Reader's Digest UK Aug 2019

16 IT’S A MANN’S WORLD

Olly Mann ponders the endlessly useful yet slightly unsettling idea behind Gmail ENTERTAINMENT

20 INTERVIEW: PATRICIA ARQUETTE

The Oscar-winning star of Boyhood answers difficult questions about motherhood

30 “I REMEMBER”: AINSLEY HARRIOTT

The beloved TV chef on his childhood and the origins of his culinary passion HEALTH

40 BOWEL HEALTH

A comprehensive guide to avoiding or fixing the most common bowel problems INSPIRE

56 BEST OF BRITISH: STREET FOOD

From farmers’ markets to food trucks, these are the top places for outdoorsy eaters Features

66 TRANSGENDER TRAILBLAZERS

Three inspiring stories of courage and perseverance

74 DOING TIME

The troubling issue with Britain’s ageing prison population

TRAVEL & ADVENTURE

82 TALES OF IRAN

Explore a country that defies expectations

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In This Issue…

Researching this month’s feature on Britain’s ageing prison population was a shocking undertaking. Although, of course, part of the motivation for incarcerating criminals is to punish them for their crimes, I wasn’t prepared for the almost inhumane conditions in which many older prisoners are currently being held. You can read about my findings on p74.

A far brighter task was interviewing the brave heroes of our “Transgender Trailblazers” feature on p66. Hailing from the RAF, police force and facilities management industry, these are three ordinary people who have used their stories to create extraordinary change. Their moving accounts inspired me to be a more vocal ally to the LGBT+ community and I hope you will feel the same.

Anna

I think we can all agree that it’s impossible not to fall for celebrity chef Ainsley Harriott’s radiant, boyish charm. The softly spoken, salt-of-the-earth star of Ready, Steady, Cook simply exudes kindness and joie de vivre. It’s no surprise, then, that the recollections from his childhood and youth are as warm and glowing as his on-screen presence. Turn to p30 to learn all about his mother’s cooking, his love of music and why he’s so obsessed with cleaning. And on p20, we tackle big questions with the star of True Romance and Boyhood, Patricia Arquette, including how to work through trauma and how “men and women can come together” to ensure a positive evolution of our species. Happy reading!

Eva

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Over To You

LETTERS ON THE JUNE ISSUE

We pay £50 for Letter of the Month and £30 for all others

Letter of THE MONTH

It was moving to read about three people who were affected by the Grenfell Tower fire. It’s inspirational to read about Naomi Israel and Helena Thompson and the invaluable help they’re giving to survivors. Firefighter Edric Kennedy-Macfoy’s account included upsetting, harrowing information about the fire itself. It hit home that those working in the emergency services go through so much in such times and his account shows this.

My heart goes out to all the victims, families, their friends and all emergency services involved. I hope one day the former residents’ voices are truly heard and that justice is served. This should never happen again. In the meantime we need to keep hearing about the work that is being carried out to help survivors.

Thank you for an important article and for letting us hear the different thoughts of those who were affected by this unforgettably sad and senseless event. I feel, from the stories that were told, that there’s still hope and the community has clearly banded together to move forward.

Manisa Kuinke, Middlesex

EASY AS A, B, C

I found your “Make Remembering As Easy As A, B, C” incredibly insightful. We often can’t remember a name but we know the letter it starts with. It reminded me of my mum. She once sent a Christmas card to my best friend and her husband and wrote, “To Jackie and Steve” in it. My friend’s husband is called “Colin”. When I asked her where she had got the name “Steve” from, she said, “I couldn’t remember his name so I went through a few and “Jackie and Steve” go perfectly together so I thought I’d put that.” There’s not much you can say to that!

Esther Newton, Berkshire

GUT-AWARE

As someone who has had issues with gut health for years, it’s refreshing to see it brought to the forefront in your article “Healthy Gut, Healthy Mind”.

My own GP has discussed the importance of looking after my gut for years and has even hinted as to its effect on my mental health. His advice of a well-balanced diet and plenty of “decent sleep” is a staple of every visit. Perhaps he is a man ahead of his time. Fermented foods however, have never been recommended and I am keen to experiment.

The article makes one wonder what maladies may yet be held at bay from a simple change in diet. I have suffered from IBS for years and understand the link between poor gut health and my general mood, but I am intrigued by the information that it may delve much deeper into our general health and longevity.

I wanted to thank you for writing such an interesting and informative article.

Scott Smyth, Londonderry

DEAR DIARY

I thought Olly Man’s, “Dearest Diary,” was going to be about some sort of personal diary keeping or journaling and so I was somewhat surprised to discover it was all about his Filofax!

Nevertheless, I have to agree that you can’t beat a physical diary. They do indeed ground you in the real world, allowing you to tangibly hold your life and leaf through it at will. And writing down appointments does lodge them in the mind.

Skimming through the month ahead brings a feeling of control and contentment, that comes with being able to weigh the weeks in your hand, to turn pages, to feel something under your fingers. It’s calming and you get a wonderful sense of achievement when you take your pen and draw a line through something accomplished, or circle that one remaining task. It works because both body and mind are engaged—life is embodied.

That being said, I do not have a Filofax. They sound a bit pretentious. A simple diary suits me just fine—I mean who really needs a plastic ruler and a map of the underground? Jennie Gardner, Bath

We Want To Hear From You

…differently

More than 90 million people, exercising in complete unison—what sounds like an attempt to set a world record is nothing more than an annual holiday in China!

National Fitness Day falls on August 8, and was created to commemorate the opening ceremony of the 2009 Peking Olympics— and also to encourage people to stay fit.

In 2018, at the pictured primary school in the province of Jiangsu, more than 700 students came together to practise their virtually synchronised martial arts moves.

Deconstructing Olly

This month, Olly Mann reflects on the slightly unsettling yet oddly sentimental phenomenon of the Gmail archive

Ijoined Gmail in June 2005. This I know, because I’ve just scrolled back to the oldest email in my inbox (or, if you prefer, the 31,029th newest email), and it’s from June 2005. Of course, had it instead been dated December 2010, I would now be declaring as fact that I joined Gmail in December 2010. I don’t recall detail like I used to, which is probably due to my immersion in Gmail—the email service where you seemingly never run out of storage, nor ever need to actually remember anything again.

I love Gmail. Being able to rapidly search through a decade of my own correspondence is the closest thing I have to a superpower. For example,

Olly Mann presents Four Thought for BBC Radio 4, and the award-winning podcasts The Modern Mann and Answer Me This!

I recently found myself at a meet-andmingle in a conference centre (there were free biscuits), and spotted a guy who had once interviewed me for a job. I couldn’t remember his name. I suspected he wouldn’t remember me at all, but I didn’t want to run the risk of pretending I’d never met him, and certainly couldn’t forsake the hobnobs. So, I searched for his company in Gmail and, within seconds, had re-acquainted myself with his name, his contact details, and my rightly-rejected job application from 2008. Anxiety (somewhat) relieved. Gmail has even made spam emails fun—it automatically sorts promotional offers into one folder, so, when I actually want to find a voucher or discount code, there they are. Magic.

I realise the trade-off for this convenient free service is that Google leverages the content of my emails to target me with specific advertising, and I’m fine with that. Or at least,

I thought I was. But it turns out that knowing something and viscerally experiencing it are two very different things.

The first episode that gave me pause for thought took place on a fly-drive holiday in 2015. My wife and I spontaneously stopped in Woodstock, New York; the Catskills town famous for its connection to the legendary music festival. As we later discovered, “Woodstock” 1969 actually took place on a rural site 60 miles away, but no matter: we were heading north anyway, and had stumbled upon an appealing B&B. We paid cash to the landlady, filled in a pen-and-paper booking form, and headed out for dinner. We fancied Japanese, so I opened Google Maps, typed “noodles” and was duly directed to Yum Yum Noodle Bar (which, if ever you find yourself in Woodstock for the night, I recommend. Try the curry coconut broth.) Then, things got weird. I re-opened Google Maps, for a suggested route back to our B&B, and noticed there was now a little footnote floating over it: “Reservation— September 6–7.”

This freaked me out. We hadn’t booked the hotel online—it was an impulse decision. We hadn’t, at any

point, even searched for it on the internet—we’d decided to stay there BECAUSE WE DROVE PAST. How could Google possibly know we were staying there? How had they determined we were staying for one night, when we ourselves hadn’t even made that decision? After ten full minutes of paranoid panic, I deduced the innocent truth: when we checked in, we had provided my email address. Whilst we were out for dinner, the landlady had emailed us a receipt. And Gmail’s AI had read that receipt, and then helpfully/ scarily cross-pollinated the data over to my linked Google Maps account.

I forgot about Woodstock until last week, when a friend referred me to a relatively obscure page of Google’s services (myaccount.google.com/ purchases), upon which one can peruse a years-long list of all the purchase receipts your Gmail has received. Scanning through my receipts, I was taken aback at just how much a total stranger could surmise about me. My recent purchases include: some £75 seats for Hamilton, a portable heater, a subscription to a craft beer box, an imitation diamante kitten collar, a fire-guard, five Thomas The Tank Engine films on Amazon, and,

“In seconds, you get an accurate picture of a middle-aged, middleclass, cat-owning Dad who drinks too much”

depressingly, three nose and ear trimmers, each more expensive than the last. In literally seconds, you get a pretty accurate picture of an early middle-aged, middle-class, catowning dad who lives in the London green-belt, drinks too much and desperately wants to trim his nose hair.

You can, if you so choose, delete such entries from your Google profile, one by one—but you can’t prevent Gmail collecting more. I found myself feeling as I had that

night in Woodstock: ruffled, unsettled, yet reluctantly impressed. Gmail’s file on me goes back to 2011, when I bought an Elliot Smith CD— back in the days when I still had a CD player, natch!

The subsequent data demonstrates that I’ve got a mortgage, a son, a Mini Cooper, a dead dad and pimped-up set of garden furniture. All rather revealing. But most users don’t even realise this archive exists; still less look back through it to see what digital footprints they’ve left behind.

Oddly, I can’t bring myself to delete the records; I think because, in a sad way, this chronicle of consumerism is now the closest thing I have to a journal, or an archive of letters. I haven’t written one of those… since I joined Gmail. n

DUBIOUS DESSERTS

Chef Ben Churchill loves confusing people with his whimsical desserts

Vanilla cake, cream, mango

Pear mousse filled with custard Marzipan beans

SOURCE: BOREDPANDA.COM

MICHAEL BUCKNER/DEADLINE/SHUTTERSTOCK

Patricia Arquette:

“Women Want To Be Heard ”

by Simon Button

The Oscar-winning star of Boyhood and True Romance opens up about ageing in Hollywood, women’s rights and playing troublesome characters

As a champion of equal rights in an industry that is notorious for not always treating women as fairly as men, Patricia Arquette believes things are slowly but surely changing. “I think it’s inch by inch and push by push but we’re getting there,” says the actress, noting that her new TV show The Act is mostly directed by women, boasts a strong female cast and plenty of female crew members.

“I’m seeing more women in all departments,” Arquette smiles, then adds it’s not just women who are benefitting from sea changes in the entertainment industry. “I’m also glad more people of colour are

getting opportunities. A lot of time it’s like, ‘What’s popular right now? Great, let’s do that again!’ but I think we should be open to all stories of humanity. The Marvel thing makes money so then you have tons of superhero movies. Everybody jumps on the same thing, but in television things are really opening up and in movies films by black writers and black directors are winning Best Picture at the Oscars.”

Now 51 and busier than ever, the recipient of her own Oscar (for 2014’s Boyhood) sees ageism as the next frontier. “What I do miss, honestly, are older directors and older stories.

“AS A PARENT MY INSTINCT IS TO PROTECT MY KIDS AND I’D NEVER WANT THEM TO FEEL ANY PAIN”

If we’re open to their stories we’ll have a richer art form. We’re human beings and we have many ages, many different cultures, all kinds of different relationships. I want to see more of that on screen.”

Patricia is certainly doing her bit by playing complex, flawed characters of a certain age. She was awarded a Golden Globe for last year’s miniseries Escape At Dannemora—a true story in which she played Joyce Mitchell, a prison worker who had an affair with two convicted murderers and subsequently aided in their escape. Now she’s following it up with another true story in The Act and she’s on award-worthy form again as Dee Dee Blanchard, a Munchausen

syndrome by proxy sufferer murdered by her own daughter.

Arquette knew about the syndrome, where a caregiver falsely convinces someone in their charge (usually a child) that they’re sick or injured, but not the disturbing details of the Blanchard case. “But my kids did and they were like, ‘Don’t play that lady!’” says the mother to son Enzo, 30, and daughter Harlow, 16, from her relationships with musician Paul Rossi and actor Thomas Jane respectively.

“I knew about Munchausen by proxy and I found it fascinating. It’s such an aberration of nature for me.

As a parent my instinct is to protect my kids and I’d never want them to feel any pain, so this idea that a parent would cause pain and would

harm children…” She shakes her head, clearly shocked by how Dee Dee tricked Gypsy Rose (played by Joey King) into thinking she had leukemia, asthma, brain damage and muscular dystrophy. “We know about physical abuse but medical abuse is a very different thing.”

Arquette wanted to get at the woman behind the monster and found a way in when she saw interview footage of Dee Dee in prison. “She’d seem OK, then she’d go into this fugue state and come back from it, and I thought, She’s seriously mentally ill. I came to the conclusion that she was terrified Gypsy would break away from her.”

When we first meet, Patricia is in a hotel room in London dressed for the unseasonably chilly weather in

Clockwise: Patricia as Dee Dee Blanchard in The Act; in EscapeAt Dannemora; in Boyhood—the performance that won her an Oscar

“ONCE IN A WHILE YOU WORK WITH SOMEONE WHO’S GOT SOME SERIOUS PROBLEMS AND THEY’RE JUST MISERABLE AND IT DRAGS THE WHOLE PROJECT DOWN”

a black-and-grey checked wool suit. The second time we’re in MonteCarlo for the annual Festival de Television, where she’s dressed for the heat in a black silk shirt and trousers (and where she will go on to win the outstanding actress prize for Dannemora).

On both occasions she’s thoughtful and softly spoken so I can understand why she found it hard to be cruel to young Joey King. Getting on well with co-stars is important to her, although with a smile Arquette adds: “In general I get along with people really well. Once in a while you work with someone who’s got some serious problems and they’re just miserable and it kind of drags the whole project down.”

No, she’s not going to name names. “But usually people are pretty great. On this, though, I just felt horrible afterwards. Even before scenes sometimes I’d say to Joey, ‘I’m so sorry’.”

Patricia’s own upbringing wasn’t without its trials. The Chicagoan has spoken about her father being an alcoholic and her mother having a violent streak, and at age 14 she ran away from home to live with older sister, Rosanna. Briefly contemplating a career as a midwife, she eventually followed Rosanna into the acting business and landed roles in A Nightmare On Elm Street 3 and indie films like The Indian Runner before her terrific turn as hookerwith-a-heart, Alabama, in 1993’s True Romance made her a star.

Patricia as Alabama in the cult classic, True Romance

With Jake Weber in the TV series Medium

She’s worked steadily ever since, winning acclaim for dual roles in David Lynch’s Lost Highway and supernatural thriller Stigmata before turning to TV with supernatural thriller Medium in 2005. Coming before such top-tier talent as Glenn Close, Nicole Kidman and Renée Zellweger accepted small screen roles, it could have been a risky move. “But I thought the film business was becoming more and more about tentpole movies and less and less small films. People were kind of snotty about it but I was like, ‘I think there are going to be good things happening in TV’. It was a strategic decision.”

Nine years later she won the best actress Oscar for Boyhood , a labour of love that took 12 years of on-andoff filming, but Arquette finds the juiciest roles are on television these days—especially when it means she gets to play down the glamour in The Act, where her Dee Dee is dowdy and dumpy. “Starting out as a young woman and an ingénue I never got opportunities like this,” she says of the transformation. “Whenever I tried people would say I had to play ‘the girl’ and I still get pushback from studios going, ‘You can’t look like that on screen’.” She grins. “My reply is: ‘Yes I can and I’m going to’.”

Off-screen Patricia is an advocate for equality. Giving a speech in Congress earlier this year in support of the Equal Rights Amendment was “terrifying” because it was the first time in 36 years the discussion about prohibiting sexual discrimination had been on the table. “But women want to be heard,” Arquette insists. “They’re electing women in record numbers. It’s in your face and now no one can pretend ‘Women are equal’. It’s good we’re cleaning out this wound because it’s been festering for a long time.”

The actress also has well-informed views on the #MeToo movement. “When the activist Tarana Burke first coined the phrase [in 2006] nobody was really listening. Then these actresses—and my sister was one of them—were very brave in talking about their experiences and it’s rippled across the world.”

Calling it “a beautiful moment”, she adds: “We’re talking about real trauma and looking at how we as men and women can come together. It’s critical for the evolution of our

species and it’s critical for us to look at our best practices to treat victims, to put in work environments, to teach our sons and daughters to have healthier relationships.” n

The Act is on STARZPLAY via Amazon Prime Video and Virgin Media

ROCKY PROCLAMATIONS

Did you know that the ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras correctly determined that the Moon was a rock which reflects light from the Sun, allowing him to explain lunar phases and eclipses? Sadly, he was exiled as a result, as the popular belief at the time was that the Sun and the Moon were gods.

SOURCE: SMITHSONIANMAG.COM

this

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I REMEMBER… Ainsley Harriott

Charismatic chef Ainsley Harriott, 62, has appeared in numerous TV shows over the last 30 years, including Ainsley’sBarbecueBible, Mealsin Minutesand, most famously, ReadySteadyCook

…SITTING IN MY HIGH-CHAIR, WATCHING MY MOTHER, PEPPY, COOK. When she was making a cake, she’d give me the bowl full of leftover mix to lick clean. I think that’s when my love of cooking started.

…OUR HOUSE WAS ALWAYS FULL OF PEOPLE. My dad, Chester, was a famous musical entertainer, who’d appeared on the BBC, and my parents were always very well connected, particularly in the West Indies, where they were from. We

had a nice house in Wandsworth, too, so lots of people would want to visit.

Touring West Indian cricketers, including Sir Garfield Sobers, popped in. Someone called Mr Andy, who later became St Lucia’s police commissioner, stayed for about three years, while studying over here.

He was just lovely and would give me, my brother and sister sixpence pocket money, every Saturday—with a sixpence bonus if we hadn’t wet the bed all week.

…LOOKING VERY SMART. Mr Andy produced an additional sixpence for anyone who’d helped clean the house. Perhaps that’s why I developed my slightly OCD cleaning tendencies. When I got home, I’d even press my trousers for school the next day.

