Analysis: experts split on whether easy access to porn has fuelled sexual harassment, abuse and assault among young people
The harrowing reports of sexism and assaults in schools detailed on the everyonesinvited.uk website has fuelled concerns of a “rape culture” in educational settings.
The disclosures have raised concerns that easy access to pornography is part of the problem.
Continue reading...From pools and lidos to tennis courts and golf courses, it has been an action-packed day around England as lockdown regulations are relaxed to allow outdoor sporting activity. People will now be able to meet up legally outside in groups of six or two households and organised outdoor sport can resume
Continue reading...With Wet Wet Wet, Pellow was one of the biggest-selling musicians of the 90s. But heroin and alcohol soon became a problem. He talks about heroes, love and conquering his demons
Marti Pellow remembers his introduction to booze clearly. He was a young boy, about 11, and he sneaked a can of beer from his father. “I knew as soon as I had my first drink that it made me feel different,” he says. “I had a fuzzy feeling in my stomach. I liked the rush of that. It made me feel light.” By the time he was 12, he would go to dances with his friends and alcohol would give him dutch courage. “I’d ask an adult to buy me a couple of cans of lager. It gave me a wee bit more confidence to ask a girl to dance; it made me feel larger than life.”
Pellow went on to become the frontman of Wet Wet Wet, the blue-eyed soul band whose version of Love Is All Around, as featured in Four Weddings and a Funeral, topped the charts for 15 weeks and is still the UK’s biggest-selling love song. By the time he left Wet Wet Wet for the first time in 1998, three of their five studio albums had topped the UK charts (with the others peaking at No 2) and they had had 26 Top 40 hits. By then, he had also developed a dual addiction to alcohol and heroin that could easily have done for him. It did pretty much do for him, as far as the band was concerned. Sure, he rejoined in 2003, and they spent another 14 years together, but they never enjoyed the same success again.
Continue reading...Many middle-aged American women are selling up and shipping out, taking to the roads alone in their mobile homes
Sarah Gabriel found her life’s meaning in a small town in Kansas on a cold autumn morning in 2020. It was the hour before dawn in a Walmart car park and the 63-year-old rolled back the strip of floor underlay that serves as makeshift curtains on the windows of her 2008 Honda minivan to the awesome sight of a full moon looming above the spectral white of Walmart’s security lights.
“Here I was in Kansas, you know, like Dorothy, and the moon was doing her thing like I was doing my thing,” she recalls. “‘Hey Sarah,’ she seemed to say, ‘you’re in your seventh decade and now it’s time for your big adventure.’”
Continue reading...The importance of a beacon and having fortitude are key for lighthouse keepers – clues for us all when there’s little else around
Imagine being a lighthouse keeper. Before I dropped beneath the surface of this secluded, often secretive, occupation, the idea brought to mind wind-blown seagulls, or a bearded sea dog chewing his pipe. Such is the romantic notion many of us have about lighthouses. The reality is (or was, because the staffed lighthouse is now extinct) quite different.
Land lights – those charming beacons you’ll find on the coast, the distinctive red stripe of Portland Bill or the thimble-shaped watchpoint at Llanddwyn – are appealing, but for me the sea towers hold the greatest allure. I’m talking about those majestic, improbable stations rising audaciously up out of the ocean – the Bell Rock, the Bishop, the Longships. The famous Eddystone, south of Plymouth, is the fourth built on that reef, in an effort that spanned almost 200 years. Its neighbouring “Smeaton’s Stump”, the remains of a third manifestation, serves as a stark reminder that water is not meant to hold buildings.
Continue reading...Has a year of video calls made you self-conscious? Don’t turn your camera off: just relax and deploy a few of these beauty tips
Thought we were a nation of narcissists pre-Covid? Well, a global pandemic has taken things to a whole new level. It’s safe to say nobody planned to spend quite so much of the past year staring at their own grainy reflection, but with everything from weddings to work meetings forced online, our bid to stay connected with others has meant being constantly confronted with our own faces.
And not all of us like what we see. There’s a big difference between sharing a carefully filtered selfie on Instagram, and catching yourself slumped in front of the screen during your fourth video chat of the day, the cat cleaning its paws in the background as you stare in horror at your dark circles. What with the unflattering lighting, unforgiving camera angles and the fact that none of us has been inside a salon in months, it’s no wonder we’re sick of the sight of ourselves. But what effect does it have on our self-esteem? And can we do anything to boost it?
Continue reading...Join the slow lane in these relaxed looks that will see you through spring, summer and beyond
Goodbye fast fashion, hello slow fashion. The age of the flash-in-the-pan trend is over; the lifespan of the trends that matter is now counted in years, not months.
