Category Archives: Life and style

Skipper Pip Hare on the toughest test in sailing: ‘It’s about coping with adversity – on your own’

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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.”

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Is she hiding in a submarine? In a bunker? The hunt for Ghislaine Maxwell

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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.

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‘It made Boris seem like a normal person’: how did Johnson’s Covid change him?

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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?

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How we met: ‘I’d been at her dad’s funeral and didn’t want to spoil her memory of it’

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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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The Maradona and child: Naples honours its hero with nativity figurine

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A new addition to the Christmas scene in artisan shops shows city’s love for footballer

The southern Italian city of Naples usually enjoys a fervent lead-up to Christmas, with one street in particular – Via San Gregorio Armeno – buzzing with people buying handcrafted cribs and terracotta figurines for their nativity scenes at home.

There is also much anticipation each year over which new figurine they can buy. Traditionally, it was a shepherd or an animal that would join baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph, but now it is usually a figurine of a personality of that year. Recently crafted statuettes include tributes to doctors and nurses who have worked throughout the pandemic as well as ones of the US president-elect Joe Biden and his deputy, Kamala Harris.

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Scotch eggs: 10-fold surge in demand for ‘substantial meal’

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The snacks were deemed by ministers last week to be sufficient to order alongside alcohol in tier 2-area pubs

Suppliers of scotch eggs have reported a surge in demand after ministers said they classed as a “substantial meal”, thereby allowing people to order alcohol alongside them in pubs.

The food wholesaler Brakes, which works with 50,000 pubs across the UK, has seen a 10-fold increase in demand for the pork and breadcrumb-covered eggs since the lockdown in England ended last week.

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This year, for the first time, I won’t go home for Christmas. Will my family ties loosen for good?

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Flying visits to Northern Ireland kept me connected. FaceTime, Zoom and my niece’s drawings arriving by post are no substitute

I have never missed Christmas at home, though I have lived elsewhere for more than 20 years. This year, I will break that run. The festive travel window means that I could fly back to Northern Ireland from London. But my father is elderly and our neighbourhood on the border has been relatively untouched by Covid-19 until recently, so it doesn’t feel the safest plan. Instead, I’ll be in London. It will mark a year since I’ve been home; the longest I’ve ever been away.

With a flight time of under an hour, on a ticket often cheaper than a night out, I normally go home many times a year. It means I never have to miss a big night out; if it’s an emergency, I can be back in a matter of hours. Being home often feels crucial to my sense of self.

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David Attenborough: ‘The Earth and its oceans are finite. We need to show mutual restraint’

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At 94, what has the world’s most-travelled naturalist learned? He talks garden birds in lockdown, the eerie silence of Chernobyl – and tackling the climate crisis

Before the stay-at-home orders of 2020 kept him in one place for months on end, David Attenborough had never sat in his garden and listened to the birds. Not properly, he says, not determinedly “swotting up with a notebook and keeping a bird list”. The foremost figure in natural-world broadcasting (so admired by naturalists around the planet, he has three types of plant as well as a spider, snail, grasshopper, frog, lizard, marsupial lion and shark-like fish named after him) hardly paid attention to the wildlife on his doorstep until lockdown forced his hand. From spring through to autumn, he says, he sat outside with a pencil and made a determined effort to identify every species he could hear. Blackbirds. Thrushes. Jays. Blue tits and great tits. Swifts.

“Actually, I couldn’t really hear the swifts,” the 94-year-old admits. Something to do with their pitch, and his failing ears. “My hearing,” Attenborough growls, using the breathy, mournful voice that often accompanies footage of an ageing alpha getting supplanted by a younger fitter animal, “is not what it was.”

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‘Covid-19 has an odour, and the dogs are detecting it’: meet the canine super-squad sniffing out the virus

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They’re loyal, diligent – and have unbeatable noses. Could dogs play a key part in the fight against the pandemic?

A single-storey building in a lonely rural business park, a few miles from Milton Keynes on a grey autumn day. It looks like a location for a bleak thriller: where a kidnap victim is held, perhaps, or the scene of a final shootout. Inside, though, something kind of cool is happening.

