Guardian writers share what they learned last time, such as you’ll never finish that Dostoevsky book
This lockdown I will remember:
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My father-in-law criticises my parenting. How do I deal with that?
I wonder if, far from disliking you, he actually quite likes and admires you, says Annalisa Barbieri. He clearly wants your attention
My husband’s parents live nearby and have been a great support since my son was born last year (my family live abroad). They regularly help out with childcare and, despite a few minor differences of opinion, we trust them and are grateful we can rely on them when we need a helping hand.
But my father-in-law has become very critical of me. He regularly makes hurtful comments, always aimed at me, even when it’s something involving my husband. Often the comments get laughed off by other people or just ignored. I tend not to respond to them – I clam up when I’m hurt or embarrassed.
Continue reading...Fur is out of favour but stays in fashion through stealth and wealth
As mink comes under the spotlight, many stars wouldn’t be seen dead in fur – but it remains a feature of certain luxury brands
Fur has never been less fashionable. In recent years a raft of designer labels – Gucci, Chanel, Versace, Armani, Coach and Prada, to name a few – have gone fur-free. In 2018, London fashion week banned fur from its catwalks.
Celebrities have given up fur too, from the queen of social media, Kim Kardashian West, who announced that she had “remade” all of her fur coats in fake fur in 2019, to the Queen of the UK, Elizabeth II, who renounced fur in “any new outfits” the same year.
Continue reading...Sit! Stay! Get off my Zoom call! How to work from home – when your pet won’t let you
What do you do if your dog is chewing your computer lead or your moggy keeps deleting your emails? Animal behavioural experts give their advice for harmonious homeworking
I am sitting at my computer, in my office at the end of the garden, typing. On the other side of the door, the cat is staring at me through the glass. It is a hard stare. I know the cat wants to come in so that he can climb on to my desk and walk back and forth across my keyboard, deleting files and pressing Send prematurely. He knows that, if he does this with sufficient persistence, I will eventually feed him, even though I have already fed him. Anything, just to get a little work done. So the door remains shut, and I’m getting a stiff neck from trying not to make eye contact.
Pets were meant to be the great beneficiaries of the pandemic: with so many people furloughed or working from home, the dogs and cats of Britain would finally receive the attention they craved. And the food. Soon, however, people discovered that home-working and pet-owning were not entirely compatible. Cats don’t care if you are in the middle of a Zoom meeting. Dogs don’t understand deadlines. Some parrots make so much noise during the day that one charity recently reported a 70% annual increase in those needing rehoming. In the spring, the whole awkward arrangement seemed charmingly temporary but, as England locks down for a second time, many pet owners still have not found the right balance between work and the animals they care for – between cat and keyboard.
Continue reading...I put my own makeup on for the first time – and saw my face in a whole new light
I had the tubes of moisturiser and foundation, the mirror with lights around it and, most importantly, a professional to guide me
I’ve always taken the view with makeup that it’s a bit like football refereeing: if you notice it, that’s a sure sign a bad job’s being made of it. By that measure, the many television makeup artists who have worked their magic on me over the years have done a fine job, because I’ve never really seen any difference. Sometimes they ask me what I “normally have” – a question for which I never have an answer. My only advice to them is to not bother doing anything with my hair, all attempts to adjust it being in vain.
This week, in the interests of Covid-compliant TV production, I lost my makeup-applying virginity. I had all the gear – the brushes, the tubes, the mirror with the lights around it – and I even had a nice masked and visored makeup artist. But she was only allowed to supervise; no touching permitted.
Continue reading...‘During my husband’s illness, everything has fallen to me. How can I stop feeling trapped?’
Care-taking is difficult, consuming labour, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith, and you deserve help in caring for yourself as well as him
I love my husband dearly. I took care of my parents for 15 years. I was their caregiver until they died. Afterwards my husband fell ill and for a year doctors have been trying to find out what is wrong. He is very depressed, sits in his chair all day and gets no exercise. I’ve tried to be patient to let him heal while the doctors continue to run tests. I am almost 70 years old. He is 59. Recently I find myself resentful of anything I have to do for him, because he doesn’t want to do anything to get better. Everything in our lives is left up to me, whether it’s paying the bills or physically taking care of the inside and outside our home. He won’t even take out the trash.
He is very, very depressed and now I am getting depressed and resentful that for the past year everything has fallen on my shoulders. I try so hard to be kind and not push him, because I know how tired he feels all the time. Please tell me what I can do to keep from feeling resentful and trapped.
Continue reading...Fashion embraces disco as kitchen becomes dancefloor
Brands are getting in the groove for stay-at-home parties amid a 70s musical revival
With stay-at-home restrictions on the rise and England heading into its second lockdown, there is a surprising renaissance taking place in fashion and culture: disco.
