Met Office predicts a ‘seasonal feel’ to the weather after a rainy start to the week
Those dreaming of a white Christmas will be left further disappointed this year after the Met Office forecast no more than frosty conditions for the UK.
Temperatures across most of the country will stay in mid-single figures on Thursday and Friday, and no snow was expected to settle.
Continue reading...Lockdown has not been kind to our beautiful selves, but now it is time to shape up. Emma Beddington gets to work on her pre-Christmas, full-body makeover. But where to begin?
How do you look at the moment? It’s a loaded question, I know. “Asking me to choose one physical feature I feel bad about is like asking me to choose my least-favourite family member since lockdown,” says my friend F. An unscientific poll of friends and acquaintances reveals a tally of 2020 woes: worry wrinkles, “maskne”, “Zoomface”, “presidential” hair and Covid kilos. “Weird grief seeps out of me and my eyes are tired,” read one extremely relatable response.
Eating more, exercising less, sleeping badly, scrolling and worrying constantly… barring some boastful Instagram blowhards, we are all looking and feeling suboptimal as 2020 draws to a distinctly unfestive close. My own tally is standard but dismal: I look like a parboiled potato, in both face and body.
Continue reading...Pop stars who lit up 2020 talk about their Christmas routines and share the tracks they turn to on the big day – scroll down to hear their choices
2020 Mercury prize winner and associate of mysterious band of the year Sault
Continue reading...The actor on discovering hiking, choosing dessert and attending church online
What gets you up? Three rabidly hungry dogs demanding to be fed – it’s the same every morning here in Los Angeles. Normally we’d head to church, although now we’re attending virtually. It remains a surreal way to take part in such a communal activity.
How do you unwind? With MMA fights. For some reason I find watching grown men turn each other into burger meat very relaxing. I love that on Sunday I’m commanded from on high to take a break: self-obsession is an occupational hazard for every actor. Thinking beyond that, however briefly, is healthy.
Continue reading...Speed forward a few years and imagine it’s your baby in this situation, says Mariella
The dilemma I feel awful saying this, but I’m holding loads of resentment towards my young stepson. I met his father when the boy was only two. For years we’ve all had a great relationship, but recently I gave birth to our baby, and I found I was becoming less tolerant of his son throughout my pregnancy and started to dread him staying with us. My partner is unaware of this, as I hide it very well – I’m sure this is my issue. But I found I was at breaking point today. We’re in the last days of my partner’s paternity leave and his ex rang to say his son wasn’t well and asked if we could look after him.
I cried for an hour (again hidden from my partner) as this time is so special. There seems to be nothing wrong with the boy and I believe she just couldn’t be bothered to take him to school when she knew we were at home.
Continue reading...We asked young black writers who entered our essay competition about key conversations in their lives. Queenie author Candice Carty-Williams introduces the top three
As a writer, my main concern is inviting the reader into a world that they might not otherwise know. And if it’s a world they do know, I want it to feel familiar to them. If there’s one thing I strive towards when it comes to writing, it’s legitimacy. And as a reader, I’m looking for exactly the same thing.
When it came to judging this competition, for young black writers aged between 16 and 21 on the theme of conversations, I spent a lot of time either being wowed by their penmanship, or astonished that I could so easily connect with what they were saying. It’s been a long time since I was that age, but the skill of a good writer is drawing anyone in, whatever the gaps in age, culture or knowledge.
Continue reading...The musician, 41, on what he owes Michael Parkinson, the joys of cultural freedom and why he’ll feel nervous when he’s finally able to perform again
Growing up in a very provincial village near Swindon, in Wiltshire, I struggled to articulate why my family was different. My parents were immigrants. They had it drilled into them to be as British as possible, live a very British life, observe the Britishness of their existence. I think they were culturally cauterised. A mixture of people came in and out of my household from my father’s Prussian Jewish contingent, who for a large part of their UK life were often too frightened to have a German accent or observe their Jewish faith, and my mother’s Indian Burmese contingent, where everyone had darker skin and ate different foods.
I didn’t feel that different. I just thought I had a bit of a tan, and that everyone’s aunties brought them lime pickle for Christmas. My parents were dealing with being first-generation immigrants in this country. I had way more cultural freedom than them, but felt less able to acknowledge my heritage when I was younger.
Continue reading...The perfect combination: spicy chicken jewelled with cranberries and cashews, and a sharp fruity side
The simplicity and elegance of pulaos combined with their ability to moonlight as a one-pot meal stole my heart long ago. Pulaos saved my mother and grandmother hours in the kitchen; they’d make a large pot and all that was needed was a salad or pickle on the side. I’m keeping that principle in mind with this winter-themed chicken pulao, jewelled with cranberries and cashews, alongside an orange and piquillo pepper salad. You can serve the meal with a bowl of salted plain yoghurt.
