Older people have had it hard over the past year, yet countless surveys have found they are the happiest generation. Here are their tips
Irene Lewington, 92, London
Continue reading...Category Archives: Life and style
Billy Porter: ‘My church said I would never be blessed if I chose to be gay’
The actor and singer on RuPaul’s Drag Race, learning how to be loved, and why no actor could play him in the film of his life
Born in Pennsylvania, Billy Porter, 51, studied drama and moved to New York in 1991 to appear in Miss Saigon. He went on to star in Kinky Boots, winning the 2013 Tony award for best actor in a musical, and a Grammy for the soundtrack. In 2018, he was cast in Netflix’s Pose, which will return for a third series. He is married and lives in New York state.
What is your greatest fear?
That I will be forgotten and my legacy won’t matter.
I teach a course on happiness at Yale: this is how to make the most of your resolutions
Forget tough love. Adopting a positive mindset and being kind to yourself is a more effective way to make a change
To say that 2020 wasn’t the best year is an understatement. For many of us, it felt like a giant global dumpster fire. Not surprisingly, the stresses of living through a pandemic have had a terrible impact on our collective mental health, with rates of depression and anxiety skyrocketing. Many of us feel we can’t say goodbye to last year fast enough.
And that means we’re entering 2021 with high expectations. With the promise of a vaccine and the potential for a return to normality, the start of this year has given us something we’ve been missing for a long time: hope. Starting over after the year we’ve just had feels more exciting than usual. It’s a brand new chapter in our lives, in which lots of positive changes are possible.
Continue reading...From brownie bites to fish-finger sandwiches: five great snack ideas for home workers
Step away from your workspace and try these quick and tasty dishes – it’s the perfect way to recharge
How many times in the working week do you take a proper break? Whether you work formally or not, and whatever your job, we all need downtime. We need to recharge and our brains really need to pause, and to be fed. Stopping work to do something absorbing, such as cookery, has been shown in studies to help us get more done with the rest of the day, and quicker, so you can get on with the rest of your life. You deserve a break. Here are a few simple snacks to look forward to.
Continue reading...Headspace Guide to Meditation: can Netflix deliver enlightenment in 20 minutes?
The streaming service and the mindfulness app have joined forces to inject some calm into our tech diet. Elle Hunt tries to switch off, while switching on
Those who subscribe to the notion of “new year, new me” will be familiar with the advice to empty your fridge and kitchen cupboards of junk food before 1 January, so as to set yourself up for healthy-eating success. (Or else a New Year’s Day McDonald’s delivery, when you wake up very much the old you, and not in the mood for overnight oats.)
After all that bingeing on Love Is Blind and Selling Sunset last year, Netflix now provides a similarly aspirational refresh, with a new series of guided meditations. Produced with the popular Headspace app, the eight 20-minute episodes are billed as a beginner’s guide to meditation, helping you to start the year “by being kind to your mind”.
Continue reading...The joys of being an absolute beginner – for life
The phrase ‘adult beginner’ can sound patronising. It implies you are learning something you should have mastered as a child. But learning is not just for the young
One day a number of years ago, I was deep into a game of draughts on holiday with my daughter, then almost four, in the small library of a beachfront town. Her eye drifted to a nearby table, where a black-and-white board bristled with far more interesting figures (many a future chess master has been innocently drawn in by “horses” and “castles”).
“What’s that?” she asked. “Chess,” I replied. “Can we play?” she pleaded. I nodded absently.
Continue reading...Viva veganuary! 17 delicious ways with tofu – from thai red curry to chocolate mousse
The high-protein meat substitute is one of the world’s most versatile ingredients. Here’s how to use it in everything from tasty stir-fries to nutritious smoothies
On 11 January 1770, Benjamin Franklin, then in London, wrote a letter to a friend in Philadelphia, enclosing some soya bean seeds (“Chinese garavances”, referring to garbanzos, or chick-peas) and forwarding a recipe for a type of cheese that could be derived from them, which he called “tau-fu”.
Franklin may never have actually tasted tofu, and certainly didn’t know much about making it, much less cooking with it. To some extent this ignorance persists in the west, where tofu is prized as a high-protein meat substitute, albeit one so bland that it is basically a texture awaiting a flavour. Tofu may be versatile, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we know what to do with it and, unless you’re a vegan, it can be hard to get excited about it. If that’s the case, here are 17 recipes to change your mind.