People used to say, “You look like you’re in a shopping magazine.”

…MORNING ELOCUTION LESSONS

AT PRIMARY SCHOOL. During assembly, our headmaster, Mr Mallett, would make us say things like, “the tip of the tongue, the teeth

and the lips”, and “how now, brown cow?” On Fridays, we’d sing “Did You Ever See a Lassie?” He was very keen on clear enunciation.

I still live in Wandsworth and I’ve got mates from primary school who live down the road. That’s kept me incredibly grounded.

…LOOKING UP AT MY DAD ON STAGE AND THINKING, WOW.

I saw him perform at Blackpool’s Planet Rooms, where he did summer seasons, and the place was absolutely packed. He was known as

the black Liberace, because he was quite camp and used to wear lots of glittery clothes.

He’d do a bit of humour, then some songs and towards the end of his set, shout out, “Right, what do you want to hear now?” He just entertained the room. They definitely influence you, your parents.

…A GREAT MIX OF CHILDREN AT SECONDARY SCHOOL. Wandsworth

Boys School was a grammar school that had turned into a comprehensive. As the local phrase went, it had “some boys that could go to Borstal [Youth Detention Centre] and some that could go to Eton.”

You had to have your wits about you, but there were lots of charming pupils, too. I was fascinated by the blend of people that got involved in school plays and I took part in all the productions.

…DECIDING TO BE A CHEF, WHILE I WAS ON HOLIDAY.

My friend Charles had a French pen friend and he and I went to stay with their family when I was 17. It was phenomenal: going fishing, going to the market, then sitting around having a threehour lunch. My mum was a wonderful cook and I’d always enjoyed cooking, too, but now I was understanding a new

cuisine and things were taken to a new level.

I came back and told my teacher that I wanted to leave school and go into the kitchen. “Harriott, you’re far too bright,” he told me, which I thought that was really rude. He couldn’t see my passion. But I went to catering college, anyway.

…SHINING UP THE COPPER POTS WITH FLOUR, SALT AND VINEGAR.

My first job was at Verrey’s, a posh restaurant in the West End, and there was a black chef there called Clifford Walker who gave me the hardest time. I’d have to stay behind when everyone was going for a break, just learning

A young Ainsley poses for the camera. (Opposite); Various scenes from his youth

Taking part in Comic Relief (Opposite); Presenting Ready, SteadyCook

the basics of food and, of course, how to keep the kitchen clean. But he was just pushing me to do well. “If you’re gonna make it,” he told me. “You’ve got to do it properly.”

The executive chef, Kevin Kennedy, had a cheekiness and a way of teaching you that made you feel passionate about what you were doing, instead of just rigid. And he was one of the first chefs to go on radio and talk about food, before all these cooking programmes came in.

…COMBINING BUSINESS WITH PLEASURE.

One of the staff at Verrey’s told me, “If you want to earn a few quid on your days off, come and work at Lord’s with me.” So I found myself making sandwiches there and

it was great, because I was a big cricket fan. Plus, the money I picked up in four days was as much as I’d earn in a month at the restaurant.

I got to know the executive chef and was eventually put in charge of the Long Room [a famous old part of the pavilion]. We were only ever busy for Test matches, NatWest and Benson & Hedges finals or if Middlesex were doing quite well. About eight days a year. The rest of the time I’d write a bit of poetry and build up great relationships with the customers. Even now when I go back for various chefing events, it feels like home.

…MY FRIEND CHARLES AND I TAKING THE TRAIN INTO SHOW

BUSINESS. We went InterRailing around Europe one year, with a guitar and a few percussion instruments, and would stop in any square and do a little turn.

We’d earn enough money to eat in fancy restaurants, so when we came back, even though he was a teacher and I worked in a hotel, we started performing in Covent Garden on Saturday afternoons. We went on to the alternative cabaret circuit, too— places like The Comedy Store.

After a few years, Charles met a wonderful Australian girl and left Britain. But I then formed another musical duo called the Calypso Twins, with my school friend, Paul Borros. We had a hit in 1990, with “World Party”. Paul recently helped

me put the music together for Caribbean Kitchen.

…THOSE ELOCUTION LESSONS

CAME IN HANDY. While I was at Lord’s, in the early 1990s, a Radio 5 producer asked me to appear on a cookery show, More Nosh, Less Dosh. After that, I joined Good Morning with Anne and Nick on BBC1. It was live TV and, to begin with, I was incredibly nervous. But I just remembered primary school, Mr Mallett and “the tip of the tongue, the teeth and the lips”.

…BEING THE ODD ONE OUT ON READY STEADY COOK, when I first appeared on the programme in 1994. I hadn’t had a successful restaurant

like a lot of the other chefs. But it was great being able to compete against them.

I don’t think there had ever been anything like that on television before. Fern Britton thought it would only last a month, but she was host for seven years [1994 to 2000] and I did another ten years after that.

…TRAVELLING THE WORLD

CHANGED MY MINDSET AS A CHEF. In the 1990s I started visiting places I’d only dreamt of for programmes like Ainsley’s Barbecue Bible. As a chef in a restaurant, you’d be working all the time so you didn’t get much opportunity to experience different things. On your day off, you might just want fish and chips. But

suddenly I was exposed to all these different cultures and tastes. Filming Street Food in 2015, I tried everything from what I think was whale meat preserved in urine to raw chicken. The whale meat was awful but the chicken was actually quite nice.

…MISSING MY FAMILY WHILE

I WAS IN AMERICA. I did 140-odd shows out there [including an eponymous 2000 talk show], one day interviewing a basketball star, the next, Danny DeVito. But it’s all very well seeing your name on the side of buses, if your kids are back in Britain. When I got offered the gig presenting Ready Steady Cook, I came home.

…BREAKING UP WITH MY WIFE, Clare, in 2012, but remaining respectful. You spend a lifetime of getting to know someone so why are you suddenly supposed to hate them? It’s OK that we changed. We still have meals together at Christmas and other special family events. We’ve got two kids together, so why not enjoy it?

I love having my grown-up children [Maddie and Jimmy] at my house. My son plays five-a-side round here. My daughter loves my dog. And we go to watch Arsenal together.

…EVEN NOW, I’M STILL LEARNING ABOUT FOOD. While I was in the Caribbean for the new

series, I was amazed how much they rely on seasonal produce. I asked someone for a mango in Tobago and he replied [in a broad West Indian accent] “Too late. It fall from the tree two weeks ago.”

We’re so used to going to the supermarket to get what you want, when you want it, it was quite refreshing to be somewhere where you couldn’t. And when the seasonal produce did come, boy, the taste was fantastic. There’s a real earthiness and joy.

It’s wonderful the way they go into the sea to catch a fish and it’s so opaque and so delicate, because it’s so fresh, too.

…I’VE NEVER HAD A FIVE-YEAR PLAN. Will there be a second series of Caribbean Kitchen? I certainly hope so, but I never know what’s around the corner.

I want to keep healthy, though. I still wake up in the morning and run round the common with my dog, diving on the floor with him like a kid. I play my tennis, too and do Pilates. If I can stay fit, I’ll be ready for whatever my next challenge is. n As told to Simon Hemelryk

Ainsley’s Caribbean Kitchen airs on ITV1 from July 22. A book accompanying the

© BLUE MARLIN

What Goes In Must Come Out

Healthy bowel movements mean a healthy you. Here’s how to avoid or fix common problems

By Lisa Bendall

There are many good reasons to improve your bowel movements. For starters, maintaining a healthy bowel routine keeps your pelvic muscles fit and your time on the toilet brief. It helps prevent chronic constipation and diarrhea, along with secondary problems like hemorrhoids, tissue tears and

unpredictable stools. Many of the lifestyle changes that promote defecation, such as eating fibre and getting exercise, also reduce your risk of colorectal cancer.

Is there such a thing as too many number twos? What about movements that make only rare appearances? “There’s a huge range of what’s considered normal,” says Dr Dina Kao, a University of Alberta gastroenterologist. Some of us are on the throne three times a day, while others poop once every few days. There’s no need to worry about the frequency of your bowel movements if your stool appears normal and you feel well. But don’t dismiss symptoms like fever, pain or dehydration. “If there’s blood, any change in your usual pattern, weight loss, or if you have any concerns, you should speak to your doctor,” says Fallone.

Use our helpful guide below to ensure your bowel movements are the best they can be.

Foods That Help Regularity

The high sorbitol content in dried fruits such as prunes, figs and dates acts as a natural laxative. So does flaxseed. Fresh pears and apples sometimes do the trick. Eating breakfast can also increase your colon activity and trigger a bowel movement.

Dietary fibre is important to your diet and bowel movements. Because it isn’t digested, it bulks up and softens stool, making it easier

to pass. Most of us get just half of the fibre that we require. “If you’re eating whole grains, or about half your plate at each meal is fruits and vegetables, you’re likely meeting your needs,” says Whitney Hussain, a registered dietitian in Vancouver, Canada who specialises in gastrointestinal disorders.

You can also choose cereals with added fibre. Psyllium is a popular supplement, but watch out for inulin, which for some people triggers a sore stomach. Hussain suggests adding fibre to your diet gradually to prevent gas and bloating. “Just have one serving of a higher-fibre food, and slowly increase it each day. Spread the fibre throughout the day, rather than having it all at once.”

Liquid Intake

Without enough fluid, your stool will be dry and hard. Other signs that you probably need more water—or other sources of fluid, such as milk, juice, soup and tea—include dry lips and mouth, dark urine and urinating fewer than four times a day. The ideal amount of hydration is different for everyone and depends on factors like your body size and activity level.

Many people report urgent bathroom visits after their morning brew, but both regular and decaffeinated coffee appear to have the same effect. The warmth could be playing a role in speeding up the system. Carbonated beverages may give you gas and bloating, and can

GET YOUR BODY MOVING TO KEEP YOUR BOWELS MOVING

make you gassy. Same with talking a lot during a meal. Eat on a schedule— postponing a meal or snack can give you bloating.

Get Active

You need to keep your body moving in order to keep your bowels moving. Regular physical activity, such as a brisk daily walk, can help prevent constipation. Overtraining is thought to cause bowel symptoms like flatulence and loose poops in some people, especially if they’re exercising intensely in a hot environment, but that’s rare. Want to reduce the risk of

“runner’s diarrhea,” possibly caused by alterations in intestinal hormone levels and blood flow, and the bouncing of internal organs? Avoid ibuprofen, energy bars and coffee before running, and wear loose clothing that doesn’t constrict your abdomen.

Stay Calm

Anxiety and stress have an impact on your bowel movements. The gut literally has a mind of its own—it’s lined with millions of nerve cells that make up what’s known as the enteric nervous system—and it sends signals to the brain, and vice-versa. That’s why your feelings of anxiety can produce cramping and diarrhea. Conversely, research has found that psychological strategies to reduce stress can improve these bowel symptoms in people who have functional disorders like irritable bowel syndrome. Their brains are more sensitive to gut discomfort, and it’s heightened under stress.

Our Bodies’ Chemistry

Hormone fluctuations also seem to affect your gut. About half of premenopausal women who aren’t on birth control report constipation or diarrhea depending on where they are in their monthly cycle. Hormones during pregnancy serve to relax muscle contractions. “It may be a factor in why a lot of women get constipation in their third trimester,” says Turnbull. Both men and women

HORMONAL SHIFTS CAN AFFECT YOUR BOWELS AS YOU AGE

experience hormonal shifts as we get older, and these are thought to be a potential influence on the decreasing diversity and robustness of our microbiome as we age.

Try To Keep It Natural

If you are having trouble with bowel movements, try using natural laxatives to get back on track. Before resorting to drugstore laxatives to relieve constipation, consider lifestyle improvements such as increasing your fluid and fibre intake, getting more exercise and avoiding foods that plug you up.

“If this doesn’t work, laxatives may be necessary, such as psyllium supplementation, stool softeners or

polyethylene glycol,” says Fallone. “In general, one wants to avoid prolonged use of agents that can damage the colon, such as senna products.” Senna, made from the leaves and fruit of a plant, stimulates bowel activity. But eventually it can prevent your system from doing its job naturally and shouldn’t be used for more than a few days.

Understand Adverse Effects

All kinds of drugs, from antidepressants to narcotics to blood pressure pills, list diarrhea or

constipation among potential side effects. “If your medication is giving you bowel problems, talk to your doctor,” Turnbull advises. “It’s probably best to try something else. With some medications you don’t have a lot of options, but there are often other drugs that can be used to offset the symptoms.” n

Your bowel movements are important to your overall health. And remember, if you have any concerns—especially if you feel unwell or there is blood in your stool—do see a doctor

THE SHOW MUST GO ON…

These rather disturbing old Hollywood facts might have you looking at your old favourites with new eyes.

According to actress Shirley Temple, when child actors misbehaved on set they were occasionally made to sit on blocks of ice as punishment.

Bette Davis once kicked Joan Crawford so hard during a scene in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? that she required stitches.

To capture the iconic hilltop scene in The Sound of Music, a camera was strapped to a helicopter. Every time it passed her, the gusts were so strong that Julie Andrews was flung into the grass.

In The Wizard of Oz, the “snowstorm” scene was created using asbestos.

In later life Judy Garland described how along with co-star Mickey Rooney, she was required to take drugs that ensured she’d continue performing long after exhaustion kicked in, and then sleeping pills to knock them out until it was time to film the next scene. It wasn’t uncommon for the pair to work 72 hours in a row.

The Cowardly Lion costume from The Wizard of Oz was made of real lion hair and skin—and made more than $3m at a New York auction in 2014.

SOURCE: BUZZFEED.COM

Risk-Proof Travel

Travelling with a serious health condition can be a challenging task—but it shouldn’t put you off exploring the world! Here are the main things to consider…

Concerned about going on holiday when you’re living with a long-term health condition—or even what to do if you happen to fall ill abroad? Don’t be, just make sure you plan properly.

Consider whether you’re fit enough to travel

That has to be the number one question you ask yourself before packing your bags. Travelling can be tiring. A much hotter climate than you’re used to might not be good for you either if you have certain conditions, including heart problems. And research the diseases you could fall foul of—you don’t want Montezuma’s revenge in Mexico if you have colon cancer.

Susannah Hickling is twice winner of the Guild of Health Writers Best

Consumer Magazine Health Feature

Get the right travel insurance

It can be hard to get travel insurance if you have a chronic condition. You must declare any pre-existing condition or you will not be covered. You may also be refused cover. But shop around. Comparison sites give a selection of quotes for pre-existing illnesses and health charities covering your condition may have a list of insurers who will cover you.

Don’t forget your EHIC

While we remain in the EU, we benefit from emergency medical care on the same basis as residents of the country we’re visiting. In some cases, it will cover you when travel insurance doesn’t, so, for the moment at least, it could be worth choosing a European destination for peace of mind if you have a serious condition. Just make sure you present the card when you need treatment and be aware that you might have to make top-up payments for your care or for a

prescription if the state healthcare system of that country doesn’t foot the entire bill.

Pack extra prescriptions

Several weeks before you go away, ask your doctor for extra medication to ensure you have enough to tide you over. But it’s important to consider any restrictions on medicines in the nation you’re visiting—check with the embassy of your destination country.

Carry medication in its original packaging and, if you’re flying, carry it in hand luggage with a copy of the prescription.

Take some notes

We mean medical notes. Ask your GP for a letter outlining your condition and any recent treatment, and what medication you take for it. They may charge for this. It might also be worth having it translated into the language of the country you’re visiting.

Know where the nearest medical centre is

Whether or not you’ve got a longterm condition, it’s wise to check out where the nearest doctor, hospital and accident and emergency department is.

Travel with someone you trust

You’ll feel safer if your travelling companion can be relied on in an emergency, especially if you have a serious illness.

Plan for the worst

What’s the worst case scenario?

Being hospitalised? Being confined to your hotel room for the duration of your stay? Decide if you can cope with either of those. But, at the end of the day, a holiday is a chance to put your troubles to one side for a brief period and there’s good evidence that it can benefit your sense of wellbeing, so don’t be put off by the negatives. Bon voyage! n

Tired All The Time?

Feeling constantly drained but not sure why? Here are some crucial factors to consider…

You could be stressed or depressed. Stress, anxiety, a distressing event or depression can make you feel exhausted. See your GP—talking therapies or medication might help.

Perhaps you’ve got thyroid problems? There are physical reasons why you might be feeling weary. If you have an underactive thyroid—the gland in your neck that governs metabolism—then you’re likely to feel tired, and put on weight. If the diagnosis is hypothyroidism, you’ll need daily tablets.

Diabetes is a possibility. Symptoms of Type 2 diabetes include thirst, weeing frequently, changes in weight—and tiredness. It can be diagnosed with a blood test.

Have you considered sleep apnoea? With this condition, the walls of the throat relax and narrow when you’re asleep, momentarily interrupting breathing. Often you’re not aware of it but your partner might notice your

loud snoring, gasps or noisy breathing. Cutting back on alcohol and losing weight might help, but see your GP if you suspect obstructive sleep apnoea.

Or maybe you’re just not getting enough sleep. Ideally you should get seven hours. Keep to a sleep routine, going to bed at the same time every evening and taking care not to nap in the day. This can keep you awake at night.

Your meds might be at fault. Some prescription drugs, including beta blockers prescribed for heart problems such as an irregular heart rhythm or high blood pressure, can make you feel worn out.

Think about whether you’re drinking enough fluids. Did you know that dehydration can cause fatigue? Combat it by drinking plenty of water and other soft drinks—you need about eight glasses a day. n

Ask The Expert: Worry

Hayley Silk is a life coach and author of the award-winning self-help book, Be a Warrior, Not a Worrier

How did you become an expert in overcoming anxiety? I’ve been a qualified life coach for 12 years and have worked in HR management using those skills. I also have firsthand experience of overcoming severe anxiety. I completely understand what my clients are going through and they know I understand.

When does worry become unhealthy? When it becomes extreme and habitual. Everyday negative thoughts, flat mood, constantly preempting something bad when everything is actually fine will affect the decisions you make, your ability to enjoy the moment, to look forward to things, and to grow personally.

How easy is it to overcome?

It depends on the severity. I was paralysed by anxiety for six months and had to get professional help. If it’s a light habit, it’s easy to break. There’s so much that’s free—you can go to your GP; you can be referred to

organisations for different therapies. But you’ve got to want to change.

