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16 IT’S A MANN’S WORLD
Olly Mann reflects on the lessons he’s learned in the past 12 months
ENTERTAINMENT
20 INTERVIEW:
GARY NUMAN
The enigmatic singer and former Tubeway Army frontman reflects
28 “I REMEMBER”: SIR
MICHAEL PARKINSON
One of Britain’s best loved chat show hosts takes us down memory lane
HEALTH
38 MENTAL HEALTH
VS YOUR MONEY
If you suffer from mental health troubles, then you know it can hit your finances too. Here’s why
INSPIRE
56 HOMESICK?
Three women explain how seperation from their country impacts their sense of home
64 MY BRITAIN: WOODSTOCK
Two residents of this beautiful Cotswolds market town on what makes it so special
74 THE GLOBAL NETWORK
The unbelievable story of how a network of Facebook friends saved two travellers’ lives
82 DO OPPOSITES ATTRACT?
Are our relationships with our partners based on true love, or is attraction a matter of science?
This winter will be an undeniably different occasion, though safety and reliability must continue to be our priority – as it is for the UK’s number one boiler brand.
At a peak time of year for essential boiler maintenance, a commitment to safe operation during COVID-19 is a number one priority for Worcester Bosch, who were recently crowned the eleven-time Which? Best Buy award-winner for its Greenstar gas boiler range.
With all parts of the UK experiencing national and tiered lockdowns in the run up to Christmas, Worcester Bosch recognises how vitally important it is to make sure that boiler installations and services are carried out in the safest possible manner.
To adapt to the ‘new normal’ and minimise potential risks, the UK’s leading heating manufacturer will continue to roll out its ‘Safe in Your Home Installer Commitment’. This is a set of measures for installers and homeowners to abide by during essential maintenance works, that go even further than the Government
guidelines to ensure your safety is put first – and has received high praise with 69% of adults more comfortable to let installers into their home who are part of the commitment than those that are not.
Measures include social distancing and hygiene guidelines, including tips on how best to communicate with one another safely whilst installers are in your home. As well as not handshaking upon arrival, guidelines include ventilating all working areas, cleaning objects and surfaces regularly and bringing their own towels and refreshments – meaning an end to offers of a brew!
All engineers carry personal protective equipment that can safeguard the working environment and have been instructed to isolate if they show any symptoms of COVID-19, providing you peace of mind that every precaution has been taken to prioritise your safety during these uncertain times.
Once the job is complete, your installer will again clean high usage areas and remove any waste. To prevent unnecessary contact and to maintain social distancing, Worcester Bosch also encourages customers to make payments by contactless methods or via online transfer, further minimising the likelihood of risks.
Take comfort knowing your safety is the number one priority as Worcester Bosch helps heat your home this winter!
Please visit: www.worcester-bosch.co.uk/ warm-your-home
Alternatively, follow Worcester Bosch on Twitter @WorcsBoschCare Instagram @WorcesterBosch Facebook @WorcesterBosch
There are in the world today, many fears and anxieties for the future of humanity and of life upon earth. There is the ever present threat of war and destructive weapons. There is concern over the loss of natural habitats and natural resources. There is concern for the climate and frequency of natural disasters.
The Holy Bible is the inspired Word of the Living God. Its pages reveal that He is in control and that there is a solution to these problems. He, as the Creator, has a Purpose with the earth, which is altogether logical. The Bible reveals how it is possible to have a part in His Plan. ■
The Second Coming of Jesus Christ
The Kingdom of God
What is the Christian Hope?
The Local Secretary,
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New episodes of “Evidence of Evil” will feature new interviews alongside reconstructed sequences and archive footage that showcases the hard work and dedication of investigators, police and scientists in their fields.
In the new episodes, viewers can look forward to reconstructions of some of the most intriguing and startling criminal cases from recent decades, including the individual cases surrounding the 1997 murder of University of Colorado student Susannah Chase, the 2019 murder of Colorado ski instructor and mother Kelsey Berreth at the hands of her fiancée and the 1981 murder of Irish American teenager Jeannie Moore that has been solved in 2019 using genetic genealogy. “Evidence of Evil” is produced by Peninsula Television.
In “Murder by the Sea”, viewers will join our host, criminal historian and author, Dr Nell Darby, who will explore a variety of murder cases that include murderer Trevor Howell, a homicidal homeless drifter, Robert and Sonny Mone, a murderous father and son duo, and a love triangle that turns sour between a husband, a wife and a gardener in Bournemouth.
Darby will be taking her knowledge and understanding of killers and their tendencies to a number of seaside towns, including Newport, Port Talbot, Dundee and Hartlepool. “Murder by the Sea” is produced by Monster Films. ■
“MURDER BY THE SEA” CONTINUES ON TUESDAY 5TH JANUARY AT 10PM;
NEW EPISODES OF “EVIDENCE OF EVIL” WILL AIR FROM WEDNESDAY 6TH JANUARY AT 10PM.
Phew. January 2021. We made it. Has the ringing of a new year ever felt so sweet? At Reader’s Digest, we’re thoroughly enjoying the sense of a fresh start after a year which was challenging to say the least. Despite the hardships of the past 12 months, however, there was positivity to be found in 2020 in the power of community. Whether your neighbours helped you with your shopping, joined you to clap for the NHS or simply lent you a smile when your own was far from reach, the pandemic has been a welcome reminder of how much we have in common, in a world that leaves us feeling divided. On p74, we have the story of the power of community on a dramatic scale— people coming together from all corners of the world to save two lives that are rapidly slipping away. Read, and be amazed.
It’s virtually impossible not to continuously hum: “Here in my car, I feel safest of all” after hearing Gary Numan’s synth-pop anthem, “Cars”, even 40 years after its release. It’s no wonder it became a Number One hit on both sides of the Atlantic back in 1979 which propelled him into global stardom. On p20, we chat to the pioneer of electronic music about the perils of fame, his beloved wife and his struggles with mental health, brought on by a career slump and stigma around autism. Mental health is also the topic of Katie Conibear’s incisive piece on p38— this time, in relation to money. It’s no secret that 2020 was financially hard on many of us, taking its toll on our mental wellbeing. Katie reassures you you’re not alone and there is help available.
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Thank you for your humane and enlightening piece, “Discovering A Daughter” about transgender woman Kinley and her parents. Only by contact and real stories such as this, will people be enabled to begin to understand and accept the unfamiliar.
There will always be those who, from fear, can’t countenance any way of life unlike their own. Their belittling remarks say nothing at all about the person they insult, and a lot about themselves and the narrowness of their thinking.
How wonderful that Kinley’s mother Debra’s brave cards have not been needed. Let’s hope this means there’s a dawning understanding that gender stereotyping is socially conditioned, and serves only to bar many good and unique people from the joy, self-expression and achievements that they deserve.
Best wishes to Kinley. May you always be your own true self.
PAT METCALFE, Derbyshire
How wonderful to read something positive about transgender people and their families. Thank you Reader’s Digest and thank you Debra McGrath for sharing your experiences so honestly.
As the mother of a transgender man, I could totally relate to the feelings of fear for her child. Only last week, as we were leaving a cafe in sleepy Stratford-uponAvon, my son started removing bright pink stickers on the wall outside which claimed “Trans women aren’t real women.”