Continue reading...The nobody-nose job: how the pandemic led to a rise in plastic surgery
Wanting to emerge from lockdown ‘better’ versions of themselves, some people are turning to drastic measures
When Kaafiya Abdulle gave birth to her son in April 2017, she chose to breastfeed. A year later, she switched to baby formula, hyper-vigilant of the effects nursing had on her breasts. Unhappy with the sagging and shrinking that had occurred, she began to research breast lifts – a procedure she desperately wanted but never had the courage to pursue. Until the pandemic, that is.
Related: Why you should ignore the pressure to be productive during lockdown
Continue reading...Pomp and romps: how Bridgerton became the most talked about show on TV
The Regency drama has become one of Netflix’s biggest shows of all time. Four writers explain the secrets of its success – from colourblind casting to equal-opportunities undressing
21 things to look forward to in 2021 – from meteor showers to the Olympics
From finally seeing the back of Donald Trump to being in a football stadium – the new year is full of promise
You probably found a few things to enjoy about last year: you rediscovered your bicycle, perhaps, or your family, or even both, and learned to love trees. And don’t forget the clapping. Plus some brilliant scientists figured out how to make a safe and effective vaccine for a brand new virus in record time.
Continue reading...Fat felines: we all love a ‘chonky’ cat – but the online trend has to end
Over the last few years, the internet has thrilled to pictures of chubby pets. But now experts are calling for a new era of cat shaming and determined dieting
Name: Fat cats.
Age: Probably no older than 10, given their propensity to die young.
Appearance: Fat.
Comfort and joy: 10 hearty, delicious vegan meals for an icy January – from lasagne to tiramisu
Whether you fancy a pulled ‘pork’ sandwich or a filling chana masala, these are the meat-free recipes to get you through the first chilly weeks of the year
At this time of year, the air is colder, the nights are longer and all anyone really wants is something warm and comforting to eat. However, if you happen to be vegan, your options can still be embarrassingly limited. Still, never fear, here’s the pick of the best vegan comfort-food recipes around.
Continue reading...New-sprung: the project turning PPE offcuts into Covid patient mattresses
Cheap, hygienic and sustainable, the mattresses made by Indian fashion designer Lakshmi Menon also generate income for rural women
At the height of the pandemic in the Indian state of Kerala, fashion designer Lakshmi Menon, 46, heard that every new Covid care centre had to have 50 beds. Mattresses were in short supply. Every time a patient was discharged, the mattress had to be incinerated. “I thought: that’s a lot of mattresses and a lot of burning,” says Menon.
Menon’s solution was to collect the mountains of plastic pieces from factories that make PPE – all the little bits left over after cutting. Women then braid the bits into rope-like plaits 6ft long. The braids are laid out in a zigzag and the ends tied together. The result is a light, soft, washable, hygienic mattress for just 300 rupees (£3) – half the price of a normal one.
Continue reading...Adut Akech: ‘I was just this shy kid’
Adut Akech’s rise from Kenyan refugee camp to the international catwalk has been remarkable. She talks about her ‘fashion dad’ Edward Enninful and why she wants to see proper diversity in the fashion industry
All the best supermodels have fairytale origin stories. They are bullied at school: too tall, too flat-chested, too strange-looking. Boys prefer their more comely peers. They grow up believing themselves to be unlovable, even social outcasts. And then an outsider swoops in – perhaps at an airport (Kate Moss), in Primark (Jourdan Dunn), or McDonald’s (Gisele Bündchen). The scout plucks them from obscurity and drops them into a life of international travel, money and acclaim. Their self-doubt is sloughed away like dead skin. Bullies stand chastened. The supermodel triumphs.
Moss and co don’t have anything on Adut Akech’s origin story. Their childhoods are the Pixar remakes of her Grimms’ fairytale. Akech was born as her mother fled civil war in South Sudan and raised in a refugee camp in Kenya. At seven, she moved with her family to Australia. When she arrived, she didn’t speak any English, “I was this tall, super-shy, awkward kid,” she says. “I had a weird name, and a gap tooth.”