What tips can you offer to alleviate anxiety? Ask empowering questions. I say to myself, “What would a warrior do?” and the answer’s there instantly. Practise gratitude—it can turn a negative mindset into a positive one. We have 60,000 thoughts a day and if you’re a worrier, the majority will be negative. Instead, at the end of the day, pick out the good bits in it and say thank you for them.

How can people remain free of worry in the long term? Have a plan that works for you. If I have a couple of days when I’ve not been right, I create a nice atmosphere by putting a candle on and doing some guided meditation—just something to stay in that moment and acknowledge I’m feeling that way. Learn as much as you can and try to understand yourself. n

Hayley Silk

Highs and Lows

This month Dr Max Pemberton’s work on the mental health ward finds him footed with a £300 premium champagne bill…

Iknow I’m shouting because the woman sitting next to me on the bus has moved, and several others are staring. “You can’t be serious? Please, please tell me this is a joke?” I ask as I put my head in my hands. The well-spoken man at the other end of the phone isn’t fazed by my disbelief.

“No, sir,” he says, clearly holding back his annoyance. “I assure you, I’m very serious. Will you be paying by credit card?” I’m not sure what I can say to make it clearer that I’m not going to pay, regardless of the methods on offer. “Well, then you leave us no option but to call the police, sir.” I roll my eyes. Now what am I going to do? I’m on my way home from work and I really don’t want to have to be sorting this all out now. This is all Marina’s fault. For one

Max is a hospital doctor, author and columnist. He currently works full time in mental health for the NHS. His latest book is a self-help guide to using CBT to stop smoking

of the richest women in the world, she’s very bad at paying her bar bills. In many ways she’s very generous with her unparalleled wealth. She frequently goes into town and spends vast amounts of money on friends, family, or indeed anyone she happens to meet along the way. As with so many people with true wealth, she’s not showy about it—in fact, you’d almost be mistaken for thinking she was a 31-year-old living in a council flat, receiving Disability Living Allowance.

Of course, you wouldn’t be mistaken; you’d be absolutely correct. Marina isn’t a millionaire. In fact, she’s in lots of debt. But this doesn’t worry her, especially not today when it appears she went into a very famous hotel and ordered £300 worth of champagne. The sequence of events was becoming clear as I listened to the man. After she’d finished the champagne, the bill came. She then looked in her purse and, without batting an eye lid, explained Dr Max would be paying the bill, and promptly gave them the ward telephone number. The baffled

FRANCES MURPHY

ward, in turn, gave the hotel manager my mobile number. I’m now trying to explain to him that Marina has bipolar, and she’s not taking her medication. Usually when people are ill, they’re only too happy to receive treatment. But mania can be a strangely enjoyable experience. Marina is ecstatically happy; uncontrollably on top of the world. This is in sharp contrast to the deep depression that goes hand in hand with this illness, and which any sufferer dreads and knows will follow. So, of course, she resists it when we try and give her medication. Why would you want to take a tablet to take away the best feeling you’ve ever had? The optimism mania gives you isn’t founded in reality but when you’re manic, you can’t see that. I try and explain this to the hotel and promise I’ll find a way to pay the

bill that doesn’t involve my credit card. I call back a few days later to arrange a re-payment plan taken directly out of Marina’s benefits.

“Oh no, Sir, the bill’s been paid,” says the manager. I’m confused. “Another guest settled the bill,” he explains. It transpires that someone overheard the commotion and when Marina left, paid the bill for her. Marina’s delighted at the news. The following day she knocks on the door to my office.

“Thank you,” she says, and produces a package. It’s a cashmere jumper.

“Oh no, Marina,” I shout out, in total exasperation.

“I couldn’t decide which colour to get you,” she says. “So I got you all four shades,” she adds, producing three more packages.

“Please tell me this is a joke,” I say, as I put my head in my hands. n

The Doctor Is In

Dr Max Pemberton

Q: I suffer from terrible thigh cramp if I eat salty food, which I sorted out by cutting down and upping my water intake. But recently they’ve been awful despite drinking lots of water and I’m starting to dread bedtime. I’ve tried stretching, massaging and cold compresses to soothe the muscle. Do you have any other tips? Michael, 63

A: Night cramps can be miserable—in fact, I occasionally get them in my calf so I know how unbearable they can be. I often even experience soreness in the muscle the following day. Cramps like this, while unpleasant, are very common and most common in people over 50. There seem to be a number of triggers, such as sitting for long periods, overexertion or standing on hard surfaces for a long time.

Learning what triggers you and avoiding it tends to be adequate in managing the condition for a lot of people. Keeping hydrated has also been shown to help. However, there are also some medical

conditions that these cramps can be associated with, including dehydration, taking diuretics or statins, diabetes, neurological conditions such as Motor Neurone Disease and Parkinson’s disease, hypothyroidism, and too much alcohol. They’re usually infrequent enough to not be of any real concern, however, it does sound like they’re becoming frequent for you, so I think you need to see your GP to exclude underlying illnesses that might be causing them. They will usually do basic blood tests to check the chemicals—“electrolytes”—in your blood. Once any underlying cause has been ruled out, your doctor may recommend medication to help, or Vitamin E or B complex and Magnesium supplements. Your doctor may also prescribe an antihistamine or calcium channel blockers, as these have also been shown to help nocturnal cramps. n

Got a health question for our resident doctor? Email it confidentially to askdrmax@ readersdigest.co.uk

You may think bone is solid or fixed. In fact it is living tissue, in constant change. To keep bones healthy you must have the right nutrients in your daily diet.

Calcium is essential to help maintain normal bones, as is vitamin D, which is necessary for the normal absorption and utilisation of calcium. But did you realise magnesium and zinc are important for bones too? Both men and women need to look after their bones throughout their life, and remember it’s never too early or too late to start a bone-friendly way of life!

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How To Make Sense Of Your Memories

Enrich your recall by using your senses to the full, says our memory expert, Jonathan Hancock

WHEN PEOPLE GO BACK to their old school, they often say that it’s the smell they remember most. But all our senses stimulate memories, and we should use them more. Our brains perform better when we stop relying purely on what we see.

Novelist Marcel Proust tasted a madeleine cake and was taken on an intense journey through his memory. Babies get attached to the texture of particular fabrics. Our brains are hardwired to use senses to help us learn.

Start by noticing more of the sense information around you—the sounds, for example, or textures you feel when you’re gardening or folding clothes.

Next, start using senses to explore your existing memories. When you taste a favourite flavour, see if it takes you back to a moment from the past. Like Proust, you’ll probably find other senses are activated, too.

Your brain can even recreate sense experiences at will. Amazingly, you react to them almost as if they were real. And the better you can do this, the more you can use your senses to help you remember. Try it now. Visualise your favourite food, then add other senses: how it feels to pick

it up; the sound it makes when it’s cooking; its smell; and the taste when you imagine taking a bite. Notice how all of this makes you feel—even though it’s happening purely in your mind. Then practise with the following list. Spend a few moments imagining senses associated with each word. You might focus on the texture of the carpet, or the taste of the popcorn, for example.

CARPET, POPCORN, LEMON, VIOLIN, BABY, MONEY, SLEEP, FARM, COLD, HAPPINESS

Then cover the words and look at the second list below. Use your senses to help recognise the ones you saw earlier, and spot the two new words.

BABY, COLD, VIOLIN, CHEESE, HAPPINESS, CARPET, POPCORN, SAND, LEMON, FARM

Start making more of your senses and you’ll add richness to your memory. n

Jonathan’s new book, The Study Book, is out now from John Murray Learning

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Borough Market, Southwark, London

Boasting over 1000 years of service, Borough Market is London’s oldest street food paradise and the expertise certainly shows. From locally-sourced fresh produce to cookery demos with expert chefs, it’s not your average town food stall. With so much on offer there’s no way you’ll merely browse and pass through; you’ll be interacting, asking questions and learning about the historic institution—the food-lover’s dream day out.

Says head of food policy, David Matchett, “When the sun is out, putting together a picnic is a Londoner’s favourite thing to do. You can choose the best bread, cheese, ham and accompaniments from our specialist traders to make your own Borough Market

ploughman’s to enjoy by the river. For a quick one-stop shop to taste the best that Borough Market has to offer, pop to Elliot’s Restaurant. The chef sources wonderful ingredients exclusively from the market and prepares fresh, seasonal small plates.”

To top it off, none of the market’s rubbish goes to landfill. All cardboard, paper, plastic, glass or wood is recycled and all remaining food waste is sent to an anaerobic digestion plant.

boroughmarket.org.uk

Street Food

Whether you want a picnic, food trucks or fresh local produce, here are the best street food options across Britain this summer

By Jessica Summers

Night Market, Exeter Quay

Night owls will revel in this magical Devon selection. Situated on cobbled stone by the beautiful Exeter canal, this nocturnal street food market will delight visitors with an assortment of luxurious food and wine stalls.

Taking place on the first Thursday of every month, there’s often sultry live music to enhance your experience. To

take full advantage of the scenery and historic surroundings, try perching near the flowing dark water with a pickle and bacon burger in hand, or opt for the chorizo, spinach and potato dish and a glass of wine. Truly the perfect location for a blissful date night filled with romance. streetfoodexeter.co.uk

The Pitt Market, Edinburgh

For a relaxed all-for-one-and-onefor-all atmosphere with folk and acoustic music ringing in the air, head to The Pitt, based in Edinburgh's buzzing Leith area. This joyously Scottish joint houses the three-time winner (The Buffalo Truck) of the Hellman’s Scottish Street Food awards and for good reason; their food is delicious and

is as local as it gets. Starting life as Scotland’s first street food market in 2015, The Pitt changes their food line-up weekly meaning no two visits are ever the same. What’s more, they often travel to other locations, so be sure to keep an eye out for any of their upcoming events.

thepitt.co.uk

Grub Food Fair, Manchester

Craft ale, wine, cocktails, DJs and great food. What more could one ask for? This weekly Mancunian food event combines art, food and creativity in a fun, wholesome environment for all to enjoy. And eco-warriors and vegans can rest easy because Sunday holds a separate event offering strictly plantbased food that you definitely don’t

have to be vegan to enjoy. Having expanded to the Mayfield Depot from the previous improvised space Grub started off at in 2017, you could now easily mistake your surroundings for a laid-back festival, and with more street food traders being added to the line-up, this food fair is set to be a summer favourite. grubmcr.com

St George’s Market, Belfast

Although St George’s Market as we know it was built around 1890, the weekly Friday market actually dates as far back as 1604.

As one of Belfast’s oldest attractions it has plenty on offer— from freshly baked goods to newly caught fish—and there’s a happy, energetic atmosphere that surrounds both the visitors and vendors alike.

Live music from local musicians

floods the air as shoppers browse a variety of speciality foods from stalls such as Atlantic Ocean Delights, who specialise in unique seaweed based products.

For those with a sweet tooth, Blackthorn foods offers an array of delightful fudge, and you’ll find fresh, yeast-raised treats over at Doughzy Donuts. belfastcity.gov.uk/tourism-venues/ stgeorgesmarket

Malton Food Market, Yorkshire

Baked goods and healthy treats are aplenty here. The Purple Carrot stall offers wonderfully nourishing veggie food—which you’ll easily notice from the assortment of bright and beautiful produce—dive straight in with a bean fritter, or a delightful beetroot quiche to awaken your senses.

Be sure to check their site before

you visit; Malton Market often holds live chef demos meaning you’ll walk away enlightened and your yummy purchases won’t go to waste. Also on offer are trips to Talbot Yard where a gin distillery, macaron maker and coffee roaster all await.

visitmalton.com/food-marketyorkshire

Orton Farmer’s Market, Cumbria

No street food list would be complete without a farmers’ market and Orton, nestled in the heart of Eden, is a wonderful place to start. Registered with FARMA (The Farm Retail Association) and with focuses on local produce and sustainability from over 25 regular native suppliers, there’s a homely feel that would be incredibly hard to replicate elsewhere. When perusing for food, you’ll notice that everything offered is seasonal so come with some recipes in mind to

suit the month’s deliveries. After scouring the shelves for the best fresh meat and veggies, be sure to head over to the Saucy Mare stall, whose delectable choices of meal topping sauces will be sure to keep your future dinner guests raving for weeks.

ortonfarmers.co.uk

Visited any of Britain's street food sites? Have a favourite place to eat alfreso?

Email readersletters@readersdigest.co.uk and let us know

IF I RULED THE WORLD Matthew Wright

Matthew Wright, 53, is the journalist-turnedpresenter who hosted The Wright Stuff for eight years. He now has a weekday show on talkRADIO

I would legalise all drugs. If you look at Portugal and the experiment they have there, where essentially you don’t get prosecuted for drugs in a criminal sense but you’re referred to doctors and detox clinics and it’s treated as a health issue, they’ve seen levels of addiction and drug crime drop dramatically. When we have 100,000 tobacco-related deaths a year and a conservative estimate of 10,000 from alcohol it might seem counterintuitive to say, “let’s legalise more drugs” but the only way I think we can avoid things like the death of Louella Michie is to legalise and test.

I’d limit the use of smartphones. Instead I’d have more free internet stations so when you’re walking around a busy town and you don’t know where you’re going you can look up Google Maps at the station, then go back to talking to people.

Nuclear weapons would be banned. I went to my first “ban nuclear

weapons” march in 1980 and I’ve been passionately opposed to nuclear weapons my entire adult life. The argument is that you have to have a deterrent, but there are 220 countries on the planet and fewer than 20 of them have a deterrent, yet the other 200-plus manage to get by OK.

I’d ban private schools. Yes, I’m in a banning mood! I’m a great believer that if you have a state school system everybody needs to go through that same system and if people have £30£40,000 to spend on private school education then we’re not taxing them enough. We could take that tax and put it into a comprehensive education system that would benefit everybody. I just don’t believe it’s fair that people can pay for their children to have an advantage through life.

Everybody would ride on two wheels. They’d have to do that for

one year before they could apply for a provisional licence to drive a car. My dad was a keen motorcyclist and his theory was if everybody rode a bike, a moped or a motorbike for a year they’d become much more aware of the dangers that those on two wheels have to experience, like having a car up right your backside in wet weather or when going round corners.

We’d have lessons in grief. I remember a boy at my primary school was killed cycling to class and the way they dealt with it was to sort of pretend it didn’t happen and we didn’t really talk about it. I’ve since unfortunately had many friends and beloved family members die, often too young, and it’s been a struggle for me mentally and emotionally. I know people who dealt with death when they were young and they’ve experienced a similar thing. School prepares you for life but it doesn’t really prepare you for death.

Babies wouldn’t get gifts. My wife Amelia and I have been trying a “no gifts for babies” tack because we don’t want our daughter

Cassady to end up in a room full of hundreds

of plastic junk toys. Kids in this country get far too much and the expectation that comes with it creates pressure, so I’m quite hoping that “no” is the first word that Cassady learns.

Manners would be compulsory. They’re the lubrication that makes the gears of the world turn smoothly. It’s a great shame that “please” and “thank you” are out of fashion and holding doors open has gotten very politicised. A friend of mine held a door open for a woman and she turned round and accused him of sexism. She said, “I don’t need a door held open for me” and he replied, “I’d have held it open for you whether you were a woman or a man, thank you very much.” n

As told to Simon Button

Matthew Wright is on talkRADIO weekdays from 1-4pm

These are the stories of three transgender role models whose activism has helped to make the world a more accepting place

TRANSGENDER TRAILBLAZERS

By Anna Walker

Transgender people are those whose sense of gender identity does not match the sex they were born into. Until recent years, the law—and culture—of Britain hasn’t been kind to this group. And though things are starting to change, there’s still a long way to go. In June this year, The Guardian reported that hate crimes against transgender people have trebled since 2014. Between 2017 and 2018, 46 per cent of those crimes were violent. In the following pages, three brave trailblazers of transgender equality tell their stories.

Royal Air Force veteran Caroline Paige, 60, has served in nearly every significant conflict of the past 35 years and was also the first openly transgender aviator to serve in the RAF.

The first time I flew, I was 15 or 16. I wasn’t scared. I found it exhilarating. Flying was in my blood, I think. Before I transitioned, the military was well-known for its homophobia and it was still illegal to be gay and serve. Being transgender, I knew I wasn’t a gay, my identity was female, but nobody else understood— they assumed I was a gay man who wanted to “catch” another man by taking the role of a woman.

If anybody was seen to be LGBT, they were reported. And once you were outed, you were out of the door and out of your job that same day. You’d probably had years of service, doing incredible things for Queen

and country, but all of a sudden, your record was irrelevant.

I’d reached the point in my life where I just couldn’t hide anymore—I had to be me. I’d struggled through the first half of my career thinking I could live through it, but I couldn’t. The feeling that life was flashing by got stronger and stronger and that left me with two options—leave and transition or stay and transition.

The first official person I told was my medical officer. I was scared but she was brilliant. She said, “Go back to work and I’ll make all of the inquiries on your behalf.”

It was all off my chest. She spoke to legal; she spoke to medical, she spoke

to personnel management, and once she’d made those inquiries, we were able to see whether I could stay in service or not. When the decision came down to say yes, it was a huge relief. I was so grateful.

People only really started to learn I was transgender when I was outed by The Sun, in 2000. I naïvely thought I’d escaped the public humiliation of a “trial by media”. To my shock, the article appeared on the front page with the title ‘Sex Change for RAF Top Gun’ in big black capitals.

I’D

REACHED THE POINT IN MY LIFE WHERE I JUST COULDN’T HIDE ANYMORE

The negative opinions gave me the idea that people didn’t want me. I felt had to prove all of them wrong, and the only way I could do that was to get back to the front-line. So, I did my job, and I did it well—in fact, I flew operationally for 16 years and earned commendations for ‘exceptional service’.

[The Sun front page] wasn’t the best thing to happen to me, but it did help others. I’ve met people over the years who have said, ‘I remember seeing that article and it gave me courage’.

I realised I needed to step up as a role model while I was serving in Iraq. I was flying Medical Immediate Response Team missions, getting

critically injured people out of hostile environments. Yet on return to base I‘d be harassed in the food tent. They’d say, ‘Don’t touch him, you’ll catch it.’ I realised there had been no process to educate people. Yes, there was a policy of zero tolerance to harassment, but there was nothing about helping people understand what being different meant. When I got home, I approached the diversity and inclusion training centre and they said, ‘Right, we’re going to do a roadtrip around the UK and we’d like you to join us to speak about your life as a trans person within the military.’

I get lovely feedback from people who say [my story] helped them become allies. Some admit they were among the voices that said, ‘We don’t want trans people in the military,’ and now they say, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know better.’

The military reflects society so you’re always going to have a minority who aren’t tolerant and then people who are really supportive and then a big chunk in the middle. [True change] is just going to take time. My only regret is that I couldn’t enjoy life the way I wanted in my younger years.

