What are the risks associated with intimacy in the time of coronavirus? Three experts weigh in
With countries on lockdown and millions being made to stay at home, it’s unsurprising many couples and single people are wondering what coronavirus means for their sex lives. With this in mind, we asked three experts five of the most pressing questions about intimacy during the pandemic.
Continue reading...As coronavirus keeps us apart, I have developed a very wholesome thirst for the physical intimacy we used to have with friends and family
Lately, when I find myself reaching for my phone for a distraction, it’s no longer just to mindlessly swipe through Instagram stories and semi-ironically decipher my horoscope. Instead, I catch myself constantly returning to my camera roll. In particular, the photos where I’m touching my family and friends.
There’s the fuzzy Christmas party set of my colleagues and I, all cheek to cheek, craning our heads to get in a series of group selfies. There’s a backyard family lunch, me with my arm slung over my mum’s shoulder. There’s a day at the beach with my sister and her kid, us each holding a hand as we drag her back to the car. And there’s Mardis Gras night. It was just a few weeks ago but today the photos feel as though they belong in a history book. Friends and strangers covered in glitter and sweat, dancing close at a street party, arms wrapped around waists, exuberant kisses being planted on faces, all of us joyfully, drunkenly close to each other and vigorously engaged in whatever the opposite of social distancing is.
Continue reading...The humble eight-holed work boot has won over everyone from postal workers to punks, teens to today’s celebrities and influencers. How did it stride to world dominance?
Tony Benn wore them. So did Agyness Deyn. Suggs loved them, also Kathleen Hanna and Joe Strummer. And Jordan Catalano. Hailey Baldwin, Rihanna and Bella Hadid still do. Once you start looking, Dr Martens are everywhere. Sixty years after launching the eight-hole 1460 boot – on, as the name suggests, the 1 April 1960 – it is an undisputed classic, one of those rare-as-hen’s-teeth designs that is as likely to be spotted in a museum as it is (until recently, of course) on the streets outside. It is up there with Levi’s 501s, the Fred Perry polo shirt, the Converse All Star and the Harrington jacket.
And, like these other items, the 1460 is enjoying a fashion moment beyond its classic status. Perhaps because the past decade has been so turbulent – even before we had a global pandemic to contend with – fashion has returned to the dependable. The Hadids, Baldwin and Kaia Gerber are all endorsing Dr Martens. In other words, as Vogue declared in October, they have become “model off-duty staple”. While the vegan range and patterned designs have been credited with a 70% rise in profit for the brand in 2019, the 1460 remains the bestseller and it is this history that is likely to have attracted rumours in March of a potential £300m sale to a US private equity firm.
Continue reading...A ban on weddings, and other public events did not deter one couple from 'tying the knot' in Slough over the weekend. While it wasn't a legally recognised ceremony, David Howell and Brenda Rolfe made vows to each other in front of their pastor who appeared on a YouTube live stream. After the ceremony guests were invited to the wedding reception on the Zoom app, and asked to wear wedding attire (from the waist up at least) and bring cake to eat
Continue reading...The sons and daughters of John Wayne, John Lennon, Caitlyn Jenner and others tell us what it was like to grow up with a world-famous dad
A lot of the happy memories of my father are from the late 1960s at Kenwood, the old Tudor house we had in Surrey, when I was a little boy. Without knowing it, I probably saw some of the greatest musicians in the world come and go through that house.
Continue reading...A full-scale disaster unfolded as we switched our phones back on after nine days of Colombian beaches and jungles
You can learn a lot about yourself in times of crisis, but you learn a hell of a lot more about the person you weather said crisis with. Best to strap in and bite your tongue. A lifetime of three weeks ago, my clever, rational other half and I went on a holiday to Colombia. He’s a man who rarely travels without a first aid kit, gaffer tape and a multi-tool thing allegedly essential for “survival”. I rarely travel without what he assumes are decadent luxuries – basic toiletries, to the rest of us – and three more books than I could possibly read. It’s a delightful match.
For eight or so days, we adventured on the country’s Caribbean coastline, trekked the jungle and landed on remote beaches far away from phone signal. It’s fair to say we were late to the memo. Turning our phones on after a self-imposed period of isolation was like watching a disaster film unfold. First, on a six-inch screen squinting at ticker tapes of rolling news. Then in full-blown Technicolor as Cartagena went into lockdown, with face masks being dealt out on street corners and a strict curfew enforced by police.
Continue reading...A new campaign hopes to revive ‘critically endangered’ ancient techniques
Clay pipe making, wainwrighting, tanning and making spinning wheels – all are skills of the past that can offer us a sustainable future. This is the message behind a drive, launched this spring, to preserve endangered traditional crafts in Britain.
