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Friday

Zoe Strimpel

The brash shall inherit the Earth

As a girl, and later a woman, prone to barbs and punchy elocutions, I have encountered a great many repercussions for my words. My re-education began in primary school when the mother of a classmate angrily rang my mum to tell her that I had said this or that outrageous thing to her daughter. (A daughter who was herself tough as nails and a crafty little madame; I never picked on those weaker than me.) Over time, the pain of fallouts with school friends became the stress of getting communication wrong in the workplace, which carries its own, more formal and sinister consequences. Now I try to pause and be

Harry Mount

My great-grandfather gave his name to Grenfell Tower

In Dad’s Army, Lance Corporal Jones, played by Clive Dunn, fought in six campaigns, from the Sudan in 1884 to the second world war. Well, my great-grandfather, Field Marshal Francis Grenfell, 1st Baron Grenfell, can beat that. He joined up at 18 in 1859 and stayed in the army for 65 years, until his death at 83, 100 years ago, on 27 January 1925. And then, in a tragic coda to his extraordinary life, he gave his name to Grenfell Tower, where 72 lives were lost in a fire in 2017. This week, Angela Rayner told bereaved families that the tower is to be demolished. Lord Grenfell was the ultimate Colonel Blimp – he

Wednesday

Flora Watkins

Does anyone actually fancy David Beckham?

Unless your Wi-Fi has been down this week, you’ll be aware that David Beckham has got his kit off again. He’s back in his underwear for a ‘steamy’ (Daily Mail) ‘full frontal’ (Daily Mail again, though it really isn’t – and I had to watch it, dispassionately I stress, three times for the purposes of this article in order to be sure) campaign for Hugo Boss which, in that hackneyed and usually inaccurate phrase, ‘broke the internet’. Did you have problems putting your Ocado order through? Me neither. In the advert by photographers and fash-mag-slags Mert and Marcus, Becks pulls up to his industrial, glass cube of an apartment in an

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Why Japan is best at whisky, tailoring, cheese, pastries… I could go on

Many people visit Japan because of its food but few, surely, have pastries in mind. In fact, Japan has no discernible tradition in this culinary realm at all. But that didn’t stop a trio of Japanese bakers from winning the biannual pastry world cup, pushing the fancied host nation France into a chastening second place. Japan won last time too and thus became the first country ever to retain the title, which you might suppose would make this big news here in Tokyo. But the media has hardly mentioned it, probably because this kind of national stereotype-busting triumph is becoming quite normal. For example, Japan, believe it or not, is

Sebastian Morello

My son was born in the passenger seat footwell

A few days before Christmas, I was gently woken by my wife telling me that while I’d been sleeping through the night in blissful ignorance, she had been writhing in labour downstairs. At the last moment, she had decided against giving birth at home and now wanted to go to the hospital. I hadn’t known a home birth was even on the cards – clearly, my wife and I need to work on our communication. Moreover, it was a week before the due date, so I had gone to bed thinking there were still days remaining before the great panic. Within minutes, we were in the car and racing to

Tuesday

Arabella Byrne

The signet ring is back

The signet ring is back. Perhaps, like King Charles, who has worn his since the 1970s, you think it never went away, but I can confirm that it did – sometime around the time of the New Labour government, when being seen as a raging toff was bad for business. Now, thanks in part to the Instagram account Signet Ring Social and posh television and film dramas such as Saltburn, the signet ring, or ‘siggie’ as it is referred to by Gen Z devotees, is making a comeback. Perhaps, instead of the hemline index, used as an indicator of bull or bear economic markets, we may consult the signet ring

Jonny Ford

My plan for a better dating app

It’s 30 years since a website called Match.com opened the Pandora’s box of online dating. Until then, with the tiny exception of the classifieds, meeting a mate had to begin out there and in person. But from 1995, dating retreated to a desktop computer – a virtual shop window of real people. Match.com was launched as a minimum viable product that sold, so said the wags, other minimum viable products. Today, the online dating industry makes more than $9 billion. By 2033, its revenues are expected to double. There are now tons of apps, yet still so many loners. According to one survey, 44 per cent of Londoners are single.

Francis Coles

What happens when you can’t pee?

‘I really do think you should think seriously about that operation,’ my urologist told me about a year ago. The plumbing had deteriorated further and, in a calculated gamble for more tranquil twilight years, I eventually capitulated, submitting in early December to a so-called TURP, a transurethral resection of the prostate. Two days later, he sent me home with a reassuring message: ‘It’s settling down nicely, but don’t be alarmed by a little blood in the urine in a few weeks’ time. Expect a sort of “dry rosé” colour when the scabs start to fall off.’ I took that as a green light for a family Christmas in northern Spain,

Monday

Hajar J. Woodland

How I crossed the line from devout Muslim to stand-up comedian

In a small, dark room in the depths of Banshee Labyrinth, a gothic-looking venue just off Cowgate in Edinburgh, 11 people cheer and clap as I thank them profusely for spending the past hour with me. My backdrop is a red and white no-smoking sign and two coffin-shaped blackboards with drinks offers scrawled on them in chalk, and the portcullis-style door offers little soundproofing from inquisitive festivalgoers peering in and wondering aloud whether to take one of the 40 seats – but the setting is perfect for my first ever Edinburgh Fringe show. As soon as I finish the last song and receive warm applause, I switch almost immediately from