Where does this hate and fear come from (apart from a certain female author; she-who-mustnot-be-named)? I hang my head in shame when I see it is coming from women, some of whom dare to call themselves feminists.
We are all just people trying to live our lives to the best of our ability and I loved the card Debra had printed. I live in hope that one day people will stop preaching hate and our children can be their authentic selves without fear.
I enjoyed “2020’s Must Have Accessory” about face masks.
If you rewind to earlier this year, consumers would have been surprised to see protective face masks being sold by their favourite fashion brands and retailers. But tragically, the coronavirus pandemic has transformed almost every aspect of our daily lives, and that means fashion businesses have been adding masks to their offers.
At first, I found any mask I wore very prominent. I sometimes felt like a bank robber. My mother said she felt unapproachable and scary, which is a particular issue for those with children. But masks are now looking nicer, and it will encourage more people to use them which means more people protecting each other.
My one bugbear is the amount I see on the pavement. Discarded masks have become a new hazard for wildlife since the pandemic.
Everyone should cut the elastic ear straps in half before throwing it away—in a bin, of course!
DAISY DAVID, Hertfordshire
I fully agree with Natasha Bedingfield when she recommends in “If I Ruled the World”, that children should be taught proper life skills in school. She suggests lessons in managing money and bank accounts which would certainly be a practical accomplishment for their future. So many youths have little or no knowledge of budgeting and standard arithmetic is totally inadequate nowadays.
Technology has taken over the world in many different ways. Some scientific knowledge is needed to use a lot of modern equipment. Seemingly, the ability to work out the angles of a triangle is now old and useless. I am a pensioner and, trying to keep abreast with the times, have a laptop, printer, tablet and smartphone. These continue to either assist me or drive me up the wall.
SHEILA CHISNALL, Devon
Over 200 million people in the UK and mainland Europe su er from debilitating chronic pain, seizures and sleeping disorders as well as an equal number of increasingly enlightened people who can appreciate the recuperative benefit of cannabinoids.
There is a clear movement away from the ‘traditional’ medical practitioners and pharmaceutical companies and we aim to provide trusted and licensed products that can be bought legally and administered safely.
Public awareness and open-mindedness towards alternative cures for lifelong conditions are growing; and the World Health Organization (WHO) reports research suggesting that CBD may have therapeutic benefits for many conditions, including:
Research is ongoing: clinical trials to test the e ectiveness of medicinal cannabis in all its forms will prove best use and lead to more government approved cannabis-based medicinal products (CBMPs) containing cannabidiol or (CBD), joining those such as Epidiolex, which is already available on prescription in the UK for the treatment of seizures caused by two severe forms of epilepsy: Lennox- Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome. Medicaleaf™ was founded by a team of business leaders, marketing & technology experts, scientists, caregivers and advocates who are committed to producing safe, reliable products and promoting wellness from nature.
The widening interest in ‘wellness’ as an alternative, preventative lifestyle, particularly in
• Multiple sclerosis;
• Arthritis;
• Spinal cord injury;
• Epileptic seizures;
• Alzheimer’s disease;
• Parkinson’s disease;
• Huntington’s disease;
• Hypoxic-ischemic injury;
• Chronic and acute pain;
• Psychosis;
• Nausea;
• Inflammatory diseases;
• Rheumatoid arthritis;
• Inflammatory bowel disease;
• Cardiovascular disease; and
• Diabetic complications.
these times, fuels our fire. As an organisation, we are committed to creating a business that will assist in the alleviation of pain and su ering and collaboratively create products to assist in better wellbeing and healthier living.
Medicaleaf expects to see its valuation increase five fold before floatation in three years’ time. Medicaleaf is looking to complete their £10 million initial investment by the year end.
Capital raised will be invested in Product Manufacturing, Sales and Marketing campaigns and distribution infrastructure but will also be used for suitable acquisitions and joint ventures that will catapult the growth of the company in suitable strategic moves.
Find Out More about how you can get involved and profit from the £135B European Health and Wellbeing market. www.medicaleaf.org.uk
Hard to believe, but this particular Saudi Arabian event has nothing to do with cars! At the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival in Rumah it’s all about, as the name suggests, camels.
Since 2017, thousands of visitors converge in the town from December to January to marvel at the traditional riding styles and, naturally, the animals themselves. Of course, these desert-bound beasts-of-burden are also for sale, but potential buyers need very deep pockets as the prices can be several hundred thousand pounds!
This month, Olly Mann muses on the lessons of 2020 that we should all cling to for the year ahead
It feels good, I think you’ll agree, to see "January 2021" on the cover of this issue. Not that there’s anything particularly wonderful about January itself (in fact, I’d rank it as my least favourite month: the days slowly getting longer, yet with so few pleasures to fill them. The pantos and street markets wobble on—but, for me, the second that calendar turns, the twinkling lights seem gaudy, and the bonhomie feels trite. January = big Christmas hangover).
But, the thrill of the new year! A fresh start! That always excites me.
Olly Mann presents Four Thought for BBC Radio 4, and the award-winning podcasts The Modern Mann and Answer Me This!
And (this scarcely needs spelling out, but, for posterity, here goes…) in this year of all years, what a relief it is to look forward: to mass vaccination; the White House after Trump; Brexit actually "done". My shoulders drop, and a smile returns to my face, as I allow myself to anticipate our summer jaunt to Lanzarote (postponed from 2020); the parties I’ll attend in person; that glorious moment I’ll finally close Zoom and head back to theatres, pubs and even (I can’t believe I’m saying this) the outstanding public transport I used to take for granted.
However. While never again having to live through 2020 certainly calls for celebration, it would be churlish to fail to reflect on the lessons of the past 12 months.
Yes, lessons. I’ve come up with six. In the context of global disease and
1. KIDS LOVE BOXES. It’s a cliché that whenever small children receive a gift they’ll soon be playing with the box instead, but lockdown evidenced it for me. The most fulfilling day I had with my two sons (two days actually, two whole days) was transforming a Virgin Wines box into a "bus". Now, whenever a box arrives, I store it in the shed for future free fun. Turns out I’m quite skilled at making passengers out of tin foil, too…
3. MASSAGE IS AFFORDABLE.
4. LIFE IS BETTER WITH A BUTTON JAR. The day co-opted my fouryear-old to sort out my sock drawer was a home-schooling highlight. Pairing up my odd socks taught him about economic catastrophe, my list may strike you as, um, rather prosaic. That’s natural, I’ve spent all year locked in my house! But here’s what I’ve learned:
I adore Swedish massage. Treating myself, on pre-pandemic minibreaks, I’d always think, This feels amazing! If I was really rich, I’d have a Swedish massage every morning . Then I’d eat an enormous platter of tropical fruit and lobster tails, squeeze in a couple of emails before my pre-lunch massage, and perhaps play tennis with Cliff Richard…
2. I’M “SOBER CURIOUS ”. I recently discovered this term, coined by journalist Ruby Warrington to describe people like me, who want to cut down on booze, but under no circumstances can countenance teetotalism. I typically find mocktail options to be too sugary, but then I met London Essence’s Grapefruit and Rosemary Tonic Water—a mixer that’s so darn good I actually prefer to not spoil the taste by adding gin. I now stockpile it, like UHT milk.
