Category Archives: Life and style

‘I have moments of shame I can’t control’: the lives ruined by explicit ‘collector culture’

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The swapping, collating and posting of nude images of women without their consent is on the rise. But unlike revenge porn, it is not a crime. Now survivors are demanding a change in the law

Ruby will never forget the first time she clicked on the database AnonIB. It is a so-called “revenge porn” site and in January 2020, a friend had texted her for help. Ruby is a secondary school teacher, used to supporting teenagers, and her friend turned to her for advice when she discovered her images were on the site.

“She didn’t send the thread that she was on,” says Ruby, 29. “She was embarrassed, so she sent a general link to the site itself.” When Ruby opened it, “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I couldn’t believe that such an infrastructure existed: something so well organised, so systematic, fed by the people who lived around us.”

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Choosing pets over babies is ‘selfish and diminishes us’, says pope

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Pontiff laments ‘denied parenthood’ and people who ‘substitute cats and dogs for children’

In a move likely to raise the hackles of millions of cats, dogs and their human cohabitees, Pope Francis has suggested that couples who prefer pets to children are selfish.

Wading into a debate noted for its toxic tone on social media, the leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics said substituting pets for children “takes away our humanity”.

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‘No worries’: how America came to banish Australia’s go-to phrase

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US university puts Australianism in the linguistic naughty corner, but is it all a cultural misunderstanding?

A list of “banished words”, published annually by Michigan’s Lake Superior State University, has this year included the unmistakably Australian “no worries”.

LSSU’s tongue-in-cheek list has been compiled every year since 1976 from submissions on terms deemed “familiar but problematic”. This year’s list also includes, among others, “asking for a friend”, “circle back” and “wait, what?” for elimination.

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How to move: with chronic back pain

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Exercise is critical for the millions of people who live with chronic back pain. But how can you do it safely and effectively?

Back pain is the most common form of chronic pain, with about 4 million people living with it in Australia. The most effective way to manage chronic back pain is with a multidisciplinary approach, of which exercise is a key component.

“Any single treatment in low back pain is never enough by itself,” says Associate Prof Michael Vagg, a pain medicine physician and dean of the faculty of pain medicine at the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists. “But exercise is a fundamental part of recovering from low back pain and managing it if it becomes persistent.”

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Back to black: goths go mainstream in corsets, leather and lace

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Inspired by Kourtney Kardashian and Megan Fox, searches for ‘gothcore’ grow as people look to express darker emotions

It’s been 20 years since pallid faces, dark eyes and black clothes haunted UK secondary schools and shopping centres. While some might argue that they never left, merely retreating into the shadows, the consensus for 2022 is that goth style is returning to mainstream culture with a vengeance.

There are some differences this time. The modern goth is more likely to take inspiration from ultra-glam “hot goth girlfriends” such as Kourtney Kardashian and Megan Fox and the fashion world darlings Rick Owens and Yohji Yamamoto than the Marilyn Manson-loving self-proclaimed outsiders of the early 2000s.

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How we met: ‘He had to marry me or I’d sue him!’

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Mary, 62, and Roy, 70, met in Michigan after she accidentally crashed her bike into his – and broke her jaw. They’re now married and live in St Louis

When Mary moved from Bedfordshire in the UK to Michigan in the US on a Fulbright scholarship in 1985, she wasn’t expecting to find love. Her mind was focused on the nutrition course she had enrolled on and her plans for a future career. In the spring of 1986, she was cycling home from a meeting with her tutor when she approached a fence covered in ivy. Roy, who had been pushing his bike, emerged from behind the fence before she had the chance to stop. “I hit his wheel and, because my hands were cold and I was wearing a backpack, I went sailing over the handlebars,” she remembers. “I landed on my chin and broke my jaw on the concrete.”

In typical British fashion, she told him she was “absolutely fine”, but Roy says it was clear she was badly hurt. “My apartment was pretty close by so I got my roommate to drive her to the university health centre,” he says. The next day, Mary had to have her jaw wired shut, meaning she couldn’t eat solid food for three months. “Roy came to my apartment with some juice to suck through a straw. He said that when my jaw was unwired he would make me dinner,” she recalls. Although it was an accident, Roy felt “terrible” about what happened. “I was really concerned about her,” he says.

Want to share your story? Tell us a little about yourself, your partner and how you got together by filling in the form here.

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What’s new, pussycat? How feline film stars are trained to perform

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From Stuart Little and Pet Sematary to new movie The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, cats can be scene-stealers. But how do you get such fickle and independent creatures to behave on camera?

Cats have been effortlessly stealing scenes from their human co-stars for decades. Who could forget Audrey Hepburn’s adorable marmalade tabby in Breakfast at Tiffany’s? Or Jinx, the toilet-flushing Himalayan in Meet the Parents? Behind every famous film cat, there is a dedicated trainer patiently teaching them to obey a command, making sure they’re happy on set, and grooming them fastidiously to maintain their fluffy good looks.