Caroline has written a book about her life, True Colours, Biteback Publishing, £15.99

Detective Sergeant Christian Owens, 48, is approaching a milestone 25 years of service with Merseyside Police Force. But his time with the force— and in life—wasn’t always plain sailing…

Growing up in Runcorn in the 70s and 80s, transgender wasn’t a word I heard. I just knew that I was different. When puberty hit, I tried to blend in, but it felt strange, like living someone else’s life.

In 1988—the year of Section 28 [which banned the discussion of homosexuality in schools]—I was feeling completely lost, both from a gender and a sexuality point of view. I was attracted to men, but that attraction was something I felt as a man. Thankfully, my German teacher recognised that I was struggling. He sat me down and asked what the matter was. I couldn’t verbalise it. I didn’t know what to say—am I gay? Is

there something wrong with my body? In the end he said “Are you thinking you’re gay? If that’s it, then you’re not the only gay person in this room.”

I just remember thinking, oh my word. He had risked his career for me, and it was the beginning of a lifelong friendship—he and his husband took me to my first gender reassignment surgery appointment.

When I joined Merseyside Police at 23, I was identifying as a gay woman. Those were the worst few years of my life. In the 90s, the police force wasn’t an accepting place and I experienced misogyny and homophobia. But there was a turning point in 1998 when I

moved stations. I felt a bit more accepted and thought, I can do this.

In 2000 my former partner and I were interviewed by DIVA [Europe’s largest lesbian magazine] while attending Manchester Pride. A colleague got hold of a copy and put photocopies across four or five police stations. What it really brought home was fear, because if this was happening to me as a gay person, what was I going to do about my gender identity? The easiest way for me to deal with it was to throw myself into work. By 2009, I’d become a successful detective. Behind closed doors I was [my male identity]

THE

had to get home to be me, Christian, a man. I realised that if I didn’t do something it would lead to a mental breakdown. The next day I walked into HR and we started the process of my transition.

EASIEST WAY FOR

ME TO DEAL WITH IT WAS TO THROW MYSELF INTO WORK

“Christian” and that feeling of Oh my god, this is what I’ve been waiting for all of my life was taken away from me each morning. I was getting dressed to go to work as a woman and fighting through shifts to drive home to be Christian.

When I was promoted to detective sergeant in 2010 my days grew really busy and when I wasn’t able to get home after my shift, I stopped coping. One day a murder investigation came in. As a detective sergeant, when a job like that comes in you’re certainly not going home. I went into meltdown and walked out knowing I

Transitioning has changed my priorities. I want to make the organisation a better place before I retire, and I’ve sacrificed my own promotion for that. It’s been difficult at times as the first serving officer to transition in Merseyside Police, and a steep learning curve for all, but I strive to raise trans visibility and inclusion on a daily basis. If I was still in the detective world, I wouldn’t be able to be open as Christian every day and I’ve gone through too much not to be who I am at work.

My twin sister often asks me, “When are you just going to be Christian the man, and not trans” and I’m torn. There’s so much I can do in terms of education, awareness and mentoring and if I didn’t have that label, people wouldn’t know how to reach me. But one day I’m sure that I will just live my life as Christian, just a man, and a very happy man, with no labels, knowing that I have made a difference and played my part in improving trans awareness and education in our society.

Samantha West, 51, is the commercial director of VINCI Construction. Having come out as transgender in 2017, she’s focused on making her industry a more welcoming place for the LGBT community.

Growing up I had no reference points for what it meant to be transgender. There was no information, no internet. It was all very undercover, and you thought there was something wrong with you.

There’s an influx of our age group, transgender people who’ve suppressed for years, and even had children and gotten married like me. But the world has started to change. The right noises are being made and transitioning is becoming more acceptable.

I burst into tears the day I told my wife. I was worried that I’d come out and then end up on the street. I still get worried about that when elements go wrong—if my daughters get upset

or something goes wrong at work—all that anxiety comes rushing back.

My marriage breakdown was hard. We’re still friends though, and my daughters are great. The eldest [19] finds it harder than the youngest [17], but they’re teenagers and they don’t want to be with their parents, whether they’re transgender or not! When you announce your intention to transition, people around you start grieving for the loss of the person they had. When they’re upset and saying things that you don’t want to hear, it’s really because they love you.

I moved out of the family home— leaving my kids was the most awful

time ever—in order to live as a woman full time. I was only looking for a six-month lease at first, but it turned into the rest of my life!

I work as the commercial director of a facilities management company and I’ve got 30 years of continuous service. Transitioning was difficult because my role is very public. Even though I’d started living as “her”, I still had to be “him” at work.

One day I stayed in Lincoln for work and changed back to being Samantha at the end of the day. I’d had such a lovely night that the next day I drove all the way back as Samantha. When I reached a gas station near work, I changed into a corporate suit ready for the office. When I arrived, I sat in a meeting about fairness, inclusion and respecting diversity—I thought to myself, What am I doing?

colleague who’s known me for 27 years said he couldn’t pretend to understand, but he wished me the best of luck.

When I returned to work, I noticed some people avoiding me. People worry about getting it wrong and it makes them nervous, but you can’t expect people to get it right straight away. All people need to do is be kind.

I WAS WORRIED THAT I’D COME OUT AND THEN END UP ON THE STREET

Now I want to help others. I started a VINCI LGBT+ group and our first meeting was in April 2017. It went so well that I did another six months later, with groups in Birmingham, Manchester and London all connected via Skype. To help industry-wide, I joined and helped a group called LGBT+ in Facilities Management to move forward. We now have a strategy and vision—to make our industry the most inclusive, attractive and happy for LGBT employees in the UK.

The decision was made. I started telling key people in the business. My MD came to visit me, having heard of my separation, and when I explained, he said, “This is great, don’t worry.”

I sent out 400 emails before my surgery, including a picture and explaining the upcoming changes. I got around 250 responses. Some of them were really honest—one

I think activism helps me. And my community has been so supportive. Ahead of my major surgery even my dry-cleaning lady said, “Don’t worry Samantha, I’ll bring you your shopping if you need me to.”

Transitioning has made me come out of myself by necessity. But I like living openly and honestly, it’s nice to finally be able to do that.

BRITAIN'S AGEING PRISON POPULATION DOING TIME :

As the number of prisoners aged 60 plus continues to multiply, Anna Walker investigates whether Britain's prisons are ready to cope with the reality of our ageing inmates

Inever realised until I came into prison what the term ‘doing time’ meant… The world I used to know has gone and my only view of the world is what I see on TV or read in papers. All I have are fading memories… I don’t know if any of my relatives are alive and I have no friends to visit me… I increasingly feel I am slowly dying away… ‘dead man walking’, as the saying goes.” *

Inmates aged 60 plus are the fastest growing group in Britain’s prisons. As of December 2017, more than 13,500 people aged 50 plus were incarcerated, making up 16 per cent of the entire prison population. That number has trebled in the past 20 years. By 2020,

it's expected to rise to 15,000. The reason for this ageing population is a combination of tougher sentences and the rise in convictions of historic sex offences. The latter means that many are inside for the first time, and struggling with the physical disadvantages that accompany old age. What's considered “old age” in prison varies significantly from wider society because any period of incarceration adds around ten years to the physical age of a prisoner.

The obstacles facing this generation of inmates include: mobility, incontinence, menopause, isolation, dementia, bullying, poverty [state pension is no longer paid upon

*Quote from “Doing Time” a briefing from the Prison Reform Trust

incarceration] and difficulty adapting upon release. A University of Oxford study found that more than 80 per cent of male prisoners aged 60 plus suffered a chronic illness or disability. Although there are some palliative care suites across Britain, there aren't nearly enough to meet demand.

Many of our prisons were built during the Victorian era, to house young men in the peak of physical fitness. Says Peter Clarke, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons, “In [HMP] Dartmoor—constructed in 1804 to house prisoners of war—the cell doors are simply too narrow to accommodate wheelchairs. I recently encountered a wheelchair user who couldn’t get out of his cell unaided, so he was relying on another prisoner to help him. The impact of this was that this poor gent was basically just lying

on his bed for the whole day. Our inspectors found him lying there with a urine bottle under his blanket. The prison state is simply not configured to give long-term residential care to elderly or disabled people.”

There is, at the time of writing, no comprehensive national strategy for the provision of social care in prisons, which means that no long-term plan has been devised for coping with the problems and pressures raised by the growing age of our prison population. The UK has had four justice secretaries in four and a half years, and the distraction of Brexit and lack of permanent attention from a single minister, means no meaningful domestic policy has been constructed.

As it stands, older prisoners are often at the mercy of the so-called

HMP Dartmoor, built in 1804, is not well-suited to older or disabled prisoners

“post-code lottery” in determining the dignity they’ll be afforded during incarceration. In HMP Littlehey, they might find refuge in one of the prison’s wheelchair-adapted cells but arrive at HMP Foston Hall and they may be unable to attend education or offending behaviour courses as they take place on different floors, and no provision is made to take them there.

“I've been talking about this for years,” Mr Clarke explains. “The Ministry of Justice said they were going to develop a strategy for older prisoners, so we were all living in

hope, but what eventually emerged wasn't a strategy. They published the ‘Model for Operational Delivery’ and it’s no more than a menu of options for governors to choose from.”

Without this policy in place, prisoners are missing out on vital support. In some facilities investigated by the Inspectorate of Prisons in late 2018, older prisoners who weren’t in specialist heath units were forced to remain in their cells, unable to shower regularly or safely access the toilet. When sleeping on top bunks, incontinent prisoners are often

“THE PRISON SYSTEM IS SIMPLY NOT CONFIGURED TO GIVE LONG-TERM CARE TO ELDERLY PEOPLE”

bullied by their cell mates. Speaking to the Prison Reform Trust* an anonymous inmate explained, “I have bladder trouble and I often wet my bedding. I'm very embarrassed and don’t want to be a nuisance. When I mentioned it to my officer he laughed and said we all have problems like that as we get older, but now I’m wetting myself in the daytime… Some of the younger men and officers are teasing me about the smell.”

Though punishment is certainly an objective of incarceration—alongside rehabilitation and public safety— some conditions in which elderly prisoners are currently living border on the inhumane.

The charity RECOOP (resettlement and care for older ex-offenders and prisoners) aims to promote the care,

resettlement and rehabilitation of older prisoners, offenders and exoffenders. Founded in 2008, the team recognised that some older men were being manipulated and neglected. One of their first solutions was to implement an informal buddy support system, followed by day centres, providing purposeful activities for a cohort that were presenting with needs that weren't catered for within the existing regimes.

“It’s a contentious but important area of work,” Paul Grainge, RECOOP’s chief officer sighs, “few are interested in prisoners.” He nods to the prevailing lock-them-up-and-throw-away-thekey mentality that pervades much of public opinion. “A lot of people say, ‘Well they’re offenders, why should we be trying to make conditions more comfortable for them?’”

For Peter Clarke, it comes down to human decency. As he told the Prison Service Journal in late 2017, “My role is to see how prisoners are being treated and what conditions they’re being kept in. There’s a particular emphasis on decency at the moment as there's an imbalance between prisoner numbers and the ability to provide a decent custodial environment.”

Says Grainge, “Before the Care Act of 2014 there was little to no social care for this population, so it was tough. One man we worked with wasn't able to wear shoes because he couldn't cut his toenails and they'd become long and painful.

Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons, Peter Clarke

The Care Act was great in that it provided the local authorities with the responsibility to provide those services, but there's still a long way to go.”

A particular victory for RECOOP has been the development of their four-day resettlement courses, and formalised buddy support training, which aim to reduce the anxiety that surrounds release and give inmates the tools to live independently. Both schemes are sorely needed across British jails. “We spoke to a gentleman less than two weeks ago,”

months just to see a dentist, let alone the complex health needs that older inmates might face. I’m diabetic so I saw first-hand the inadequacies. If you have a complaint, more often than not it’s ignored. The prison system is so over-stretched, they have no time for the medical complexities of the older generation. I pushed one guy up and down to education in his wheelchair, because there were no staff available. Because there’s no capacity, younger prisoners fulfil those caring roles.”

Carl’s experience is far from unique. As one inmate told the Prison Reform

“ONE MAN WAS GIVEN FOUR HOURS' NOTICE THAT HE WAS TO BE RELEASED, HAVING SERVED 50 YEARS”

Grainge explains, “who'd been given four hours’ notice that he was being released, having served over 50 years. The plan was to give him a phased support package, but it didn't happen. He’s not even seen decimalisation, never mind hybrid silent cards, chip and pin, Google pay, all the technology we take for granted.”

Former inmate Carl Cattermole, who spent time in five different prisons for a non-violent offence and is now the author of Prison: A Survival Guide, explains, “The prison system is good for no one but in particular for older prisoners. In prison you’ll wait six

Trust, “I can’t get my wheelchair through the door of my room. When it’s mealtime someone has to collect my food and bring it to me. I’ve been told that officers aren't allowed to push me. I would be lost without the support of my friends.”

“Institutionalisation is something you never get over,” Carl reflects. “It's like building a concrete structure in a forest. The ivy can grow back, it can get hidden, but there are still lumps of concrete beneath the surface.

I think it’s much harder to adjust into the community as an older person than it is if you’re coming out in your twenties or thirties.”

In women’s prisons there are some even more complex issues at play. Many incarcerated women have found themselves in prison as part of a chain of domestic violence that can span their entire lives.

A GP at Europe’s largest womenonly facility, HMP Bronzefield, Dr Amanda Brown has worked in prisons for 15 years. Now the author of The Prison Doctor, a no-holds-barred account of her eventful career, she recalls female prisoners who have told her that their first night in prison

As overwhelming as the problems facing this demographic undoubtedly are, there are some signs of hope.

“There’s some good work being done in [HMP] Northumberland,” says Peter Clarke. “There’s an entire block there that’s given up for older men. Last time I was there, one man was having a problem standing in the lunch queue, and his colleagues got him a wheelchair, and it was all very supportive. The men I spoke to said they really liked being away from the drugs, violence and loud music

“ONE WOMAN IN HER FIFTIES AND NEW IN PRISON SAID SHE FELT FREER THAN SHE HAD FOR THE PAST 12 YEARS”

was their first experience of sleeping with a sense of safety.

“Some of these poor women have had pretty horrible lives, being controlled by men for many years. One woman in her fifties and new in prison said she felt freer than she had for the past 12 years, so actually, she was quite happy to be inside. There’s a lady in Bronzefield who's been inside for 40 years and it’s her home. Her parole's coming up and she’s trying to avoid getting out. Once she pretended she was going to strangle an officer with a shoestring, just so that it would look like she wasn’t safe to be taken out.”

from young prisoners on the other wings. So, there are some examples of good practice, but then I go around jails and ask, ‘Do you know what’s happening in Northumberland?’ and they look at me blankly and say no.”

“At [HMP] Stafford, rather than trying to rehabilitate prisoners by getting them ready for work, which is rather pointless [as they’re postretirement age], they have a facility that works like a drop-in centre. The older men meet their peers and have a cup of tea and that’s realistic rehabilitation in terms of what the future might hold for them. So, there are good examples, but it feels patchy.”

Author and prison activist

Carl Cattermole

MP Robert Buckland, the current Minister for Prisons, didn't respond to our request for comment. A Prison Service spokesperson said: "The ageing prison population poses challenges but inspectors noted last year there is already good work going on with the NHS and local authority partners to adapt prisons for their needs."

“They should be thinking about a different type of custody entirely," says Clarke. "To put it crudely, an old peoples’ home with a wall around it. Older or disabled prisoners don’t need the levels of security in which many of them are held. We’re missing opportunities to think imaginatively about a different type of custody.”

Paul Grainge says that groups of prisoners he’s consulted on the idea have been split almost 50/50. “I don’t

know why HMPPS or the Ministry of Justice don’t start looking at secure care home models.”

“The narratives of our prisons are constructed by three main groups: journalists who haven’t been to prison, script writers who haven’t been to prison and politicians who haven’t been to prison,” Carl Cattermole explains. “Factors like homelessness, poverty, prison, PTSD, poor health—they all feed into one another. If you don’t get into one of them, then you’re unlikely to get into any of them and you surf above it all without knowing anything about it. And people don’t want to know about prisons. They don’t want to know anything about it.” n

You can donate to RECOOP by visiting recoop.org.uk

Iran Tales Of The Unexpected In

As international curiosity continues to grow about the Islamic republic, Lara Brunt discovers a wonderfully welcoming country that defies expectations photographs by Glen Pearson

AS THE PLANE LANDS with a gentle bump, the dance of the veils begins.

Women pull colourful hijabs from their handbags, covering curls and balayage highlights, while I struggle to contain every last strand of hair under my own headscarf, wrapped tightly under my chin.

“That’s not necessary,” laughs the woman next to me, her own scarf pushed back by scarlet nails as far as gravity will allow. From my first moments on Iranian soil, this mysterious and misunderstood land is nothing like I imagined.

Like most British travellers, my journey starts in the capital, Tehran, as part of a tour group (independent travel is not allowed for UK citizens). Backed by the snow-capped Alborz Mountains, the metropolis is home to more than 14 million people.

Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, the leader of the fundamentalist regime, gazes down from giant billboards that line the traffic-clogged streets.

Yet, chic young women sporting skinny jeans under their mandatory manteaux (light overcoats) outnumber those cloaked in conservative black chadors. Come evening, couples stroll hand-in-hand along Tabiat Bridge, a sculptural footbridge connecting two parks in the north of the city.

“Iran is slowly changing and

"IRAN IS SLOWLY CHANGING AND BECOMING MORE RELAXED"

becoming more relaxed,” a young female architect tells me.

We plunge head-long into the Grand Bazaar—with miles upon miles of lanes, getting lost is inevitable— and barter for saffron and carpets, before visiting the former US Embassy, the scene of an infamous hostage crisis. In November 1979, months after the monarchy was overthrown and an Islamic republic declared, radical students stormed the building and held 52 diplomats hostage for 444 days.

Now open as a museum, the rosefilled gardens are dotted with antiAmerican banners and the remnants

of a US helicopter that crashed on a mission to rescue the hostages. Inside, “the den of spies” feels gloriously kitsch, with antiquated computers and waxwork dummies displayed in a room seemingly lined with aluminium foil, where topsecret meetings were once held.