But then I discovered Urban —an app that lets you book massage therapists to come to your house— and I realised you don’t have to be rich; you just need to be able to afford £45 per treatment, which, once or twice per month, I can. Home massage (while wearing facemasks, of course…) has relieved my aches and pains, massively relaxed me, helped me focus—and, glory be , freed me from the standard spa soundtrack of sodding pan pipes (I’ve been mainlining Woody Allen’s memoirs on Audible during my most recent sessions. A treat for body and ears!)
colours, shapes and child labour. But, even more crucially, it showed me that repurposing an old jar of Salicornes Vinaigre as a receptacle for stray buttons makes me feel I have organised my life. After all, a man who’s siphoned all his buttons into a special jar can’t have any real worries left, can he? (Note to self: learn to sew).
5. PESTO DOESN’T NEED PARMESAN. One night, we had nothing in the house but pasta, basil, oil and garlic. So I made a vegan pesto, and I didn’t miss Parmesan at all.
6. (TO QUOTE BILLY CONNOLLY):
THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS BAD WEATHER ONLY THE WRONG CLOTHES. We live in a village with
lots of lovely views and footpaths, but one in which a car is required to get to the train station, gym and supermarket. So, in inclement weather, I’d gotten in to the habit of driving even short distances. But last spring, when we weren’t allowed to actually drive anywhere, I rediscovered the joys of walking through the woodlands. When my son started school in September, I vowed to walk him there and back every day. It’s amazing what an umbrella, wellies and waterproofs have done for me.
I even find the biting, sideways wind rather rousing.
And there we have it. Not, I’ll concede, the most profound reflections from a historic year. But, in the new normal, a bit of normal feels pretty good, too. n
January is named after Janus, the god with two faces—one looking forward and one looking backward.
"AuldLangSyne"wasn'tfullywrittenbyScottishpoetRobertBurnsin1788. Hemayhavebaseditonafolksong.
The earliest known New Year celebrations were held in Mesopotamia and date back to 2000 BC.
ThefirstrooftopcelebrationatopOneTimesSquare,afireworksdisplay,took placein1904andwasproducedbythe New York Times toinauguratetheirnew headquartersandcelebratetherenamingofLongacreSquaretoTimesSquare.
Source: CNN.com
Gary Anthony James Webb, aka Gary Numan, takes us on a journey from his “Cars” stardom, through career crisis to bouncing back again
When Gary Numan’s autobiography, Praying to the Aliens, came out in 1997, it read like an act of desperation. The so-called godfather of electropop had burst onto the music scene in the late 1970s with songs like “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” and “Cars.” There were sell-out gigs at Wembley Arena, number one albums, recognition in the US—everything a boy from Hammersmith could dream of.
Then, over the next 15 years, came the slow unravelling: the creative slump, self-doubt, audience indifference, debts—you name it.
“That book was written just as I bottomed out,” he says by way of explaining why—23 years
on—he’s releasing (R)evolution: The Autobiography. It’s not a case of rewriting early history, he says.
“I didn’t want to have a book out there that was all about how it was good at first and then it all went horribly wrong.”
Numan’s “slow, steady climb back” is the heart of (R)evolution. If there are no second acts in American lives, to quote F Scott Fitzgerald, that’s clearly not the case for ex-pat Brits who move out there. It’s truly touching in places. When his 2015 album Savage (Songs from a Broken World) charted at number two in the UK, he “cried like a baby” when the news broke. “Nearly 40 years of longing, and hoping, and battling and setbacks,” he writes, “all came out at once.”
Were it not for the fact that Steve Coogan’s comedy character Alan Partridge already nabbed the title for his own magnum opus, it’s tempting to tell Numan that he should’ve named his new book “Bouncing Back.” At least he got to see Partridge miming bass guitar in his static caravan to the infectious funky intro to the 1982 single, “Music for Chameleons.” A huge fan of Coogan’s light entertainment legend, “that was just the best thing,” he laughs.
It’s the little moments like this that make all the slog worthwhile. When Basement Jaxx sampled both “M.E.” and “This Wreckage” for the 2001 mega-hit “Where’s Your Head At” and Sugababes used a slice of “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” in their cover of “Freak Like Me,” Numan was cool—and financially solvent—again. Some knew it all along. As music legend Prince once said: “There are still people trying to work out what a genius Gary Numan is.”
Today Numan, 62, is at home—in Santa Monica, California—which he shares with his wife Gemma and their daughters, Raven, Persia and Echo. He tells me he’s been feeling jittery waiting for my call, spending the last ten minutes “getting all tingly and worked up”. I don’t take this as a sign that he was anticipating the chance to finally talk to me. “I’ve got a bit of a phobia about the phone,” he explains. “I’ll get really nervous before a phone call.”
Not that you’d know it: Numan is charmingly self-effacing, a feeling that runs all through his book like a streak of mascara. He talks about the first time he had some money in his pocket, comparing himself to Duran Duran’s lead singer.
“JUST RELIVING MY CAREER SLUMP WAS SURPRISINGLY DEPRESSING”
“Simon Le Bon bought a mega yacht and went to Montserrat. I rented a caravan at Littlesea Camp in Weymouth.” Numan chuckles the moment I bring it up.
“We rented a really big caravan up on the hill. And I honestly thought I was living the life!”
There’s no holding back either, with Numan an honest narrator of his own story. When he was 21, he was diagnosed as being autistic, which was later specified as Asperger syndrome. “I’m not ashamed of it,” he tells me. “I don’t think people should be ashamed of it or consider it a disability. That is a part of the way I am and why I think and do things the way I do. It should be out there. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.
He speaks of “three or four key moments” during the writing of (R)evolution that were emotionally
draining. Just re-living the career slump was “surprisingly depressing”, he says. “I had dealt with it and things had gotten better. And I thought I was through all that.” But then he started dwelling on the past and “the frustration and the fear and the anxiety and the humiliation” all came flooding back. “It’s really weird. It feels like it happened yesterday.”
“I’VE NEVER THOUGHT OF MYSELF AS BEING PARTICULARLY TALENTED”
Likewise, the difficulties he and Gemma endured before they became parents. Diagnosed with “unexplained infertility”, they were advised to try IVF. But after Gemma fell pregnant, she suffered a miscarriage. “We lost the baby quite early on and that was really horrible. And that comes back [to you]. That was really upsetting.” Even years later, emotions linger. “It proved to me really that it’s never that far away, these things, good or bad.”
His time with Gemma has been the one constant. When I ask what put his career back on track, he doesn’t hesitate. “I don’t mean this to sound corny at all, but it is my wife, Gemma. She is, by far, the most important part of all of that because it was what
“One of the best days ever”—Gary and Gemma’s wedding day, August 28, 1997
she did. And the way she was able to make me see and understand what I’d done wrong. And to make me feel more positive about myself, and to value things that I hadn’t given any value to at all, in terms of my singing, my songwriting, all these things that I was really not happy with.”