With a new award of £3,000 available, together with fresh support from outdoor pursuits company Farlows, the Heritage Crafts Association is calling for a renewed effort to save old skills and pass them down to the next generation.
Continue reading...It’s true the singer isn’t everyone’s favourite, but the online pasting she’s been subjected to leaves a very nasty taste in the mouth
In a way I’m glad that Kim Kardashian has reignited a four-year-old feud with Taylor Swift based on an 11-year-old feud with Taylor Swift that was all started by Kanye West, a man who has hardly been involved in it since about 2017. In a way, that’s good.
It’s hard not to [gestures at current reality] be constantly thinking about, you know, rather more pressing matters. The cleanliness of door handles, for example. The intensity of other people’s coughs, or how far to veer away from each other on the pavements while out on your government-mandated walk. Whether you have enough food in the cupboards to last two weeks. Whether daytime TV will ever go back to normal. How deeply we can possibly scrape the bottom of the Netflix barrel. How desperate for entertainment we will have to be to plunge ourselves into going on YouTube and watching a vlog. Right now, these are my worries. It’s nice of Kim Kardashian to try to distract me with something totally and utterly facile and pointless at a time of global crisis.
Continue reading...Over four decades the late German fashion photographer collaborated with many of the biggest names in the industry, from Kate Moss to Naomi Campbell
Continue reading...The Saudi Arabian director directed her first film, Wadjda, hiding in the back of a van on the streets of Riyadh. Now her latest, The Perfect Candidate, is opening doors in Hollywood
Haifaa Al-Mansour’s latest film, The Perfect Candidate, opens with a doctor in her 20s driving to work. In any other film you wouldn’t register the fact that she’s behind the wheel. But this woman, dressed in a black abaya and niqab, is in Saudi Arabia, which until 2018 banned women from driving. Al-Mansour added the scene as a punch-the-air moment for female audiences in Saudi Arabia, an invite to a collective whoop of victory. “I know that in the west this seems like common-sense stuff,” she says. “But I think they’ve really helped women to see themselves as an independent people.” She fixes me with an earnest look, to see if I get it. “For younger professional women, it’s huge, because it gives them control over their destiny.”
Al-Mansour is Saudi Arabia’s first female director. In 2011, she shot her debut, Wadjda, hiding in the back of a van. It would have been impossible for a woman to be seen openly on the street giving orders to men. So, she kept out of sight and used a walkie-talkie (“But I’m sure you could hear my voice all over Riyadh. ‘Do that!’ ‘Pull the camera back!’”) The film was gorgeous, a funny, big-hearted story about a gobby 10-year-old girl who would stop at nothing to get her hands on a bike. Al-Mansour shrugged off the death threats (“One of them told me they had a coffin ready for me”). Spend five minutes in her company and you are struck by her optimistic energy.
Continue reading...Prototype of revolutionary running device being worked on by scientists at US university
A wearable spring-based contraption that attaches to the legs has the potential to boost human running speeds by 50%, according to researchers who hope to build the first prototype over the next year.
Scientists came up with the concept after computer models showed that it was possible to dramatically increase the amount of energy people put into each running step by enabling them to do work when their feet are in the air.
Continue reading...Rapper says anger over his views reminds him of racial assumptions he once faced: ‘You’re black, so you’re a Democrat’
Kanye West has reaffirmed his support for Donald Trump, whom he has previously called “his brother”, in a new interview with the Wall Street Journal.
West says people make assumptions about his political views because of his race, automatically assuming he would disagree with Trump’s views.
Continue reading...My favourite video right now shows a variety of Italian mayors telling off their citizens in no uncertain terms – and it is exactly the approach we need here
Is it acceptable to shout at people – not just friends and family, but also strangers – for not practising social distancing?
Martin, London
Status update on me: I am spending every day, all day, inside my home with three children under five and a deranged, underwalked terrier who barks incessantly at his own reflection in the window. Am I lucky? You bet: I have a home and, so far, everyone has their health. But does my life also resemble a Channel 5 reality TV show? Maybe just a touch.
Continue reading...The shoot, featuring musician Dani Miller in mascara, has reignited debate about realistic standards of beauty
One is famed for warts-and-all realism, the other for high-end gloss, so there was always going to be something spectacular in the offing when British photographer Martin Parr was asked to shoot a make-up advertising campaign for the Italian fashion house Gucci.
The imagery – for the brand’s new L’Obscur mascara – features New York punk musician Dani Miller and her now-famous gap-toothed smile. With lashings of heavy black mascara, natural eyebrows (complete with, shock horror, regrowth), and minimal foundation, it has divided customers and started yet another debate about diversity, even in these times of increased body positivity.
