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Wednesday
Why can’t I simply book a swim?
It shames me to admit this, but I haven’t been near a public swimming pool for many a year. Hotel pools, yes; the sea – occasionally, in parts of the world with predictable warmth. But I have resisted the new wave of ‘wild’ swimming and was never a regular – to be honest even an irregular – at the Hampstead Ladies’ Pond. Nor have I frequented health clubs or spas, though I did go to enquire about one that had opened nearby; then came the pandemic. As a one-time regular pool user, I am taking another look. This is because I have just completed my four-session NHS allocation of
Social media is worse than smoking for teenagers
Would you knowingly give your daughter a birthday present that was going to increase her chances of self-harming, developing anxiety and even depression? I assume the answer would be no, yet this is what so many parents do to their children when they give them a smartphone with access to social media. You could not design anything more pernicious for socially insecure teenagers As a mother of two daughters who are now teenagers, I know the pressure to do so feels enormous. Children see us adults glued to our phones, their peers have them, and their friends socialise on them. The temptation to give in can be, like the temptation
Crocs vs Birkenstocks: the great clog divide
What we put on our feet says a lot about a person. Shoes define our character. There are shoes that breathe, shoes for diving, shoes for driving, shoes that light up, shoes with wheels in them, shoes that look more like gloves than shoes, shoes by Kanye West, shoes for old people, shoes for the indoors, shoes for hunting, shoes for dancing. You get the point. Neither of them is aesthetically pleasing – at least not for the sane amongst us Then there are Birkenstocks and Crocs: two heinous additions to fashion and yet two very successful brands, albeit for different markets. They are at war. Battling it out for
Tuesday
The joy of shaving brushes
Have you ever considered the harm that men’s daily shaving regime does to the world? I know, if you considered the harm of everything you do on a daily basis then none of us would get up in the morning, but… Think of it: assuming there are three billion men in the world who each day squirt a dollop shaving foam onto their faces and each, therefore, working their way through something like four or five aerosols of shaving foam a year. All told, that means that in the region of 15 billion cans of foam are used (just for men, as the commercials, say), a proportion of which may
The sweet temptation of scrumping
In autumn when apples cascade off the trees and bedeck the orchard’s floor with fields of red and gold, thoughts naturally turn to an ancient survival instinct: foraging – or, as we tend to call it in my part of the world, scrumping. Yet although scrumping seems as English as Shakespeare, conker fights and Bonfire nights, it is quite a recent word borrowed from the Middle Dutch schrimpen, meaning shrivelled (or perhaps a derivation of the verb ‘to scrimp’). Crab apples are a bit small and dry, high in tannins but very good sliced and fried up with smoked bacon When sugar was scarce in medieval times, fruit was an
Can the England cricket team regain their composure?
Last Thursday’s opening game of the Cricket World Cup saw England roundly thrashed in Ahmedabad, by what looked on paper to be a fairly average New Zealand. Posting a stuttering 282 for nine off 50 overs, England threatened to dominate but too often threw wickets away. Jonny Bairstow clipped the second ball of the innings off his legs for six, Root hit a typically fluent and mostly composed 77, and Jos Buttler showed glimpses of the form that made him one of the IPL stars of his generation. The Barmy Army is still gamely selling pricey tour packages for the semi-finals in Mumbai and even the final This apparent batting ease, however
Monday
There’s nothing as sad as a bad pub revamp
The Flower Pot in Aston, near Henley, was one of my favourite pubs in the country, a charming, eccentric time capsule cluttered with esoteric decoration: dozens of cases of stuffed fish and animals, angling paraphernalia and Edwardian art; there was even a resident parrot. It was always rammed, with everyone from vicars to Hell’s Angels The pub opened in 1890, at almost exactly the same time as the publication of Three Men in a Boat, and in a certain light, after a few drinks, it could feel as though one was actually inhabiting the quirky, late-Victorian England described by Jerome K. Jerome. So when I found myself in the vicinity at
Is your car snooping on your sex life?