The son of a former Heathrow baggage handler, Numan was 15 when his father gave him his first guitar. While there were various temp jobs, including a forklift truck driver, and even a spell in the Air Training Corps (several years later, he’d get his pilot’s licence), music was always his likeliest direction. After forming the band Tubeway Army in the mid-1970s, hugely influential albums like Replicas and The Pleasure Principle turned him into a star. Numan has always secretly struggled with his success, however. “I’ve never thought of myself as being particularly talented or important or special in any way,” he claims. “That’s the absolute God’s truth.” He tells me that when “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” was released, the decision to release a picture disc edition—not his idea—helped it chart. And when they got on Top of the Pops, it was because Tubeway Army had a more interesting name than some of the other acts around. EVERYNIGHT
Meeting Gemma, a former member of his fan club whom he’d see in the crowd at gigs, was the turning point. Ironically, it coincided with his lowest ebb, musically, 1992’s Machine + Soul, which he later dubbed “the most ‘non-Numan’ Numan album I’ve ever made” due to its commercial pop sound. Returning to more personal music, with 1994 album Sacrifice, “that whole change of direction was entirely down to Gemma and her support,” he says. “Even up to this very day, she’s still an important part of it. She keeps me going the right way.”
I wonder if Numan feels that Gemma is his soulmate. “I do, I suppose,” he says, a little surprised at the question. “I wouldn’t use that word. But I do believe… she seems to be so perfectly suited, it’s as if you were made for each other. Like a perfectly fitting glove that ages with you. How long have we been together now? Twenty-eight years? Yeah. And I still miss her. I still miss her when she goes to the shops. Yeah, so I guess ‘soulmate’ is one way of putting it.”
Numan is now working on a double album, which he hopes to release next year. He’s been hard at work during the coronavirus lockdown, though it’s been tough. “I still struggle,” he admits. “I’ll go into the studio later today and I’ll be nervous or anxious that I’m not going to come up with an idea. If I do come
up with something I’m happy with, it’ll be as if it’s just the best day ever. And if I don’t, I’ll be really miserable and down.”
He’s also looking to get back out on the road—COVID-19 permitting. Earlier this year, he was all set to play a drive-in gig in the UK, until it was cancelled for public safety reasons.
“I STILL MISS MY WIFE, EVEN WHEN SHE GOES TO THE SHOPS”
With audiences all socially distanced in their vehicles, there would not have been a more fitting place for his song “Cars” to be played. “It would have been perfect,” he sighs, “a nice positive statement in the middle of a pandemic.”
Ever the optimist, Numan is looking forward to 2021 and a potential date at Wembley Arena, 40 years on from when he played three sell-out nights there. He’s not been back since.
“It would probably be the most important moment of my entire life, career-wise. I don’t think anything will ever be better than that. Because it means so much to me. It’s so symbolic.” A triumphant return to his early career high, there won’t be a better way of bouncing back. n
(R)evolution is available now, published by Constable
Possibly Britain’s greatest ever chat-show host, Michael Parkinson has interviewed thousands of the world’s most famous and fascinating public figures. His new book, Like Father, Like Son, is an affectionate memoir about his dad, John William, co-written with his own son, Mike
…BAWLING MY EYES OUT AT BUTLIN’S, FILEY. I was only about four and had gotten separated from my parents. Some beautiful female redcoats tried to comfort me by stroking my head. But I was distraught. My upset might have also been down to having eaten about three gallons of ice cream.
My dad came running over to get me, after about half an hour. I stayed very close to my family, after that— for my entire life.
…A DAD WHO TAUGHT ME TO BE KIND. He was a hard-working miner and we lived in the working-class village of Cudworth, near Barnsley. But he never really shouted at me and certainly never raised his fist. My mum, Freda Rose, was stricter, but it was a very happy household. Mining communities have been seen as dreadful places to grow up in. Not for me. There were woods to be played in and football matches in the street.
002:
William Parkinson,
age and got into John Steinbeck, Hemingway and crime novels by Raymond Chandler. I learned a lot from reading and it gave me the ambition to be a journalist.
Occasionally, I’d go into a friend’s house and see the other side of things. A father who was drunk all the time and a woman with a black eye. But, in general, the community wrapped itself around me and made me feel safe.
MUM DID WAS LEAD ME TO BOOKS. She loved reading, frequently coming back from the library with three or four novels by people like AJ Cronin and Daphne du Maurier. I read from a very early John William and Freda Rose Parkinson; (Right) Preparing the wicket for beach cricket. Scarborough, 1938
Mum would take me to the cinema several times a week, too, sitting there with her knitting while I was dazzled by the actors and writing on screen. I really wanted to marry Ingrid Bergman.
Growing up in a Yorkshire household with a dad who was a great cricket enthusiast, there was no other possibility.
When I was a teenager, I played with people like Dickie Bird in the Yorkshire League. If you scored a 50, there’d be a collection for you, but some of the dads would spend it behind the bar before you got your
hands on it. My teammates would get themselves out deliberately to stop them.
One of my favourite sporting memories is skippering Maidenhead and Bray’s third team, with my son Andrew in the team. That, and watching my friend George Best play football with my three boys on our lawn. They couldn’t get the ball off him, of course.
A lot of the teachers were old guys who’d been brought out of retirement because the young men were away in the war. They didn’t
understand my love for reading authors like Steinbeck.
But I could always write. I’d do essays for my friend John, while he did my maths homework. He once came top in English and I came top in maths, even though neither of us could do either subject. So I walked out of school at 16 and said, “Give us a job” to the local paper, the South Yorkshire Times.
While working as journalist in Doncaster, a few years later, I covered the story of the last train engine to be made in the town with a journalist from the Manchester Guardian. He fell asleep during the celebration lunch, and had to copy
my notes for his story. During our subsequent pub crawl he told me there might be a vacancy to work at The Guardian and that he’d put a word in for me. That was my big break into national newspapers.
I joined as a producer in the Sixties. It was such a vigorous place full of wonderfully creative people, and a focus on youth culture. The Beatles were practically the house band on a music show I did. It was the first station to go out of its way to have presenters with northern accents.
I started presenting a film programme called Cinema and got to
interview film stars like Laurence Olivier—the brother-in-law of one of the station bosses. The BBC came calling not long after that…
Part of the joy of doing my BBC chat show, starting in 1971, was that we had everyone from the mathematician Jacob Bronowski and satirist Malcolm Muggeridge to Ken Dodd on it—people I was really interested in.
One of my favourite guests was the politician Dennis Healey. I admired him greatly, but after descending the famous steps, he proceeded to turn the wrong way and sit with our piano player instead of me. Wonderful.
My interviews with Muhammad Ali are very famous, but I never loved him. He was always a challenge—you never knew whether he was about to say something remarkable or strange. He was afraid of flying so he wore his own parachute to the Rome Olympics. A remarkable mind.
FORGETTING I WAS JUST A JOURNALIST. It didn’t matter how well-known I got, I tried to treat Parkinson as no more than a job. I had my moments while making the show, but I don’t think I was ever badly behaved in public. Believe all that celebrity-status palaver and you’re heading for the dustbin.
AN OFFER I COULDN’T REFUSE. He gave me a very lucrative deal to do a show in Australia in 1979. The BBC didn’t pay that well, so it gave me some much-needed security.
