One driving instructor told me he’d driven with murderers who were safer than me
The amusement arcades in Russell Street were the place in Melbourne to buy heroin in the 90s and early 2000s. But I went there to learn how to drive.
Continue reading...It is hard to loosen the tentacles that dread wraps around the mind, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith, the goal is to live on despite them
I am a 50-year-old queer woman, embarking on a new relationship after leaving my previous partner of eight years. My new lover is beautiful, smart, insightful, passionate and she actually takes my breath away. We have been dating for about three months. I like what we have and I am extremely fond of her. However, I find myself catastrophising our relationship.
I feel a sense of dread a lot of the time and suspect that there is a part of me that might be self-sabotaging us, based on the belief that she will eventually break my heart. I don’t know how to stop this. I just want to enjoy the relationship, instead of being constantly worried and jumping to the worst conclusions about our future.
Continue reading...They are working three jobs, changing careers or moving to faraway areas with affordable housing in order to drum up enough money for children of their own. Sadly the numbers still don’t add up
“People need to stop telling me to ‘just get on with it’ if I want to have children,” Jen Cleary says, clearly exasperated. “Most of my generation simply cannot afford to. Being childless is out of my hands and it is a devastating and frustrating reality.” Cleary, a 35-year-old former teacher, is recounting how financial precariousness means that her dream of having a family may never come true. It is an experience that many millennials – defined roughly as those born between 1981 and 1996 – have encountered.
The UK’s birthrate is at a record low, with fertility rates for women under 30 at their lowest levels since records began in 1938. There are many factors that contribute to this, including the fact that many people struggle with infertility; some make a positive personal choice not to have children; and others decide against having kids because of the uncertainties and peril of the climate crisis. But finances and the rising costs of living are a persistent and growing issue. Just last month, the Labour party chair, Anneliese Dodds, pointed out that many people are being forced to put off settling down and having families thanks to “cost pressures” overseen by the current Tory government.
Continue reading...It is often a struggle just to stay afloat. But if you had enough money, would you pursue more of it – or should time now be our greatest aspiration?
In every job he has ever had, Gavin has shirked. When he worked in a call centre, he would mute the phone, rather than answer it. When he worked in a pub, he would sneak out of the building and go to another pub nearby, for a pint. His best-ever job was as a civil servant. He would take an hour for breakfast, and two for lunch. No one ever said anything. All his colleagues were at it, too.
When the pandemic began, Gavin, now working as a software engineer, realised, to his inexhaustible joy, that he could get away with doing less work than he had ever dreamed of, from the comfort of his home. He would start at 8.30am and clock off about 11am. To stop his laptop from going into sleep mode – lest his employers check it for activity – Gavin played a 10-hour YouTube video of a black screen.
Continue reading...Little did they know that ‘boomeranging’ back home would change the way they saw their parents, forever
When David and Linda Ellis sent their daughter Juliette, the youngest of their three children, off to college in 2019, they figured they had become empty-nesters for good. In short order, the couple downsized from their family home in Raleigh, North Carolina, to a much more manageable three-bedroom apartment rental nearby. Little did the Ellises know that, in under a year’s time, two of their three adult children would once again join them under the same roof.
After their school and work went remote in March 2020, Juliette Ellis and middle brother Gregory flew in from their respective posts in Vancouver and Brooklyn to wait out the uncertainty of Covid-19 with Mom and Dad. The eldest Ellis son, Justin, remained a short drive away in nearby Chapel Hill.
Continue reading...I was quite a shy boy. Growing up in Middlesbrough, I felt a bit of an outsider. My three elder brothers are funny and boisterous and I was in awe of them. I felt like an appendage. It’s probably the curse of being a younger kid. I’ve seen some become the loudest because they fight for their place, and others retreat to the fringes. I was in the latter group.
If you’re the quietest at home, it’s tough to find a voice. I’ve always been quite a good mate to have because of that. If I ever did make a connection with anyone, it was very precious to me. My friendships are everything.
Continue reading...The comedian and her dad recreate a childhood photo and talk about early days in India, agoraphobia and swapping banking for comedy
Born in New Delhi in 1969, Sindhu Vee spent her childhood in India and the Philippines, before throwing herself into academia, getting degrees from Oxford, Montreal and Chicago universities. In her early 40s, she traded the world of investment banking for standup comedy. Her career quickly ascended, with appearances on QI, Have I Got News for You, Radio 4 and Netflix’s forthcoming adaptation of Matilda. She lives in London with her husband and three children; she is currently touring her new show Alphabet.