The film-makers behind The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, a British period biopic about the Edwardian artist and illustrator who became famous for his surreal portraits of cats, were adamant they didn’t want to use CGI for the shoot, so animal trainer Charlotte Wilde was brought in with 40 feisty felines. “It was organised chaos,” she says. “They had their own green room and were treated like royalty.”

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Kirat Assi: ‘Bobby tried to destroy my hopes, my dreams, every part of my life’

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She had been ‘catfished’ for years, and now her hit podcast tells the story of tracing the scammer and her quest for justice

The voice of Kirat Assi, subject of the podcast Sweet Bobby, is so familiar I momentarily forget we had never spoken, let alone met. I am one of the million-plus listeners gripped by her story of being “catfished” – duped into a relationship by someone with a false identity.

Assi, who lives in London, fell victim to a complex fraud that lasted eight years and involved up to 60 characters who only existed in the scammer’s warped imagination. At the centre was Bobby, a handsome cardiologist with whom Assi formed a close friendship that turned into romance despite never meeting in real life. Bobby was a real person whose identity had been stolen by the scammer, eventually exposed as Assi’s cousin Simran Bhogal.

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We often fail to keep resolutions – but writing in a notebook brings great rewards

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Scribbling down our thoughts is a great way to make sense of things – and very satisfying

In 1989, when I was 16, I moved into a pub with my parents and my younger brother, Matty. It was highly exciting. I took to barwork as I liked the chat, and also enjoyed the opportunities offered for eavesdropping. I was curious about the adult world and up until then had learned most of what I knew from books. Now I had all these real lives to study. I should write some of this down, I thought, and would scribble into my diary before bed.

We couldn’t believe how busy it was that first Christmas, culminating on New Year’s Eve, when everyone piled out into the main street at midnight and exchanged drunken embraces and warm wishes for 1990. After the pub had emptied and the mammoth job of clearing up was done, we gathered with our staff for a few drinks and the chat turned to resolutions. All the women wanted to lose weight. A couple of people wanted to stop smoking. I announced very firmly that I wanted to write a novel.

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Fashion designer Gabriela Hearst: ‘I could always have gone back to selling cattle’

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She’s New York’s most in-demand fashion designer. But for Gabriela Hearst, starting out on a remote Uruguayan ranch has proved to be her most valuable experience

Hang on, wait there a minute, I want to show you something,” says Gabriela Hearst, hopping up from her chair in her airy Manhattan office and reaching for something on the shelves in the background of her Zoom frame. “These are my journals from when I was 16 or 17 – let me check the date, um 1993, yes I was 17 and look!” She flattens a page full of colourful teenage drawings and holds it up to the camera: “I designed a whole freaking shoe collection!”

That these journals remain within reaching distance of the fashion designer’s desk in her Chelsea studio is testament to the fact that despite the success she has achieved, Hearst never forgets where she came from. As creative director of her award-winning brand, founded in 2015, and a year into the same prestigious role at the fashion house Chloé, it would be an understatement to say that Hearst is hot property in the fashion world right now.

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Out with the meat, in with the plants as world’s top chefs offer vegan menus

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From London to San Francisco, haute cuisine is joining the food revolution. Michelin-starred chefs explain they’re going meat-free

Alexis Gauthier used to sell 20kg of foie gras a week. Now the chef, whose London-based restaurant became entirely vegan in 2021, only sells a plant-based version. Since becoming vegan, he admits, Gauthier Soho has “lost a lot of customers, sadly”. But he says he has gained even more new diners, all looking for something different and sustainable and prepared to pay the price.

Gauthier is not the only chef to abandon the animal produce traditionally associated with fine dining. While the number of meat-free menus has been burgeoning for some time in lower- and mid-priced restaurants, now a growing number of the world’s top chefs are starting to put plants centre stage.

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Lost your get up and go? Here’s how to get it back

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After a lifetime of loving exercise, Martin Love lost his motivation. But where had it gone? And could he get it back? Plus, five experts on how to maintain your mojo

On my parents’ mantelpiece, among the pictures of smiling grandchildren, lopsided graduation hats, old sports cars and a young soldier in smart uniform, is a picture of heroic athletic endeavour. In a little silver frame is a small blond boy in a white vest straining every sinew as he belts around the corner of a grassy athletic field, the parallel lines of the track marked out in white chalk stretching into the distance. He seems to be so far ahead of the pack that he’s almost on his own. He’s a champion in the making! Is the podium ready? Is that the music from Chariots of Fire you can hear?

The sad truth is that the little boy is me and I was so far off the pace everyone else that my dad was able to step out on the track to take the picture. “You were miles behind. It was almost as if you were running in slow motion,” he says now, with a laugh.

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‘I would have bought stock in Zoom!’: experts on wisdom (and regrets) for a new year of Covid

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As we greet a third calendar year of pandemic life, experts who helped us make sense of the past two years discuss lessons learned, and wisdom to carry forward

If 2020 was a year of fear and isolation, 2021 marked one of return – a road toward something like “normal”, despite so many hairpin turns. The mass distribution of Covid-19 vaccines did not restore the norms of pre-pandemic life, as many had hoped, but it did change the rules of engagement. Time and again, people adapted.

