Category Archives: Life and style

Disinfection robots and thermal body cameras: welcome to the Covid-free office

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A workplace in Bucharest filled with anti-virus innovations could become the new normal in office design, its creators hope

Not so long ago it may have seemed more like a futuristic vision of the workplace – or a hospital.

But the hands-free door handles, self-cleaning surfaces, antimicrobial paint, air-monitoring display tools, UV light disinfection robots, and 135 other measures at an office block in Bucharest are here to stay, say the creators behind what they are touting as one of the world’s most virus-resilient workplaces, which they hope will become the new normal in office design.

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Hot summer nights: ‘I sat naked against the freezer, shoe in hand, prepared for the worst’

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As the sun set, the air-con at my uncle’s place in Australia broke, turning it into a house of horrors. Never have I missed Manchester so much

In 2014, I returned to my place of birth in Melbourne, Australia, to visit family. The 32-hour slog to the other side of the globe was uncomfortable, but it was nothing compared with what awaited me on the ground.

One night, the uncle with whom I was staying went to Tasmania to visit friends. Suddenly, place transformed into a horror house. It was about 9pm, the sun was leaving the horizon and the lawn, which had been baked into straw, was getting a much-needed reprieve. Sweat had welded my polyester shirt so tightly to my back that it almost took my spine with it when I finally managed to peel it off.

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Hot summer nights: ‘At a festival for the first time, I felt autonomous, desirable and free’

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Estranged from my parents at 17, I jumped at the chance to go on holiday to Spain. I danced, drank too much – and had a row that taught me about friendship

When I was 17, there was a lot I knew little about. I didn’t know about burning in the sun or how to use euros; I had never swum in the ocean.

I was part of a big family and we were poor. As my parents were out of work, they couldn’t afford to take the nine of us on holiday.

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What I learned from an unlikely friendship with an anti-masker

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Frank’s views were disturbing, a brazen assertion of white privilege. But with our fates more clearly tied together than ever, I needed to understand him

On 11 March 2021, I took a selfie at the Baltimore Convention Center and pressed send. I’d just received my first dose of a Covid vaccine. “Feels pretty momentous,” I texted an acquaintance. “It was exactly one year ago that our university shut down.” Frank wrote back immediately from his small town in southern Michigan. “Momentous, yes. But not for the reasons you subscribe to,” he wrote.

Related: Battle for the Soul: can Joe Biden beat Trump’s Republicans in the war of words?

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Hot summer nights: ‘I was alone on holiday, and this was my last night on the island …’

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Heartbroken, sunburned and without my makeup, I felt totally lost. Perhaps the handsome stranger at my table could offer some excitement?

It was high summer on the Italian island of Procida, too hot but somehow still green, and I was eating dinner at a beachside cafe that spilled on to the black sand of the west-facing Spiaggia di Ciraccio.

I wasn’t supposed to be here. Ten days earlier, a long-building romance with a screenwriter from Milan had ended abruptly. It had begun when our knees touched in his car. Long emails full of agony and promise followed, made all the less real for jumping between English and Italian, but then stopped. A short trip to Naples to try things in a new context was cancelled. I was desperately sad, but had already booked my flight to Italy and, as it happened, a friend was staying on the island nearby. So, I tagged along.

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A moment that changed me: my boss discovered my secret blog

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Bored working in a law firm in Brussels, I filled my time writing anonymously online about love, life – and how dull my job was. Then my colleagues found my posts ...

I wouldn’t say I was a model employee in the law firm where I worked for nearly 10 years, but I was quietly reliable and kept out of trouble. That all changed when I was summoned to the office of the senior partner – a man I had never met – to face him, my distinctly sombre-looking boss, and a stony-faced HR rep. I was definitely in trouble: my employers knew about my anonymous blog.

The blog and work had been connected from the start. Trying to reconcile parenting two tiny children, intense hours and the demands of our terrifying clients as a solicitor in the City had proved impossible, so I had taken a backseat role in Brussels instead. It was not a job I particularly enjoyed, but it was easy and I never had to speak to bankers. The work was low-stress, but boring; inevitably, I spent those bored hours on the internet.

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‘My bosses were happy to destroy me’ – the women forced out of work by menopause

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Almost a million women have left their jobs because of menopausal symptoms. Countless others are discriminated against, denied support and openly mocked. Do they need new legal protections?

In 2019, Mara’s weekly performance review meetings grew intolerable; she would sit in a cramped conference room with her supervisors only to be told that she wasn’t performing well enough. “I felt like a child,” says Mara, who is 48, lives in Hampshire and works and works as a public servant. “They would tell me off. They’d say: ‘You won’t meet this deadline, will you? You didn’t put a paragraph in this document.’”

A year earlier, Mara had had a hysterectomy, to alleviate her endometriosis. Afterwards, in surgically induced menopause, she began to experience debilitating brain fog, anxiety and depression. “I was drowning,” she says. “I was overwhelmed. I couldn’t see or think.” Doctors prescribed antidepressants and oestrogen gel, but nothing helped. Mara could barely function at work. “I couldn’t retain anything,” she says. “I had no memory. I couldn’t see or think clearly enough to do my work. I had no confidence at all. I thought I was useless.”