Continue reading...For Sian Prior, 2020 feels like the year the carols nearly died. But perhaps there are new ways to keep the song alive
The purists would say I shouldn’t sing Christmas carols. Heathens have no right to be warbling about mangers, angels and holy nights. Strictly speaking, those tunes belong to the faithful, not to atheists like me. But on Christmas Day you will usually find me hovering beside the piano, waiting impatiently for the carolling to begin.
My mother will play the accompaniment, my sister will sing the melody, I’ll find a harmony and my brother will take the bassline. We four non-believers will regale the rest of the family with We Three Kings and none of us will care what the purists think.
Continue reading...Starring Keanu Reeves and hyped to the heavens, Projekt Red’s dystopian but glitchy romp has been pulled from sale. What went wrong?
Cyberpunk 2077, one of the most-anticipated video games of the year was released last week. A dystopian romp around a Blade Runner-inspired city, it had all the ingredients for a perfect storm of hype: it’s been nearly a decade in the making; its creator, Warsaw’s CD Projekt Red, was behind one of the greatest games of the last decade (The Witcher 3 – think Game of Thrones but grimier); it stars Keanu Reeves, who is as popular with gamers as he is with everybody else. Eight million people had pre-ordered and paid for the game before it came out. But since 10 December, it’s all gone horribly wrong.
On launch day, the reviews were good – great, even. Many critics praised the fictional Night City’s realism, its striking skyscraping architecture and grubby alleys; they loved the invigorating gunplay, ballsy characters and neon swagger. Some expressed reservations about the game’s rather adolescent tone and its eagerness to objectify women’s bodies – neither of which were a surprise to anyone who’d been keeping an eye on the game’s marketing.
Continue reading...Most workplace festivities will be virtual this year – but, on the evidence of this lot, maybe that’s not such a bad thing
We were a party of about 15 in All Bar One, which was filled with other office parties. It was a sit-down Christmas dinner and, after the main course and cracker pulling, I wiped my mouth with a large cloth napkin and accidentally put it down on a lit tealight. It caught on fire immediately – there were flames and smoke and the waiter was hitting it with a cloth and throwing jugs of water as people gasped in terror. I was absolutely mortified – I scurried off to the toilets during the pandemonium and never returned. June, hair stylist, Brighton
Continue reading...It might be worth looking at why it’s so easy for him to make you feel like an idiot, says Annalisa Barbieri
I am a 40-year-old woman who has been talked down to and patronised by my older brother my entire life. He often speaks to me as though he assumes I don’t understand simple things, and when I try to communicate to him that I do understand, he doesn’t seem to listen. I looked up to him when I was a child, so there’s this loud voice inside my head that says: “He’s speaking to you like you are an idiot, therefore you must be an idiot,” and my self-confidence is dented more every time.
This makes no sense because I have a good life. But I’m forever beating myself up. He seems to have the power to make me feel worthless.
Continue reading...Gal Gadot does battle with supervillains and everyday sexism in DC’s cliche-clobbering sequel. Is it a sign of the genre’s future?
There’s a scene in Wonder Woman 1984 where the luminous Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) glides into a crowded party. Everyone is staring at her – but this is no Cinderella moment, with admiring glances and a collective gasp. It’s an exposé of sexual harassment. The camera switches to Diana’s POV, and we experience a series of persistent, entitled men cracking on to a woman who is clearly not interested. It’s a rare case of a superhero movie showing everyday sexism from the woman’s point of view.
Related: Wonder Woman 1984 review – queenly Gal Gadot disarms the competition
Continue reading...‘Conscious’, ‘slow’ or ‘cruelty-free’ may sound appealing but these surface-level claims could just be a distraction
’Tis the season to buy stuff you don’t need that trashes the planet. ’Twas ever thus. At least ever since Queen Victoria decided Christmas was about having a giant tree in the house bedecked with ornaments and gifts. Or New York’s elites decided to bring the season’s festive street parties inside and formalise the fun with status-signifying trinkets.
