Category Archives: Life and style

My winter of love: I was homesick in New York. The quiet Danish poet was just what I was longing for

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We met in a cafe and struck up an intense friendship - soon we were kissing for hours on park benches. Then he asked me to join him on a trip to Iceland

There was a strip of cafes and bars that ran alongside Tompkins Square park in the Lower East Side in New York and none of them minded if all you bought was a single coffee and sat all night long. So I did just that. It was the late 90s, I was 19 years old and I had never lived in a city before. I sat night after night in these cafes, reading books, watching people, drinking too much coffee. I didn’t really have anything else to do, I didn’t know anyone, so I’d sit and watch the East Village whirl around me.

I wasn’t the only lonely kid, though. After a while I noticed another sitting night after night in Café Pick Me Up, a studious young man feverishly filling up notebooks. Café Pick Me Up was a cosy little place with a low pressed-metal ceiling, crammed full of tiny tables, with French cafe chairs and mellow lighting. If you were to write a romcom featuring a meet cute, you’d set it there.

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‘If I don’t end up in intensive care, it’s a bonus’: the beauty and pain of being the world’s best endurance swimmer

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From jellyfish in the Caribbean to hypothermia in the English Channel, swimming hasn’t been easy for Chloë McCardel – but can feel ‘so wild and free’

We’re not off to a good start. I’m fumbling with my cap, the rubber clinging to my head lopsidedly, my hair straggling out. I take it off to start again and the woman who has swum the fickle English Channel more times than any other human, the “Queen of the Channel”, instructs me in how to correctly apply a swimming cap.

Chloë McCardel and I are going for an ocean swim at Bondi. She dives into the foamy sea ahead of me – more slender mermaid than broad-shouldered Amazonian. Knee deep, I feel the current suck at my flesh. It’s not one of Bondi’s better days. Chest deep, I realise I’m being dragged out and my very amateur ocean-swimming abilities are no match for this surf. Panic rises. McCardel is an impatient white-cap in the distance. What was I thinking, suggesting a swim with superwoman?

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The person who got me through 2021: Heather Phillipson’s sculpture brightened my trips to hospital

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On my way to have painful medical tests, I felt dejected. Then I saw a giant dollop of whipped cream with a cherry on top in Trafalgar Square

Most people were keen to leave 2020 behind but had I known what was coming in 2021, I might have chosen to stay there. From the first days of January I started to experience extended bouts of dizziness – a feeling that the ground was moving beneath me, with bursts of tinnitus, nausea and head pressure thrown in.

One thing I can tell you about near constant dizziness is that it’s not the ideal state to be in if you are trying to homeschool a four-year-old, entertain a stir-crazy one-year-old and hold down a full-time job. As for fun activities: just looking at a playground roundabout was enough to send me spinning out.

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Christopher Eccleston: ‘I am anything but macho’

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The actor, 57, on having a breakdown, aiming high and moving through life gently

My first memory is cycling to the top of the path outside my childhood home, on a yellow kids’ bike with fat grey tyres. I turned on to the road and said aloud: “I’m me, doing this, now.” I was heading away from the home and people I loved, off on my own adventure.

The love I felt as a child was unconditional, especially from my mother. I loved Dad deeply, but was wary of him. It was idyllic, our gang of kids playing out on a Salford council estate. My children are middle-class Londoners, but I sit on the porch and let them play in the street just like I did.

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The person who got me through 2021: Awkwafina made me hopeful for success in dark days

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In Nora from Queens, Awkwafina’s adorable loser alter ego was inspiring. Faced with constant failure, she kept going, with wit and warmth

During the past 20 months I’ve become addicted to TV shows about women trying and failing to make it. Broad City, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, 2 Broke Girls: it’s like looking in a mirror, if I could be bothered to do even that. But the absolute fabulous queen loser of all is Awkwafina, in her self-created show Nora from Queens.

