Day: September 8, 2024

If you’re about to head off to university for your first year, you might be forgiven for taking everything you’ve ever owned – along with the kitchen sink. But that would be a mistake, according to students who’ve been at university a year or two. The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission … Read more

As an avid reader of newspaper columns, the ones I’ve always looked forward to are the ones where something has gone wrong. You read fascinated, horrified, about families crumbling, a little night illness, a dog’s slow death. We’ve been poring over old issues of the Observer Magazine as we celebrate its 60th anniversary and, over … Read more

Elle Macpherson’s gratitude journal must have written itself last week. Most days, any leader in the wellness industry is right to feel gratitude for the gigantic profits to be made seemingly out of human gullibility: the welcome for her latest venture suggests that the market for experimental self-care may have been wildly underestimated. Since the … Read more

‘Britain’s long and proud history has been trashed by the self-hating left.” “British history is not being taught and people are hugely ignorant of our past.” “We have lost that sense of what was at stake, with a consequent decline of pride in the sacrifices endured.” “Generations are growing up hearing nothing but bad things … Read more

David Cameron has provoked a wave of indignation from Grenfell fire survivors and housing campaigners after claiming that the inquiry agreed with him that fire regulations had not been part of his government’s “red tape drive” to cut regulations. But campaigners said the former prime minister’s words were “bollocks” and “total bullshit”, since the inquiry … Read more

Giovanni’s, 10 Goodwin’s Court, London WC2N 4LL (giovannislondon.co.uk). Starters £13-£22.50; pasta £19–£27; mains £24–£36; dessert £8.50–£11.50; wine from £38 a bottle Restaurants rarely make old bones. It’s too precarious a business for that, too hand-to-kitchen-to-diner’s-mouth. The issue is usually generational. Survival for 40 years may be manageable because it’s within the lifespan of the founders. … Read more

Simon Tisdall hits the mark in his analysis of our contemporary “villains” but I fear he is over-generous (“In an unheroic age, Putin, Trump and Netanyahu are sick parodies of great men”). For these men are tyrants and their impact goes beyond their murderous actions, crimes against humanity and “undermining of universal values”. Perhaps their … Read more

The question I feel as though, over the years, I’ve allowed setbacks to knock down all my pillars of happiness and now feel I just live among the ruins.When I was young, I read books where naive anti-heroes had funny experiences and I thought if I was open-minded, funny things would happen to me, too. … Read more