Most drivers have no idea just how much data their vehicles are collecting. The cars of today are less computers on wheels than they are monitoring monstrosities – and some of the spying is truly shocking. Cars can tap into your search history, and many people’s search histories are, for lack of a better word, filthy Tech experts at the Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit that promotes internet privacy, recently turned their attention to 25 leading car brands, including the likes of Tesla and Nissan. Every single manufacturer they looked at was found to collect far more personal data than is necessary, often about things that have absolutely nothing to do
Japan’s peculiar pizzas
Japan is known for its food. People from across the world visit the Land of the Rising Sun to eat everything from the delectable seafood of Tsukiji Market in Tokyo to the local varieties of ramen that can be found across the nation’s 47 prefectures. And yet you would be mistaken if you believed that Japan was only capable of producing high-quality local fare, as there is a long tradition of western food in this country. Particularly, and perhaps surprisingly, it’s pizza. While toppings like pepperoni and mushrooms may be normal in the US or UK, the Japanese like plenty of seafood on their slice The concept of yoshoku dates back to
Friday
Two tips for Ascot tomorrow
Research tells us that a horse typically peaks in terms of speed and performance at the aged of four or five and deteriorates after that. But there are plenty of exceptions to the rule. Indeed, for some thoroughbreds, age really is just a number. Personally, because the horse spent time stabled near me when I was a youngster, I will never forget the achievements of a loveable old chaser called Mac Vidi. Incredibly, Mac Vidi – trained by his owner-breeder Pam Neal – was placed in the 1980 Cheltenham Gold Cup at the age of 15, doing something no horse aged older than 13 has done before or since. For some
Bed bugs invaded my mind!
It isn’t just the Paris Metro. Even the very best hotels are not immune from bed bugs. I was blissfully unaware of this fact until a trip to New York a few years ago when a nightmare struck. We had booked a really top place, but within days of getting home, we discovered little red bites on our legs. Little did I know that this was just the beginning. There are perfectly rational people who have been reduced to smothering their bodies in Vaseline at night to stop the bites Bed bugs are little blighters. They can lay dormant and spring to life months after arriving. They lay their eggs
The Beckham documentary is little more than PR
Let me start by saying I didn’t watch Beckham because I am a football fan. What I’m really interested in is the art of spinning gold from thin air, something David Beckham and his family have excelled at. So I zoned out when it came to discussing the intricacies of Beckham and Sir Alex Ferguson’s relationship in the 1990s, or the pain he felt when leaving Manchester United, the only club he ever wanted to play for. The Beckhams have carefully curated what they were willing to share, all under the guise of being candid No, I was after the behind-the-scenes access to all things Brand Beckham. What does he really
The worst open mic night of my life
A lonely microphone. A sound system that would have been impressive in the late 1990s. The smell of athlete’s foot and the contents of a Nobby’s Nuts packet. A deranged dog. Three privately educated members of a punk band call ‘SKiN FuK!’ arguing with the bartender. The stale atmosphere of regret and faded dreams mixed in with hope for a brighter tomorrow. It can only be one thing: Tuesday open mic night. ‘This is a scene I wrote a few weeks ago. It’s from the perspective of a baby being born I’ve been to more open mic nights than I’ve had pleasant dreams. They just seem to happen to me.
Thursday
Women are obsessed with the Romans, too
Infamy! Infamy! That was my response to the TikTok trend about ancient Rome. Women asked their partners how often they thought about the Roman Empire. Many men admitted they thought about it every day; three times a day, said one. One confessed he was obsessed with ‘aqueducts and the fact that they had concrete that could harden’. The scoundrels who came up with the idea should have asked women. Because they, too, are obsessed with ancient Rome. ‘I’ll be at a picnic when I look at my sandwich and suddenly ask: “Did you know the Romans had sandwiches?”’ Professor Mary Beard told me: ‘I must confess that I probably think
An ode to the BlackBerry
The demise of tech plays out first as disorientation, then entertainment. We’ve reached the latter stage with the BlackBerry, the now-defunct Canadian harbinger of global smartphone addiction. A new film out this month charts its spectacular rise and fall: young folk, look up from your iPhones, and learn how in its Noughties heyday, the BlackBerry was beloved by Obama, Beyoncé and Madonna. With its seductively clicky Qwerty keyboard, it came to control 45 per cent of the mobile phone market. Then it plummeted to today’s share, zero. BlackBerry the movie had a particular poignancy for me, because I hung on to my final BlackBerry phone, the KeyOne, until well past
Hell is a heat pump
‘So, as Rishi Sunak has announced that we’re now allowed to keep installing new gas boilers till 2035, and they last about 15 years, that means I’ll be able to keep a gas boiler till 2050, so I might even be allowed to die with a gas boiler still going in my house, and may never have to switch to an ugly, expensive air-source heat pump which makes an annoying fridge-like hum in the garden, vibrates through the bedroom wall and keeps the house at a weird, lukewarm temperature all day and night.’ I think many of us were making that kind of calculation last month. Were we tempted by
Wednesday
Thinking about Romans
‘I keep thinking about men thinking about Romans’
Things are bad
‘Things are bad – he misses Liz Truss.’