Days before Kylie Minogue releases her new album, Disco, on Friday, John Lewis has unveiled its Christmas collection featuring a “kitchen disco two-piece” (a sparkly sweatshirt and joggers). The legendary Terry de Havilland label has announced its Disco collection featuring platform-heeled shoes in bold Studio 54 referencing colours.
Continue reading...Heard lost public sympathy for standing up against Depp assaults, says QC
Abused women expected to be ‘meek and subservient’ to receive public sympathy, says QC
Amber Heard’s stand against Johnny Depp’s assaults should not have deprived her of public sympathy for suffering the ordeal of domestic violence, a leading human rights lawyer has said.
Heard was subjected to death threats and misogynistic attacks on social media during the libel trial that left her feeling “down and beleaguered”, according to Helena Kennedy QC, who met Heard while the case was before the high court.
Continue reading...The fall of Johnny Depp: how the world’s most beautiful movie star turned very ugly
In the 1990s, he was a different kind of film star – eloquent, artistic and cool. But this week, with the loss of his court case against the Sun, the dream has decisively soured
Johnny Depp is “a wife-beater”. This is the verdict of the UK courts. Just writing that sentence feels genuinely shocking, and yet, by now perhaps, it should not. For a start, the allegation that he was physically abusive to his ex-wife Amber Heard emerged more than four years ago, after she applied for a temporary restraining order against him following their divorce, citing domestic abuse. It should also not be a shock, given how many other hugely famous men have been accused of abusing women. Sean Connery was alleged to have beaten his first wife and frequently defended hitting women. His death this weekend sparked online arguments about how much the coverage should focus on the professional achievements of a man who repeatedly insisted it was fine to hit women, “if the woman is a bitch, or hysterical, or bloody-minded continually”, as he said in 1965.
But Depp is a very different figure from Connery. The latter represented alpha masculinity and aggressive sexuality. No one ever said it explicitly, but Connery’s defences for beating women fit in, on some level, with his image, and so that side of him was never going to be a problem with his audience. Depp, however, represented something else. He sued the Sun for defamation when it described him as “a wife-beater”, something Connery would never have done, and it’s also why for a certain kind of fan (me), this feels like the death of yet another childhood hero.
Continue reading...Japan’s ‘love hotels’ accused of anti-gay discrimination
Same-sex couples say hotels make excuses to turn them away despite 2018 law change
In May this year, at the height of the coronavirus’s first wave, two gay men living together in Amagasaki, western Japan, thought they would ease the boredom of the country’s soft lockdown with a visit to a love hotel, where couples pay for short stays to have sex.
But rather than the carefree time they had anticipated, the couple, in their mid-30s, did not even get as far as the door to their room.
Continue reading...Women Deliver racism investigation verdict described as a ‘slap in the face’
Complaints of ‘white saviourism’ and harassment at the group led to the review, which found no individual responsible
The results of an investigation into allegations of racism and harassment at one of the world’s most high profile women’s rights organisations has been described as a “slap in the face” to those who complained.
Investigators concluded this week that no single person was responsible for the “challenges” at the group, Women Deliver, which had undergone a period of rapid growth “during which its policies and practices lagged behind”. The report added the workplace culture had been “too demanding, urgent, and high-pressure”.
Continue reading...Covid crisis fashion report: ‘workers’ rights, wellbeing and dignity should not be put on hold’
An assessment of 428 Australian and international fashion brands has found that while most took some positive actions to protect workers, none could ensure all workers were covered
A special report by Baptist World Aid Australia has found that, throughout the Covid pandemic, 35% of fashion companies assessed did not show evidence that they had made regular payments to their suppliers.
The Covid Fashion Report – which this year takes the place of Baptist World Aid Australia’s annual Ethical Fashion Report – assessed 96 Australian, New Zealand and international companies, representing 428 brands, on specific positive actions taken amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Continue reading...‘I got a whole new mindset’: the health secrets of people who got much fitter in lockdown
Many of us have struggled to maintain our fitness in 2020 – but not everyone. Here, four people explain how they improved their sleep patterns, diet and exercise regimes
Before Covid-19, an ordinary evening for Tim Ludford, a charity worker, looked something like this: after-work drinks with colleagues; an Uber home; a takeaway. “Not healthy takeaways, either,” says Ludford, 37, from London. He would polish off a curry for two people before nailing a bag of Maltesers or a packet of biscuits.
Ludford’s relationship with food began to deteriorate after the death from cancer of his father in 2013. “I was unhappy, first of all, and I was bingeing on food and alcohol as a coping mechanism,” he says. “A lot of it was related to my dad, but I was also stuck in a rut and food was an easy way to make myself feel good.” By the time lockdown was introduced, he was severely obese, with a BMI of 40. (A healthy BMI is between 18.5 and 24.9, according to the NHS.) “Sometimes I’d do crazy things,” he says. “If I was on the way to meet someone for dinner, I’d go to KFC on the way. And then I’d eat dinner as well.”