THE ANIMOSITY OF THE MUSEUM'S one-sided exhibits is at odds with the wholehearted welcome for foreigners on the streets of Iran. Despite the pain of international sanctions that have sent their economy into freefall, the Iranians I meet are unfailingly warm, refreshingly open and keen to

Clockwise from top left: Tehran's Grand Bazaar, a mural on the former US embassy, a Bazaar shopkeeper

know how the world perceives them. The constant refrain of "Welcome to Iran", and numerous invitations to dine at homes or pose for selfies are in sharp contrast to Western perceptions of a joyless, hostile land.

Leaving the capital behind, we head 270 miles south to Esfahan. In the 17th century, the dazzling capital of ancient Persia was larger than London and grander than Constantinople, inspiring the Persian proverb “Esfahan nesf-e jahan” (“Esfahan is half the world”).

One of Iran’s 23 World Heritage sites, Naqsh-e Jahan was designed to showcase the Safavid empire’s finest

architecture, and the enormous main square is still at the centre of local life today. To the north, a grand arch leads to a sprawling covered bazaar; to the south, the twin minarets of the Shah Mosque pierce the sky. On opposite sides, meanwhile, sit the Ali Qapu palace, built at the end of the 16th century for Shah Abbas, and the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque, once the private mosque of the Shah and his harem.

We spend hours gazing at the glorious turquoise and cobalt blue mosaics of the Shah Mosque, wandering into halls each more beautiful than the last. Standing on a black tile under the soaring main dome, our guide Vahid takes advantage of the excellent acoustics to recite a melodic Quranic verse. The cupola of the neighbouring Lotfollah mosque is just as mesmerising; rays of sunlight filter through latticed windows and—when seen from the right angle—a shaft of light at the top of the dome creates a peacock's tail on the exquisite tile work.

ARRIVING IN THE DESERT CITY OF

Yazd, 170 miles southeast of Esfahan, feels like stumbling into a medieval fairytale. A sea of wind-towers punctuate the skyline, channelling cool air into the mud-brick houses below, while an ingenious network of underground irrigation tunnels called qanats, have sustained the city for more than 3,000 years.

We explore the jumble of atmospheric alleys and tunnel-like passageways that make up the old town, and hunt out sweet shops selling wispy pashmak (Persian candy floss) and almond-filled qottab pastries. On the outskirts of town, we hike up to two funerary towers, perched on a barren hillside, where followers of the ancient Zoroastrian religion that pre-dates Islam once left their dead to the mercy of the elements.

Heading 270 miles southwest, Shiraz is regarded as the cultural capital of Iran, famous for its heavenly gardens and classical poets. At first glance, the 19th-century Nasir Al-Molk Mosque seems

"IF POETRY IS PART OF THE SOUL OF IRAN, THEN SO TOO IS ITS CUISINE"

fairly unremarkable. But as we pad barefoot into the vaulted prayer hall, the morning sunlight shines through the stained-glass windows, creating a kaleidoscope of colours—ruby red, emerald, purple and yellow—on the carpeted floor.

At sunset, we visit the tomb of Hafez, considered the Shakespeare of Iran. The 14th-century poet is adored across the country, much to the chagrin of the clerics who tolerate his writings about love and wine. Set amid rose gardens and pomegranate trees, the open-air pavilion housing his sarcophagus is abuzz with locals, who gather to listen to poetry recitations and pay homage to their beloved poet.

The Shah Mosque in Esfahan

Travel Tips

British passport holders need a visa for Iran and must travel as part of an organised tour. Check with the Iranian embassy (en.london. mfa.ir) for more information.

Yomadic (yomadic.com) offers 12-day tours of Iran from £2,025 per person, excluding airfares.

"BEFORE THE REVOLUTION WE WORE MINI SKIRTS, DRANK WINE AND DANCED"

For centuries, Iranians have practised the ritual of Fal’e Hafez (Ask Hafez), opening a book of his poetry at random and taking guidance from whatever line they see first. “Most Iranian families have the collected works of Hafez to consult when faced with difficult decisions,” says Vahid. Outside the gate, a man stands holding a box of cards bearing the poet's words. For a fee, his pet budgie will pull a card out with its beak to solve your dilemma.

IF POETRY IS PART OF THE SOUL of Iran, so too is its cuisine. In the sixth century BC, Cyrus the Great founded the first Persian empire, the Achaemenid empire, which eventually stretched from the Balkan

Peninsula to north-western India and south to Egypt. Persian ingredients such as saffron and rosewater spread throughout the empire, while caravans travelling along the Silk Road—that ancient highway that snaked from China to Europe—brought rice and citrus fruits from Asia.

Persian dishes are fragrant and finely balanced, with spices like saffron and sumac; herbs like mint and fenugreek; fruits like barberry and pomegranate; and nuts such as pistachios and almonds. Rice has been elevated to an art form, with tahdig—the crispy, golden crust at the bottom of the pot—the dish by which every Persian cook is judged.

Fesenjan (chicken stew with walnuts and pomegranate molasses)

quickly becomes a firm favourite, along with ghormeh sabzi (lamb stew with herbs and dried limes) and sangak (flat bread baked over pebbles). In Shiraz, faloodeh sorbet, made with vermicelli, rosewater and a squeeze of lime, provides a sweet and refreshing end to almost every meal.

Shiraz is also the gateway to Persepolis, the magnificent palace complex founded by the Achaemenian king Darius the Great in 518 BC and sacked nearly 200 years later by Alexander the Great’s army. Backed by a small mountain with royal tombs carved into the rock, the 34-acre site is scattered with stone columns and towering sculptures of mythical creatures. Well-preserved friezes depict hundreds of foreign visitors, clad in native dress, bearing gifts for the Persian rulers.

As I walk through the main gateway guarded by winged bulls with the heads of bearded men, I relish the

chance to explore quiet corners of the ruined city. At the edge of the site stands a rusty grandstand, built for the last Shah of Iran’s infamous 1971 party where hundreds of international guests celebrated 2,500 years of the Persian monarchy in extravagant style. The party came to symbolise the excess of the proWestern Shah and set in motion his downfall less than a decade later.

An Iranian family stops me to ask the inevitable questions—“Where are you from?”, “What do you think of Iran?”—and I mention a BBC documentary I watched about the party at Persepolis. “Ah, I remember the days before the revolution,” the middle-aged mother says wistfully. “We wore mini-skirts, drank wine and danced to pop music.” Then, with a conspiratorial wink, she adds, “Just like we do now—but behind closed doors.”

By now, I expect nothing less in this unfathomable land. n

Persepolis, founded in 518BC, near Shiraz

The Heart Of Europe

In Strasbourg, the scars of history have healed and the city has reinvented itself as the capital of a united Europe

by Paul Robert

It is a late Sunday afternoon in February in Strasbourg, the capital of the Alsace region and the newly created French department Grand Est on the border with Germany. The city is a blend of French and German culture as a result of the region’s mercurial history. Even the street signs are bilingual. The "rue des écrivains" (street of the writers) is also called "Schriwerstubgass" in the local dialect.

I am sitting in a Parisian-style restaurant, which proves that the city’s split nationality extends to the Alsatian cuisine. Yes, there's foie gras on the menu. But there's also jarret de porc, a dish Germans would call Schweinshaxe: roasted ham hock, served with sauerkraut (which the French call choucroute) and an eye-popping Alsatian mustard with horseradish.

To drink, they serve Alsatian wines with such German names as Riesling and Gewürztraminer, but also beer from Strasbourg’s own brewery Fischer. In this city the French drink beer. How German is that?

I choose the jarret de porc over the baeckoeffe, a meatand-potatoes speciality of Alsace. I have plans for that dish later in the week.

The next morning, Régine Baumgartner, a city guide, takes me on a tour. Régine, whose surname is officially pronounced with a French accent as "Bohmgardnehr," starts in front of the majestic, medieval Strasbourg cathedral. The genius behind it was German master builder Erwin von Steinbach. But builders from the French cities of Chartres and Reims changed the building style from Romanesque to Gothic and executed the splendid rose window over the central entrance in a typical northern-French style.

The half-timbered Renaissance houses and high, sloping rooftops on the square are typical of southern German architecture. But the adjacent 18th-century museum complex, a former bishop’s palace, is all Louis XV.

There’s a reason for all this: strategically located on the rivers Ill and Rhine, Strasbourg has been a Roman settlement, a diocese, an independent imperial city, and since 1681, officially French, German, French, German, and French, respectively.

We roam the narrow streets, squares, and charming banks of the waterways. Strasbourg Mon Amour which is a Valentine’s Day festival to be held this week, will feature concerts and a dance in the wedding room at town hall.

It all comes together perfectly when I see a young bride and groom posing for their wedding photos against the backdrop of the canal and its half-timbered houses.

Régine and I cross a bridge and leave the old city to enter Neustadt, an area around the Place de l’Université. Neustadt, or "new city," was developed as a Germanisation project after France’s defeat in the 1870 Franco-Prussian war. When it was finished around 1910, Neustadt effectively tripled the size of Strasbourg, and was inhabited by tens of thousands of families who were drawn from all over Germany by the promise of affordable housing, modern facilities, and excellent education on all levels, up to and including a new university.

After the German defeat in the First World War, Alsace was brought back under French control. There were numerous name changes, and up to 100,000 ethnic Germans were expelled, a mere footnote in the tragedy-filled history of 20thcentury Europe.

“Only 30 years ago this part of the city was not included in our tourist maps. The name wouldn’t even be on it," says Régine as we stand outside a magnificent Jugenstil (Art Nouveau) building erected by German architects at the beginning of the 20th century. It used to be the home of an insurance company called Germania but it is now called Gallia.

As we walk, Régine points out the various names of German architects and builders engraved like painters’ signatures in the walls. This area,

now a Unesco World Heritage site, is unique in that it's one of the most impressive and complete monuments of late 19th- and early 20th-century German architecture, with its Neo-Roman churches, Neoclassical government buildings and university, and even Jugendstil and Orientalist residential structures.

More names are engraved in the edifice of the main building of the university: Schiller, Humboldt, Goethe, and other famous Germans. Among them I discover only the name of French philosopher Descartes, in modest recognition of 190 years of French rule that preceded the German conquest.

It's a testimony to how both sides denied the other’s legacy in the city

and the region beyond, with the local population as the eternal victims of distant Paris and Berlin alike. But it has created one of the most fascinating cities in Europe and even a unique cuisine.

On an earlier, brief visit to Strasbourg it was baeckoeffe that struck me as a dish that could potentially serve as the perfect metaphor for Alsace. Its German elements are typically meat and potatoes, whereas the addition of white wine gives the casserole an unmistakable French twist.

Almost every restaurant in Strasbourg and beyond serves it. But beware, there's baeckoeffe and there is Baeckoeffe, just as there is riesling and Riesling.

Clockwise from top left: Orientalist architecture in Neustadt; Strasbourg cathedral spire rising 470ft above German-style rooftops; of Strasbourg

Chef Thierry Schwaller, owner of restaurant Finkstuebel, laughs when I ask him the difference between an average baeckoeffe and a top Baeckoeffe. Most of the tourist restaurants, he says, receive the ingredients for their baeckoeffe pre-cooked: “All they have to do is heat their meals up in a microwave.” He then shows me how it should be done.

Schwaller builds his baeckoeffe with consecutive layers of potatoes, vegetables, and meat that he has marinated for two days in Riesling wine and herbs. “I always add carrots, because that helps neutralise the acidity of the wine,” he says. The build-up continues until the

casserole is more than full, then he adds the reduced marinade. “Finally, I add a piece of heavily smoked pork rind on top for taste only.” He pushes the lid onto it, seals it with dough, and lets it cook in the oven for three hours.

The result is gorgeous. "This is the dish of the Alsace," says Schwaller. "I have seen casseroles in Germany, of course, but never with wine like this."

As I eat, I consider what Schwaller told me about the history of the dish. The word "baeckoeffe" comes from "baker’s oven." In the past, people would prepare the dish at home, seal it with dough, and take it to the local baker on Friday, where they would place it in the bread oven that was gradually cooling down. The dish would be ready the next day.

That baeckoeffe is inspired by the Jewish sabbath dish of Cholent, which is prepared in a similar way to avoid cooking on the sabbath, adds another layer to the city’s mixed, rich culture and tumultuous past. Strasbourg was also the scene of one of Europe’s first pogroms, when hundreds of Jews were blamed for the Black Death in 1349 and publicly burned.

That horrid story and the rest of the city’s history, from Roman days to the annexation of Alsace by the Nazis in 1940 and its reintegration into France, are featured in the Strasbourg historical museum that

I visit the next day. A multimedia timeline ends with European unification symbolised by the new Rhine River bridge to Germany and the presence in the city of the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, and the European Court for Human Rights. If there's one thing the presentation underlines, it's the symbolic significance of Strasbourg as the seat of the European Parliament.

On my last afternoon in the city, I follow the banks of the river Ill and pass splendid old townhouses and the headquarters of the French-German TV network Arte on my way to the futuristic glass palace housing the

European Parliament. A temporary press accreditation allows me to sit in the press stand in the main meeting room. Looking down into the debating arena, I recognise some of the members of this Parliament, which has brought Europe an unprecedented 70 consecutive years of peace.

To the left of the chairman are the Socialists and Greens, then the Liberals and Christian Democrats and the Conservatives to the right. And all the way to the right are the Nationalists and Euroskeptics, eager to turn back the clock and retreat behind borders and fences. The history of this beautiful city should serve as a warning to them, and to us all. n

left: Thierry Schwaller preparing Baeckoeffe; neo-classical edifice of Strasbourg University; Jugendstil Lycée forgirls in Neustadt

A fuss-free farewell

Direct cremation is the modern alternative to traditional funerals, offering a more personal goodbye. PARTNERSHIP

Here we tell you everything you need to know about the service

Just as we all have our own unique relationships with people in life, it’s natural that we all have di erent ways of wanting to say goodbye when the time comes. So while a traditional funeral with a proper service in a church or crematorium might be your choice for a farewell, it’s not right for everyone. That’s where a new service called direct cremation o ers the choice for something a bit di erent so that you can celebrate a life how you want.

What is direct cremation?

Put simply, direct cremation – or immediate cremation at it’s sometimes called – is a basic cremation with no service performed at the crematorium. The person who has died is cremated at a convenient time, in exactly the same way as a traditional cremation but usually without any mourners present (although this can be arranged). The ashes can be hand-delivered back to the family to keep or lay to rest. This gives the freedom for loved ones to hold a separate celebration, memorial or ceremony at a time and place that’s right for them, unconstrained by the undertaker’s availability. A simple, inexpensive co n and cremation fees are included. As you can choose which elements of a traditional funeral you want to pay for and which ones you don’t, it’s not required to buy an expensive co n; a solid pine eco-co n is often used instead.

Why might I choose direct cremation?

■ Cost: The Money Advice Service states

that the average cost of a traditional cremation is £3,311 whereas direct cremation typically costs in the region of £1,000-£2,000 so it’s a significant saving. This is because you only pay for the essentials rather than the hearse, pricey co n or a service. That means you can choose instead to spend money on the things that really matter to you, such as a big get-together for your family.

■ Stress: Traditional funerals can be too much to cope with emotionally. Some of us find the formality of a traditional service upsetting and impersonal but direct cremation allows your family the chance to say goodbye and celebrate a life somewhere familiar. This flexibility about the venue gives you the chance to involve the whole family, even young children, in the event. If you prefer a more personal farewell when someone has passed away, then Pure Cremation will help you navigate this di cult time.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Pure Cremation o ers a 24/7 service across England, Wales and mainland Scotland. They also o er 100% guaranteed direct cremation plans, o ering peace of mind that when the time comes, everything is taken care of, leaving your family free to say goodbye their way. Call 0808 501 6262 or visit www.purecremation.co.uk/digest for more details

My Great Escape:

Unwinding in Wadden Islands

Judith Stovell from Sheffield revels in the peaceful beauty of the North Sea archipelago also known as the Wadden Islands

We wanted to have a holiday with a difference for our 30th wedding anniversary and my husband certainly found us one: the Wadden Islands—a stretch of low lying islands off the coast of the Netherlands. We planned a leisurely cycling holiday in order to explore several of the islands. This enabled us to get a good feel for each of the three islands we had chosen. We parked on the mainland, saddled up and cycled to the ferry port. First stop, Terschelling. This was our favourite island—it was really charming. Further from the mainland than the others, Terschelling dwellers have learned to be resourceful. Their quaint houses are often framed by fences constructed of drift wood and strewn with interesting finds from the beach. It was bright, dry and sunny, but the islands do get blown by a fierce offshore wind. Miles and miles of white sandy beaches, perfect for quiet walks, were usually deserted. The wetlands and dunes are packed with plant and bird life—a bird spotter’s paradise. Then we were back to the mainland to cycle to the next port. Ameland is closer to the Netherlands and as a

result, sees quite a large number of day trippers. There were camp sites and hostels, obviously catering for school parties and groups of mud flat explorers. This meant that the towns were busy. Still, it was easy to cycle for just a few minutes and feel alone and at one with nature again.

Schiermonikoog was our final destination. Much smaller than the other two—there is only one town— and you actually can’t take your vehicle on the island unless you live there. The entire island is a National Park, voted the most beautiful place in the whole of the Netherlands. Since all inhabitants and visitors share the town, there was a real buzz about the place. Would we recommend these charming islands? Absolutely! But time your visit carefully. Each island boasts thousands of bikes to hire— which suggests that at times the cycle routes and villages are incredibly busy. And there are only a few places to stay, so book early to avoid disappointment.

Tell us about your favourite holiday (send a photo too) and if we print it we’ll pay £50. Email excerpts@readersdigest.co.uk

AT THE BEACH

FOR STAYCATIONERS: CORNWALL

Close to Truro, Pendower and Carne beaches boast 1.5 miles of golden sand when joined at low tide. The Nare, a country-house hotel just above, will provide guests with picnics including locally-sourced lobster (prideofbritainhotels.com)

FOR CLASSICISTS: PELOPONNESE

Despite its dunes, perfect crescent shape and many brochure-cover credits, Greece’s Voidokilia Beach is relatively quiet—perhaps because access often involves a short hike. Kalamaki Theresa Villa, nearby, has a large pool (sunvil.co.uk).

FOR CHILDREN: MADEIRA

Intended for families and taken privately, the activity-packed “Whales, Dolphins & Volcanic Landscapes” itinerary includes time on Seixal Beach: a black-sand beauty with natural, lava-formed swimming pools (activitiesabroad.com)

FOR SYBARITES: JAPAN

Pristine coves and snorkelfriendly emerald waters abound on Taketomi island. Also here is a luxurious Hoshinoya hotel, its guest pavilions accompanying herb gardens, a spa, French-Okinawan cuisine, and borrowable bicycles (hoshinoya.com).

