Category Archives: Life and style

Houses of tomorrow: A more hopeful vision of domesticity, or a dystopian nightmare?

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In the future, will we find a better way to live, or will our homes be taken over by surveillance and despotic appliances?

Imagine, if you can, a small, bluish room. Wires, screens, sensors. A few keepsakes from the old world. The room’s fleshy inhabitant, confined indoors by a zoonotic pandemic, greenwashes a data-mining company from her bed. The government has made it illegal for her to step outside.

There is a communal kitchen down the corridor, which she shares with a few strangers she met online, but mostly she orders her meals via an interface and eats them here. Microphones record her interactions. A motion sensor on her wrist reminds her to optimise her performance. Filled with saudade for the dying world outside, she has bought a few rainforest plants to brighten the space. Her pocket surveillance device reminds her to water them. She catches the news: the world’s richest man has just left the Earth’s atmosphere.

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Barbara Taylor Bradford: ‘My mother told me: “Keep your head down and don’t flirt at work”

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The author, aged 88, on her first job working with Keith Waterhouse, giving advice to Sean Connery and her 56-year marriage

I was a serious little girl growing up in Leeds and had supportive parents who were instrumental in my success. My mother sold my first story to a children’s magazine when I was 10. My father, an engineer, funded my addiction to taxis when I started working on Fleet Street.

At 16, I started my first job in the typing pool at the Yorkshire Evening Post and became a reporter after secretly slipping stories on to the subs’ desk. I was the only woman in the newsroom. My mother told me: “Keep your head down and don’t flirt at work. Your attitude towards men will dictate their attitude towards you.” The best advice I ever had.

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‘Without what made me “me”, I’d be a shadow of myself’ – portraits of life on the autism spectrum

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When photographer Mary Berridge’s son was diagnosed with Asperger’s, she began to see his world in a new light. She set out to capture a series of everyday – and exceptional – stories, one image at a time

I have been immersed in the world of autism since my son was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. Graham had many of the traits of autism from when he was a baby: speech and motor skill delays, sensory sensitivities, anxiety in big social gatherings and more. He had seen professionals for evaluations, but did not get a diagnosis until he was seven.

This was a kid who had meltdowns over the sound of a blowdryer one floor up, the feel of a new shirt and the sight of a slice of cherry pie. Our lowest point was when he started refusing to enter homes he hadn’t been in before, or getting so upset at entering a restaurant that he would throw up. At least now I can sort of laugh when I think of the strangers in the grocery store who would approach him, then a cherubic toddler, and ask what his name was. “Mr Stupid Nobody,” was his reply.

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Claridge’s to part ways with chef after rejecting plan for all-vegan menu

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Mayfair hotel says it respects Daniel Humm’s plant-based vision but it ‘is not the path we wish to follow’

The five-star Claridge’s hotel in Mayfair has lost its chef after it rejected his vision for an all-vegan menu at his restaurant.

Daniel Humm, 45, will leave Davies and Brook at the end of the year after talks with management about transforming the kitchen in his London restaurant at Claridge’s hotel to serve only plant-based dishes.

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Is our planet overpopulated? We ask the expert

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Global development lecturer Heather Alberro on whether rising birth rates are really to blame for the climate crisis

Whether it’s Meghan and Harry limiting themselves to two children, or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez discussing the “legitimate” concern of parenting through climate catastrophe, the ethical question of whether to add more people to the planet has touched society. But is the world overpopulated in the way we think? I asked Heather Alberro, lecturer in global sustainable development at Nottingham Trent University.

Where did the idea of overpopulation come from?
It started with 19th-century economist Thomas Malthus, who argued that population growth would always outstrip available resources. That’s known as a “Malthusian argument”.

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Dining across the divide: ‘As I get older, I’m more militant. I just think: let’s all glue ourselves to something’

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They disagreed about statues, but not queer fluidity – can two strangers find common ground over dinner?