In a brightly lit room, four inverted metal cups have been placed on the red carpet, each containing a small glass jar. One of these contains a smell: a “training odour”. Into the room bursts Billy, followed by Jess. Billy is a labrador, and Jess his human trainer. Billy bounces about the place, clearly super excited. He sniffs at everything – furniture, people, the cups – wagging ferociously. When he sniffs at the cup that contains the smell, another trainer, Jayde, indicates success with a clicking noise. Billy is rewarded with his favourite toy, a well-chewed rubber ball, and a chorus of “good boy”.

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Hangovers, heartaches, horrible meetings: why we all need ‘work wives’

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If you started a new job in 2020, or began working from home, you’re missing out on more than the Christmas party. Here’s why office friendships matter

You never forget your first. I met Abi in early 2009 when we were assistants on a fashion magazine. We sized each other up like a pair of cats on a suburban lawn, then quickly became inseparable. She: Mancunian, funny and forthright. Me: in her words, “Quite posh, aren’t you?”

We were on the bottom rung of a monthly publication that specialised in celebrities and style. It would be fair to say we were not great experts in either field. One aspect of the job involved going to parties to get quotes from famous people. At one, we attempted to interview a pop star, only for our confused interviewee to tell us she was in fact a makeup artist.

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‘It’s not a grave we must fit in’: the Kashmir women fighting for marital rights

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Women are slowly gaining rights and finding the strength to shake off the social taboos around ending a bad relationship

Parveena Jabeen was all set to get married, but in Kashmir weddings are extravagant affairs.

Traditionally, brides in the valley of Kashmir would take a trousseau with them to the groom’s house, including clothes, jewellery, makeup, gifts for the in-laws and even furniture.

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Tina Turner: ‘When I was in the zone, it was like I was flying’

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She was a rock’n’roll powerhouse who electrified audiences worldwide. As Tina Turner releases a guide to happiness, she talks to playwright V (formerly Eve Ensler) about how she found the strength to overcome illness, abuse and tragedy

The first time I experienced Tina Turner in the flesh, I was a 16-year-old hippy chick doused in patchouli oil. I didn’t just see and hear Ms Turner sing Proud Mary at the Fillmore East in New York City – I felt her in every cell of my teenage body. I was transfixed by the ecstasy of her thunderous hips and legs, the vibrating canopy of her shaking fringe, the irrefutable bidding of her sultry, raw voice.

She was female sexuality fully embodied and unleashed. She catalysed the same in me and in multitudes across the planet, selling more than 200m records in her lifetime. The queen of rock’n’roll seemed as much shaman as singer. I knew instinctively that she had suffered abuse and pain. We survivors have a kind of radar.

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Land of shuang bao tai: twins in Yunnan province – a photo essay

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Shuang bao tai 双胞胎 is the Chinese word for twin. Following on from Land of Ibeji, Sanne de Wilde and Bénédicte Kurzen travel to Mojiang in Yunnan for the second chapter of their project about the mythology of twinhood. The area has an exceptionally high percentage of twins, celebrated in its annual tropic of cancer twin festival

The first chapter of this project was called Land Of Ibeji. West Africa, and specifically Yorubaland, has 10 times more twins than any other region in the world. Ibeji, meaning “double birth” and “the inseparable two” in Yoruba stands for the ultimate harmony between two people. “Shuang bao tai”, 双胞胎 is the Chinese word for twin, which translates as: 双 double 胞 womb 胎 embryo.

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Lab-grown chicken tastes like chicken – but the feeling when eating it is more complicated

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Naima Brown’s encounter with a lab-grown chicken nugget reminded her of a Happy Meal – but she’s less certain about what it means for the future of food

“Clean”, “cultured”, “no-kill” – these are just a few of the monikers that have been applied to San Francisco-based food start up Just Inc’s lab-grown chicken nuggets.

The product has just been approved for sale to consumers in Singapore – a world first. But the company’s CEO Josh Tetrick would prefer it if everyone dropped the additional descriptors and just called his company’s product “meat”.