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Don’t be lonely: how to make friends if you’re moving house

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Yes, the pandemic has made it harder to connect with strangers. But, from fitness classes to social media, there are plenty of ways to meet people in a new area – especially if you assume you’re naturally likable

Freed from the shackles of the office and the misery of the commute, and with a newfound appreciation for space and air, it may suddenly have seemed as if a new kind of life was possible. Last summer, a few months after the first lockdown, data from Rightmove found searches by city residents looking for village properties had risen by 126%. But for those who took the plunge, leaving behind everything and everyone they know in return for a garden and a spare room, the pandemic has not made it easy to meet people in a new area. With this in mind, here’s some expert advice on how to build a new community.

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Maki Kaji, ‘godfather of sudoku’, dies aged 69 in Japan

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Puzzle enthusiast and publisher credited with turning grid-based numbers problem into global phenomenon

Maki Kaji, a Japanese publisher who popularised the numbers puzzle sudoku played daily by millions around the world, has died from cancer aged 69.

A university dropout who worked in a printing company before founding Japan’s first puzzle magazine, Kaji took hints from an existing number puzzle to create what he later named “sudoku” – a contraction of the Japanese for “every number must be single” – sometime in the mid-80s.

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‘Let them be kids!’ Is ‘free-range’ parenting the key to healthier, happier children?

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Now more than ever, children are cooped up indoors and monitored 24/7. But how can they build confidence and social skills if adults never let them out of their sight?

She describes herself as having been a “fairly cautious” parent before the pandemic, but Shannon now worries about her children’s safety more than ever. “The pandemic has made me more paranoid and fearful of other people,” she says. She has two sons, aged seven and four, and she’s anxious about them falling ill “because they are too young to get vaccinated”. When her elder son’s school reopened last year, she kept him at home. “We don’t go inside other people’s houses, and, if we have play dates, we do them outside,” she says. As a hospital chaplain in Indiana, Shannon has seen people dying of Covid, so her fear is understandable.

There have been benefits – her sons are closer than ever – but she acknowledges the downsides. “That social aspect of their development is something I’m definitely worried about. There’s a part of me that’s like: ‘Let them be kids,’ and there’s a part of me that’s like: ‘I need to keep them safe.’”

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Rhik Samadder tries … silent disco meditation: ‘A man in socks and a bandana is romancing a tree’

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A dance-based ‘soul journey’ – in the middle of Clapham Common? While I stream with sweat and onlookers laugh, I can’t stop worrying about what I’m having for dinner

I’m shaking my pelvis with brio, when a goldendoodle ambles up. Don’t you poo, I think. Then again, doing what comes naturally is the point of today. My friend Beth has invited me to try 5Rhythms: a silent disco movement meditation class on Clapham Common. I didn’t understand any of those words, but said yes­, because this column has turned my life into a second-tier Jim Carrey film­. Now I’m in deep with the hippies. To my left, a man in socks and a bandana is romancing a tree. A nearby game of touch rugby has paused so its players can laugh at us. This is my nightmare.

5Rhythms was developed in the 1970s by Gabrielle Roth, a New York theatre artist, but moved mainstream in the last 15 years, adopted by the wellness crowd. The practice involves dancing to five distinct moods of music, in a specific sequence known as the wave, which corresponds to different aspects of the self. The resulting “soul journey” is designed to unlock unlimited creativity and wholeness in the psyche of the dancer. Assuming they buy into the new-age framework, that is. My own personal five rhythms are lazy, dissatisfied, hungry, laughing and a freeform malaise I refer to as Kenneth.

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The last nomad hippies – a photo essay

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The hippy movement may have been in decline since its 1960s heyday, but there are still Europeans who choose an alternative lifestyle. During the pandemic, when many people are considering whether there might be a different way to live rather than returning to old ways, journalist Roberto Palomo journeys through Portugal with some of those who are living outside established society

The pandemic disrupted so many people’s plans, including mine. As a freelance reporter, my scheduled trip through South America in search of stories disappeared and I had to look for alternatives. In spite of everything, I got a job during lockdown in a logistics warehouse and was able to save some money. Once the restrictions began to relax, I bought an old van and, with the help of some friends, adapted it to make it my new home for the next months.

I am from Badajoz, a small city in the south-west of Spain a few kilometres from the Portuguese border. I have been visiting Portugal since I was a child but I never had the opportunity to explore the neighbouring country in more depth. With the world paralysed, this was my chance.

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‘Hidden pandemic’: Peruvian children in crisis as carers die

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With 93,000 children in Peru losing a parent to Covid, many face depression, anxiety and poverty

When Covid-19 began shutting down Nilda López’s vital organs, doctors decided that the best chance of saving her and her unborn baby was to put her into a coma.

