Category Archives: Society

‘I’d keep it on the down low’: the secret life of a super-recogniser

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Police employ them and scientists study them, but what is life like for the rare few who can never forget a face? Super-recogniser Yenny Seo didn’t think it was anything special

As a child, Yenny Seo often surprised her mother by pointing out a stranger in the grocery store, remarking it was the same person they passed on the street a few weeks earlier. Likewise, when they watched a movie together, Seo would often recognise “extras” who’d appeared fleetingly in other films.

Her mother never thought this was “anything special”, Seo says, and simply assumed she had a particularly observant daughter.

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Covid live news: pressure grows on Boris Johnson over lockdown parties; Djokovic to spend night in detention

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British PM faces fresh allegations that staff held regular drinking sessions when social mixing was prohibited, as Serbian tennis star fights deportation from Australia

Keir Starmer has ramped up the pressure on Boris Johnson as the prime minister fights to save his job, arguing that the stream of explosive allegations of Downing Street parties has left him “unable to lead”.

In a speech to the Fabian Society conference, the Labour leader accused the Conservatives of running the NHS into the ground because they are “too preoccupied defending his rule breaking”. Stressing that “waiting times were the shortest on record” when Labour left government 12 years ago, he said:

Rather than concentrating on getting through the pandemic and bringing down waiting lists, this self-indulgent Tory party is instead having a fight about a leader who they should have known from the start is not fit for office.

We are witnessing the broken spectacle of a prime minister mired in deceit and deception, unable to lead.

The prime minister needs to do the honourable thing and call it a day for the good of the country.

[This is] not about one isolated incident, what we are seeing with these continued revelations coming out about what’s been going on at No 10 is a pattern of behaviour, and ultimately the buck stops with Boris Johnson.

What I’ve seen, to me it looks like Boris Johnson and those in his inner circle can do what they want and the rest of us have to do as we are told - that’s not acceptable to me, it is not acceptable to my constituents or, I believe, most people in the country. And what that certainly isn’t is ‘levelling up’ in my book.

It doesn’t matter, quite honestly, if the prime minister was present or not present - ultimately, he is responsible for what goes on in government, he is responsible for the culture in No 10 and what we’re seeing is a culture where it is one rule for them and the rest of us do as we’re told, and that’s just not acceptable.

I’m not sure that any apology is going to put that right.

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I grew up in a crematorium – we learned not to look too alive in front of the mourners

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It was a regular family home – just one in which I learned not to run around the garden when the funeral processions passed, and to jump over, never on, any bluish grey powder I might find

When I was eight, roller skates were things you stepped into while wearing your outdoor shoes. They had laced, red leather toe-pieces that you pushed your shoes into, and red straps to buckle round your ankles. Two chunky black wheels sat either side of your toes, and two either side of your ankles. The metal base could be shortened or lengthened as needed. The skates made a loud clacking noise and didn’t roll well on -carpets or bumpy -pavements. If my sister and I were to build up any momentum at all, there was only one place to go. Down the crem.

The crematory was cavernous. The clackclackroll of skates was loud on the tiled floor, which was cold and hard to fall on, but goodness, you could pick up some speed. On the other side of the immense wall was the chapel. We knew that during the day coffins came through one hatch and were rolled across to three steel ones on the opposite side: cremators 1, 2 and 3. But we only went down the crem – as we all called it – when the room was still and the furnaces empty and cold. Each cremator had a small, nautical-style wheel that, when spun, opened the doors on to the scorched bricks of the incinerators. These wheels were handy to grab hold of when we needed to slow down. Occasionally, we’d spin one to see inside. My sister climbed in once, and her trousers were never the same again.

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Psychiatrists warn of police and crime bill’s impact on young people

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Academics and clinicians say bill ‘will have a profound negative impact on young people’s mental health’

Hundreds of clinical psychiatrists and psychologists have warned that the police and crime bill reaching its final stages in parliament “will have a profound negative impact on young people’s mental health”.

“We cannot think of better measures to disempower and socially isolate young people,” they say in an open letter signed by more than 350 academics and clinicians and published online.

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Global heating linked to early birth and damage to babies’ health, scientists find

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Exclusive: Studies show high temperatures and air pollution during pregnancy can cause lifelong health effects

The climate crisis is damaging the health of foetuses, babies and infants across the world, six new studies have found.

Scientists discovered increased heat was linked to fast weight gain in babies, which increases the risk of obesity in later life. Higher temperatures were also linked to premature birth, which can have lifelong health effects, and to increased hospital admissions of young children.

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Thank you for giving generously to the Guardian and Observer charity appeal

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This weekend is the last chance to donate to our 2021 appeal supporting those on the frontline of the climate emergency

In this year’s Guardian and Observer charity appeal we have supported communities and individuals hit hardest by the climate emergency, people who have seen their lives upended and livelihoods lost by extreme weather. It’s a topical issue, and not going away – and there is still time to donate: so far we have raised over £800,000.

