as QI and 8 Out of 10 Cats, and starred in her own series, Last Woman on Earth, in 2020. She has written two books, 2016’s Animal: The Autobiography of a Female Body, and Sex Power Money, in 2019. Pascoe’s new live show, Success Story, is touring from November and into 2023.

This is a photo of my first time on stage, playing Glinda the good witch in The Wiz. Behind me is Sophie, a fellow member of the drama group. There was a lot of talk about weight backstage, and as a result I remember thinking I looked fat, which is tragic really. Other than that, I was just excited to get my hands on a bit of frosted lipstick – it was a Rimmel classic from the 90s. We were performing at a small theatre, but still slathered the orange foundation and eyeliner on thick so the people at the back could see our facial features; as if we were Laurence Olivier or something.

August 6th 2022, 3:31 pm

Vick Hope: ‘My most embarrassing moment? I taught a dance class and one of my chicken fillets fell o

Life and style | The Guardian

The TV and radio presenter on talking too much, her lifetime fear of quicksand, and who would play her in the film of her life

Born in Newcastle, Vick Hope, 32, studied at Cambridge University. She spent a year at the Argentina Independent newspaper in Buenos Aires, before joining Radio 1, where she currently has three shows a week: Going Home With Vick and Jordan; Life Hacks; and The Official Chart: First Look. She is the author of two children’s books, presents the Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast, and hosted Vick Hope’s Breakfast Show, available on the ITV Hub. She lives in London and is engaged to the Scottish DJ Calvin Harris.

What is your greatest fear?
When I was growing up, I thought quicksand was going to be a much bigger fear to contend with on a day‑to-day basis. It hasn’t proved to be a bother yet, but there’s still time.

August 6th 2022, 3:31 pm

Being cheerful on the outside can help you – and others – feel it on the inside

Life and style | The Guardian

Cheerfulness can boost your energy levels, even in tough times – as philosophers and writers have long recognised

“The surest sign of wisdom is a constant cheerfulness,” wrote the French philosopher Michel de Montaigne in the 16th century. “Be cheerful,” commands Prospero – arguably the wisest of all of Shakepeare’s characters – in The Tempest. Yet the impact of cheerfulness – and the power it gives us to get through difficult moments in our lives – is hard to define and easy to disregard or dismiss, even as we strive to be happy.

And that is one of the reasons Timothy Hampton, a professor in the department of comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley, decided to write a book about it. Cheerfulness: A Literary and Cultural History explores how “cheerfulness” functions as a theme in the works of great philosophers and writers from Shakespeare to Jane Austen, and how it is portrayed in everything from 16th-century medical books to the Boy Scout handbook.

August 6th 2022, 3:31 pm

Blind date: ‘Best thing about him? He let me have a cube of his tofu’

Life and style | The Guardian

Jayne, 57, costume designer, meets Mark, 55, IT manager

Jayne on Mark

What were you hoping for?
To have an experience outside my comfort zone, which it was.

August 6th 2022, 3:31 pm

Tom Daley on his LGBTQ+ awakening: ‘I had my head in my hands. I felt so dark about being British’

Life and style | The Guardian

The Olympic diver has always been proud to represent his country. But making a documentary about gay rights in the Commonwealth led to a revelation

Tom Daley sounds as if he’s still in shock. Britain’s most celebrated diver recently returned from visiting various Commonwealth countries to investigate LGBTQ+ rights. Of course he knew there were issues; that in much of the Commonwealth homosexuality is still criminalised, thanks to the British empire exporting draconian homophobic laws to the colonies in the 19th century. But knowing something is different from meeting the people who live with those threats on a daily basis. It has changed so many of his views, he says – not least on what it means to be British.

It all started last October, when he said during a TV interview that he didn’t think countries with discriminatory LGBTQ+ laws should be allowed to host major international sporting events. He was then invited to deliver C4’s alternative Christmas message, by which time he had refined his position. “In 2022, the World Cup is being held in the second most dangerous country for queer people, Qatar. Why are we allowing places that aren’t safe for all fans and for all players to host our most prestigious sporting events? Hosting a World Cup is an honour. Why are we honouring them? Holding a Formula One grand prix is an honour. Why are we honouring Saudi Arabia?”

August 6th 2022, 3:31 pm

Rapper Lady Leshurr: ‘My letter from the Queen went to my junk mail’

Life and style | The Guardian

The Birmingham performer, 34, on learning music at her youth club, the loveliness of Solihull, and how she nearly missed out on her British Empire Medal

As a black woman from Birmingham, I stood out like a sore thumb on the UK rap scene. Everyone in London would mimic my accent, laugh at me, troll me. I became determined to be my own self and unlock the door for Birmingham artists. People know about 0121 now.

Councils have failed us when it comes to youth clubs. I built myself at ours. I learned spoken word poetry, how to DJ and MC, play drums, mix and master. All the facilities were there. Now there’s nothing and it breaks my heart. Youth clubs take kids off the streets and away from social media, which can be toxic for mental health. There needs to be a place where the younger generation can let loose and feel safe.

August 6th 2022, 3:31 pm