David, 63, Portsmouth

Occupation Semi-retired primary school teacher
Voting record Labour – years ago because he thought it was essential to do so, now because there’s no one else to vote for
Amuse bouche When he was 10, he won a south London art competition with a painting of a flamenco bar, even though he’d never been to Spain, or a bar, or any flamenco

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One restaurant has been a part of our family. Now we mourn its passing | Jay Rayner

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We measured out the landmarks of our lives at London’s Y Ming. So long, and thanks

My family has suffered a great loss. We will still have our memories, of course, each one suffused with a warm glow. But the source of those memories? After 35 years, that has gone. We have lost our family’s restaurant: the one that was so much more than somewhere to eat out. It was where my wife and I went before the kids arrived, and when those kids were young, and when a treat was needed, and when a treat wasn’t needed, and in the last days before every Christmas, when gifts would be exchanged with the lovely staff. It was our restaurant. Farewell then to Y Ming, the brilliant, eclectic Chinese on Greek Street in London’s Soho which, after 35 years, finally closed its doors at the end of last month.

Lots of families have somewhere like this, a place where generations of customers and generations of staff accompany each other down the years. Each navigates the vagaries of fashion. Because a restaurant where families grow up together is never really about what’s new. They are about what’s reliable and what’s familiar and what makes you feel cared for. They are an extra room in the extended family home.

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Tom Ford: ‘I paid $90,000 for my own dress. The clothes we make are not meant to be thrown away’

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From fashion with va-va-voom to veganism – ahead of the release of his new book, America’s starriest designer takes a moment to reflect

Tom Ford answers my phone call in precisely the way I’d hoped he would: with a voice as smooth as butter and the grace of Cary Grant.

We are in touch to discuss his latest project, a coffee-table book charting the past 15 years of his career – or “post-Gucci”, as those familiar with luxury fashion prefer to describe the era that has followed Ford’s departure from the Italian super brand.

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Greek minister urges victims to ‘speak up’ amid wave of domestic violence

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New campaign will encourage survivors to access help and support in response to spate of femicides and rise in reports of abuse

Greece is to launch a public campaign urging victims of domestic violence to “speak up” after a spate of femicides whose ferocity has stunned the nation.

The country has seen a rise in domestic violence cases so far in 2021, accentuated by a number of brutal murders of women that have dominated media coverage as people from the arts and sports worlds – including the Olympic gold medallist Sofia Bekatourou – have come forward with allegations of sexual abuse.

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‘He drives me mad!’ Why don’t we dump toxic friends?

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According to psychologists, ‘ambivalent’ relationships can cause us more stress than being with people we actively dislike. Is it time to let go – or can these friendships be salvaged?

Roger and Jim have been friends for more than 30 years. When they were younger they were in a band together, and their friendship was forged over a shared love of music and beer. Even now, despite family commitments on both sides, they manage to catch up every couple of months. “Even though he drives me mad,” says Roger.

It is Jim who leaps to Roger’s mind at the mention of toxic friendships. Every time they meet, Roger says, they “tend to have the same conversation”, because Jim never listens to what he says.

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Broken covers: collector puts world’s worst album art on show

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Steve Goldman’s first rule is ‘it has to make me laugh’, and he is sharing the fun with public in Huddersfield

There’s the album cover with the band as rabbits, or the one with a harmony duo walking out of water dressed only in their underwear and ties, but surely the most baffling is the concert guitarist pictured in dinner jacket and no trousers.

Why? “I’ve no idea, sorry,” says Steve Goldman, who owns about 300 records that can lay claim to having some of the world’s worst cover art.

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I’m a dad and a gig worker. I had no choice but to keep working with a newborn

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As politicians argue over paternity leave, even four paid weeks off would have made a huge difference for workers like me

Nine months ago I was not yet a bleary-eyed dad juggling work and two baby boys, but I did know a second baby was imminent. What should’ve been a happy milestone was quickly blunted by a boomeranging lament – that there would be no taking any paid parental leave for me, a gig worker.

When my first was born, just before the pandemic, I was a freelance writer in the throes of an MFA program. My wife decided it was more cost-effective to stay home with our son than return to work; soon after Covid forced everyone inside, local daycare options vanished.

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No more birthday candles, no more cities: experts on their worst pandemic predictions

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Hugs and handshakes have survived the pandemic. Not so much shared lipsticks and formal business attire

The coronavirus pandemic has proved an experiment in educated guesses. Experts in nearly every field, from public health and real estate to economics and labor, have offered predictions about how the virus would affect the world, well-meaning prophecies that were all but assured to transpire.