Our appeal is shaped by vivid stories of climate emergency: floods, drought and wildfires; from reindeer killed by unnatural arctic heat to chronic crop failure by the shores of Lake Victoria. At its heart, however, lies inequality and poverty: the stark truth is the countries least responsible for global emissions have by far suffered worst from climate-induced disasters.

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Ashling Murphy: thousands attend vigil for Irish teacher killed going for run

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Killing of 23-year-old in County Offaly has provoked outpouring of grief and anger in Ireland and beyond

Thousands have gathered in the town of Tullamore in Ireland as a vigil was held for Ashling Murphy.

Other memorials were also held across Ireland after the “senseless” killing of the 23-year-old teacher, with echoes of the national reckoning that was sparked in the UK last year by the murder of Sarah Everard.

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More UK infants in hospital amid Omicron wave but experts urge calm

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Proportion of hospitalised children aged under one rises, though medics say most cases are very mild

The proportion of infants in hospital with Covid-19 in the UK has risen with the spread of Omicron, figures suggest, although researchers have urged calm, noting most cases are very mild.

The number of Covid-positive admissions, whatever the cause, is expected to rise when there is more infection around, but the latest figures suggest there has been a shift in the proportion of children in hospital with coronavirus who are infants.

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Term starts in Uganda – but world’s longest shutdown has left schools in crisis

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Pre-Covid the country battled poor learning outcomes, now experts fear fee rises and school closures will see many more children miss out

The gate that once proudly displayed the name of Godwins primary school in Kampala has been removed. The compound, where pupils played at break time, is now a parking area for trucks ferrying goods to the nearby market, while the classrooms have been turned into a travellers’ lodge.

Uganda’s schools were ordered to reopen on Monday 10 January, after nearly two years of closure – the longest school shutdown in the world – but not all were able to welcome pupils back. Godwins, in Kalerwe in Kawempe division, is one of the many schools that will never reopen. It had been in existence for 20 years catering to children whose parents work in nearby Kalerwe market.

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Covid created 20 new ‘pandemic billionaires’ in Asia, says Oxfam

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While wealthiest got richer, 140m people fell into poverty as jobs were lost, wiping out years of gains for poorest, report finds

Twenty new “pandemic billionaires” have been created in Asia thanks to the international response to Covid-19, while 140 million people across the continent were plunged into poverty as jobs were lost during the pandemic, according to Oxfam.

A report by the aid organisation says that by March 2021, profits from the pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and services needed for the Covid response had made 20 people new billionaires as lockdowns and economic stagnation destroyed the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of others.

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Boris Johnson unlikely to be seen in public for a week, says Downing St

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Period stuck inside No 10 comes at arguably fortuitous time for PM facing intense scrutiny over ‘partygate’

Boris Johnson is unlikely to be seen in public for the next week after a member of his immediate family tested positive for Covid, Downing Street has said.

While self-isolation for contacts of coronavirus cases is no longer mandatory, Johnson’s spokesman said the prime minister would heed guidance to limit outside contacts as much as possible for seven days after the test.

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Covid isolation to be cut to five full days in England, says Sajid Javid

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Health secretary confirms reduction in self-isolation period, in decision that could help address staff shortages

The health secretary, Sajid Javid, has confirmed that the minimum time people with Covid in England have to spend in self-isolation is to be cut to five full days.

From Monday, people would be able to leave isolation on day six if they tested negative on days five and six, Javid told the Commons.

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There’s nothing worse than a restaurant that makes you feel like an old git | Jay Rayner

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Give us over-50s a menu we can read, grownup waiters and the chance to hold a conversation. It’s not too much to ask – and it makes business sense too

There is only one thing worse than having to thumb your smartphone torch into life so that you can read a restaurant menu: the youthful twentysomething waiter noticing you do so, and bringing you one of those LED clip-on lamps. Short of wheeling the house Zimmer frame to the table for you to use while popping to the loo, there’s nothing better calculated to make you feel like an old git. It’s profoundly irritating, partly because it’s so unnecessary; it’s entirely possible to have moody lighting while also dropping enough on to a table so that those of us whose sight is not quite what it once was can read the damn small print without recourse to Wembley Stadium’s floods.

But mostly it’s irritating because it’s a huge own goal. It makes any restaurant seem exclusive; as in it was designed to exclude those of us not in the very first flush of youth. All too often this is literally the case, albeit usually by happenstance. The restaurant business is generally a younger person’s game. Setting them up and running them requires the sort of long hours that those of us with a few years on the clock may no longer find appealing. And people in their 20s and 30s may well have no idea what older customers want or need, simply because they haven’t got there yet. If a restaurateur only wants punters their own age, then fine. Turn down the lights. Turn up the music. Print the menu in six point Comic Sans.

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Boris Johnson does not believe he broke Covid rules at party, says minister

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Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis defends PM as he pulls out of public engagement in Lancashire

The Northern Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis, has insisted the prime minister was “very, very sincere” when he apologised for attending an alcohol-fuelled gathering in the Downing Street garden, but did not believe he had broken the rules.

Boris Johnson told MPs on Wednesday he thought he was at a “work event” when he dropped into what his own principal private secretary had called “socially distanced drinks”.