To put this in broadsheet language, slow fashion is fashion’s third way. No need to make a stark choice between buying into the fast-fashion cycle (consumerist horror show, but jazzy) and swearing off fashion altogether (admirable, but a bit joyless). Slow fashion charts a different course. It is about looking agreeably current, rather than up-to-the-minute. It is about nailing the hemline or the dress shape that defines the decade, rather than the season. It keeps one eye on fashion, but its feet on the ground, remembering that clothes are not disposable.
This is an exciting moment. You know that thing when something really complicated goes wrong, and the first thing you do is turn it off and then on again? And sometimes, it works? Well, that’s basically what we’ve done to fashion. It’s had a reset. Fashion was on pause for the pandemic, but now it is back on – and it’s better than it was before.
Continue reading...The actor on her love of dogs, granting wishes and Ryan Gosling
Born in Surrey, Julia Ormond, 56, starred in Peter Greenaway’s 1993 film The Baby Of Mâcon. She went on to appear in Legends Of The Fall, First Knight and The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button; her latest film, Reunion, is available on digital platforms. She has a daughter and lives in Malibu, California.
What is your greatest fear?
Heights.
She’s best known for her dark, difficult roles, and doesn’t suffer fools gladly. The actor talks about swinging in the 60s, family tragedy – and why she’s still got It
‘That photoshoot was such fun,” Charlotte Rampling says. “I was pinging.”
“You were pinging?”
Continue reading...Six ways to bring some pizzazz to those first socially distanced interactions as restrictions are lifted
From Monday in England, people will be able to meet outdoors either in a group of six (from any number of households), or in a group of any size from up to two households, including in private gardens.
While this is exciting, it may also be a little daunting – many of us will have forgotten how to socialise normally during the long months of lockdown. Here’s a quick refresher course on the art of making conversation under current guidelines:
Continue reading...Nicki, 26, charity worker, meets Kris, 29, musician
What were you hoping for?
It was something new for me, so I went in with an open mind.
You’re scared of the virus; they’re scared of the vaccine. Could you try talking about your fears without confrontation, asks Annalisa Barbieri
I recently had my Covid-19 vaccine. One longstanding friend queried my decision and forwarded anti-vax conspiracy theories. Initially I responded by saying that we should respect each other’s choices and I would rather not argue with her about it. But after thinking it over, I felt angry and upset about her stance.
As my husband has recently recovered from Covid-19, I am assuming he will have some natural immunity to the disease, but he is undecided about getting the vaccine and hasn’t yet responded to invitations to do so. I think he is quite influenced by my friend’s husband and the couple’s negative attitudes towards science in general, which are linked to their religious beliefs (which I do not share).
Continue reading...‘You don’t really believe the peeing in bottles thing, do you?’ a tweet from the Amazon News account read
To paraphrase one of the most iconic tweets of the past 10 years, Amazon’s recent denial about employees not being forced to urinate in bottles at work has people asking a lot of questions already answered by the denial.
Related: What if the most important election of the year is happening right now in Alabama? | Indigo Olivier
Continue reading...Slaxx, a new indie horror-satire about a pair of murderous jeans, is the latest film to turn fashion into a baddie. The Guardian’s film critic thinks it is time to change the story
Which professions get a bad press in the movies? TV executives tend to be portrayhed as manipulative and sociopathic. Journalists can be boozy and lazy (although sometimes they’re dishy investigative idealists, like Woodward and Bernstein). Nightclub owners are awful. Dentists are creepy. Hotel receptionists are sinister.
But if there’s one trade that’s somehow perennially getting it in the neck on screen, it’s fashion. The new horror movie from Canadian satirist Elza Kephart – Slaxx – is a case in point, showing a new brand of jeans, unveiled to an elite audience of hipsters at a haughty upmarket store, becoming possessed by the spirits of exploited workers from the developing world who made them. The jeans run violently amok, slaughtering fashion vloggers and Instagram influencers in showers of blood.
Continue reading...Schoolgirl’s fake cosmetics site helps hundreds of women as domestic violence rises during Covid
In April 2020, weeks after Poland went into its first Covid-19 lockdown, Krysia Paszko, a 17-year-old high school pupil, watched a TV report about Europe’s surge in domestic violence cases, which had increased by up to 60% on 2019, according to the World Health Organization. Poland’s largest women’s rights centre, Centrum Praw Kobiet (CPK), had reported a 50% increase in calls to its domestic violence hotline in March.