Awkwafina plays a bizarro-reverse-mirror version of herself as a nearly thirtysomething bum, living in her childhood home with her grandmother and her widowed father. It’s pure lockdown comfort TV, with every petty slight and worldly favour soothed away by familial love. Nothing Nora from Queens does ever works out, and yet it’s always fine in the end. Attempted jobs, moneymaking schemes, love interests and opportunities for growth come and go, with all the wit and humour being incidental. The laughs come from off-the-cuff comments, the quickest physical reactions and scathing jibes, but the emotion is gooey and true. And that’s how I live now – with Nora from Queens as my more adorable, charismatic, sexy, funny, hipster-chic proxy. I actually have the same sloppy tracksuit bottoms, oversized T-shirts, thick dorky glasses and button-down overshirts that Nora wears in the show. If she gets up at noon every day in TV fantasyland, heck, I do it every day in reality. And if she fails at everything while refusing to leave her childhood home or embrace adulthood, well, me too – and I’m 10 years older than Awkwafina herself and 15 older than the show’s character.

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‘It’s so liberating’: India’s first salon run by transgender men

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Founder Aryan Pasha wants La Beauté & Style to be an inclusive and comfortable space, as well as tackle prejudice and provide employment

The beauty treatments listed at the new La Beauté & Style salon are much the same as those offered by the dozen or so other parlours that dot the traffic-heavy Dilshad Extension area of Ghaziabad, 17 miles (28km) east of Delhi. But that is where the similarity ends.

The wall behind the reception desk is painted in rainbow colours; a mural of a trans man with flowing multicoloured locks decorates another wall; a woman wearing a sari is having her eyebrows plucked next to a trans man who is telling a stylist how he would like his hair cut.

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Welcome to Cabeça, the Christmas capital of Portugal

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Every year this hilltop community becomes Christmas Village, a rustic, artisanal festive wonderland attracting visitors from far and wide

José Galvão does not look much like an elf. At 79, he has the weather-burned face and strong labourer’s hands of a man born in the mountains of central Portugal. Yet, for months he’s been beavering away behind the scenes to bring to life what must be one of the world’s friendliest and least showy Christmas celebrations.

Every Christmas for the past eight years, the 170 or so residents of Cabeça in the Serra de Estrela mountain range transform their remote village into a rustic winter wonderland. The idea sprang from a competition run in 2013 by the local council, but has since taken on a life of its own, attracting a growing flow of visitors from across Portugal every year.

Sitting just off the central plaza with some of his old-boy friends, José breaks off his chinwag to show me the three-inch folding knife in his pocket. “I’m no expert, but I do a bit of carving,” he chortles through a gap-toothed smile. “We’ve all got to muck in, certo? Cabeça is the Christmas Village after all.”

He is right on every count. Following his directions, I walk 100 metres or so down one of Cabeça’s narrow streets. Pop-up stores and market stalls line the route, which is busy with Portuguese day-trippers on the hunt for festive fun.

I briefly stop at Loripão, a bakery from the next-door village, which has rented a villager’s front room for the fortnight’s celebrations. It’s a paradise of all things sweet and sugary, and its biggest seller by far is the bolo rei (king cake) – the rounded sugary bread topped with crystalised fruits that adorns every Portuguese sideboard at Christmas.

Outside, decoration are strung between the square granite houses that characterise the local architecture. Everything is homemade, from the heart-shaped frames swaddled in ferns to the moss-covered stars studded with red berries.

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My winter of love: I was not expecting a hot first date. Then I found love in a terrible pub

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Ten years after my dad died, I felt rudderless – a manchild still making sense of life. But suddenly, surprisingly, I met someone with whom I had an immediate bond

For most of the winter of 2011-12, I was a slightly reluctant member of the Guardian’s spin-off dating site, Guardian Soulmates. I was still in my 20s, just about, and pouring the energy and naivety of youth into a busy social life, a career as a writer of newsprint ephemera and a room in a shared flat. I think I was also a bit lonely and rudderless – a manchild still making sense of life 10 years after the sudden death of my dad. Whatever it was, something was missing.

