Category Archives: Life and style

‘Even the reindeer were unhappy’: life inside Britain’s worst winter wonderlands

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They are the festive fairgrounds where no one is a winner. Santas, elves and bouncers discuss the Christmas gigs that made them question their life choices

Polystyrene snow, MDF grottos, stomach-churning rides and Santas with scratchy fake beards: as Christmas nears, ’tis the season for winter wonderlands. At their best, these immersive Christmas markets and fairgrounds delight visitors of all ages, while providing a reliable source of income for their owners. Britain’s biggest winter wonderland, in Hyde Park, London, has pulled in more than 14 million people since it launched in 2005, with entry starting at £5 and attractions ranging from £5 to £15.

But visitors to lesser attractions often complain of poorly thought-out productions and inexperienced organisers. Well-documented holiday horrors include Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen’s Birmingham attraction, which in 2014 was forced to shut down after a day following hundreds of complaints about cheap toys and long queues, and a New Forest Lapland whose owners were sentenced to 13 months in jail for misleading the public in 2008. “You told consumers that it would light up those who most loved Christmas,” the judge told them in his summing up. “You said you would go through the magical tunnel of light coming out in a winter wonderland. What you actually provided was something that looked like an averagely managed summer car boot sale.”

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A new start after 60: ‘I was a globetrotting photographer. Then I stayed home – and my world expanded’

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His career took Roff Smith, 63, to more than 100 countries. But he started to feel jaded. Exploring his local area by bike led to a whole new approach to his pictures

Roff Smith’s photographs show a solitary cyclist – Smith himself – in a painterly landscape. His wheels appear to turn briskly, but really the bike moves as slowly as it can without a wobble. As a writer and photographer for National Geographic magazine, Smith, 63, visited more than 100 countries, but now he has squeezed the brakes and shrunk his world. His photographs are all taken within a 10-mile radius of his home, and yet travel has never felt so rich to him as it does now.

Before the pandemic, he had already begun to feel jaded: air travel made “the world everywhere look the same”.

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I’m a long-distance dad so Covid was terrible – but it helped me let go of my guilt

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I worried so much about not seeing my son, who lives in Canada, during Covid, but then I realised that he was fine – and being very well looked after

Getting to Canada from the UK in August 2020 was a faff, as you might expect mid-pandemic. There was lots of stress – tests and isolation, rules, regulations and forms. I was doing the preparations at my mum’s. She could see I was getting upset and insisted on taking over, assuming I was being pathetic. Within five minutes, she had lost it as well. Emotions were high in the days before I flew. This wasn’t just a holiday, but my chance – amid such uncertainty and sadness – to spend precious time with Julian, my only son.

He’s the best and most significant thing that has ever happened to me. He was also very much an unexpected surprise. I had a short relationship with his mum; we parted ways on great terms. Then one day out of the blue I got a call from North Korea, where she was working. She was pregnant. I was based in England, and she lived in Canada. We were both medical emergency aid workers at the time and had met while responding to a cyclone in Burma. It was always going to be complicated, but we decided to make it work.

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‘My son’s birthday party is off’ – the sacrifices UK parents are making to save Christmas

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Families tell of their ‘heartbreak’ as parties and other social plans are cancelled in the wake of Omicron

’Tis the season to be jolly, and last week Marieke Navin and her boyfriend were planning to attend three Christmas parties between them. But now, following the rise of the Omicron variant, they are not going to any.

“I was looking forward to those parties,” said Navin. “But my priority is protecting Christmas. I don’t want my children to be isolating in their room on Christmas Day, or be unable to visit their dad or my parents. I don’t want my partner’s kids to be unable to come to us on Boxing Day. I don’t want to jeopardise the movement of the children, and I don’t want anyone being poorly over Christmas.”

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Hygge, glögg and pepparkakor… why we’re all falling for a Scandi Christmas

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After the comfort food and rituals, Britons are embracing more traditions, such as the festival of Santa Lucia

From Ikea to meatballs, hygge to Nordic noir, Scandinavia’s influence on the UK has been rising steadily for decades. But this Christmas, amid the coronavirus pandemic and Brexit, enthusiasm for the region and its traditions is hitting new heights.

Scandinavian goods distributor ScandiKitchen closed online Christmas orders early this year after unprecedented demand for festive products including meatballs, glögg (mulled wine), pepparkakor (ginger biscuits), chocolate, ham and cheese.

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‘There’s always been an affinity between Christmas and ghosts’: Mark Gatiss on the joy of festive frights

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The writer and actor puts the ghoul into yule with screen and stage roles reprising haunting classics from Charles Dickens and MR James

Close the curtains. Light the fire. Then prepare to be terrified; it’s Christmas. For although the word “cosy” may be closely tied to festivities at this time of year, so it seems is the word “ghost”.