Six months pregnant, López feared she would not wake up, or that if she did, her baby would not be there.

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‘I’m not a news robot reading an Autocue’: Clive Myrie on politics, personality and Mastermind

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The BBC newsreader takes over the venerable quiz show next week. He discusses fighting for viewers, dealing with online abuse – and making his parents proud

There is one correct way to start an interview with the new host of Mastermind: turn the tables on him – put him in the chair, under the spotlight. He hasn’t prepared a specialist subject, though, so I pick one for him, an easy one: the life and work of Clive Myrie, gleaned from previous interviews and the internet. There may be errors, but I can accept only the answer on the card. It will lead to topics for discussion. He is up for it, he says, although his face says: “WTF?”

The setting – a meeting room at the BBC’s New Broadcasting House – isn’t perfect. The lighting is all wrong. There are chairs, but not the chair. At least I can play the theme on my phone. Bam baba bam, bam baba bam, da da …

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Life after terror: the children of 9/11

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Twenty years after the World Trade Center attacks, four young people, then unborn, who lost their fathers, reveal how the events shaped their lives

Like for most young Americans growing up, 9/11 was a fairly constant presence, with online videos and TV documentaries, memorials and references to it on the news. I never wanted to ask Mum too much, instead putting the pieces together as I got older. I think I always knew my dad had died that day, but I’ve never felt a hugely emotional reaction. I know the basics of what happened, but there’s nothing I can do about it now.

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Summer in the city: Lauren Oyler on a bike accident in Berlin

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The US author and critic recalls a summer of cycling in the German capital in 2018

• Read other authors on their memorable urban summers

Every summer when I come to Berlin, someone says, “Wouldn’t you rather be at the beach?” No. I want to drink beer from the Späti (corner shop) and marvel at the sudden appearance of disparate architectures. But increasingly, there are heatwaves.

If pressed, even these I can romanticise: everyone is carefree and dirty (even more so than usual) and doesn’t work (even more so than usual). I always end up crossing Alexanderplatz on a bike thinking, this is like a desert, but more than once I’ve run into someone I know in the bike lane, which renders the scene even more hallucinogenic. Still, I dread the heatwaves as if they are worse than they are. “They’re going to have to get air-conditioning,” I mutter with the rest of the Americans. The only real respite is, unfortunately, to go to the beach.

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Modesty pouches and masturbation montages: the making of Sex Education

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The rude, raucous and revolutionary comedy is back for another term. The stars and creators reveal how it became one of Netflix’s biggest British hits

Sex Education is back with a bang. Several, in fact. The Netflix hit’s third series starts with an epic sex montage. There’s sex in a car; in a living room; in a variety of teenage bedrooms. There are casual encounters, committed relationships, sex together, alone, virtually, playing the drums and with a sci-fi theme. It is a symphony of shags, an opera of orgasms, all set to the thumping beat of the Rubinoos’ I Think We’re Alone Now. As the old saying goes, there’s nowt so queer as folk, and Sex Education is determined to prove it.

The Netflix comedy-drama only began in 2019, but thanks to its cross-generational, multinational appeal, it already seems like part of the cultural landscape. The funny, frank, flamboyant show about teenage life, sex and identity is an awards magnet and has made stars of its young cast, who now front fashion campaigns and appear regularly on stage and cinema screens. Gillian Anderson and Asa Butterfield star as mother and son Jean and Otis Milburn, who live in an enviable, chalet-style house overlooking the gorgeous Wye valley.

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UK dog owners warned about thieves staking out parks and luring puppies

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Blue Cross cautions about black market for popular breeds as government reportedly considers new offence of pet abduction

Stalking parks in affluent areas and luring puppies out of gardens with treats are among the methods dog thieves are using, campaigners have said, amid suggestions the government is preparing to clamp down on pet abductions.

Criminals mug dog-walkers for their pets and raid boarding kennels in an effort to steal in-demand breeds, whose price tags have soared during the pandemic. They are also on the look out for pets that have not been neutered or spayed and are capable of breeding.

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‘Everyone else knew weeks before we did’: readers who fell in love with their best friend

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Two-thirds of couples start out as friends first. These readers were looking for love in all the wrong places – before they realised it was staring them right in the face

He was the first person I met at university, the day we moved into halls, and he tried to kiss me that night but I turned him down. I knew we’d be really good friends though, and I even joked that he would be godfather to my children one day. We stayed friends for a number of years as I careered from boyfriend to boyfriend, none of them suitable. Dave remained eternally single, focused on an army career. We stayed in touch and, not long after he returned from Afghanistan, we met up. He was different: he had grown up and looked hot! I saw him in a different light and realised I really fancied him. I was newly single and determined to remain so, but we went on a night out, snogged lots, and the rest is history. I’m so glad we had seven years of friendship – he’s still my best friend, we always make each other laugh and he’s such a wonderful husband and amazing father to our two children. Laura, insurance underwriter, Yorkshire

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