The Aussies and I hit it off straight away. They loved cricket and were very straight-talking. Basically Yorkshiremen with suntans.
…A FAMILY OF NORTHERN DOGS CALLED THE WOOFITS . I branched out into light-entertainment more in the Eighties, doing Give Us a Clue , for instance, which I loved. It was daft and funny. I somehow became a children’s author, too.
The Woofits were created in France, but I was approached to
reinvent them for an English audience. I moved them to a coalmining village and gave them names such as John Willy Woofit, after my dad.
PLUMLEY’S WIDOW. She wasn’t happy when I started presenting Desert Island Discs in 1986, after the death of her husband. She thought that I was too uncouth.
Roy had helped make the show into a national institution and whoever took over from him was going to get it in the neck. I didn’t think he was all that good, though. At a dinner party, Alan Whicker, David Frost and I played a game of "who are the worst interviewers you’ve ever had?" We all put down Mr Plumley.
GERSHWIN
THE WAY TO WORK. When I was approached to present Sunday Supplement on Radio 2 in 1996, they told me, “You’ll be playing music from the station playlist”.
I replied, “No, I won’t. I don’t enjoy that kind of stuff. I want to play stuff like music from the Great American Song Book. And that’s a dealbreaker.”
They backed down and let me play what I wanted. So for the next 11 years I was able to give a new platform to all the songwriters I loved.
…I BECAME A BETTER INTERVIEWER, LATER IN LIFE. I did a chat show again in the late
Eighties, then from 1998 to 2007, speaking to everyone from David Bowie to David Attenborough. I had more confidence and a surer step than I’d had when I was trying to make a name for myself.
But I started to think, You’re in your mid-seventies and still working. You’re joking! Plus, the people running the TV industry had changed and I didn’t want to get all grotty and disenchanted working with them. So I quit television and radio at the same time.
I started doing more writing, tours and was back doing the odd show on TV, a few years later, however. I never reached the blissful state of contemplating my navel for very long.
…MARY, MY WIFE, IS STILL VERY ATTRACTIVE AT 84. We have been together for more than 60 years now, since I met her on the bus on the way to report on a village council meeting. I don’t sit round pondering why we’ve stayed together so long. But she’s still so energetic.
She is a bit of a golf bandit, however. And what does annoy me is when people call her Lady Mary but don’t call me Sir Michael [chuckles]. A man at the golf club did it, the other day.
“How do you think she became a Lady while I’m still Mr?” I told him.
Calling me "Sir" is generally entirely optional, though!
…STILL STICKING CLOSE TO THE FAMILY. My son, Michael, now 53, lives next door to me in Bray, Berkshire, and Andrew, 60, and Nicholas, 57, are a couple of miles away. We enjoy each other’s company, even though they probably think I’m a boring old fart.
…WATCHING THE THAMES DRIFT PAST DURING LOCKDOWN. My wife and I live right on the river Thames which is particularly lucky. I wish the bloody pandemic would go away.
JOHN CURTIS/SHUTTERSTOCKIt’s been a joy working with Michael on the book and to see what a gifted writer he is. Andy works in the media, too, and Nick ran a wonderful Michelin-starred restaurant, The Royal Oak, nearby. The Queen and President Macron went there. There were some great parties. But it’s closed down because of COVID-19. We’ll have to see what he does next.
At 85 though, my ambitions are now quite limited. When I wake up in the morning, I think, Thank God for that.
Looking back, I can see that my life has been really fascinating. I feel incredibly lucky. n
As told to Simon Hemelryk
Like Father, Like Son by Sir Michael Parkinson is out now (Hodder & Stoughton, £20)
There has never been a better time for you to consider releasing equity from your home.
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If you were considering releasing equity to clear an existing mortgage, you could free your budget from costly monthly repayments. By doing so, there will be more available for you to spend on the things that matter to you, helping to boost your disposable income.
With the uncertainty that many are facing this year, this could offer a welcome piece of stability into your finances.
Repaying a Lifetime Mortgage
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local adviser will be able to help you understand the impact of releasing equity, both on the value of your estate and your entitlement to means-tested benefits.
In response to the events of this year, they can also now offer you a variety of ways to access advice, depending on your preference. Whether you want to speak to an adviser over the telephone, by video call on Zoom or WhatsApp, or face-toface, we can accommodate you.
If you’re interested in how equity release can help you this year, call us today. n
How mental health issues can exacerbate your financial situation— and what you can do about it
BY Katie Conibear
It’s never been easier to spend money. Contactless cards, one-click purchases on sites like Amazon and that late night Uber Eats delivery. But what if you are dealing with mental illness too? Mental illnesses have been shown to make you poorer, and our frictionless cash system is exacerbating the issue.
A study by the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute of over 5,000 people with mental health problems showed 93 per cent spent more when they were ill. Seventy-two per cent reported that their mental health problems had made their financial situation worse. With mental health problems affecting one in four people every year, this is a serious issue. It’s a complex problem with no easy answers.
As someone living with bipolar disorder, I know the reality of overspending all too well. Over my adult life I’ve been in thousands of pounds of debt. The cycle of mania and depression would lead to my spending becoming out of control— it was an impulse I couldn't manage when I was manic and a form of comfort when I was depressed. I’ve been threatened with bailiffs when I couldn’t afford to pay back what I owed and it’s caused unbelievable stress, worry and fear.
There are thousands of stories just like mine. I spoke to JJ, who has depression and ADHD and told me that neither of these conditions help keep his finances in check.
not supposed to have to do. It has crippled me financially for more than a decade, and I still owe them £2,500 at this point.”
Debt is persistent, especially when out of control spending means buying what you can’t afford. Interest rates cripple people financially and the stress of meeting even minimum payments can exacerbate mental health conditions.
SHAME, ANXIETY AND ISOLATION ARE ALL COMMON FOR THOSE IN A POSITION OF FINANCIAL UNCERTAINTY
“Years ago I had a credit card with my bank. I believe that I only requested a credit limit increase once or twice, but they kept raising the credit without asking me, and I kept spending.
I was suicidally depressed at the time. The debt got to about £6,200 around 2009. I am still paying that the debt back. I must have paid that money back more than twice over, which I thought you were
Harjit Moore, CEO of Freeze Debt, explained to me how debt can affect someone with preexisting mental health problems—and even cause them.
“Their debt is increasing every month so they’re constantly waiting for that next paycheck, have borrowed money from friends, families or banks, are perhaps defaulting on payments, and may even have debt collectors circling. It’s a really stressful position to be in. Shame, embarrassment, anxiety, depression, insomnia, isolation, even paranoia—these are all common experiences for those in a position of financial uncertainty. If you’re getting deeper into debt,
without knowing the way out, this can and likely will absolutely have a significant impact on your mental wellbeing.”
Although we can all struggle with debt, people living with mental illness face a variety of challenges. Mental illness affects all aspects of a person’s life and that includes their career and ability to work. Conor D’Arcy, from the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute explains in more detail: “While managing finances can present challenges for anyone, common symptoms of mental health problems can make it particularly difficult to stay in control of your outgoings. Increased impulsivity, a low mood and trouble thinking clearly can contribute to people spending more than they can afford. But we also know that people with mental health problems tend to have lower average incomes than the rest of the population, meaning there's less slack if an unexpected expense crops up.”
others, especially those on a lower income or unemployed. There’s also the worry of living without a safety net; having little to no savings or people who can help financially. The burden of constant worry and the strain of debt can cause people with mental health problems to become incredibly unwell.