Continue reading...It started in bed one morning when I realised I hadn’t had an original thought for months. I needed someone to make me wake up
For some reason it takes me two and a half hours to email my life coach. I write “email life coach guy” on my to-do list. I have a really long shower. I riffle through a stack of unopened New Yorkers, and pretend I am either going to read them, or leave them in my building’s lobby for my neighbours to claim, and in the end I do neither. I watch a 20-minute YouTube video about Amir Khan’s boxing career (“The legendary speed of Amir Khan!”), then check Wikipedia to see how he fared in the fight the video was trailing (an embarrassing knockout). I send three tweets and scroll Instagram. I stand at the fridge and eat some hummus with a plain cracker for no reason at all. Finally, I sit and write the email. It is 36 words long. Tomas, the life coach, writes back almost immediately. That was the absolute last thing I wanted.
The pandemic was broadly fine for me. I worked at home anyway, so I didn’t have any shock adjustment to make. I didn’t (and still don’t) have any children to look after, so there wasn’t any particular agony with my many lives layering on top of each other in a confined space. My girlfriend, Hannah, and I did the usual things to stay sane when confronted with seemingly endless periods of time and no real social life: jigsaws, taking too long to cook dinner, a Sopranos rewatch.
Continue reading...The Queen drummer and singer-songwriter on former girlfriends, forgetting lyrics and liking red wine
Born in Norfolk, Roger Taylor, 72, is an original member of the band Queen, which formed in 1970. Their hits include Bohemian Rhapsody, We Will Rock You and Radio Ga Ga. Taylor’s new solo album is Outsider, and he is currently on tour in the UK. The Queen + Adam Lambert’s Rhapsody European tour takes place next year. Taylor is married, has five children and lives in Surrey and Cornwall.
When were you happiest?
When I first heard one of our records on the radio.
Now 73, the star of Hannah and Her Sisters shines in Jason Blum’s new horror. She talks about why audiences are hungry for mature movies, and her unhappiness at becoming an accidental poster girl for cosmetic surgery
In 1973, Barbara Hershey – then known as Barbara Seagull, for reasons we’ll get into shortly – went on the popular US talkshow The Dick Cavett Show and torpedoed her career. She was on alongside her then partner, the actor David Carradine, but when Hershey/Seagull walked out on stage, she could hear their eight-month-old baby crying off-camera. So she ran off and returned with the little boy, named Free. Unfortunately, Free continued to fret. So Hershey/Seagull breastfed her baby live on air. Cavett was stunned and so, clearly, were the producers, who cut to commercials.
“Did you breastfeed the baby earlier or was that my imagination?” Cavett asked when they returned, Free now fed. “I did it,” Hershey, then 25, replied, entirely unabashed.
Continue reading...Fourteen questions on general knowledge and topical trivia plus a few jokes every Thursday. How will you fare?
The quiz remains the same. Fourteen questions on general knowledge and some topical date-based trivia, featuring some infuriating anagrams, the sublime Kate Bush and a hidden Doctor Who reference for you to spot. Do let us know how you get on in the comments – but beware, points can be deducted for displays of extreme pedantry.
The Thursday quiz, No 24
If you do think there has been an egregious error in one of the questions or answers, please feel free to email martin.belam@theguardian.com, but remember, the quiz master’s word is always final, and there will be so many things still in his inbox from during his holiday that he is sure to ignore it.
Continue reading...Flashing is a sexual offence, victims say it can have a lifelong impact and experts say it can lead to escalating crimes against women. Why is the police response so often dismissive?
Cathkin Braes country park, in south Glasgow, is beautiful. You can see the city and, behind it, the mountains. Clara (not her real name), a 35-year-old community worker from Glasgow, went there in March to enjoy the view from her campervan. As she relaxed, she looked over and saw a car parked beside her, with the passenger window rolled down. A man was staring at her, and masturbating. He clearly relished her visible fright. “That is what was turning him on,” Clara said. “His head was nearly out of the passenger window, staring at me.”
Because she was in a campervan, it wasn’t easy to get away quickly: Clara had to get out to fold away some seats. “I decided to jump out,” she says, “and when I looked at him, he was wiping ejaculation off his dashboard and looking at me.” She took a photograph of his car numberplate and drove away. But the man realised what she had done and gave chase. For 15 minutes, he tailed her through the streets of Glasgow. Frightened for her life, Clara drove to a police station, but the man turned off before she arrived.