Related: The good gift guide: 100 Christmas gift ideas to lift up, give back and delight
Continue reading...From watermelon to tiramisu and Caribbean pepperpot, here are the festive home menus from Rick Stein, Angela Hartnett and many others
Rick Stein, chef and founder of Rick Stein restaurants, nationwide
I love it at Christmas, when there are festive lights all around the harbour and the pubs are at their cosiest. This year, I’m spending it at my cottage in Padstow. I’ll be cooking goose with sage and onion stuffing, potatoes roasted in goose fat with artichokes and parsnips and a melange of vegetables – broccoli, peas, broad beans and carrots – all cut small and braised in butter and tarragon. It’s not traditional but I can’t have Christmas at my place without two or three dozen native oysters from the river Fal to start, and Cornish blue cheese instead of stilton with the port.
Millions of frustrated sports fans began following Andrew Cotter’s ultra-competitive labradors Olive and Mabel in the first lockdown. Has it changed the trio’s lives?
Did anyone convey the topsy-turvy world of pandemic life better than two ultra-competitive labradors? When the first lockdown was announced back in March and sports events were cancelled across the country, the Scottish commentator Andrew Cotter found himself staring at a grim year ahead. And so he decided to simply continue commentating … on his dogs.
“You can feel the tension,” he said in his soothing soft Scottish accent, over a video of his dogs, Olive and Mabel, racing to empty their bowls. “Olive focused, relentless, tasting absolutely nothing.”
Continue reading...During the Vendee Globe, boats have broken apart and sleep is caught in snatches. The yachtswoman – currently in 18th place and still going – explains the dangerous thrill of racing solo
Pip Hare has just a few things to sort out, and she needs to have a check outside. She will text me again when she is free to chat, which she does. Hi, Pip, where are you? “Heading south-east across the South Atlantic,” she replies, cheerfully, casually, as if she was saying she was heading home across the park.
I can hear the South Atlantic, fizzing past in the background, and the creaks and groans of her 60ft boat Medallia, as it blasts towards the Southern Ocean. It’s glorious out there, she says. “The wind is moderate, the sea quite flat, the sky as blue as can be, with just a smattering of clouds, a sign that the low pressure is catching up with me. I’ve got three sails up, the boat is full of energy, flying along at between 18 and 20 knots. The colours are amazing.”
Continue reading...The death of Jeffrey Epstein sparked a worldwide search for his former associate. How did the woman now known as Inmate 02879-509 keep such a low profile for so long?
This time last year, Ghislaine Maxwell was off the grid. The Oxford-educated socialite was lying low as the focus of a frenzied media hunt pivoted to her after the suicide of her erstwhile lover Jeffrey Epstein.
“For Ghislaine-watchers, the autumn of 2019 through to the summer of 2020 was a mystery,” says Mark Seal, the Vanity Fair special correspondent who followed her story. “She was said to be hiding in a submarine, lying low in Israel, in the FBI witness protection programme, in a luxurious villa in the south of France, sunning herself on the coast of Spain, or in some high-security doomsday bunker owned by rich and powerful friends – all seemingly possible, but all, thus far at least, wrong,” he adds.
Continue reading...The prime minister’s spell in intensive care underscored the severity of the pandemic. Did it also make him reassess his life?
It was an unexpected twist in what already felt like an excessively dramatic disaster movie. On 6 April, the British prime minister was admitted to the intensive care ward at St Thomas’ hospital in London, after contracting a new and potentially deadly virus. Donald Trump said he was “praying for his good friend”; the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said all his wishes were with the prime minister, his family and the British people in “this difficult time”. The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, described it as “terribly sad news”.
Boris Johnson pulled through, of course, surviving to witness the birth of his son, Wilfred – given the middle name Nicholas, after the doctors, Dr Nick Price and Dr Nick Hart, who saved Johnson’s life. But more than eight months later, could the country still be feeling the impact of this dramatic turn of events?
Continue reading...Will Tillotson, 57, and Cleo Binns, 48, met at a humanist celebration of her father’s life in summer 2018. They now live in Peebles in the Scottish Borders
When Cleo Binns’ father died in June 2018, she and her mother, Ann, wanted a humanist service to honour his life. “I got in touch with a celebrant who wasn’t available, but recommend that I contact Will Tillotson,” she remembers. Shortly after she called him, he went round to meet Cleo and Ann in the Lake District, near to where he lived at the time. “As a humanist celebrant, you meet every family, so that you can discuss their loved one’s life and write a tribute,” he says.
During their meeting, it didn’t cross his mind that it would be anything more than a professional relationship. “It would have been unthinkable that something would happen – and totally unethical,” he says. Cleo, who was grieving along with her mum, felt comforted by Will’s presence. “At the time, I wasn’t thinking about dating or anything like that. But I know that, when he left, Mum and I felt much better.” The service took place a week later.
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