Continue reading...For one moment 100 years ago a war widow and a plague orphan had fun courtesy of Charlie Chaplin
Gather round my skirts, children, while I tell you about the great plague of 1919. It killed my Aunt Lucy, who was not, as her name suggests, an elderly spinster.
She was young and pregnant and wore a yard of red gold curls piled on her head. To have hair long enough to sit on was considered a mark of beauty. My grandmother always blamed her husband, believing the pregnancy had killed her. He may well have brought the virus back from the front. Either way, she never forgave him. Good at incubating a grudge, my Grandma Nancy.
Continue reading...As trainer consumption booms, so does the number of unwanted shoes. Can anything be done with them?
Sneaker Con is an aircraft-hangar-sized convention that smells worse and worse as the day goes on. I am at the London edition of the event, but it’s just been in Las Vegas, and is soon due to be in Berlin, then New York. Thousands of sneakerheads have paid the £25 entry fee and are browsing merchandise stalls piled high with sneakers. The price tags on these shoes are not for the faint-hearted: £550, £600, £700.
The attendees are approximately 95% male. Of the women here, many are the mothers of young boys. One of the few women not chaperoning a child is Helen. She lives in a rented three-bedroom house on the outskirts of London with her husband, Luke, and his collection of trainers. The shoes have filled up the loft and the spare room. When they began to invade her bedroom, Helen told Luke she needed some space. The couple booked a table at Sneaker Con, where their stall is piled with trainers which cumulatively cost tens of thousands of pounds. This expense has become a source of tension. “That’s why he had to stop,” Helen tells me. “Some are quick-strike releases: we’d be on a night out and have to pull over on the motorway to follow a Twitter link to get a pair of trainers.”
Continue reading...Mariam and Edna were just two of millions of children trapped in domestic slavery. Their tragic stories inspired me to write a novel targeting a practice that is rife in the country
One day, when my daughter was eight, I asked her to help me unload the dishwasher. She moaned, dragged her feet and pleaded for Haribo in exchange for this simple task. I asked her if she knew how lucky she was and told her that, in many homes in Nigeria, girls as young as her were forced to do chores all day, every day. They were not allowed to go to school, or eat at the table, or watch TV. She was amazed. Looking into her face, the horror of what was considered so normal during my childhood really hit me. It was child slavery – and it continues today. It was for these forgotten girls, trapped in domestic slavery, that I wrote my debut novel, The Girl With the Louding Voice.
According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), the number of working children under the age of 14 in Nigeria is estimated to be as high as 15 million, but due to the nature of the problem it is almost impossible to land on an accurate number. A large proportion of these children are young girls, who work as “house girls”: domestic servants who are often underage and forced against their will into this kind of work. Many of them never see their “wages”, as they are paid directly to agents or family members.
Continue reading...Of course I want him to choose a woman as his running mate. But his grand gesture feels more like pandering than policy
Stacey Abrams? Kamala Harris? Elizabeth Warren? Nobody knows for sure whom Joe Biden will choose as a running mate if – as is almost certain – he wins the Democratic nomination, but we do know it will be a woman.
“I’ll pick a woman to be vice-president,” Biden promised during Sunday’s presidential debate with Bernie Sanders. “There are a number of women qualified to be president tomorrow.” While none of those eminently qualified women will be president any time soon, one lucky lady may have the privilege of playing second fiddle to a gaffe-prone white guy. To cement his position as intersectional male feminist of the year, Biden also promised to appoint an African American woman to the supreme court.
Continue reading...Scheme will enhance city’s reputation as a bicycling capital of Europe
The “cyclist-first” city of Utrecht is constructing the Netherlands’ first high-density, car-free residential district for more than 12,000 people, making it one of the largest of its type in the world.
The 24-hectare site, located between two canals in the middle of the city, is a business park but by 2024 it is hoped the area will enhance Utrecht’s reputation as a bicycling capital of Europe.
Continue reading...We might assume better treatment from maturing adults but at least she was decisive, says Mariella Frostrup
The dilemma In the summer I met a wonderful woman online. She is kind, clever, good looking and many other positive things. We clicked from the outset and became lovers after a couple of months. We have a combined age of 127, but we both said the sex was the best we’ve ever enjoyed. She told me she loved me – and it was reciprocated. We live 100 miles apart, but that suited our busy lifestyles.
Everything was wonderful and we seemed to be very much on the same wavelength until November, when I was diagnosed with bladder cancer. The treatment is extensive, but hasn’t yet started. She broke up with me over Christmas. She still professes love for me (though we haven’t been in contact for a few weeks), but says she is too busy with work, family and friends to commit to me, and that I would become too needy of her and her time. I don’t agree that I would, but I can see why she might say that. I have recently retired. I miss her terribly and don’t know how to deal with it.
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