In northern Europe people understandably cope with the shorter days and darker evenings by drawing in around a roaring hearth, metaphorical or otherwise. Light and warmth: it makes sense. But what kind of stories are told while friends and families gather together? The answer, of course, is the spookier, the better.

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David Baddiel and his daughter on his social media addiction: ‘it can reward and punish you’

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Despite the abuse and anger, the comedian spent hours a day online. But then his daughter Dolly became dangerously drawn in. Was it time for a rethink?

Over the past 30 years, I have read and heard David Baddiel’s thoughts on many subjects, including sex, masturbation, religion, antisemitism, football fandom, football hooliganism, his mother’s sex life and his father’s dementia. “I am quite unfiltered,” he agrees, “mainly because I am almost psychotically comfortable in my own skin.” But today I have found the one subject that makes him squirm.

How much time does he spend on social media a day? “Oh, um, too much,” he says, his usual candour suddenly gone. What’s his daily screen time according to his phone? “It says four hours, which is a bit frightening.”

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Supermodel Karen Elson on fashion’s toxic truth: ‘I survived harassment, body shaming and bullying – and I’m one of the lucky ones’

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She has been at the top of the industry for decades. Now she’s speaking out about the dark reality of life behind the scenes

When Karen Elson was a young hopeful trying to make it in Paris, a model scout took her to a nightclub. After long days on the Métro trekking to castings that came to nothing, and evenings alone in a run-down apartment, she was excited to be out having fun. The music was good and the scout, to whom her agent had introduced her, kept the drinks coming. She started to feel tipsy. A friend of the scout’s arrived, and the pair started massaging her shoulders, making sexual suggestions. “I was 16 and I’d never kissed a boy,” she recalls. “It was my first experience of sexual – well, sexual anything, and this was sexual harassment. They both had their hands on me.”

She told them she wanted to go home, and left to find a taxi, but they followed her into it, kissing her neck on the back seat. When they reached her street, she jumped out, slammed the taxi door and ran inside. The next day she told another model what had happened, and the scout found out. “His reaction was to corner me in the model agency and say: ‘I’ll fucking get you kicked out of Paris if you ever fucking say anything ever again.’”

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‘Pushy, gobby, rude’: why do women get penalised for talking loudly at work?

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As a female physicist wins an unfair dismissal claim, why some women are viewed as strident or difficult when men aren’t

For quite a loud woman, it’s amazing how hard Judith Howell had to work to get heard. Howell, 49, used to be a government lobbyist, and she noticed a well-known phenomenon: “It’s incredibly male-dominated, and I’d find that if I said something it would get picked up by someone else in the meeting as if they’d said it. So I’d have to push a bit harder, be a bit more strident, literally interrupt and – not shout, but raise my voice. And some people found that very annoying.”

Howell cheerfully admits that she has a loud voice. “I grew up in a family of boys,” she boomed. “And I learned to sing at a young age, so I know how to project.” As a rowing coach, when she gives instructions to her crew from the riverbank, she can be heard from nearly a mile away.

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My family has a vaccine refusenik – should we still get together at Christmas? | Ask Annalisa Barbieri

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You can’t force him to get vaccinated – but equally, he can’t force you to spend time with him. Face this head on and explain how you feel

I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s faced this difficulty this year. One of my family members, who’s in his 40s, has consistently refused to be vaccinated against Covid and will not be moved from his position. He will not explain his reasons for rejecting the vaccine, whether it is ideological or simply rebellion against the so-called “nanny state”.

He has already been (politely but firmly) excluded from one family get-together as a result of his intransigence. We have explained that he is not being rejected personally, but there are concerns within the family about his vulnerability to catching the virus and transmitting the infection to the children and their grandparents.

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It’s time to embrace the darkness: how I got over my dread of winter

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Last winter’s gloom almost broke me, so here’s what I’ve learned about changing my mindset and embracing the long, cold, dark months


It’s only now, when we have some distance from it, that we can reckon with last winter: five months of gloom, seclusion and burnout in which almost the entire country felt miserable. Against a background of a rising death toll, exhausted health workers and gross governmental incompetence – not to mention a cancelled Christmas – we were tasked with a third go at making the most of a bad situation.

I remember the moment it really got to me. It was New Year’s Eve. I’d just had a terrible and prolonged breakup, and a few days earlier had moved out of the London flat I had shared with my ex for five years. House-sitting, alone, was not the kind of New Year bash I’d envisioned, but at least I could take some solace in the thought that no one else was having much fun.

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You be the judge: should my boyfriend get over his phobia of seafood?

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We air both sides of a domestic disagreement – and ask you to deliver a verdict
Fall out over housework? Can’t decide where to spend Christmas? If you have a disagreement you’d like settled, or want to be part of our jury, click here

Jay hates fish because of a distressing childhood experience, but it means I can’t have it either

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The inner lives of dogs: what our canine friends really think about love, lust and laughter

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They make brilliant companions, but do dogs really feel empathy for humans - and what is going through their minds when they play, panic or attack?