FOR CASTAWAYS: CAMBODIA

One of Cambodia’s least-developed isles, Koh Rong promises swaying coconut trees, hammocks, white-sand beaches like the four-mile Sok San, clear green waters ideal for diving and just the one luxury resort (insideasiatours.com) n

by Richard Mellor

Travel app of the month

ROADIE DELIVERY , FREE, ANDROID & IOS

Fancy mixing pleasure with business? Roadie connects car-based travellers to the US with package-shipping companies who have deliveries to fulfil—so you can potentially earn some dosh while away.

DUBAI AND THE EMIRATES

14 NIGHT CRUISE & STAY

Brace yourself for a captivating journey through time. It’s time to unlock the ancient (and ultramodern) cultures of the Arabian Gulf. Expect old world charm, absorbing culture, and some of the most spellbinding cities on earth… all in one amazing holiday.

WHAT’S INCLUDED

• International flights from London

• Private transfers

• 3 nights 4-star at the Arabian Courtyard Hotel and Spa on Room Only (Or Similar)

• 10 night full board cruise aboard Oceana

From price is based on 7 Dec 2019 from London

Other departure airports, dates and hotels available (prices will vary)

FROM £899pp

5 Ways To Spend Less On Pay TV

Ever worried you’re paying too much for TV entertainment? Andy Webb shares some tips on how to make the most of what you have

As a country, we spend a fortune to watch TV with the likes of Sky, Virgin, Netflix and Amazon. But I think there’s a good chance you’re paying more than you actually need too. So here are some simple steps you can follow to bring down your bills and still watch the TV you want.

Can you go without satellite and cable TV?

First, if you pay for Sky, Virgin, TalkTalk or BT TV, conduct a mini audit of the channels you actually watch. There’s a good chance the

Andy Webb is a personal finance journalist and runs the award-winning money blog, Be Clever With Your Cash

bulk of your favourite programmes are on the standard channels such as the BBC, ITV and Dave. If this is the case, then it’s worth cutting out the premium TV package subscriptions.

You don’t need a satellite dish or cable connection to watch any of the Freeview channels. As long as you have an aerial you’ll be able to watch via your digital TV. And those with a satellite dish can connect using the Freesat service.

“Hang on”, you might be saying, “I chucked out my VCR years ago! How will I record?”

Well, it’s easy to replace recording boxes like Sky + and TIVO with Freeview +, Freesat + or YouView boxes which let you record those free channels. Expect to pay around £125 for one of these, but over time it’ll work out much cheaper than a monthly subscription.

And don’t forget that all the major TV channels have their own free to use on-demand streaming services.

Lower the price of your pay TV

If you really want to keep the channels such as Sky Atlantic, Fox or Sky Sports, then you will have to pay. But all the Sky channels are available via a service call NOW TV. This is owned by Sky and works over the internet in the same way that iPlayer and Netflix do. You get all the main channels, and—most importantly— it can be significantly cheaper than a Sky contract.

There are four main options. “Entertainment” will allow you to watch shows like Game of Thrones and Modern Family for £7.99 a month, “Cinema” has all the Sky film channels for £11.99 a month and “Kids” is for young ‘uns at £2.99 a

month. But they are all often available at lower prices thanks to special offers online.

The final option is “Sports”. The Day (£7.99) and Week (£14.99) passes can be of great value for occasional fans, but if you’re an avid day-in-day-out Sky Sports viewer, you’ll probably be better off sticking to a normal Sky package.

Though you can’t record, you can watch everything live, and all but the sports channels are available on-demand.

Alternatively, if you want to stick with the likes of Sky and Virgin you should get on the phone to your pay TV provider and haggle. Say you’d like to cancel and listen as the sales person on the other end of the phone throws discount after discount at you to prevent you leaving. Don’t feel like you have to accept the first offers, and be wary of extras being added for free

which you don’t need and won’t use. Do be cautious of how this could affect the cost of other services you get from the same telecoms provider, such as a phone line and broadband.

Are you subscribing to too many streaming services?

Netflix and Amazon Prime have changed how we watch TV. Rather than catch a new episode each week, we now binge entire series in a few days or weeks.

Half of the people with a streaming package subscribe to more than one of them. This is likely to increase if you add on the new Apple or Disney services when they launch later this year. Which begs the question: how can you possibly watch everything you’re paying for?

Very simply, I don’t think you can. So, once more, think about what you watch and how you watch it. You’ll probably find you have more than enough to watch if you just subscribe to one service at a time. When you run out of things, cancel it and move onto a different service. And repeat.

Turn your TV into a smart TV [box]

An issue many have with on-demand and streaming services is watching the programmes on your TV rather than just on a computer or tablet. But it’s a problem that’s actually very easy to solve.

If you don’t have the apps on your TV or DVD player already, you can

buy a smart stick to plug into a spare HDMI socket on your TV. You’ll even get an extra remote to move through the menus and pause when you need a cuppa.

Here are the leading options and the key apps you can watch on them:

Amazon Fire TV Stick: Amazon Prime, iPlayer, Netflix, All4, My5 and ITV Hub

NOW TV Stick: NOW TV, iPlayer, Netflix, All4, My5 and ITV Hub

ROKU stick: Amazon Prime, NOW TV, iPlayer, Netflix, All4, My5 and the ITV Hub

Google Chromecast: NOW TV, iPlayer, Netflix, All4, My5 and the ITV Hub

Do you need a TV licence? With so many more options available for watching TV, it’s no surprise that less viewing takes place on the main five channels. And if you’re only watching content on the likes of Netflix and Amazon there’s a good chance you might never watch the

good old BBC. In which case, you might actually be able to ditch your TV Licence.

A licence is only required if you are a) watching or recording any live TV on any channel, including via streaming platforms or b) watching BBC content on demand using iPlayer. So even if you only watch the Sky News channel, or just tune in for big sporting events like Wimbledon then you must have a licence.

But it does mean if you can go without all BBC TV content and if you’re happy to only watch other programmes via the internet after they’ve been broadcast, you are able to tell TV Licencing and apply for an exemption.

Personally I think there’s enough quality programming that it’s money well spent. And I’d argue we should be supporting the BBC, not just for TV programmes, but all the other services which are funded by the Licence Fee. But if money’s tight, or you rarely watch any TV, this could be a way to save some money. And don’t forget that—for now at least—over-75s don’t have to pay. n

MEDIEVAL BANGERS

The 16th-century English folk song “Greensleeves” is often said to refer to a promiscuous woman or prostitute whose clothing was stained green from having sex in the grass, however, it is more likely associated with green being considered the colour of romance in that time period.

BY VANCE RANDOLPH

FOOD

Serves 4-6

2 x 300g packs of pre-cooked beetroot

1tsp hot smoked paprika

1tbsp clear honey

2 x 2tbsp olive oil

1 fennel bulb, finely sliced

4 spring onions, finely sliced

1tbsp toasted and lightly crushed coriander seeds

8 mackerel fillets

For the gremolata: 5g fresh parsley, washed and picked

1 lemon, zested and juiced

1 garlic clove, minced

Pinch of caster sugar

Pinch of salt

180ml olive oil

Rachel Walker is a food writer for numerous national publications. Visit rachel-walker.co.uk for more information

Mackerel with Beetroot And Herb Gremolata

Mackerel is a beautiful summer fish—cheap, delicious and incredibly good for you. Though this recipe is written for the kitchen it works well on a barbecue too, with lines of black char enhancing mackerel’s robust flavour. Earthy beetroot is in season late summer. If you have an allotment then adjust the recipe and roast from scratch, but this is written with the time-poor in mind, and pre-cooked supermarket beets

1. Heat the oven to 200°C. Cut each beetroot into 4-6 pieces and put the wedges in a large roasting tin. Mix together the hot smoked paprika, honey and 2tbsp of the olive oil and pour it over the beetroot. Season generously with salt and pepper and roast for 20 minutes.

2. Next, mix the gremolata by washing, picking and slicing the parsley. Mix it with the lemon zest and juice, minced garlic, sugar and salt and olive oil. Taste to check the flavour—it should be punchy and well seasoned—set to one side.

3. Lay the mackerel fillets skin side up. Drizzle over the remaining 2tbsp olive oil and season generously with salt. Using the hottest hob setting get a frying pan really hot before pan-frying the mackerel fillets skin-side down (in batches, if needed). Cook them for 2 minutes, until the sides start to curl up and the flesh starts to cook-through except for a strip down the middle. Flip the fillets and fry them 20-30 seconds on the other side.

4. Toss the fennel slivers and spring onions through the warm beetroot wedges and generously season with crushed coriander. Put two mackerel fillets on each plate, top with a tablespoon of the gremolata and divide the warm beetroot salad between the four plates.

BY TIM & ZOË HILL

Drinks Tip…

Very dry Muscadet might not be the best choice for glugging, but when paired with food it really sings. Waitrose’s Fief

Guérin (£8.49) has a lipsmacking tartness which makes it a great match with oysters and grilled and oily fish

Cheat’s Raspberry Crème Brûlée

Serves 4-6

250g fresh raspberries

1tbsp sugar

300ml double cream

300ml Greek yogurt

2-3tbsp dark brown soft sugar

This recipe is more closely related to a Scottish Cranachan than a French Crème Brûlée. I’m sure continental chefs would be appalled, but my grandmother proudly presented these as “crème brûlées”, so I shall too. It’s far easier than a traditional recipe—no splitting eggs, no bain-marie, no culinary blow torch needed. Instead this quick summer dish can be easily made with children (or grandchildren) during the summer holidays, when raspberries are at their peak.

1. Rinse the raspberries, sprinkle with the sugar and divide between the ramekins.

2. Meanwhile, whip the double cream into soft peaks and then stir in the Greek yogurt to loosen it slightly. Spoon it over the raspberries.

3. Finally, top with dark brown soft sugar. Either pop the ramekins under a hot grill for 2 minutes until the sugar melts and starts to bubble, or (as my grandmother used to do) simply pop in the fridge with raw sugar lid so that it bleeds into the yogurt and creates a sweet top. n

DISCOVER THE BEAUTY OF ALASKA AND VANCOUVER STAY

Fly from London Heathrow to Vancouver, Canada. Here you will stay 3 nights downtown at a 4-star hotel, during your stay we have included a Grouse Mountain and Capilano Suspension Bridge Tour before the cruise itself which explores the coastline of Alaska including scenic cruising and stopping off at all those ports of call you would expect, including Juneau, Skagway, Ketchikan and Glacier Bay before returning to Vancouver. Meanwhile on-board you can enjoy all the facilities in premium luxury onboard Holland America Line’s Koningsdam.

WHAT’S INCLUDED

• International flights from London

• Private airport transfers

• 3 nights 4-star hotel in Downtown Vancouver

• Grouse Mountain and Capilano Suspension Bridge Tour

• 7 night full board cruise aboard Koningsdam

• Free Signature Beverage Package on oceanview cabin and above

May

June

July

August

September

From price is based on 6 May 2020 from London

Other departure airports, dates and hotels available (prices will vary)

Coastal Chic

Dive into summer styling by giving your décor

a nautical-inspired makeover with weathered finishes, rustic textures and cool blue accents

WHomes and gardens writer and stylist Cassie Pryce specialises in interior trends and discovering new season shopping

hile your home may not back onto a pictureperfect sandy cove, a seaside scheme can evoke a sense of tranquillity in any property, no matter the location. This timeless look is easy to pull together and is perfect for those wanting a light and fresh feel that will stand the test of time. Keep furniture unfussy in its design and opt for painted tables and chairs, or pieces in light woods such as ash or oak. Distressed paintwork will add to the coastal character and this is an easy technique to try yourself on upcycled pieces of furniture if you don’t want to buy brand new.

Keep your colour palette muted and soft to retain the sense of calm that

this style is noted for. Off-white walls and exposed floorboards set the scene for an airy, open interior and their neutral appeal won’t date. Add interest to walls through the use of shiplap cladding or exposed stonework to highlight them as architectural features, rather than a blank backdrop. Pale grey and taupe accents will bring a sense of warmth to the space and splashes of blue will bring the focus back to the sea as the source of inspiration.

Nautical motifs can be introduced into your styling as fun finishing touches. Anchors, fish or waves, for example, are whimsical designs that are commonly featured on soft furnishings, or even crockery, to give a nod to this seaside style. Rope detailing on mirrors and vases will help introduce a raw and rustic texture, particularly when paired with weathered wood, and opt for fisherman-style galvanised metal lighting to complete the look. n

Beach Escape

Large Keats pendant in snow, £94; Suffolk six-seater rectangular dining table, £845; Wardley dining chair, from £270, all Neptune

How To Make Your Garden

Pet-Friendly

Jessica Summers on the best ways to treat your animal friends to an outdoor sanctuary that will entertain them and keep them safe

Our furry companions love the outdoors. And whether you have a dog, cat, miniature pig or a host of different animals to spend your time with, it’s imperative they have a safe environment in which to frolic alfresco.

Start with a strong, sturdy fence to assign their boundaries. This could stretch the whole breadth of your garden, or just a section if you’d prefer to keep a part of your space as a human-only zone.

When choosing what to have underfoot, grass is a clear winner and paved pathways are also safe for paws to pad about on. Try to avoid loose materials such as gravel which could get stuck and injure your pet. While considering safety, it’s also important to know which plants

could be potentially poisonous (Daffodils, English Ivy, Mistletoe and many more are harmful to dogs), research what your pet can and cannot tolerate.

Finding shade for an animal is vital (imagine spending summer in a fur coat without a break) so provide areas where they can lounge and retreat from the sun; leaving water in these spaces can be enough encouragement for them to visit.

Since animals aren’t known for their lavatorial manners, you’ll be left to clear up their business; and however annoying the chore, it’s an important one. Other than being an eyesore for your much-loved landscape, not clearing up after your pets could lead to health problems for humans and other animals. n

MANAGING YOUR RETIREMENT PORTFOLIO

Guy Myles is CEO of pension and investment firm Flying Colours. If you have a question for Guy email pensionsguy@ flyingcolourslife.com he’s happy to answer your questions.

For more advice, contact Flying Colours on: 0333 241 9919

Rory, Liverpool asks:

I’m about to retire and have rejected an annuity. I would like some flexibility on how I take my income - I know drawdown has risks but how can I minimise them?

Guy says:

A useful rule of thumb for retirement is that portfolios should be able to sustain income of 4% a year for a long time. There are no guarantees of this though and the risks need to be covered and your situation updated regularly, you should also plan for living much longer.

The priority at this stage in your investing life is to manage your risks effectively. You will need to support income from your portfolio and therefore I think you need to be concerned about investing risk, inflation and something called sequencing risk.

Investing risk is well known. Markets go up and down and you need to choose a portfolio that gives you the best chance of achieving your goals and offering you the right level of protection. This means you need to make sure you’ve got the right spread of investments that will not all move together. I favour clients holding some government bonds because they improve diversification.

Your need for income is likely to increase with inflation and you should try and have a portfolio that offers you protection against this. If you have all your money in savings accounts you will have capital security, but you are exposed to inflation. The way to hedge this risk is to have investments in the stock market and to some extent in property.

Sequencing risk affects you when you are periodically adding or withdrawing money from your investments. In retirement, it can mean that you earn a lower internal rate of return than what you expected. Therefore, the greater the diversification the less the ups and downs, the less the sequencing risk and therefore the lower your risk of running out of money. n

Beating The Heat With Style

Lisa Lennkh is a banker turned fashion writer, stylist and blogger. Her blog, The Sequinist, focuses on sparkle and statement style for midlife women

Summer has always been my least favourite season, sartorially. I much prefer warm boots and soft layers to gritty sandals and sweaty dresses. If there's one thing I can’t stand, it's those heavy beads of summer sweat that roll all the way down my spine. It makes me want to leap straight into a pool, any pool. In August, I'll be in Savannah, Georgia, with its high heat and humidity to properly test my summer coping skills.

It's hard staying chic in summer. My solution is a long loose maxi dress, but finding the right one is tricky. Far too much of the high street is polyester which not only feels terrible to wear in the heat but also makes

you sweat more. I always choose clothing fabrics carefully but in the summer, I'm especially careful. I focus on two things: 1) natural breathable fibres and 2) cheerful colours or patterns that won't show moisture. Plain cotton and linen are the best, but I also look for light towelling fabric, seersucker, gingham, and even a light textured knit.

I tend to shop for good cotton or linen dresses at only a handful of reliable places. British brand Aspiga (online) is my first stop for floaty cotton and linen dresses with well thought out details that look just as chic in an urban setting as they do in a tropical one. Plus, every item of clothing in their range is sustainably and ethically made, so your purchases are actually doing some good for the people who make them. Another sustainable British brand that should be on your hot weather radar is Cucumber clothing (online). Cucumber was founded by three

women over 50 who created a unique high-tech fast-drying fabric and it's particularly well-loved by frequent travellers because the garments dry in no time after a quick wash.

Now for a few high street summer options... The White Company always carries an excellent range of dresses and tunics in natural fibres. Their trademark monochrome palette doesn't suit everyone (including me) but the styles are timeless and stylish. For unusual and flattering colours, I go to Uniqlo. They always have very well-priced basic cotton and linen clothing. My favourite purchase this summer is a red cotton seersucker maxi length skirt from Uniqlo.

Quite honestly, my loose summer dresses are more functional than stylish, so I rely on accessories to give my style its trademark punch in hot weather. Earlier this year, I discovered the accessories range at Aspiga and went a little crazy. Like the clothing, all of their brightly beaded handbags and sandals are ethically and sustainably made. The meticulous beadwork is second to none, and the hardwearing sandals elevate even the simplest white cotton dress. In my wardrobe, the multicolour beaded handbags are a particularly worthy purchase since I can use them year round with almost any outfit. I may not feel very enthusiastic about summer clothes, but my bright and colourful wardrobe won't give me away! n

Feeling The BURN

Jenessa Williams breaks down the best products to combat summer’s dreaded "chub rub"

No matter your physical size, when warmer weather rolls around, we can all be susceptible to uncomfortable humidity. While sweat is perfectly natural, it can cause friction on skin that leads to painful rubbing and sores if left unchecked. There’s nothing worse than having to sit out on holiday activities because of the so-called "chub rub", but there are plenty of simple solutions to keep you cool, dry and fresh.

As with most skin situations, prevention is the best cure. Get ahead of the game by applying a powder product between thighs, under bust or arms…anywhere that chafing is likely to occur. Talcum powder will do the job in a crisis, but specifically formulated products such as Lush’s "Silky Underwear" will be much more effective, infused with cornstarch and cocoa butter to soften skin and provide a gentle perfumed scent.