By late February, I had been on half a dozen first dates – and no second dates. I was getting tired of the whole thing. It was all so procedural. But I’d agreed to meet a girl called Jess, whose profile handle – “good_grammar_is_hot” – had somehow not entirely put me off.

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Stella McCartney got pay rise while fashion firm took furlough cash

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The designer’s salary rose to £2.7m last year while her company claimed almost £850k in government support

Stella McCartney took a near £2.7m salary from her fashion company last year, up more than £220,000 on the year before, while the business claimed almost £850,000 in support from the government’s furlough scheme.

The designer’s pay went up despite a 26% fall in sales to £28.4m in the year to 31 December 2020, as sales in the UK more than halved, while the company recorded a pre-tax loss of £31.4m, according to accounts for Stella McCartney Limited filed at Companies House. The group made a £33.4m pretax loss the year before.

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The dog who got me through 2021: Leo the Peke made my blood pressure drop and my heart swell

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He is not a big name among dogfluencers, but whenever I felt stressed, something about this pekingese Instagram pup calmed me

On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog, went the New Yorker cartoon. Nearly 30 years later, it says so in your profile.

My Instagram feed is full of dogs, or people posting as their dogs from their own accounts. Some I know well, like my sister’s sweet but vacant pug Margot.

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Escape your comfort zone! How to face your fears – and improve your health, wealth and happiness

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Is there something great you have always wanted to do, but fear has held you back? Make 2022 the year you go for it

The “comfort zone” is a reliable place of retreat, especially in times of stress – living through a global pandemic, for instance. But psychologists have long ƒextolled the benefits of stepping outsideit, too. The clinical psychologist Roberta Babb advises regularly reviewing how well it is serving you. The comfort zone can, she says, become a prison or a trap, particularly if you are there because of fear and avoidance.

Babb says people can be “mentally, emotionally, physically, socially, occupationally” stimulated by facing their fears or trying something uncomfortable. “Adaptation and stimulation are important parts of our wellbeing, and a huge part of our capacity to be resilient. We can get stagnant, and it is about growing and finding different ways to be, which then allows us to have a different life experience.”

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My winter of love: Scrolling through sperm banks wasn’t sexy – but it was surprisingly intimate

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Donor profiles sparked long conversations about the values we wanted for our child. The guys who wanted to ‘spread their genes’? Definitely out

Surrounded by glittering Christmas lights, in between sips of red wine, my friend made me a very decent proposal. “My sperm,” he said. “You can have it if you like.” We’d been catching up over festive drinks and the topic of kids came up, as it does when you are in your 30s. My partner – now wife – and I had started thinking about having a family, I’d told my friend. We had two wombs and a bunch of eggs; we just needed to figure out the rest of the baby-making equation. So he offered to sort that bit out for us, no strings (or body appendages) attached.

My wife and I thought about that offer a lot over the next few months. No offence to heterosexuals (some of my best friends are straight), but I don’t envy you most of the time. However, I am jealous of the fertile straight couples who don’t have to do anything more complicated than jump into bed when they decide they want kids. Instead of getting undressed, my wife and I went online. We researched, researched, researched. Should we go for a known donor such as my friend? Or would it be better to go to a sperm bank?

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The person who got me through 2021: Huey Morgan comforted me amid a deluge of human waste

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I had plumbing problems and his radio show transported me from the faecal hellscape in my garden. It became the ideal soundtrack for my pandemic reality

It was spring, and human excrement was pumping into our garden. I watched through the window as a perplexed young plumber with a long metal pole excavated the dark, gurgling drain. As if lockdown hadn’t been bad enough, our kitchen was now heavy with the stench of a thousand flushes. No one knew how to stop it. There was only one thing to do: brew weapons-grade black coffee and switch on the radio. That’s how I discovered Huey Morgan’s Saturday morning breakfast show on BBC 6 Music. It made everything feel a little more right in the world.

What started as a way to distract from the tide of hot, liquid excrement on our patio quickly became the highlight of the week for my girlfriend and me. Huey – of Fun Lovin’ Criminals fame – thumbing you through his records: early 90s rap, early 80s disco, and early 70s soul to blow away the cobwebs, with choice modern selections marbling the retro soundscape.