Learning from the report that France had implemented a scheme in pharmacies that women could use to report domestic violence using the codewords “Mask 19”, Paszko had an idea. With help from a graphic designer friend, she created a Facebook page for a fictitious cosmetics company.
Continue reading...A majority of menstruating women have experienced changes to their cycle over the last year, surveys suggest. One of the main culprits? Persistent stress
We will not look back on the past year as a vintage one for the human body. Since March 2020, many of us have experienced physical manifestations of stress that correspond to living through a global pandemic. From low energy and headaches to changes in mood and disrupted sleep, our rhythms are deeply upset. And many women have experienced changes to a fundamental rhythm: the menstrual cycle.
Rachel Burns has always experienced premenstrual syndrome (PMS), but it has been even more difficult to navigate in the past 12 months. “I always have a few days of feeling quite withdrawn before my period, but this has morphed into me feeling unreachable and anxious for over a week,” says the 36-year-old from Kent. “My partner says the change is significant.” Before Christmas, her PMS made her feel as if she were “going mad, like a panic attack I couldn’t come down from”. The effects of her period drag on now. She feels fluey, achy, “completely depleted, physically and emotionally”. As a result, it can feel like she “only has one ‘good’ week” a month. “It’s like being at sea within yourself,” she says.
Continue reading...The Addams Family’s problem child is suddenly everywhere - from the catwalks to a new Tim Burton series for Netflix. Who better to express our existential malaise?
Brooding, maudlin, full of woe: Wednesday Addams is an icon for pandemic times. Who better to express our existential malaise with a world gone horribly wrong than the seven-year-old antiheroine of Charles Addams’s much-loved TV and film franchise? If Wednesday was around today she would probably infect her brother Pugsley with Covid, then observe him sickening with clinical detachment. And she would do it in her signature uniform: black lace dress, white collar and plaited hair.
These are bitter days indeed, and fashion has gone over to the dark side. Simone Rocha’s much-anticipated collection for H&M – featuring gothic black tulle ballgowns and a children’s range modelled by preteens with Wednesday plaits – sold out in hours after its launch on 11 March. Lisa from the K-pop supergroup Blackpink appeared on the cover of Elle in September 2020 in a high-necked, white-collared black dress with a petulant, Wednesday-like expression on her face. And the blood-red cherry on the Black Forest gateau: it has just been announced that Tim Burton will direct a live-action Addams Family reboot for Netflix, centring on Wednesday herself. Wednesday is all around us, our very own venomous little sister. But what is driving this macabre revival?
Continue reading...The sturdy pots are great for roasting meat, but they can also be used to bake bread, steam shellfish and make a beautiful blackberry cake
My American mother would have called it a Dutch oven, although a lot of people in the US call a Dutch oven a French oven, while the French call it a casserole. I think a true Dutch oven is a piece of camping equipment, with a hanging handle and stubby little legs, but that is not what my mother meant. My mother did not camp.
What I am trying to describe is a pot, round or oval, with fairly high sides and a snug-fitting lid. They are usually enamelled cast-iron and they can be ruinously expensive, although you sometimes see good secondhand ones at car boot sales. My wife once got two giant Le Creuset casseroles from a market stall for £20 because the guy selling them had put one inside the other and couldn’t get them apart. I was prepared to deploy any number of drastic separation strategies, but a screwdriver wedged between the handles did the trick.
Continue reading...From going braless and wearing black – to therapists in ‘sympathetic necklines’ and politicians in fleeces, readers reflect on a year of getting dressed in the pandemic
It is a white linen suit that Perry Seymour misses the most. “It serves so many purposes, but always reminds me of summer nights,” he says.
Slim-fitting and miraculously stain-free, it is what he wore in the garden to celebrate his 55th birthday last July. Not that anyone saw it. “I never thought I dressed for anyone else, but I’ve found, without occasions or parties, I have no motivation to get dressed at all. These days, I don’t wear trousers unless I leave the house.”
Continue reading...In the pandemic, many have rediscovered the sheer pleasure of writing to strangers, with new schemes spreading hope and connection around the world
A few months ago, when the rules had been sufficiently relaxed to allow friends to sit together outside, Liz Maguire had coffee with a woman she had never met. The pair had already been communicating for months, and quickly fell into easy conversation. Later on, this woman tweeted about their meeting, to which another woman replied: “You met Liz Maguire? As in the Liz Maguire?”.
The Liz Maguire is a 27-year-old American expat living in Dublin. Though undoubtedly a celebrity in her chosen field, she is not a professional, but that is simply because she is not paid to do what she loves, which is to write letters to strangers.
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