If you’re donning a summer dress, consider wearing a pair of breathable slip shorts underneath—perfect for creating a base layer that protects

your skin from friction. For those who like to exercise in the heat, Bodyglide should be your new favourite brand. Their Suncreen Balm is a holiday essential, offering SPF 30+ as well as sweat-resistant and anti-blister technology in its paraben-free formula. Apply before activity and repeat every 80 minutes. Packaged in a handy stick, it’s the perfect size to throw in your tote bag. n

Hero Products

Body Glide Sun SPF, £9.99 for 42g

Lush Silky Underwear Dusting Powder, £8.50 for 60g

Marks and Spencer Anti Chafing Slip Shorts, £12

PAIN AND GLORY

Pedro Almodóvar comes back guns a-blazing with another star-studded, emotionally loaded masterpiece

Anyone who’s ever seen an Almodóvar film recognises the luxury of being immersed in his world; it’s a rare treat to be savoured like a fleeting taste of genuine happiness.

The Spanish maestro’s latest offering is no different. Heftily borrowing from the Fellini classic, 8½, Pain and Glory looks at an ageing film director, Salvador, who reminisces about his childhood in rural Spain and the life stages that followed: a passionate youth, a fruitful career and the beginning of decline which brings us to his present state: crippled by a writer’s block as well as his many ailments, and a

dangerously escalating appetite for heroin. He’s played here resplendently by Almodóvar’s long-time collaborator, Antonio Banderas. Arguably in his greatest role to date, he imbues Salvador with tenderness and childlike vulnerability, completely devoid of his normally inseparable sexuality. One brief gaze from him is enough to disarm us: innocent but piercingly perceptive, it flat out declares that there’s nowhere for us to hide from life’s painful trials.

It’s a nimbly told and compelling drama that nevertheless won’t fail to make you chuckle; the director clearly hasn’t lost his penchant for selfdeprecation, treating his own descent into ripe age with wit and good humour, benevolently inviting us to the same.

DOCUMENTARY: HAIL

SATAN? If all you associate Satanism with is virgin sacrifice and upside-down crosses, you might find yourself tickled and upliftingly surprised watching director Penny Lane’s new film, Hail Satan? Following the “nontheistic” religious group from Salem, Massachusetts, who call themselves “The Satanic Temple”, the film traces their speedy rise to prominence and the many successful political rallies and projects behind it, eg, getting a Ten Commandments monument removed from Oklahoma’s State Capitol. It’s a fun,

self-deprecating and eye-opening documentary that, at the very heart of it, promotes equality, freedom of speech and the importance of kindness. Very diabolical indeed.

COMEDY: BLINDED BY THE LIGHT

This unapologetic ode to Bruce Springsteen tells the story of a teenage boy living in 1980s Luton whose life is transformed by The Boss’ music. The film equivalent of an over-zealous, brighteyed uni fresher, Blinded by the Light can be a tad overbearing and sickeningly saccharine, but if you’re a fan of old Bruce (or Rob Brydon, for that matter), you might just fall head over heels.

DRAMA: THE SOUVENIR This biographical drama from Joanna Hogg is largely based on the director’s early years as a film student in 1980s Britain. Quiet and content in its simplicity, the film takes pleasure in enigmatic sentiments, unuttered emotions and a great retro soundtrack. Our heroine is the goodhearted but gullible Julie who falls for the arrogant but infuriatingly charming Anthony. As she grows increasingly attached to him, he grows increasingly dependent on her wealth and generosity. It’s a ponderous, moody cocktail but do stick with it—the rewards are manifold.

by Eva Mackevic

MISTER WINNER: SERIES 1 (BBC2; BBC IPLAYER)

What is it? Six-part sitcom following the misadventures of hapless everyman, Leslie Winner.

Why should I watch it? Matt Morgan, one of our most distinctive comedy writers (The Mimic, Hospital People), here goes some way to reviving the spirit of silent slapstick, running his latter-day Buster Keaton headfirst through a generally inspired selection of sight gags. Best episode? “The Piano”, which opens with a terrific routine in and around an acupuncture clinic.

THE OTHER TWO (E4; ALL4)

What is it? The best new American sitcom of 2019.

Why should I watch it? In following the baffled thirty-something siblings of an overnight teen pop sensation, this super-sharp Lorne Michaels production actually succeeds in being a comedy about something: the rapid acceleration of fame in the modern era, and how little talent seems to be involved.

Best episode? Episode Nine of ten, set entirely aboard a chaotic charter plane.

Best character? Leads Heléne Yorke and Drew Tarver should go stratospheric after this, but the whole ensemble’s terrific: shoutouts to Molly Shannon as the siblings’ mother, and Ken Marino as our would-be Bieber’s useless agent.

by Mike McCahill

WHAT TO STREAM THIS MONTH:

KILLING EVE (BBC IPLAYER)

Decide for yourself whether the sophomore season of the blackly comic thriller measures up to its outstanding debut run.

MY NEXT GUEST NEEDS NO INTRODUCTION (NETFLIX) David

Letterman returns to lower the defences of Kanye West, Ellen DeGeneres and Lewis Hamilton.

SHE’S GOTTA HAVE IT (NETFLIX) Spike Lee’s state-of-America address expands its canvas and colour palette, before leaving controversies trailing in its wake.

ALBUM OF THE MONTH: LUST AND LEARN

BY THE SLOW SHOW

The Slow Show may not sound much different from your standard indie pop fare at first blush; the pensive piano, the seamless song transitions, the carefully construed melodic build-ups. But once you’re lulled into a false sense of security, vocalist Rob Goodwin crashes into life with his gloriously croaky, outlandish baritone and nothing is ever the same again. Brooding, spinetinglingly raspy and ripe, his vocals are so eccentric that you’d be forgiven for thinking that Goodwin had some rare (but brilliantly fortuitous) voice disorder that made him sound this way.

But the surprises don’t end there. Lust and Learn is a panoply of unusual, thoughtful touches like incorporating an angelic choir acting as a refreshing contrast to Goodwin’s earthy vocals, going for the soul where his voice reaches for the groin; or the weirdly nostalgic combos of up-tempo rhythms paired with melancholy strings that evoke memories of early Noughties’ Moby or Enya. It’s a one-of-a-kind, deeply atmospheric record, that will demand your time and attention—but don’t the good ones always do so?

Key tracks: “Eye to Eye”, “Hard to Hide”, “Loser’s Game”

by Eva Mackevic

READER RADAR: TREVOR PARSONS, HOSPITAL RECEPTIONIST

WATCHING: ONLY FOOLS AND HORSES I’m watching re-runs, and I love the way Del,Rodney and Uncle Albert spark off each other and help each other despite their differences.

READING: WELLINGTON: THE IRON

DUKE BY RICHARD HOLMES This book is a biography of the Duke of Wellington. It’s great the way Wellington turned a group of vagabonds into one of the best armies of the 19th century.

ONLINE: SPRINGWATCH BBC I’ve also been following the programme via their Twitter page, @BBCSpringwatch. I’m passionate about nature and if I’m not taking photos of it, I enjoy spending my time watching it.

LISTENING: GEORGE EZRA

I really enjoy his music. You can hear the joy in his voice when he’s singing and you can’t help feeling uplifted.

August Fiction

A seductive, twisty thriller that’ll keep you guessing and a powerful lesson in the civil rights movement are our top page-turners this month…

Platform Seven by Louise Doughty (Faber, £12.99)

Louise Doughty specialises in novels that read like exciting thrillers—partly, I suppose, because they are—but that also delve deep into the mysterious business of human relationships. Her most famous, Apple Tree Yard, which became a celebrated BBC drama, featured a respectable, middle-aged woman having a wildly ill-advised affair. Now, in Platform Seven, she again examines female self-deception in the face of a charismatic but dangerous man—as well as serving up several generous subplots that between them add up to a full-scale meditation on what really matters in life.

Perhaps the most striking thing about the narrator, Lisa, is that she’s dead. At first, she’s not sure how she

James Walton is a book reviewer and broadcaster, and has written and presented 17 series of the BBC Radio 4 literary quiz The Write Stuff

ended up being killed by a train at Peterborough station, where she appears to be spending the afterlife. Gradually, though, her memories return—in a way that reminds us how beautifully Doughty can time a story: drip-feeding us the information we need with tantalising skill, while somehow making it feel both shocking and utterly inevitable. And just in case that’s not enough, the book also contains one of the great villains of recent fiction—not least because his appeal to women is so plausible.

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (Fleet, £16.99)

In 2017 novelist Colson Whitehead won a Pulitzer Prize for The Underground Railroad, a brilliant and ferocious depiction of slavery in the American South.

The equally blistering The Nickel Boys is set in Florida a century later—in the early 1960s—but with the same

brutal white supremacy still firmly in place.

Elwood Curtis is a scholarly black teenager with a strong faith in the ideals of Martin Luther King. But then he inadvertently hitches a lift in a stolen car—for which he’s arrested, found guilty of theft and “sentenced to hell”, as he understandably describes it in later life. At Nickel Reform School, where he’s sent, the staff’s unremitting violence and cruelty are all the more terrifying for being so random. (Horrifyingly, Nickel is closely based on a real Florida institution of the time.) But, as Whitehead makes clear, Nickel wasn’t an aberration—which is why his entirely righteous anger is aimed not just at the school itself, but at the whole society that produced and condoned it. The result is nobody’s idea of a comfort read—but if there’s a more powerful novel this year, I’d be very surprised.

Name the author

Can you guess the writer from these clues (the fewer you need the better)?

1. He’s the only American writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature during the 1950s.

2. The places he lived included Paris, Cuba and Key West, Florida.

3. His novels included The Sun Also Rises and The Old Man and the Sea.

Answer on p126

Paperbacks

Step by Step by Simon Reeve (Hodder, £9.99)

The TV travel presenter’s gripping account of his journeys in 120 countries.

A View to a Kilt

by Wendy Holden (Head of Zeus, £8.99)

Holden’s glossy-magazine journalist

Laura Lake heads to the Highlands for another witty and entertaining romp around the posher side of British life.

From the Corner of the Oval Office by Beck Dorey-Stein (Black Swan, £8.99)

To her own surprise, the author gets a stenographer job at the White House, where she has close access to President Obama, and unwisely falls for a colleague. Full of insider gossip and comic misadventures.

Breathe

by Dominick Donald (Hodder, £8.99)

Acclaimed crime debut set in the infamous London fog of 1952—where, naturally, a killer lurks…

First You Write a Sentence

by Joe Moran (Penguin, £9.99)

Terrific analysis of what makes for good writing. Indispensable for would-be writers, absorbing for everybody else.

Inspired by motherhood, Clare Pollard lovingly crafts a tribute to picture books and their authors, family stories and favourite childhood book heroes

Like many parents, Clare Pollard found that having a child brought her own childhood back with sudden new vividness. And for her, a big part of childhood was picture books. She began to assemble a collection for her son—and to reflect on why these books have meant so much to so many pre-school children.

Fierce Bad Rabbits is the welcome result of both activities. Mixing history, family stories and thoughtful discussion of much-loved works such as The Gruffalo, The Snowman and The Tiger Who Came to Tea, the book is by turns enchanting and highly informative. It also leaves us no doubt that, as she says, “picture books are not a minor form, but one of the most important of all”.

Fierce Bad Rabbits: The Tales Behind Children’s Books

by Clare Pollard is published on August 1 by Fig Tree at £14.99

The form, it turns out, has a long history. Picture books were around in the 18th century—although mainly for the purposes of moral instruction. One especially funsounding example consisted of 163 rules for good childhood behaviour, including “Approach near thy Parents at no Time without a Bow.” Even so, Pollard identifies The Tale of Peter Rabbit as ground zero for the picture book as we know it today.

She also draws some fascinating parallels between the books and their author’s lives. The young Eric

Carle, for instance, experienced real hunger in wartime Germany—which may explain why his most famous work was The Very Hungry Caterpillar. (And in later life, Carle bitterly regretted accepting his publisher’s suggestion that after his big blow-out, the caterpillar had to suffer for it with a stomachache.)

In this extract, Pollard has just had her second child. Worried that the new siblings might not get on, she turns to picture books for guidance…

‘‘

The siblings in Shirley Hughes’s books are a model and a comfort, always tolerant of each other, fondly muddling through. Lucy and Tom, Katie and Olly, Alfie and Annie Rose. Then, of course, there are Joe, Dave and older sister Bella in Dogger.

Dogger is another tale of lost and found, one that can be read over and over as a reassurance. It is based on a real toy that belonged to Shirley’s son Ed. Dogger is not just a bedtime ‘cuddler’ (as we say in our house) but a constant playmate, being dragged around on string or wrapped in blankets. Eventually, Dave leaves Dogger somewhere. (It is not stated explicitly, but the pictures seem to suggest that Dave leaves Dogger poking through the school railings He is distracted by an ice-cream van, then giving his little brother Joe ‘in-between licks’ of his melty pink cornet.)

The school fair comes, along with

Four picture books that are particular fun to read to children

Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy by Lynley Dodd

A group of dogs head proudly into town—until they meet the terrifying cat Scarface Claw. Surely no parent can resist doing a German accent for the dachshund Schnitzel Von Krumm—or hamming up Scarface Claw’s bloodcurdling yell.

Owl Babies

by Martin Waddell and Patrick Benson

Three owl siblings wake to find their mother gone. Of course, it ends happily—but, in the meantime, why not make Bill’s repeated cry of “I want my mummy!” as heartbreakingly plaintive as possible?

Each Peach Pear Plum

by Janet and Allan Ahlberg

An I-Spy game featuring a winningly random series of well-known characters. The intricate pictures mean that you really do keep spotting something new.

Fox in Socks by Doctor Seuss

One for the braver parent: a collection of increasingly fearsome tonguetwisters. Guaranteed to provide a warm glow of parental pride if you pull it off.

a series of delightfully nostalgic illustrations that explain the book’s enduring charm (‘nearly new’ stalls, a lucky-dip barrel, a fancy-dress parade). Bella wins an alarmingly large teddy with a blue silk bow in the raffle. But then Dave sees Dogger on the toy stall where he can’t afford the 5p price tag. He can’t find Mum and Dad, only, eventually, Bella—but by then Dogger has been bought, and the girl won’t sell him back. Dave cries and cries.

‘Then Bella did something very kind.’

It made me start to weep just typing that out.

Bella swaps her giant teddy with the blue bow for Dogger.

Just look at how Hughes catches Bella’s stance, as she awkwardly but solemnly accepts Dave’s grateful hug. She tells Dave she won’t miss the big teddy: ‘Anyway, if I had another teddy in my bed there wouldn’t be room for me.’

Those first weeks pass. Better

And the name of the author is…

Ernest Hemingway—who in Paris hung out with Scott Fitzgerald and in Cuba with Fidel Castro. His Cuba and Key West homes are now museums.

“My fears receded— I watched my children grow fond of each other ”

slept, my fears receded: I watched my children grow fond of each other.

I don’t understand, now, why I feared otherwise, as I always adored my own little sister. Mary had hair a shade darker than mine, brighter eyes, and a smaller, dirtier nose which she rubbed with a fist. In photos she always grinned daftly, scrunched or gurning, an adorable gargoyle. We got on well, because we accepted our assigned roles— knowing I was serious and bookish, Mary decided to be sociable and sporty. She got cute and funny; I took patient and wise.

In Dogger, of course, I am the older sister. I liked giving Mary toys she would enjoy more than me. However much you love an adult, they must bear their struggles and sadnesses themselves. Sometimes you must accept you cannot help. But when you love a small child, their joy can be entirely within your gift. I know this now as a mother but learnt it first as a big sister. It’s so simple: a bubble, a tickle, a lolly, a wriggly worm, a toy lost then found.

What luck it is, Dogger reminds us, to live in such days. n

Books

THAT CHANGED MY LIFE

Harlan Coben is a New York Times bestselling thriller and mystery novel writer. His new book, Run Away, is out now, published by Century

Bird by

Bird

The Marathon Man

BY WILLIAM GOLDMAN

My father gave me this book when I was 15 or 16. It was the first time I read an adult thriller where I said to myself, “I can’t put this down—someone could put a gun to my head and I wouldn’t put this down! How lucky is this Goldman guy to do this for a living?” Subconsciously, I think, that started me on this career path. Bill Goldman later became a valued friend and mentor. He died last year and I miss him greatly.

BY ANNE LAMOTT

Once a year or so, I re-read this writing manual (though it’s really much more than that). This is a series of hilarious and helpful essays on writing and the creative process. It also gives the reader great insight on why we writers are a tad insecure and just plain nuts. I use it like a coach’s halftime speech to get me fired up to write. Give this book to anyone who wants to understand (or become) an artist. It will teach you, yes, but it’s also funny and poignant.

Are You My Mother? BY P

D EASTMAN

My earliest reading memory is this illustrated children’s book. A baby bird searches for his missing mother, asking the title question to a kitten, a cow and even a diesel truck. It’s a dark picture book. You’ll be gripped! I got the reading bug at a very young age. I also loved The Chronicles of Narnia by C S Lewis— my favourite childhood series. I love the way the history folded back on itself. We can all imagine the magic of being in a house and opening a door on a boring day to a whole new world. Pure escapism. n

4 Travel Gadgets You’ll Want To Pack

All set for your summer holidays? Consider Olly Mann’s favoured travel accessories before you step out the door…

THE PERFECT ROAST

Wherever you are these days, you’re rarely far from decent coffee. But if you want to leave the corporate chains behind and sample speciality blends, Best Coffee (basic subscription free) is worth having in your pocket. Based on your location and/or preferences (pet-friendly, decaf, cold brew, etc), this app recommends independent cafés serving complex and flavourful cuppas. It works best in cities with thriving coffee cultures—Melbourne, Vienna, Seattle—but, as a Hertfordshire boy, I was pleased to see that St Albans makes the list, too...

Olly Mann presents Four Thought for BBC Radio 4, and the award-winning podcasts The Modern Mann and Answer Me This!

TWO-IN-ONE, IN THE SUN

Can your headphones protect your eyes? Can your sunglasses play a podcast? These are probably not questions you’ve ever thought to ask, but the answer comes in the form of Bose Frames (£199.95), a classic pair of shades, but with wireless headphones built in to the handles. They’re potentially useful for safetyconscious cyclists, as they don’t obscure your ear-holes; otherwise, the sound quality—though impressive—can’t compete with onear headphones. But, a fun novelty for the sun lounger.