TALKING OPENLY ABOUT DEBT CAN REALLY HELP TO RELIEVE PRESSURE
JJ explains how his diagnoses tend to impact his ability to work and budget: “The ADHD and the depression make it really difficult to work full time. I'm really prone to sensory overload. I have no money skills, and no support. I'm in my forties, and I've never really even had a budget for things.”
Talking about money can be awkward, and we don’t always turn to help when we desperately need it. Harjit Moore spoke to me about the power of communication.
What may seem like a small debt to some, can feel insurmountable to
“A useful tip is simply the act of talking about it. As with many situations, talking openly about debt can really help to relieve the pressure, help you come to terms with the problem, and push you to get help. We have all have a
complicated relationship with money, so we don’t tend to talk about it, which, as we know, makes the problem far worse. Debt isn't and shouldn't be a 'dirty' word, which is why we’re trying to normalise it and encourage positive, constructive conversations, free of shame.”
Although talking is key, it’s also important that there is support out there when we need it. Is enough being done to help people with mental health problems who find themselves in financial trouble?
Conor D’Arcy explained what the Money and Mental Health Policy
Institute believe needs to be done.
“With the pandemic putting pressure on both our mental health and finances, it's crucial that adequate support is there for those who are struggling. Trying to get by on a low income can delay people's recovery—improved support for people through Statutory Sick Pay and benefits could prevent health and money problems from getting worse. Communication is critical, too. Whether it's a bank, the local council or the DWP (Department for Work and Pensions), understanding how mental health problems can affect our ability to manage our
money and seek support can make a really huge difference.”
Many people with mental health issues have had to find their own solutions to managing their money. Sometimes, however, it becomes the only option when debt spirals completely out of control. This was the case with Claire, who lives with bipolar disorder.
“I ended up £35k in debt because of excess spending while I was manic over a number of years. I would do things like put my credit card behind the bar and run a tab for anyone who wanted a drink. It ended in bankruptcy and I've learned how to not give in to those urges anymore. At the time it felt so natural, like it was supposed to be spent, I felt like
I couldn't live without what I was buying, or the happiness of people getting the drink they wanted. Afterwards, as I crashed out of the mania, I would look at receipts and credit card statements and feel sick to my stomach, I was struggling to pay the debts back from the age of 21 and I was never able to get on top of them. I couldn't afford to save for a house or any kind of future and all that would come crashing down on me so I couldn't breathe.”
Even though it can feel impossible to find a way out from debt, Conor D’Arcy says there is support out there, and a way to move forward.
“When you're having problems with both your finances and your mental health, it can be hard to
reach out for support. But it's important to know that help is out there, from free debt advice providers like Citizens Advice and StepChange. These are common issues—one in four of us experiences a mental health problem each year and before the coronavirus pandemic, over 5 million people in the UK were in problem debt—but there certainly are solutions.”
I asked Claire how she had learned how to curb her spending, and she shared some invaluable insights.
“I've learned to spot the warning signs, small increased spending; CDs, DVDs, that sort of thing. I then
gave up my bank card and don't have a credit card anymore. I use distraction techniques—meditation, music, going out for a walk—to work through the urges to spend money.”
It’s irrefutable that money and mental health are intertwined— and that those who struggle daily with mental illness are more likely to struggle financially. More steps should be put in place to help people before they begin overspending, and advice readily available if people find themselves in debt. Communicating seems to be key, and understanding how and why people struggle with all aspects of money when they’re mentally unwell. n
These phrases are considered to be some of the most irritating in the English language— are you guilty of using them? Here are some suggestions on how to replace them:
Thanks in advance. Instead, cut to the chase with, “I know you don’t want to do this… in advance."
It is what it is. Why not memorise this clever-sounding T S Eliot line: “If you aren’t in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?”
With all due respect. Eliminate the preamble. If you’re going to say something that others might find offensive, just say it or keep quiet.
At this moment in time. Instead, be honest. Rip off that plaster in one swift motion: “I’m sorry, but that is never going to happen.”
Just sayin'. Show an ounce of empathy and ask, “Do you understand what I’m saying?"
Source: rd.com
It’s been a hard year but, while we can’t change what’s happening in the world, we can focus on boosting our positive vibes
Hard times are rubbish, but they make you what you are. Recognise that and know that if you can come through them, you will be more resilient, more capable and more confident. It’s a lucky person indeed who manages to avoid upset as they go through life; what’s important is how you deal with it. Try always to find a grain of good in all the bad you’re going through.
Feeling negative is actually normal. It’s a defence mechanism that flags up danger so you can avoid it. So, although you don’t want to be overwhelmed by negativity, know that it’s actually a healthy response to unpleasant situations.
Susannah Hickling is twice winner of the Guild of Health Writers Best Consumer Magazine Health Feature
Feeling sorry for yourself? It may sound trite, but it’s important to remind yourself of what’s good about your life. Try writing a list of the things you’re thankful for, or spend a few minutes every evening jotting down three nice things that have happened to you that day. It doesn’t matter if they small and insignificant. Stroked a dog in the park? Write it down. Laughed at a silly meme on social media? Put that on the list too.
We all know them, those people who suck the joy out of life and leave you feeling drained. They moan, blame others or just generally bring you down. Try to understand that they’ve probably got problems or insecurities. Gently explaining the effect they have may bring them round or simply make sure you’re always positive yourself in order to counter their negativity. But ultimately you might need to limit the time you spend with them, or eventually sever ties entirely.
Nothing cheers you up quite like improving your surroundings. That’s because your environment has a big impact on the way you feel. You might want to redecorate a room, or do something as simple as hanging a new picture, or putting out a vase of tulips.
A good morning routine will give you the best possible chance of picking up good vibrations every day. Get up at the same time, do some exercise— physical activity is proven to help mental health—and have a good
breakfast. To keep it healthy, follow the rule of three—a whole grain carbohydrate, a serving of dairy or other high-calcium food, and one of fruit. So, for example, eat a plain yoghurt with blueberries, and a slice of wholemeal toast spread with jam.
Inject positivity into your daily routine by making time for activities that bring you pleasure. Make a coffee date with a friend—do it by Zoom or some other online video platform if you can’t meet face to face, set aside an hour to play a board game with your family; take a regular walk where you explore somewhere new in your locality. n
For more weekly health tips and stories, sign up to our newsletter at readersdigest.co.uk
1 You pass wind up to 15 times a day. Farting is embarrassing, but we all do it. Some people do it more than others, of course. But you don’t need to worry unless there are other changes, such as sudden extreme bouts of flatulence, frequent abdominal pain from trapped wind, or unexpected weight loss with bloating. And if you’re often constipated, suddenly prone to diarrhoea or finding blood in your poo, see your GP.