Continue reading...From atmospheric Berlin to Joyce’s Trieste, via Marseille’s markets and a wellbeing walk in Copenhagen, city strolls reward the curious rambler
The art of flâneur-ing might be French and its most famous practitioners Parisians, but other European cultures have walking traditions, from the Italian passeggiata and Spanish paseo – social promenades to take the air as dusk falls – to German wanderlust: hiking with desire. Nothing opens up a city like a long ramble on foot. It’s the only way to make a place your own and unearth discoveries not listed in guidebooks or apps.
Continue reading...Fresh from winning gold in Tokyo, the diver answers readers’ questions on everything from gay role models to his passion for knitting and the secrets of his success
Tom Daley, Britain’s most decorated diver, grew up in the spotlight. He was 14 when he made a splash at his first Olympics, in 2008, and at 15 he became a world champion. This year in Tokyo, at his fourth Games, he finally won a longed-for gold, with his synchronised diving partner, Matty Lee. In 2013, Daley came out – a rarity among professional sportspeople – and he has become a campaigner for LGBTQ+ rights. Now 27, he is married to the screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, with whom he has a three-year-old son.
In a new autobiography, he describes struggles with injury, debilitating anxiety and coping with the death of his father, his biggest champion. Here, one of Britain’s best-loved athletes gamely answers questions from our writer and Guardian readers on all of the above, as well as his other great passion: knitting.
Continue reading...As a generation, they care deeply about the environment and sustainability - but are also under pressure to change their wardrobe constantly. Which impulse will win?
Alessia Teresko, a 21-year-old student from Nottingham, seldom wears the same outfit online twice. Which is why, last month, for a friend’s birthday, she bought a minidress: a 70s-style Zara dress in a swirling print, for which she paid £27.99. On Instagram, she posted a photograph of herself in her new dress, with a caption that read “Besties wknd”. The post racked up 296 likes and with it, Teresko’s Zara purchase was sent to the giant wardrobe in the sky. (Namely, the Depop account, where she resells the clothes she no longer wears.) “I can’t take another picture in it because I already posted it,” says Teresko. “I know that sounds very superficial.”
In Edinburgh, 23-year-old Mikaela Loach, a student and climate justice activist, understands the pressure that Teresko is under. “Honestly,” she says, “as someone with a platform, even I feel pressure to be wearing different clothes online.” She buys her clothes secondhand. “Only if I can’t find it secondhand,” Loach says, “will I buy something new and then make sure I’ve done rigorous research on the company.”
Continue reading...Brooke Castillo, the ‘queen’ of life coaching, has convinced her fans they can find meaning and money in the field – but is she selling them an unattainable fantasy?
In November 2020, Olivia* was ready for her life to be transformed. She had just stepped away from her long career in business and paid $18,000 for a six-month program to become a life coach. “It was a big decision financially, but it felt right,” she said. “I wanted to start bringing the work I’d done on myself to see if I could help others.” The program, she believed, was the key to a career that would be both lucrative and emotionally satisfying.
Throughout her life, Olivia had explored her inner world via spiritual retreats, therapy, and psychology books. But she’d been dismissive of life coaching, which she regarded as “bullshit” – until she heard about Brooke Castillo.
Continue reading...Academic’s appointment marks historic moment for Arab world but comes amid political and economic crisis, with some fearing she will be Kais Saied’s pawn
Sara Medini, political analyst at the Tunisian feminist organisation Aswat Nissa, was in a meeting at work last week when she happened to glance at a news alert on her phone. What she saw left her at first flabbergasted, then delighted.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought I had misread it,” she said. “I told my colleagues: ‘He’s appointed a woman! He’s appointed a woman!’
Continue reading...Paris fashion week closes with a spectacular show in memory of the much-loved designer
Continue reading...Six canines, all border collies, have proved some possess a remarkable grasp of human language
Your dog might follow commands such as “sit”, or become uncontrollably excited at the mention of the word “walkies”, but when it comes to remembering the names of toys and other everyday items, most seem pretty absent-minded.
Now a study of six “genius dogs” has advanced our understanding of dogs’ memories, suggesting some of them possess a remarkable grasp of the human language.
Continue reading...Batman! Mushrooms! Marge Simpson at Balenciaga! Paris fashion week is back with a bang
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