Continue reading...Joni Mitchell: ‘I’m a fool for love. I make the same mistake over and over’
As she releases a box set of her earliest recordings, in a rare interview Mitchell talks about life before fame, the correct way to sing her songs – and her long struggle to walk and talk again after an aneurysm
“I was lying in bed last night thinking about getting a cat,” says Joni Mitchell. It’s an early summer Sunday, and she’s sitting in her backyard patio, nicknamed Tuscany. Behind her a bird feeder is busy with hungry visitors. “And this guy shows up at the gate around midnight, meowing.”
A light-brown kitten with long white paws, only a few months old, leans contentedly against her shoulder. “I hope nobody comes to claim him,” she confides softly. They’re fast friends. Nearby Marcy Gensic, Mitchell’s longtime friend and associate, mentions they’ve papered the neighbourhood with lost notices. No calls yet. So with our midnight visitor, tentatively named Puss ’n Boots, tucked in the lap of this treasured artist, Mitchell is here to discuss the new set of early recordings she never intended to release: Joni Mitchell Archives Vol 1: The Early Years (1963-1967). For years she doubted their place in the revered canon of her carefully curated albums. “Some of the melodies are beautiful,” she told me in an interview in 2004, “but they’re very ingenue-y.” She seemed almost wistful. “God, they’re so vulnerable in these tough times. They’re like some ancient world.”
Continue reading...Wash your mask daily: the ultimate guide to face coverings
Experts explain the best way to wash masks, how to handle them – and how to prevent ‘maskne’
We hook them on to our faces, laugh, sneeze and sputter into them, then crumple them into our bags or pockets only to retrieve them and do it all again. Yet despite official advice that we should be wearing a fresh face covering each time we enter an enclosed public space, a YouGov poll revealed many people are going several wears between washes – and 15% of Brits don’t wash their reusable masks at all. Similarly, more than half of those opting for disposable masks are rewearing them – 7% of them indefinitely so.
Face coverings are designed to catch the respiratory droplets we emit from our mouths and noses, but given that they’re our own respiratory droplets, is this really so bad? We examine the evidence.
Continue reading...What I learned at man camp, where men get in touch with their emotions
In early March, I headed to the California desert to explore my emotions and learn ‘healthy masculinity’ with a group of men
On a Friday evening in early March, two weeks before much of the US went into a coronavirus lockdown, I found myself standing in the California desert, screaming into another man’s face.
The next day, the smell of burning sage wafted through the air as I took my shirt off and wrestled a guy inside a metal dome.
Continue reading...Man camp: in the California desert, I tried to become a better man – video
Earlier this year, pre-pandemic, Adam Gabbatt spent a weekend with Sacred Sons, a male-only community that aims to help men explore their vulnerable side and listen to their emotions. In an era when masculinity is under scrutiny, could Adam open up too?
Continue reading...‘At 47, I discovered I am autistic – suddenly so many things made sense’
Other people’s lives always seemed more effortless, but it took my daughter’s autism diagnosis to realise why
Until last year I had no idea I was autistic. I knew I was different and I had always been told I was “too sensitive”. But I don’t fit the dated Rain Man stereotype. I’m a CEO, I’m married, I have two children. Autism is often a hidden disability.
Other people made life seem easy and effortless while, before my diagnosis, I always operated with some level of confusion. I was able to achieve a lot and I used to attribute this to the strong work ethic I inherited from my dad but now I have no doubt that he was autistic, too.
Continue reading...Linda Evangelista praises women accusing her ex-husband of rape
Exclusive: supermodel speaks out after four more women accuse Gérald Marie of sexual misconduct
The supermodel Linda Evangelista has praised the “courage and strength” shown by a growing number of women accusing her ex-husband, the model agency boss Gérald Marie, of sexual misconduct and rape.
Speaking exclusively to the Guardian’s Weekend magazine, Evangelista said she believed the women’s accounts of their experiences with Marie, who for over three decades was among the most powerful figures in the fashion industry.
Continue reading...Cleaning up: the social media stars making housework cool
Donning the Marigolds need not be a chore, according to a new breed of influencers who say cleaning is fun and aspirational
There were fears that this autumn’s bumper crop of books would see some titles overlooked – but one volume definitely didn’t get brushed under the carpet. This Is Me by Sophie Hinchliffe, better known as the Instagram cleaning sensation Mrs Hinch, was the runaway hit of Super Thursday on 1 October, fighting stiff competition from almost 800 other hardbacks published that day to top the UK charts and shift more than 90,000 copies in its first week.
It’s no surprise: Mrs Hinch’s three previous books have been bestsellers, and the 30-year-old comes with a readymade audience thanks to her “Hinch Army” of 3.8 million Instagram followers.
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