A festive collection from our archive of favourite starters, main courses and puddings
A decadent starter – and a godsend for cooks who like to get ahead.
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‘A lot fell into place’: the adults who discovered they were autistic – after their child was diagnosed
The recorded incidence of autism has increased 787% in 20 years. For many parents, getting help for an autistic child alerted them to their own traits
When John Purnell’s 10-year-old son was diagnosed as autistic, he knew exactly how to respond. “I’ve always been fascinated by research, by detail, by finding out everything there is to find out about something,” he says. “So I did a really deep dive.”
As he pored over academic papers and delved into medical science – including how many autistic people have a propensity and appetite for copious research – an unexpected realisation crept into his mind. “I was reading about the traits of an autistic person, the difficulties they often have in social situations, the need for order and planning: and suddenly I thought: this person they’re describing isn’t just my son – it’s me.”
Continue reading...‘Worst fashion wage theft’: workers go hungry as Indian suppliers to top UK brands refuse to pay minimum wage
Shortfall of 16p a day leaves children living on just rice as suppliers to Nike, Zara and H&M in Karnataka underpay by estimated £41m
Garment workers making clothes for international brands in Karnataka, a major clothing production hub in India, say their children are going hungry as factories refuse to pay the legal minimum wage in what is claimed to be the biggest wage theft to ever hit the fashion industry.
More than 400,000 garment workers in Karnataka have not been paid the state’s legal minimum wage since April 2020, according to an international labour rights organisation that monitors working conditions in factories.
Continue reading...‘My life is weird’: the court artist who drew Ghislaine Maxwell drawing her back
For Jane Rosenberg, a professional courtroom artist who has covered four decades of notorious trials, her viral sketch of Maxwell is just part of a strange and fascinating job
Pastel drawings don’t typically go viral on the internet. But this month, thousands of Twitter users were mesmerized by a courtroom artist’s sketch of Ghislaine Maxwell – the alleged sex-trafficking accomplice of Jeffrey Epstein – staring at the artist and sketching back.
Twitter users were disturbed. “I thought this was funny at first but it’s starting to haunt me,” one person wrote. Others commented on the picture’s bizarre, recursive quality – reminiscent of MC Escher’s drawing of hands drawing hands, and raising the possibility of some kind of infinite loop. Was Maxwell trolling us? Or sending the artist an ominous message?
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I challenged Tom Cruise to send me two of his special cakes for Christmas. Did he deliver? Of course he did
Every Christmas, the actor sends an extreme white chocolate coconut gateaux to close friends – by private jet, it turns out. This year, those friends include me. Twice
Reader, I am here to inform you that dreams do come true. You really can have anything your heart desires, with the proviso that you’re prepared to aggressively and repeatedly abuse your position in order to get it. What I’m trying to say is this: my year-long campaign to get Tom Cruise to send me a cake has ended in success.
Roughly a year ago, I wrote a short piece about Cruise’s habit of sending $50 (£38) white chocolate coconut bundts to his closest friends at Christmas. Kirsten Dunst, Henry Cavill, Angela Bassett, Jimmy Fallon, Graham Norton and scores of other high-profile figures all receive a cake, lovingly made by Doan’s Bakery in California and shipped out by Cruise’s staff. I finished my article by hoping that I would one day be important enough to receive such a wonderful gift.
Continue reading...‘It is a celebration of my body!’ Meet the people who had their first tattoo after 60
Whether it is to commemorate a lost loved one, bask in their independence or mark a new stage of life, many people now get inked when they are older. Six tell their stories
For many older people, tattoos came with baggage. Now, social mores have changed and for those in their 60s, 70s and 80s: “The stigma associated with prisoners’ tattoos, or sailors or misfits getting them, has disappeared,” says Louise Krystahl, a tattoo artist. That may be why she now gets a lot of clients over the age of 60, who feel ready for their first tattoo at her studio, Inkscape, in Bexhill-on-Sea. She once tattooed a ladybird on the wrist of a woman in her 80s.
“For older people, it’s usually a sentimental reason, not just that they fancy a butterfly,” says Krystahl. “Some of them have a new lease of life, or want to tick it off their bucket list.” The pandemic, she says, may have spurred on others: “I think people are doing stuff they have thought about for a long time and it has given them the impetus.”