THE TOURING CINEMA

If your hotel TV has no channels in English, and the idea of balancing an iPad on your knees for two hours has limited appeal, there is another way. Read a book! But, if you still require a telly fix, locate a white wall and fire up the BenQ GV1 wire-free portable projector (£326.99), which streams directly from most pocket devices via Chromecast or Airplay. It can be adjusted across 15 degrees, and beamed on to the most awkward spaces. When you’re done watching movies, you can use it as a Bluetooth speaker.

Stay In Charge

Concerned about the environmental impact of single-use batteries? You’ll want to invest in a battery charger, then; but many on the market are too bulky for (budget) travel. The GP Charge AnyWay X411 (£24.99) however, is genuinely pocket-sized, and lithium-free, so can be carried-on in hand luggage. It charges via USB, so you can boost your batteries from your laptop and—here’s the clever bit—if you run out of juice on your smartphone, you can reverse the cable and use the power bank, with either rechargeable OR alkaline batteries, to charge your phone.

You Couldn’t Make It Up

Win £30 for your true, funny stories!

Go to readersdigest.co.uk/contact-us or facebook.com/readersdigestuk

AS I WAS ENJOYING A MEAL at my local Chinese restaurant the other day, I couldn’t escape the feeling that I was being watched.

Suddenly, a beak and two small beady eyes emerged from behind the curtain opposite my table. Alarmed, I called the waiter.

“Please don’t worry yourself madam” he said, “It’s only the Peking Duck”

DANIELLE COX, Worcester

MY 9-YEAR-OLD SON WAS UPSET

that he was not allowed to watch The Walking Dead on telly. Trying to get us to change our mind he commented that his schoolteacher had told him about Jesus' corpse being placed in a tomb, then rising again three days later.

“She doesn't think I'm too young to know about zombies” he reasoned.

CORRINE HARDY, Denbighshire

WHILE ON HOLIDAY, I booked my car into a park-and-ride facility near the airport. On our return, we were picked up by a courtesy bus and taken to the parking area. It was very

late at night and when I went to collect my car keys the man on duty asked my age.

I was taken aback and demanded to know why he wanted to know, to which he gave an exasperated sigh and said, “Your Reg! Your car registration please.”

SHEILA MILLAR, Devon

AN ELDERLY FRIEND TOLD ME

recently that her sister had gone to the local garden centre to purchase grass seed for her lawn. The assistant

asked her what kind of grass seed she wanted and after a short pause she replied, “I'd like the kind with daisies in it, please!”

SYLVIA THOMPSON, Fife

I LEFT MY HUSBAND WITH OUR 3-YEAR-OLD daughter while I went for an appointment. When I got back she had been playing tea parties with him.

“Look” he said “Isn't she cute? She's even put water in the cups.” Then he raised the saucer and cup to his lips and drank some.

I waited until he'd finished before asking him “Did you stop to think that the only place she can reach water from is the toilet?”

DEMI ROBERTS, Denbighshire

I HAD TO SMILE when my mother scolded my bachelor brother for the state of his flat and the fact that it needed urgent cleaning.

rubbish bags in the bin and laid them on the ground before doing so. A man was cycling by and while her back was turned, the man stopped and picked up the prettiest of the bags and cycled off with it. She chased after him, shouting “Stop, don’t open it!” but the man didn’t turn back.

The neighbours came out and asked why she was shouting to which she explained, “the thief has stolen a bag of used nappies!”

THIRUPURASUNDARI SHEEHY, London

MY DAD OFTEN TOOK A SHORT CUT through the cemetery and one night a couple of strange youths fell into step beside him. Not sure of their intentions, he said,

“Too scared to walk through on your own, boys?” and without giving them the chance to answer, he added, “I felt just the same when I was alive.”

Oddly enough, there was no reply.

MAGGIE COBBETT, Yorkshire

MAXINE COOPER. London

His excuse was, “Every time I get the urge to clean, I watch Hoarders. And then I decide my house isn't that dirty after all!

MY DAUGHTER WAS MOANING about her Science Teacher and how she can’t keep up.

“I don’t always know what she says,” she explained, “She can talk 50 per cent faster than I can listen”

AMIE YARDLEY, Cambridgeshire

MY BROTHER'S HOUSEKEEPER recently went outside to dump the

MY FRIEND TOLD ME she had been acutely embarrassed by her husband's behaviour at the bank earlier that day.

The couple were having a meeting with one of the managers and it wasn't going well.

“You should start treating me with more respect” complained her husband, “Or I will be forced to take my overdraft to a nicer bank!”

GERI BURTON, Denbighshire

It’s never been easier to enjoy the World’s favourite magazine!

YES I want to subscribe to Reader’s Digest Magazine for just £3 for 3 issues (a saving of £8.37 on the shop price of £11.37 based on the cover price of £3.79 per issue). I understand that if I do not wish to continue receiving Reader’s Digest after my first 3 issues I can simply cancel my subscription by contacting customer services. If I do want to continue to subscribe after my first 3 issues I need do nothing and my subscription will automatically be renewed at the low rate of £7.50 for every 3 issues until I decide otherwise.

IT PAYS TO INCREASE YOUR

Word Power

Finally, a quiz dedicated to plain ol’ fun! Inspired by The 100 Funniest Words, by Robert Beard, these picks are a mouthful. Enjoy weaving them into your dinner-table conversation tonight. Answers on next page

BY EMILY COX & HENRY RATHVON

1. flummox v.—A: laugh out loud. B: confuse. C: ridicule.

2. crudivore n.—A: foulmouthed person. B: garbage can. C: eater of raw food.

3. hoosegow n.—A: jail. B: scaredycat. C: strong liquor, usually moonshine.

4. mollycoddle v.—A: treat with an absurd degree of attention. B: mix unwisely. C: moo or imitate a cow.

5. donnybrook n.—A: rapid stream. B: wild brawl. C: stroke of luck.

6. cantankerous adj.—A: very sore. B: hard to deal with. C: obnoxiously loud.

7. codswallop n.—A: the sound produced by a hiccup. B: rare rainbow fish. C: nonsense.

8. doozy n.—A: extraordinary, one

of a kind. B: incomprehensible song. C: double feature.

9. discombobulate v.—A: taken apart. B: fail. C: upset or frustrate.

10. hootenanny n..—A: group of owls. B: folksinging event. C: child’s caregiver.

11. yahoo n.—A: overzealous fan. B: pratfall. C: dumb person.

12. kerfuffle n.—A: failure to ignite. B: pillow or blanket. C: disturbance.

13. absquatulate v.—A: abscond or flee. B: stay low to the ground. C: utterly flatten.

14. skullduggery n.—A: Shakespearean prank. B: underhanded behaviour. C: graveyard.

15. flibbertigibbet n.—A: silly and flighty person. B: snap of the fingers. C: hex or curse.

Answers

1. flummox—[B] confuse. Sanjit is easily flummoxed by any changes to his schedule.

2. crudivore—[C] eater of raw food. To help boost my health, I’m declaring myself a crudivore.

3. hoosegow—[A] jail. After protesting a touch too loudly in court, Tara found herself in the hoosegow.

4. mollycoddle—[A] treat with an absurd degree of attention. “Lillie’s my only grandchild—I’ll mollycoddle her all I want!”

5. donnybrook—[B] wild brawl. After the saloon ran out of ale, a cowboy donnybrook erupted.

6. cantankerous—[B] hard to deal with. The comic was greeted by a cantankerous crowd at his debut.

7. codswallop [C] nonsense. “Oh, codswallop! I never went near that bowl of sweeties,” Dad barked.

8. doozy—[A] extraordinary, one of a kind. That was a doozy of a storm— luckily, we dodged the two downed trees.

9. discombobulate—[C] upset or frustrate. The goal of the simulator: discombobulate even the sharpest of pilots.

10. hootenanny—[B] folksinging event. After the concert, let’s head up the hill for the hootenanny.

11. yahoo—[C] dumb person. Please try not to embarrass me at Eva’s party, you big yahoo.

12. kerfuffle—[C] disturbance. I was referring to that minor kerfuffle at Alfie's last playdate.

13. absquatulate—[A] abscond or flee. Upon opening the door, Claire watched the new puppy absquatulate with her favourite trainers.

WORD OF THE DAY*

14. skullduggery—[B] underhanded behaviour. During contract negotiations, the chairman was infamous for resorting to skullduggery.

ILLIQUATION:

The melting of one thing into another

Alternative suggestions:

"How my daughter feels when she has to tackle her maths homework”

“When someone feels sick after too much liquor consumption”

15. flibbertigibbet —[A] silly and flighty person. Do I really have to spend the entire ride with that flibbertigibbet sitting next to me?!

VOCABULARY RATINGS

9 & below: Amusing

10–12: Hysterical

13–15: Gut-busting

www.ultralase.com

Brainteasers

STAR SEARCH

Place stars in seven cells of this grid so that every row, every column and every outlined region contains exactly one star. Stars must never be located in adjacent cells, not even diagonally. Can you find the solution?

TILE SCRAMBLER

Below are four tiles. How many different ways could you arrange them in a row? Consider those with the letter A to be interchangeable; for example, “TABA” counts as only one arrangement, even though you could change the order of the two A tiles.

A-TO-L FIT-IN

L

Insert the letters A to L, one per square, so that no two consecutive letters in alphabetical order touch, not even at a corner. Four letters have been placed to get you started.

BALLOON BOUQUET

The diagram to the left shows the top view of a bunch of balloons. The diagram to the right is a view from the side, from a direction for you to determine, but one of the balloons that should be visible has popped (recently enough that none of the other balloons have been disturbed). Which one?

1 TO 25

Move the numbers from the outer ring onto the board. Each number must be placed in one of the five cells that lie in the direction indicated by its chevron. The numbers must snake together vertically, horizontally or diagonally so they link in sequence from 1 to 25. (For example, 2 must be adjacent to both 1 and 3.)

There’s only one solution. Can you find it?

Laugh!

Win £30 for every reader’s joke we publish!

Go to readersdigest.co.uk/contact-us or facebook.com/readersdigestuk

I WAS AT A PETROL STATION buying dinner recently and a man asked me if I believe in God.

Dude, I’m buying a meal from a petrol station, I don’t even believe in myself.

SEEN ON REDDIT

IT’S OKAY IF YOU FALL APART sometimes. Tacos fall apart and we still love them. SEEN ON TWITTER

LATELY I’VE BEEN FEELING THIS sharp pain in my chest whenever I take a breath of air, so I went on Google to look up the symptoms. Turns out it’s really hard to type that in without it sounding like a line of poetry.

Duck’s Best Friend

This odd couple’s friendship was captured on film by their owner, 18-year-old Natacha. (via Xuamina_photographie on Instagram)

I wrote, “When I breathe there’s a pain in my heart.”

Google said, “Did you mean My Chemical Romance?”

COMEDIAN PETER WONG

ALL OF MY TEACHERS TOLD ME that to become clever, I should study Shakespeare. Not true. Shakespeare never studied Shakespeare, and he went on to become Shakespeare.

COMEDIAN GLENN MOORE

MY OBESE PET PARROT DIED TODAY. I have mixed feelings about it. But in a way I have to admit it’s a huge weight off my shoulders.

SEEN ON FACEBOOK

GROWING UP I ALWAYS THOUGHT that I wanted to be a doctor. But now I’m an adult, I realise I really wanted to be a doctor in the 1800s.

Got the flu? Chug of whiskey for you, chug of whiskey for me!

SEEN ON REDDIT

SINCE MY KIDS WERE BORN, I’ve been wearing jeans from Marks & Spencer.

They’re in a style called “relaxed skinny”—ironically two things I haven’t been since my kids were born.

COMEDIAN LUCY PORTER

I USUALLY MEET MY GIRLFRIEND at 12.59, because I like that one to one time.

COMEDIAN TOM WARD

somebody without contacts, money or the ability to speak the language steals your job… you weren’t very good at your job!

SEEN ONLINE

THE SPICE GIRLS SHOWED US that even when women are given a chance to tell us what they want, what they really, really want… they will still often say nonsense.

COMEDIAN SPARK TABOR

EARLIER THIS YEAR I GOT ROUND to watching The Theory of Everything—loved it.

Should have been called Look Who’s Hawking, though. That’s my only criticism.

COMEDIAN JAMES ACASTER

I FIND THAT ANTS OVER-PRAISE me. Sycophants? Yes I am.

COMEDIAN KAI HUMPHRIES

PEOPLE SAY I’VE GOT NO WILL power, but I’ve quit smoking loads of times!

COMEDIAN TIM VINE

CONJUNCTIVITIS.COM. Now that’s a site for sore eyes.

COMEDIAN TIM VINE

OF COURSE FOREIGNERS MIGHT steal your job. But maybe if

MY CHILDHOOD DOCTOR WAS really rather a large man.

He looked like the only thing he’d ever cured was pork.

COMEDIAN TIM VINE

Pet Peeves

Twitter users share examples of their pets’ stranger behaviours…

@JesseHarp19: Each time I change clothes, my dog attacks me because he thinks I’m a different person.

@NatalieWardius: My cat will stand halfway in her litterbox and look me directly in the eye as she pees on the carpet.

@WonderRxjr: Every time I pull down the toaster, my dog goes down with it. When my toast comes out, he jumps up and barks at it.

@JeffCoates: My dog once sniffed the butt of a dog on TV.

@AmaliaHalpin: Everytime I change clothes, my fish stops swimming and just stares at me until I’m done

@Ayad724: My cat wakes me up at 3am, just so I’d follow her downstairs and watch her use the bathroom.

CROSSWORD ANSWERS

ELECTIONS ARE LIKE POLICE LINEUPS, only with elections you pick the person before they rob you and screw you. It’s like a game of choose your mugger.

SEEN ON REDDIT

TWO GRANDMOTHERS ARE DISCUSSING their grandsons. One says, “My grandson has such a wonderful way with words, every time that he writes to me I find that I have to get out the dictionary.”

“Mine has a wonderful way with words too,” replies the other grandmother, “but every time he writes to me I have to get out my cheque book.”

STEPHEN GEE, London

I LIVE IN LONDON BUT MY KIDS LIVE IN Southampton. I’m surprised more people don’t do it like this. Sending them to their room is much more of a threat when it involves hitch-hiking down the M3.

COMEDIAN LUKE TOULSON

I GOT INVOLVED WITH AN ANIMAL charity recently and adopted a whale and a monkey, which is all very well, but sooner or later, I’m going to have to be the one who has to explain to them why they don’t look like each other.

COMEDIAN MARK RESTUCCIA

MY WIFE IS ALWAYS TELLING ME THAT I should be more spontaneous. I say: “Fine! When?”

COMEDIAN SUSAN CALMAN

Across: 4 Elbow, 9 Sunbeam, 10 Alamo, 11 Being, 12 Toughie, 13 Gruff, 14 Rural, 17 Throne, 18 Meteor, 19 Shoe, 20 Abduct, 22 Noggin, 25 Iraq, 26 Scheme, 29 Remote, 30 Isaac, 33 Soaks, 34 Learner, 36 Haifa, 37 Omega, 38 Steeple, 39 Primp.

Down: 1 Asst, 2 Enquired, 3 Mechanic, 4 Ember, 5 Briar, 6 Waggle, 7 Salute, 8 Conference, 15 Ushuaia, 16 Amen, 17 Transistor, 21 Ties, 23 Operates, 24 Grown-ups, 27 Heaven, 28 Mishap, 31 Alibi, 32 Clasp, 35 Reef.

60-Second

Stand-Up

We chat to the effortlessly funny comedian, Loyiso Gola

WHAT’S THE BEST PART OF YOUR CURRENT SHOW? At the moment I talk about pet peeves. The things that really piss me off aren’t these grand issues, they’re mundane, weird things. Like, why doesn’t Wimbledon build a roof? Man, just build a roof. You’ve been stopping for rain for 30 years, at some point that’s just called being disorganised.

WHAT’S YOUR MOST MEMORABLE HECKLE? What I tell the people who heckle me is, if you heckle I will pretend that you didn’t, and then I’ll continue. If you weren’t there when I was writing at home then it’s too far gone in the process for you to get involved, you can’t join me now.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE ONELINER? My favourite one liner I’ve ever heard is one by Chris Rock that I heard in high school and it still makes me laugh to this day. He says, “When your boss is paying you minimum wage, what he’s basically saying is: ‘If I could pay you less I would. It’s just against the law.’ ”

DO YOU HAVE ANY FUNNY TALES ABOUT A TIME YOU BOMBED ON STAGE? There was this one time I was at a casino and I wasn’t told that no one there spoke the language—they just stared at me the whole time. That was probably the most painful one because there’s nothing you can do.

WHO INSPIRES YOUR COMEDY?

The world, stuff that happens in it and my engagement with people. I find irony in a lot of things which is how I would describe what I do at the moment.

IF YOU COULD BE A FLY ON THE WALL, WHOSE WALL WOULD YOU BE ON? I’m happy being human. I wouldn’t want to be a fly under any circumstance, even in the case of it leading to another conversation, because flies eat s**t. That’s too much to compromise for me. I wouldn’t want to be a fly on any wall. n

Loyiso Gola: Pop Culture is playing at Edinburgh Festival Fringe’s Pleasance 10 Dome during August

Beat the Cartoonist!

Think of a witty caption for this cartoon—the three best suggestions, along with the cartoonist’s original, will be posted on our website in mid-August. If your entry gets the most votes, you’ll win £50

Submit to captions@readersdigest.co.uk or online at readersdigest.co.uk/fun-games by August 7. We’ll announce the winner in our September issue.

June’s Winner

Our cartoonist must spend another month without his crown, as his caption, “I’m not really a morning person,” couldn’t compete with our reader, Steve Orion, who won the majority of our voters over with his witty suggestion, “Cheer up love, I’ve got animal-shaped ones in the car.” Many congratulations, Steve! Enter using the details above for your own chance to take the caption crown.

Alan Cumming

The Scottish-American actor talks dating, dating, his latest TV role and memories with his celebrity friends.

I Remember: Ziggy Marley

The musician opens up about his love of reggae, Jamaican food and being the son of a reggae icon

Are we on the path to discovering a potion that’ll reverse the process of ageing?

SAVE THOUSANDS ON YOUR ENERGY BILLS

Project Solar and Duracell introduce you to the Energy Bank, combining solar energy with battery storage. Now is the time to save money on bills, while earning income from selling excess energy to the National Grid.

Why should you invest:

• Savings of thousands on your bills over 30 years*

• Protect yourself from rising energy costs

• Only daylight is required to generate energy, no need to worry if the sun isn’t shining

• Storage batteries can also provide a ‘seamless’ backup during power cuts

• Sell energy back to the grid to be sold to other customers

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