Read more: the inner lives of cats: what our feline friends really think

It is humanity’s great frustration, to gaze into the eyes of a dog, feel so very close to the creature, and yet have no clue what it’s thinking. It’s like the first question you ask of a recently born baby, with all that aching, loving urgency: is that a first smile? Or yet more wind? Except that it’s like that for ever.

I can never know what my staffie is thinking. Does Romeo realise that what he just did was funny, and did he do it on purpose? Is he laughing on the inside? Can he smile? Can he feel anxious about the future? Can he remember life as a puppy? Does he still get the horn, even though I had his knackers off some years ago? And, greater than all these things: does he love me? I mean, really love me, the way I love him?

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Mobile phone apps make it almost impossible to get lost these days. And that isn’t good for us | Adrian Chiles

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In an era of mobile phones, we rarely lose our way - which means we miss out on the joy and relief of finding it again

A travel company called Black Tomato, in return for a significant sum of money, will drop you in the middle of you know not where, and leave you there. The product is called Get Lost and is surely more evidence that we’ve, well, lost our way.

Which isn’t to say that it’s a daft idea. As a matter of fact, it quite appeals to me. I’m used to feeling psychologically lost – that wouldn’t be much of a holiday – but I’m very rarely physically, geographically lost. And annoying, and even frightening, as it can be, I miss this sensation. I believe it is good for the soul. “Oh, that magic feeling, nowhere to go,” is a line in a Beatles song. How about: “Oh, that magic feeling, where the bloody hell am I?”

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The inner lives of cats: what our feline friends really think about hugs, happiness and humans

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They do what they want, all the time – and can teach us a lot about how to live in the present, be content and learn from our experience

I wanted to know the exact amount of time I spend ruminating on the inner lives of my cats, so I did what most people do in times of doubt, and consulted Google. According to my search history, in the two years since I became a cat owner I have Googled variations of “cat love me – how do I tell?” and “is my cat happy 17 times. I have also inadvertently subscribed to cat-related updates from the knowledge website Quora, which emails me a daily digest. (Sample: Can Cats Be Angry or Disappointed With Their Owner?)

How do I love my cats? Let me count the ways. The clean snap of three-year-old Larry’s jaw as he contemplates me with detached curiosity is my favourite sound in the world. I love the tenor and cadence of my six-month-old kitten Kedi’s miaows as he follows me around the house. (High-pitched indignant squeaks means he wants food; lower-pitched chirrups suggest he would like to play.) I love the weight of Larry on my feet at night and the scratchy caress of Kedi’s tongue on my eyelid in the morning.

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What is the best Christmas party food? | Kitchen aide

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Cheese and chocolate are your friends, but keep them bite-sized. Top chefs share their favourite nibbles …

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

What makes the best party snacks?
Rachel, Hove

“Anything that can be eaten cleanly in a mouthful is ideal,” says Guardian food columnist Ravinder Bhogal. “Anything too big, messy or that requires lots of chewing should be avoided – there’s nothing worse than those awkward, mouth-full moments when someone suddenly strikes up a conversation.”

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Fromage fictions: the 14 biggest cheese myths – debunked!

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Received wisdom says older cheese is better, you should pair it with red wine and wrap any leftovers in clingfilm. Here is what the experts say

‘I hate to dictate to people. I don’t like too many rules,” says Iain Mellis, a cheesemonger of 40 years, with cheese shops bearing his name scattered across Scotland. Mellis has spent his life trying to make artisan cheese more accessible; the last thing he wants is to be so prescriptive that people are put off.

Yet the world of good cheese is already mired in misunderstandings that, at best, detract from its enjoyment and, at worst, result in its ruination. Cheese stored incorrectly is easily marred, while the mistaken beliefs that you need red wine, specialist knives or even a cheeseboard to enjoy it only reinforce cheese’s recherché reputation.

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Emma Beddington tries … being a mermaid: ‘I’m more beached seal than beguiling siren’

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Being a beautiful watery creature is a challenge if you have no technique or breath control – and can’t hear a word beneath your floral swimming cap

I am too old for Disney’s Little Mermaid. My sister was the right age, but our right-on 80s household was a princess-free zone (though The Little Mermaid is arguably one of the more subversive films in the canon, with its exploration of identity and conformity and nods to drag culture). I have, however, gleaned that the transformation from mermaid to human is a risky business; I believe a crab says so.

But what about the reverse? Because today, I, a human, am becoming a mermaid, thanks to Donna Rumney of Mermaids at Jesmond Pool, in Newcastle upon Tyne. Donna is booked out with children’s mermaid parties but adult sessions are popular, too: everyone wants to be a mermaid now. There are mermaid pageants and conventions; people pay thousands of pounds for custom-made silicone tails. Something about that in-between state, the grace and fluidity, appeals when life on land feels so hidebound and joyless. I love the idea of achieving a state of otherworldly aquatic grace; what could possibly go wrong?

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