Continue reading...Your niece is suddenly vegan! How to survive the 12 disasters of Christmas
One guest is an antivaxxer, another is allergic to your cats, the turkey is still raw and your best friends are splitting up in the sitting room. Here is how to face down festive fiascos
It’s that time of year when you wake up sweating and can’t figure out why. Did you accidentally wear your thermals in bed? Do you have tuberculosis? No, dummy, it’s just that it’s almost Christmas, it’s your turn to play host, and the list of things that can go wrong on the 25th is long and wearying.
Can I recommend, before we drill into this list, a quick wisdom stocktake? Last year was the worst Christmas imaginable: every plan was kiboshed at the very last minute; non-essential shops closed before we’d done our shopping; people who thought they were going back to their families ended up at home and hadn’t bought Baileys and crackers and whatnot; people who’d battled solitude for a year were stuck alone; people living on top of each other couldn’t catch a break; people expecting guests were buried under surplus pigs in blankets, and beyond our under-or over-decorated front doors, the outside world was fraught with risk and sorrow, as coronavirus declined to mark the birth of the Christ child with any respite from its march of terror. I’m not saying it couldn’t be as bad as that again – just that it couldn’t possibly be as surprisingly bad again.
Continue reading...‘2.4C is a death sentence’: Vanessa Nakate’s fight for the forgotten countries of the climate crisis
She started a youth strike in Uganda – then just kept going. She discusses climate justice, reparations, imperialism and why the global north must take responsibility
In February 2020, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Vanessa Nakate had her point made for her in the most vivid and “frustrating and heartbreaking” way. The Ugandan climate crisis activist, who turned 25 last month, had gone to Switzerland to introduce some perspective to its cosy consensus. “One of the things that I wanted to emphasise was the importance of listening to activists and people from the most affected areas,” she says. “How can we have climate justice if the people who are suffering the worst impacts of the climate crisis are not being listened to, not being platformed, not being amplified and are left out of the conversation? It’s not possible.”
To this end, she appeared at a press conference with Greta Thunberg and three other white, European youth climate strikers. When the Associated Press published a photo of the meeting, it cropped out Nakate. It was, she said at the time, her first encounter with direct and blatant racism – and only reinforced her point and made her campaign more urgent. AP later expressed “regret” for its “error in judgment”.
Continue reading...Rhik Samadder tries … fencing: ‘Now I’m ready for the zombie apocalypse’
I get to wear a natty white jacket, insectoid mask and hold an épée like a pistol – my inner child could not be happier. En garde!
Ever since childhood, I have wanted to be trained in the sword. But I have always believed one had to be born a musketeer for this to happen, or have a death to avenge, plus access to castle steps. But here I am at the London Fencing Club in Old Street, which is easier.
It’s a few weeks before omicron takes off, and the government is pooh-poohing any talk of tightening Covid restrictions. I’m learning épée, the thin, pointy blade that most resembles a classic swashbuckling sword. My Russian-born coach, Anna Anstal, loves fencing épée. The opponent’s entire body is a target, and there are no “right of way” rules governing who can score at a given moment. “You must think about the zombie apocalypse,” she says. “Rules are no use with a zombie. The ability to strike first is all that matters.” It’s unexpected advice, her heavy accent giving it even more edge. I’m quite scared.
Continue reading...‘Even the reindeer were unhappy’: life inside Britain’s worst winter wonderlands
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.”
Continue reading...A new start after 60: ‘I was a globetrotting photographer. Then I stayed home – and my world expanded’
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”.
Continue reading...I’m a long-distance dad so Covid was terrible – but it helped me let go of my guilt
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.
Continue reading...‘My son’s birthday party is off’ – the sacrifices UK parents are making to save Christmas
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.”
Continue reading...Hygge, glögg and pepparkakor… why we’re all falling for a Scandi Christmas
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.
Continue reading...‘There’s always been an affinity between Christmas and ghosts’: Mark Gatiss on the joy of festive frights
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.
Continue reading...David Baddiel and his daughter on his social media addiction: ‘it can reward and punish you’
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.”
Continue reading...Supermodel Karen Elson on fashion’s toxic truth: ‘I survived harassment, body shaming and bullying – and I’m one of the lucky ones’
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.’”
Continue reading...Blind date: ‘After my rugby stories, she may not want to meet my friends’
April, 27, heritage project officer, meets Jake, 27, company director
April on Jake
What were you hoping for?
Someone based in London with similar interests, who was laid-back but up for trying new things.
‘Pushy, gobby, rude’: why do women get penalised for talking loudly at work?
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.
Continue reading...My family has a vaccine refusenik – should we still get together at Christmas? | Ask Annalisa Barbieri
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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