As we greet a third calendar year of pandemic life, the Guardian turned to experts across disciplines who have helped the rest of us make sense of the past two years for lessons learned, and wisdom to carry forward.

Jessica Richards is the founder of the trend forecasting firm JMR Trend + Creative.

Sydney Mintle is the founder of fashion marketing and public relations firm Gossip & Glamour.

Thomas Plante is a professor of psychology at Santa Clara University.

Kelly Hills is a bioethicist and co-founder of the bioethics consulting firm Rogue Bioethics.

Barbara J Sahakian is a professor of psychiatry at the University of Cambridge.

Saskia Popescu is an infectious disease epidemiologist and assistant professor at the George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government.

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Grief, needle phobia, lack of trust: why we refused Covid jabs – and what changed our minds

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Three former refuseniks reveal their misgivings about having the vaccination and what finally convinced them to take the plunge

The UK’s vaccine rollout has largely been a success: more than 90% of the population aged 12 and over has now had at least one dose, with just over half having had a second dose and the booster.

However, there are thousands of people who still haven’t had a jab, despite estimates suggesting that 90% of the most severely ill Covid patients in hospital at the moment are unvaccinated.

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A French retreat brought into sharp focus

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Photographer Serge Anton has updated his great-grandfather’s home and made it his own

Having spent three decades travelling the world, enjoying a nomadic lifestyle, French-Belgian photographer Serge Anton finally felt the need to settle down. And he found his personal oasis of quiet in a house he inherited, a retreat called Mon Desir. Built by his great-grandfather about a century ago in Sedan, in the heart of the French Ardennes, the house sits in a landscape full of calm – a million miles from any stress, with trees and green views wherever you look.

“At first the name [which translates as “my desire”] did not particularly inspire me and it was only later I discovered how appropriate it was for me. After 30 years of travelling, I realised the house embodied a pure and strong desire: that of settling down and returning to my roots,” says Anton.

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The person who got me through 2021: Miss J and America’s Next Top Model transported me to carefree times

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Three years after it ended, scandal surrounds the show, but its familiarity and formula provided a comfort blanket. I really hope they bring it back

It sounds troublingly shallow, but when I saw the tweet that said “Holy shit, ANTM [America’s Next Top Model] is on Amazon Prime” my heart soared. I am not one who can pretend the pandemic isn’t still raging but, in that fleeting moment, I felt a spiritual lightness I hadn’t experienced since 2019.

I dropped everything to binge the episodes, then fell deep into a rabbit hole of detective work: where are the contestants now? Are they on Instagram? I found a whole subsection of TikTok dedicated to calling out where the show was problematic, and YouTuber Oliver Twixt has a highly viewed series of interviews with ANTM contestants levelling accusations of maltreatment at the show’s producers. Whatever the reason, ANTM is back in the cultural sphere.

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On my radar: Moses Sumney’s cultural highlights

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The singer-songwriter on Balenciaga’s visions, the mountains of North Carolina, and the haunting power of Eve’s Bayou

Singer-songwriter Moses Sumney, 29, grew up between Ghana and California and studied creative writing and poetry at UCLA. His piercing falsetto and genre-defying music have brought him critical acclaim, starting with his self-recorded 2014 EP Mid-City Island, followed in 2017 by his debut album, Aromanticism, and the 2020 double album Græ. Sumney has collaborated with musicians including Bon Iver and James Blake and toured with Solange and Sufjan Stevens. His latest project is Blackalachia, a self-directed concert film created in association with WePresent, shot over two days in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina, where he lives.

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UK shops fear gaps on shelves as new Brexit import rules hit

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Regulations likely to result in higher prices and shortages for delis and others

After a few minutes in the queue spent eyeing up the best on offer at the local deli, it is decision time.

Maybe some of the wonderful Parma ham from Italy? With a few slices of Spanish chorizo? And a piece of brie from that farm in Normandy … oh, and definitely some of the black olives from Greece.

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Ditching the diet – how I learned to accept the body I have

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A lifetime of hating my body has got me nowhere. If I can’t love it, can I at least respect it?

Every January, the same old battle cry: this will be the year that I get thin. Last January, I did a week-long juice cleanse, and the year before that, I fasted for three days. It wasn’t quite nil by mouth, but almost. At the time, I told myself the science interested me (the fervour with which fasting evangelists assure you that a few days without food can reset your microbiome or stave off cellular ageing is compelling enough to make you ignore the health warnings). Really, though, what I wanted was rapid weight loss, minimum one dress size.

I made it to 81 hours. Practically levitating with hunger, I ignored the advice to reintroduce food slowly (soups and juices before solids) by bingeing on a cheese sandwich, which I promptly threw up. Happy new year to me.

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