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Joy and nakedness at San Francisco’s Dyke March: Phyllis Christopher’s best photograph

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‘The march is like our Christmas – the biggest night of the year, where women celebrate half naked and anything goes’

In San Francisco, the night before the annual Pride parade is reserved for the Dyke March, a celebration of lesbian life throughout the city. It was like our Christmas – the biggest night of the year – and half of us would be so hungover we wouldn’t make it to Pride the next day.

I remember getting a call from an editor at On Our Backs, a lesbian magazine run by women that billed itself as offering “entertainment for the adventurous lesbian”. It was a bedrock of the lesbian community – one of the few ways to communicate with one another, and to celebrate sex and educate each other about it at a time when Aids had brought so much devastation to queer communities. The editor wanted me to shoot a kiss-in, but the tone of her voice sounded almost guilty – like she couldn’t quite bring herself to ask me to work on the biggest party night of the year. But to me, it was the most fun I could imagine.

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‘More people is the last thing this planet needs’: the men getting vasectomies to save the world

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With the climate crisis becoming ever more urgent, a growing number of young, childless men are taking the drastic decision of being sterilised for environmental reasons

When Lloyd Williamson lay on his back in a GP’s clinic late last November, it was for the surgical culmination of years of soul searching. Williamson, who is 30 and from Essex, remembers wanting a family as a child, but something changed in his early 20s. “I thought: you know what? I don’t want to bring a life into this world, because it’s pretty shitty as it is and it’s only going to get worse,” he says, two weeks after his vasectomy.

Williamson was largely motivated to sterilise himself by the climate crisis. Given the link between fossil-fuelled economic growth and population growth, he believes that having fewer children is one thing individuals can do to help. “We can’t offset our carbon problem on to the next generation, because it’s not fair on them,” he says.

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Why pig-to-human heart transplant is for now only a last resort

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Analysis: As doctors monitor world’s first human recipient of pig heart, safety and ethical concerns remain

The world’s first transplant of a genetically altered pig heart into an ailing human is a landmark for medical science, but the operation, and the approach more broadly, raise substantial safety and ethical concerns.

Surgeons at the University of Maryland Medical Center spent eight hours on Friday evening transplanting the heart from the pig into 57-year-old David Bennett, who had been in hospital for more than a month with terminal heart failure.

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‘I saw myself in RuPaul’: how Drag Race inspired LGBTQ+ Kenyans to find freedom

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Inspired by the hit US show, a Nairobi group is using catwalk events to combat stigma and abuse

An audience wearing face masks sits around the edges of a nondescript room in an unassuming building in the centre of Nairobi. Sparsely furnished and decorated with a few posters advertising PrEP, a drug that reduces chances of contracting HIV, there is a low hum of excited chatter.

Then the speakers crackle into action, playing Sweet Dreams by Beyoncé, and in struts Toyo, a 23-year-old transgender woman, wearing a figure-hugging sparkly blue dress accessorised with bright red painted nails and the ubiqitious face mask, in black. She walks to the end of the room, strikes a pose and struts back out. Toyo is followed by Miss K – or Kelvin, when not in drag – 24, who is wearing a red strappy dress, long black wig, fake Louboutin heels, and plenty of makeup.

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‘Don’t plan it, just go!’: how to be spontaneous – and grab some unexpected fun

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The pandemic has left our best-laid plans in disarray, but we can still have spur-of-the-moment adventures

Back in the wild old days, my best buddy and I used to call going out “looking for trouble”. We weren’t hoping for a punch-up or a little light robbery, but a spontaneous adventure involving music, strangers or just the city at night. All that spur-of-the-moment fun has taken quite a beating since the pandemic began, for many millions of us. First came the lockdowns, social distancing and closed venues, then the cautious reopening when even a trip to the pub or an art gallery had to be booked weeks in advance. And now, just when it seemed the world was finally getting back to normal, Omicron has come wielding its everything’s-off-again sledgehammer, crushing all those dreams of nights out, holidays and raucous parties. Not only does it seem foolish to plan anything, but after two years of frustration and self-restraint, it’s hard to summon up the enthusiasm to do anything off the cuff.

And that’s quite a loss. While we often think anticipation is half the fun, in 2016 researchers from two US universities found that people enjoyed activities more when they were impromptu. Scheduling a coffee break or a movie, for instance, made them feel “less free-flowing and more work-like”, wrote the authors. As Jane Austen put it 200 years ago in Emma: “Why not seize the pleasure at once? – How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!”

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Nicola Sturgeon urged to scrap census asking teenagers about anal sex

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Chief of Scottish parents’ organisation says health and wellbeing survey ‘not fit for purpose’

Scotland’s largest parents’ organisation is calling for the SNP government to withdraw its schools’ health and wellbeing census, which has attracted opprobrium for asking 14-year-olds about their experience of anal sex.

The controversial poll has united rightwing pro-family campaigners and progressive children’s rights advocates, with both groups fearing it may end up causing harm to the young people it intends to help.

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