2 Vegans are the windiest people ever. Far from being something bad, flatulence indicates a healthy diet and good digestion. Healthy foods like beans, onions, garlic, Brussels sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower get your gut bacteria going, generating more gas. And did you know that even moderate alcohol consumption, along with fizzy drinks and food or drinks containing the sweetener sorbitol can make you fart too?
Women’s farts smell worse than men’s. Sulphur gases are what give intestinal gas its horrible odour and it may be that women have a greater concentration of these. While this may be scarcely believable to women, it should be noted that the American study that’s the basis for this was based on a sample size of 16 people, we can perhaps take comfort from learning that men produce more bowel gas than women.
4 It’s not always what you think. Flatulence isn’t always about what you eat. Some drugs, such as ibuprofen, some laxatives and statins make you produce more gas, as do certain conditions. These include coeliac disease, lactose intolerance, irritable bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. And people often assume that the food they ate immediately before they started getting windy is to blame. But actually, gassiness tends to happen between four and eight hours later.
5 You might need to eat more slowly. There are things you can do to reduce flatulence. You may swallow air if you wolf your food down, so try to eat mindfully, savouring every mouthful. Don’t chew gum either. Smaller meals and exercise will both improve your digestion. Peppermint tea might help too.
Sanj Bassi is a consultant neurosurgeon at King’s College Hospital, London and The Harley Street Clinic
What led you to become a neurosurgeon? While training I found the brain fascinating. Having started neurosurgery, the excitement and passion continued as I began to realise what could be achieved and how much there was still to learn.
What are the causes of most headaches? A lot of headaches will be caused by stress, tension or migraines, or if you’re a bit dehydrated or have a hangover. These things are common and most headaches aren’t sinister.
What can people do to prevent or ease them? It may be simple lifestyle things. For example, to prevent a hangover, have lots of water when you get home. For stress and tension, look at mindfulness. Simple painkillers will ease headaches but migraines need to be treated with antimigraine medication, so getting a diagnosis for migraine is reasonable.
Why are some people more prone to headaches? There will be a set of patients who get
migraines who probably have a genetic predisposition. There is significant psychology around pain. Some people who get headaches may carry on regardless, while others struggle. People in certain occupations requiring hours of concentration may find it harder to manage than others.
When should someone be worried? If someone’s been well, and then suffers a sudden severe headache, almost as if someone has hit you on the head, that needs immediate investigation. That can be due to a bleed in the brain. With headaches that are persistent, troublesome, not settling with simple paracetamol, it’s worth getting an opinion. Then you’ve got patients who get early morning headaches daily, nausea and vomiting, their vision’s not quite right—again those patients should be seen. In older age groups, new symptoms are a red flag, but most headaches are innocuous. n For more information, visit thelondonclinic.co.uk
Substance abuse is a common issue in this country. But who’s really to blame?
Max is a hospital doctor, author and columnist. He currently works full time in mental health for the NHS. His new book, The Marvellous Adventure of Being Human, is out now
“
Why won’t someone help me?” says Mr Jacobs as he lunges at me. I move aside and he clatters into a trolley. One of the A&E nurses rolls her eyes and corrals him back into the side room. He begins swearing at her, to which she makes no response. “Get me a cup of tea, will you, love?” he says as she walks out of the door. She doesn’t turn back. From outside I can hear someone else screaming drunkenly. Another man wanders into the room as I am talking to Mr Jacobs, looking for the toilet. He can barely stand and a casualty officer orders him back to his cubicle, advising him to avoid the puddle on the floor where Mr Jacobs has just vomited. Welcome to A&E on a Friday night. Mr Jacobs is demanding
to be seen because he wants help. He can’t specify exactly what this help would entail, but it seems he wants us to stop him drinking. He’s drunk. He’s tried alcohol detox programmes, but hasn’t lasted more than a few weeks before going back to the bottle. He seems to think that this was the fault of alcohol services, because they won’t “do enough.” The answer to Mr Jacobs’ question as to why someone won’t help him is that no one can until he starts to take responsibility for his drinking. Only one person can stop Mr Jacobs drinking, and that person is Mr Jacobs. Certainly he can be helped with this, but he has to make a commitment to remain sober and stick to it.
Alcohol is the most commonly used drug in this country, and the most commonly abused. In A&E, the effects of it are there for everyone to see; from the homeless person who uses it to block out the bleak reality of their life, to the binge-drinking shoeless teenager surrounded by giddy friends texting each other. There’s the occasional users who’ve over-indulged and then there’s the hardened alcoholic who drinks from dawn till dusk. There’s the 30-something woman looking for the morning-after pill; the inebriated business man who’s
collapsed and banged his head; louts with bloody noses and gin-swigging old ladies. Standing in A&E, you’d be forgiven for thinking that we were in the throws of an epidemic of drunkenness. Of course, this isn’t true. But what standing in A&E does teach you is that nothing changes until people take responsibility for their actions. Most of us use alcohol fairly sensibly. Sure, we get drunk, but most of us know to stop when we start dribbling and telling strangers that we love them. The problem is not alcohol, it’s the culture, specifically about taking responsibility for our actions. The responsibility for instilling this lies with parents. We can blame celebrities, we can blame the drinks industry. This is nice and nebulous. We can try and shift the blame, but really it lies with those who drink too much… It’s not alcohol that smashes up cars or punches people or throws bricks through windows. It’s a person. It’s a person who decided to get drunk and decided to behave like that. The culture that breeds drunken hooligans won’t change until the responsibility for their behaviour is put squarely at their own feet. Back in A&E, Mr Jacobs is given a mop and instructed how to use it. Now that sobered him up quickly. n
Q: Last night I saw a comedian on TV making a joke about “old people smell”. I’d never heard of it before so I did some research and was worried to see that people say old people have the same bad smell. Now I’m worrying—do I smell? And if so, how can I get rid of it?
- Edith, 76A: Thank you for your email. I can certainly smell something, and I’m afraid to say that it’s the unpleasant whiff of ageism. I doubt a comedian would dare say something like this about any other group of people. The fact that they feel able to do so shows how ageism is one of the last bastions of acceptable intolerance in our society. It’s dehumanising and wrong to lump everyone together based on their age—as though all old people are the same. They are a rich and diverse group so, to answer your question: no, old people don’t have a particular smell. Body odour is the result of various factors. One thing I would note is that as we age, we tend to sweat less. As a
result, sometimes older people don’t think they need to wash as frequently, especially when combined with mobility problems meaning they find it difficult getting in and out of the shower, not realising that they can still have body odour without sweating. There is also the issue of incontinence. Again, while this can affect people of any age, it’s more common in old age and is also associated with a smell. There are plenty of treatments for incontinence, so this isn’t something that should arise. Again, I think part of the problem is down to ageism whereby people—including, I’m sorry to say, some doctors—just dismiss incontinence as part of getting older. It’s not. Again, the idea that old people smell just feeds into this, but my view is if someone does smell of urine due to incontinence, then this is the failure of doctors to provide adequate help. It’s to do with their incontinence, not their age. n
Got a health question for our doctor? Email it confidentially to askdrmax @readersdigest.co.uk
The facts, and some soothing solutions
BY Lisa FieldsYou may not think about your tears unless you’re crying, but tears lubricate your eyes each time you blink. With age, you become less efficient at making tears, and may experience dry eye, which causes pain, itching, watery eyes or blurred vision. Dry eye is common among older women due to hormone changes; individuals with Sjogren’s syndrome, which dries the mucous membranes; and people who stare at computers for long periods. But there are lesserknown factors, too.