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The person who got me through 2021: Larry David helped me embrace life as a bald man

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I have finally admitted that my hair has gone for ever, and taken great comfort from the reigning king of baldness

This year will go down in history as the year I went bald. Well, actually, 2018 went down as the year I went bald. But still, 2021 will go down as the year that I stopped fastidiously brushing three long wisps of cobweb over my scalp in the berserk belief that it somehow made me look less bald. I am bald now. Hello.

Obviously, being bald is rubbish. A bad roll of the genetic dice means I am now conclusively unattractive in the eyes of most of the world. Of course I am – I’m 85% forehead now. I can never go out and commit a crime, because a witness would only have to draw a face on their thumb and show it to the Photofit guy and I’d be in handcuffs by teatime.

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Calls for femicide to become separate crime in Greece mount as two more women killed

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‘It has to be recognised as a term and as a crime’, says government opposition, after unprecedented number of women murdered by partners

The Greek government has come under growing pressure to introduce femicide as an offence in the country’s penal code amid outrage over the growing and unprecedented number of women being brutally murdered by their partners.

Two women were murdered by their husbands within five days last week, bringing the death toll to 17 since January, according to state-run television. Both men allegedly told police that they had killed their wives out of fear that they would leave them.

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My winter of love: I was convinced no one wanted me. But there was a gorgeous man who did

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The night of the party, I put my heartbreak aside. With nothing to lose, I walked up to a man and told him he was the most handsome one in the room

In a warehouse in Ladywood, Birmingham, with a papier-mache spine down my back and breath like a dustpan, I walked up to a man and said, without any preamble: “You are the most handsome man at this party.”

It was December 2004, the theme of the party was dinosaurs and, being a fan of puns, I had decided to go as a thesaurus. In my little room in Lupton Flats – the cheapest halls of residence at Leeds University at the time – I’d sat on the floor, beside my single bed, and patiently glued down layers of paper into a string of points. Reluctant to sacrifice my actual thesaurus, I had rooted around my reading list for another book, eventually choosing The French Lieutenant’s Woman. Listening to Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions and drinking PG Tips, it had taken me at least two hours to make the dinosaur spine, which would attach around my neck like a backwards pendant. Slipping it on and looking in the mirror, I wondered if anyone would even notice me.

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Contact with nature in cities reduces loneliness, study shows

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Loneliness is significant mental health concern and can raise risk of death by 45%, say scientists

Contact with nature in cities significantly reduces feelings of loneliness, according to a team of scientists.

Loneliness is a major public health concern, their research shows, and can raise a person’s risk of death by 45% – more than air pollution, obesity or alcohol abuse.

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Rhik Samadder tries … mushing: ‘I’ve never known animal joy like it!’

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What a ride! The huskies and I were travelling as one – who knew such magical transport existed? More than anything I’ve tried, this experience has stayed with me

I have a dream: that dream is to ride a dog like a horse. That isn’t possible. But I’ve heard the next best thing is possible, which is why I’m freezing in a field in Tewkesbury. Gloucestershire may not be Lapland but it’s where you can try mushing, organised by Arctic Quest. Single-handedly charioteering a sled powered by huskies? Sounds like a Christmas miracle to me. I gape in awe, as countless lupine beasts emerge from a trailer, yelping with excitement. It’s a few weeks before Omicron gathers strength, and I’m here for one last shot at feeling free.

Vickie Pullin – a superb candidate for nominative determinism – set up Arctic Quest, and is a former world champion dog-sledder in four divisions, an achievement never equalled. (You have to be driven to get into husky sledding, ironically.) She has 36 dogs in total, all smaller than I imagined, total cuties with names like Azera, Frappe, Mocha and Cino. It would sound like a sitcom premise, were it not for Pullin’s no-nonsense demeanour. “The blue-eyed, fluffy husky thing? Hollywood PR,” she snorts.

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