Continue reading...La vie en rose: a polished punk and DIY approach in a very bright flat
There isn’t a hint of white in designer Ms Pink’s home
Liquorice Allsorts, a pair of striped tights, the motion graphics from Top of the Pops and an X-Ray Spex album cover are just some of the surprising visual references that have inspired the kaleidoscopic home of Ms Pink and Mr Black – a creative duo.
“It’s all to do with my punk background,” explains Ms Pink. “The whole punk ethic was DIY which, for me, has carried on into interiors. There’s never been a great plan,” she continues. “These interiors are really a buildup of references from my childhood and teenage years that have all just gradually emerged here in my home.”
Continue reading...Finding time for creativity will give you respite from worries
Drawing, singing, writing, knitting… lose yourself in something creative to find inner calm. You might also come up with solutions to problems
When the first lockdown began in March, my son developed a persistent cough. I was anxious and when I couldn’t sleep I would write. Inspired by the author Elizabeth Gilbert, whose soothing Instagram I would turn to in the ungodly hours, and reassured by her pragmatic take on creative endeavours, I poured my anxiety on to the page and lost myself in my story.
My son’s cough wasn’t Covid-19 as it turned out, but writing about it had helped me manage my fears around the pandemic and given me direction. Now it’s New Year, and lockdown, in some shape or another, is still a reality while most of us wait for the vaccine. There is light at the end of the tunnel, but until we get there, I have a strong feeling that making something might just help.
Continue reading...Flea: ‘There is joy in obsession. But I’m not sure it’s healthy’
The musician and actor, 58, on falling in and out of love with his band, growing from pain, and writing lessons from Patti Smith
I’ve always viewed life as an opportunity. That might be to explore or to learn. I’m never more excited than when I find a new thing to be excited about. That might be something as simple as table tennis – but if I get excited about table tennis, I want to become really good at table tennis! There’s no midpoint with me. I’m always searching for new ways to develop myself, whether they’re physical, spiritual, emotional, intellectual or whatever. I like my drive.
My generation had an unhealthy relationship with drugs. This is going to sound like real old-man shit, but regarding the young generation, I don’t worry about them doing that. I worry about how much time they spend in front of computers and phones. I worry that living in the moment has been lost.
Continue reading...‘From now on, I was in an LGBTQ+ family’: my husband came out as trans while I was on maternity leave
I’d chosen an unconventional partner, and we both bristled at gender stereotypes. But I had sensed a distance between us, and it wasn’t just new parenthood
Today I sat on a bench facing the sea and sobbed my heart out. I don’t know if I will ever recover. This is a note on my phone, written on 9 November 2017.
I forgot about it for a couple of years, but I remember typing it as if it were yesterday. The gulls squawked and the sun dipped into the sea. I had been sitting there so long my hands were too cold to type. I put my phone into my coat pocket, and turned the buggy to face home.
Continue reading...My mum lied to me about having an affair. How can I trust her?
As long as you expect your mother to be someone different, you will get hurt, says Annalisa Barbieri
I am 29. When I was nine, I found a letter addressed to a man’s name I didn’t recognise. My parents were married. When I was 11, my dad told me my mum was having an affair that had begun before their marriage. He told me how she wouldn’t be there when he came home, and would disappear at weekends. Throughout my adolescence, this man would call the house and hang up, and send cards to my mum. My dad said she was a bad person and that her morals were all mixed up.
I tried to speak to her about it as I got older, but she would angrily deny it. After my parents divorced, she thought she would be with the other man, but this never happened. Twenty years later, she still refuses to admit anything is going on. But over the years, I have seen many messages showing her wanting to be with him.
Continue reading...‘I yowl like a leopard’: Guardian readers’ lockdown fitness tips
From exercising with animal noises to the thrills of a mini trampoline, readers share their secrets for staying healthy despite Covid restrictions
Keeping motivated while doing an online class is hard. When doing any exercise named after an animal, I find that making the sound of that animal makes the whole thing a lot more fun. For example: growl for bear crawls, yowl for leopard leaps, ribbit for frog-hop squat jumps, nibbling chatter for bunny hops, roaring for dragon crawls. I’ve also added a Mario-style “woo-hoo” for chest-to-floor burpees. In the gym, it would be hard to do this unless you don’t mind making a fool of yourself, but at home, with your mic on mute, no one knows. Iszi Lawrence, Reading
Continue reading...