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‘It was a little awkward’ – how Rick Schatzberg shot his old friends topless

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They grew up in a ‘nowhere’ suburb in the 70s, smoking skunk, going for rides and dating girls. The photographer reveals why he decided to capture the ravages of time on his old childhood gang

Rick Schatzberg had a dark epiphany a few years back, when two of his friends died in quick succession, one from a heart attack, the other from an overdose. “When two people you know and love die within six weeks of each other,” says the photographer quietly, “you realise that death is not just something that happens to other people, to the unlucky people. It’s something that is suddenly very present.”

Schatzberg’s response was to undertake a project about encroaching mortality – his friends’ and by extension his own. The result, several years in the making, is The Boys, a photobook that is both nostalgic and brutally realistic: a visual evocation of youth in all its instinctive carefreeness; and old age in all its debilitating inevitability. Composed of casual colour snapshots of his male friends in the 1970s, and large-format contemporary portraits of their ageing bodies, it lays bare what the novelist Rick Moody, in his accompanying essay, calls “the sobering action of time”.

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I run to keep fit, but I hate it

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No one would argue that running isn’t good for you, but do we really have to pretend to like it, too?

For the 126th time this year, I turn the corner by the rowing club and begin the climb towards Stamford Hill. I have half a kilometre to go. Mist has settled on the river to my left, where waterfowls, Egyptian geese and a single, stately heron have gathered by some rushes in a dazzlingly pretty scene for Haringey in late November. They likely make some pleasant noises, but only the fortunes of HMS Royal Oak reach my ears, as my earphones sizzle with its battle against four French frigates near the Bight of Benin in the War of 1812. I am trying to enjoy myself.

Last November, with the cooperation of this magazine (ie they paid me), I defied my natural inclinations and did a radical diet and exercise overhaul. The experience produced not just an eminently readable lifestyle piece, but a substantial improvement in my general fitness. And then, shortly before Christmas, it ended, as did my adherence to its stipulations. I jettisoned the protein shakes and the thrice-weekly workouts, and gamely resumed my close personal relationship with butter, sugar, alcohol and grease. I discarded all the measures that had given me these results bar one – running.

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The girl with her own tattoos: the joy of homemade ink

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What did you do in lockdown? Make banana bread? Do yoga? What if you decided to try your hand at homemade tattoos?

I have a little tattoo of a cross on my right hip. It is horrible. It is small and fat, like someone made a cross out of clay then squashed it. It leans to the right for no particular reason, like a terrible tribute to the tower of Pisa. I am very fond of it, because the story behind it is incredibly stupid.

I was 18 and cool-adjacent – just about enough of my acquaintances were cool that I could hang out in “cool” social circles, but deep down I knew I was only cool by association, which pained me greatly. My housemate and I had been invited to a squat party in south London by this woman, Cat, who was definitely cool.

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Francis Ford Coppola: ‘Life is a great screenwriter’

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The film director, 81, on beauty in the eye of the audience, finishing with The Godfather and the family of humanity

Being able to critique yourself is a good skill. Often when a film has been released I’ll ask: “Did I make mistakes?” When I made The Cotton Club in 1984, people were telling me there were too many black people in it and too much tap dancing. I would say: “But it’s a movie about black people tap dancing.” Years later, I realised I had taken out half of the backstory. It was good to go back and fix that.

Life is a great screenwriter. My daughter, Sofia, got such awful, unjust criticism for her performance in The Godfather Part III. She was 18 and was being told she’d ruined her father’s film. It was a deep wound for the poor kid. They were gunning for me, but she took the bullets. Now she is a more famous movie director than me. She got the last laugh!

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10 brilliant homemade Christmas gift ideas

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Want to give a little love with a handmade present, but don’t know where to start? Try these ideas from artists and designers

A friend once gave me a copy of The Lonely Doll by Dare Wright, a cult picture book about a doll who knits a scarf as a Christmas gift for Mr Bear because, she says, a present you make is so much better than one you buy. The sentiment is more relevant this year than ever – the thought is what counts, and 2020 will be the year of the homemade Christmas present.

When kept apart from family and loved ones, the surest way to show how much you care is to make a gift, however small. And it’s the perfect way to while away long winter evenings at home.

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