The first, in April 2020 came from Dr Anthony Fauci, the United States’ leading infectious disease expert, when he forecast the end of handshakes: “I don’t think we should ever shake hands ever again, to be honest with you.” Physical greetings were only the beginning. As the pandemic wore on, experts predicted the end of hugs, offices, cities, office wear, in-store cosmetic samples, co-working, ball pits, blowing out the candles on a birthday cake. While some conjectures have come to pass – Covid-19 would be a years-long battle and not a two-weeks-to-flatten-the-curve speed bump in the annals of human history – but others (see: the downfall of handshakes) have shown otherwise.

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I sold my eggs for an Ivy League education – but was it worth it?

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An increasing number of women are selling their eggs for as much as $20,000 a cycle to cover essential costs

My eyes flutter open. I’m surrounded by four nurses holding me upside down. They shake me back and forth, urging the blood back to my head. As I regain consciousness I wonder: is this worth it? That “it” is the $10,000 question.

Seven months ago, I received my acceptance to Columbia University’s School of Journalism. I was absolutely stunned to be admitted, but even more shocked by the $116,000 price tag – and that was just for tuition. The school, whose education is widely considered the golden standard in journalism, would provide me with unparalleled access, in an industry I currently felt immobile in.

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‘It feels almost naughty to leave’: For returned Australians open borders bring new dilemmas

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The resumption of international travel pits new lives against old dreams for Australians who returned from overseas during the Covid-19 pandemic

To live and work overseas is a rite of passage for many Australians. Life abroad, however, took on a new sense of fragility with the rise of Covid-19. More than a million Australian citizens were forced to choose between riding out the pandemic in a foreign country, or returning to the relative safety of Australia.

Since March 2020, it is estimated about half of those living abroad chose to come back, while tens of thousands wished to return but were unable to.

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‘I went from having to borrow money to making $4m in a day’: how NFTs are shaking up the art world

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Digital art is a billion-dollar business, with everyone from Paris Hilton to Damien Hirst trading in ‘non-fungible tokens’. But are NFTs just a get-rich-quick scheme masquerading as culture?

“It’s actually a lot simpler than you think.” It’s a Tuesday afternoon, and somewhat to my surprise, I’m on the phone to Paris Hilton, who is graciously explaining the world of NFTs.

Hilton is many things – a reality star, an heiress, an unlikely lockdown fitness guru who uses designer handbags instead of weights. But until now, she has never been considered a significant player in the art world. When artists have acknowledged her, often they’ve done so to fetishise her image. In 2008, Damien Hirst bought a portrait of her by the artist Jonathan Yeo, in which her body is constructed from collaged images cut from porn magazines.

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I am 16 and identify as an ace lesbian – but I don’t want to ‘come out’ to my parents | Ask Annalisa Barbieri

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It sounds as if your sexuality and orientation will be no surprise to them, says Annalisa Barbieri

I am 16, and identify as an ace lesbian (NMLNM, or non-men loving non-men). I have questioned my sexuality since the age of 12 or 13, thinking I was bisexual. I downloaded TikTok, which allowed me to explore my identity more and interact with other queer young people. Until this summer, I questioned my identity multiple times a day (exhausting and not affirming), but I slowly began to feel confident in labelling myself as a demi-romantic, asexual lesbian (I like to use labels). However, that feeling didn’t last long. I felt dysphoric a lot of the time, and I hated my breasts. Fortunately, after about a month, I rediscovered the term “demigirl” and it just fitted. I am also trying out she/they pronouns, but haven’t told anyone. My gender is quite fluid – some days I feel more neutral, other days ultrafeminine.

I am open about my sexuality at school and online, and would happily tell most people that I am gay, but don’t want to “come out” to my parents. I think it’s a combination of fear, not of rejection (they are supportive of the LGBTQ+ community), and the fact that I hate the idea of having to “come out” if you are queer; I don’t want to contribute to our heteronormative society. Should I tell my parents so they have time to process it, or should I wait until I have a partner to introduce to them? Also, I feel obliged to inform them of my pronoun change, but I don’t want to be the one to teach them how to use she/they pronouns. I wish they would educate themselves. If I tell them my gender and/or sexuality, I don’t want them to perceive me differently. I know how they react is not in my control, but ideally our relationship will stay the same or improve.

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