People with sleep apnoea stop breathing multiple times per night. A CPAP machine may correct it, but if the mask doesn’t fit well, air may blow towards your eyes all night, causing dryness. “Try making a better seal with a new type of mask,” says ophthalmologist Dr Elke Kreps. “If you can’t find one with an airtight seal, put lubricating ointment in the eyes
at night.” Ask at the pharmacy for advice on the right type of ointment.
Being outdoors, especially on windy days, may cause your tears to evaporate. Indoors, heat and air conditioners make air drier, and ceiling fans create a drying breeze. “Outdoors, put glasses or sunglasses on, which act as a shield,” Dr Kreps says. “Indoors, you could try a desktop humidifier.”
If you take antihistamines for allergies, you may not know if your eyes itch and burn from allergen exposure or because antihistamines lead to fewer tears. It’s temporary, says Dr Kreps; when you stop taking the antihistamine, its drying influence goes away, and so too should the effects of the allergen.
An eyelid lift may improve the look of ageing lids, but sometimes they don’t properly close afterwards, which may lead to dry eye. “It’s common at the start, when the scar is rigid,” Dr Kreps says. “To hasten healing, massage the scar with ointment and protect eyes with artificial tears.” Ask at your pharmacy which ointment is best; it could be a lubricating ointment to combat dry eye or an anti-scar ointment. If the steps outlined don’t help, see your ophthalmologist. n
Our memory expert Jonathan Hancock has a trick to keep your secrets secret and your brain sharp
Passwords don’t have to be a pain. There’s a way to choose and remember them with confidence. With the right approach, you can start using the process to your advantage, by setting passwords that also strengthen your memory.
Passwords should be complex and varied enough to be secure, yet still memorable. But with so many to keep track of, this can be hard to achieve. No wonder so many people use the same password over and over again or simply write them all down!
A much better idea is to follow a system. You save time at the setting stage, and have a clear pattern for your memory to follow. It’s good exercise for your brain and a valuable way to protect your identity online.
The following system uses letters, numbers and symbols, so it will please even the strictest website. And the random-looking codes it produces would be extremely difficult for someone to crack, but just enough
of a challenge for your brain. First, choose a short quotation, one that no one would have any reason to associate with you. Pick out the initial letters—creating the first “building block” for your passwords. So, if you chose, “Play it again, Sam”, you’d have the letters PIAS.
Next, choose a meaningful date— again, one that can’t be guessed or easily researched. Maybe the year of a favourite holiday, ‘86, say.
Then add a random element by picking any two keyboard symbols: for example, & and £.
Finally, organise these building blocks in any order you like. And strengthen the code further by making some of the letters lower case, and some upper: maybe 86&£PiAs
Spend a little time getting to know this “foundation” for your passwords. “See” it in your mind’s eye. And then start using it as the basis for every new password you set. Add two or three extra letters each time, a few initials or abbreviations to remind you of what this particular password is for. For example, you might use BT for your phone account, or CC for the camera club forum.
So the final password for your BBC account could be: BBC86&£PiAs
With a system like this, you’ve got a basic formula to follow. But each password ends up being complex and unique, helping to protect your identity and giving your memory a cracking workout every time. n
Feeling a concrete sense of "home" is something many of us take for granted…BY Furaha Asani
The feeling of being rooted and grounded in a particular space is hugely important for our physical and mental well-being. Radical psychologist Guilaine Kinouani explains that unjustly losing this rootedness is equivalent to “the subjective experience of losing an anchor.” As someone whose family has always faced immigration struggles, whose present immigration circumstances have been affected by the legacies of colonisation, who has always found it hard to feel comfortable claiming any one nationality or culture, and who has constantly been on the move for my career, it wasn’t until I found Kinouani’s essay that I could crystallise my own feelings about sense of belonging and unbelonging, and my desire to be anchored.
As an immigration justice advocate based in the UK, I have had the privilege of having stories shared with me by migrants from different
parts of the world—most of whose experiences resonate with the theme of uprootedness and unbelonging at some point or other in their lives.
It is not for me to say that everyone who is a migrant has or will experience this phenomenon, nor that those who are born in their ancestral lands will not experience it (especially people of colour and any other marginalised individuals). Yet, nationality and migration have a significant impact on our feelings of safety and security and, many times, on our ability to form stable homes.
I set out to speak with two other women of colour about their experiences of migration and its effect on their creation of a home, physical or otherwise. Our stories highlight the long-lasting effects of colonialism on how we are perceived as migrants, open up the possibility for "home" to transcend the physical, and communicate a spark of hope for our individual futures.
Leicester-based researcher, teacher, mental health advocate, and freelance writer
For the past year I have been fighting against being deported from the UK.
The process has proved to be an intense balancing act, navigating my inner world of anxiety and questioning where I belong while dealing with an outer world of immigration precarity and continuous global tension—I've barely been managing to keep up. Though I am not under any illusions that I’m the only one trying to keep up such a balance, I do harbour justified anger that a large portion of the stress associated with the questions I'm dealing with around belonging and national identity are due to borders which are man-made.
My father was Congolese while my mother is Armenian-Ukrainian , and I was born and raised in northern Nigeria.
I lived in Johannesburg, South Africa, for six years while completing my undergraduate degree through to my Master's, and then I relocated to the UK to study for my PhD. I have now been living in the UK for just over seven years.
My career progression has always happened in tandem with moves across continents, but this had never stopped me from wanting to find a place where I could create a home for myself. In the summer of 2019, I thought I was on track to do just that.
Everything changed in August 2019, when my visa to stay in the UK
EVERYTHING CHANGED WHEN MY VISA WAS DENIED AND I WAS THREATENED WITH DEPORTATION
was denied and I was threatened with deportation. In the year since, my legal team has been fighting hard, and we will get the chance to appeal before the end of the year. Through all this I have been supported by my family—based in Nigeria—and my friends in different parts of the world.
Each of these individuals represent a home to me , and yet I crave to one day have a physical space where I can feel rooted enough to commit to buying a medium-sized houseplant (or two or three).
I moved to London in June 2019 from New Zealand—a small country which has almost 5 million citizens. I'd been planning to move for a while, hoping to work in the charity sector and enjoy all of the culture London has to offer. After years of wanting to do it, I finally applied for a two-year youth mobility visa as a Commonwealth citizen.
It was very expensive to pay for the visa, health surcharge, flights, tenancy bond, and one month’s rent in advance. When I arrived, it was the first time since the age of 15 that I'd had no job, and no idea where my next pay would come from. After three months of constant hunting and stress, I was offered two jobs and chose the one that made me feel most fulfilled.
It’s been exciting for me to settle in, but at the same time I find myself thinking about some of the social habits I’ve picked up to make sure I fit in as smoothly as possible. My name isn’t uncommon, or difficult to pronounce, but I found that people got confused by my New Zealand accent. Now I always make sure to over-enunciate, and not just when I say my name. During my time here I've also been reflecting
a lot on what it means to be a Commonwealth citizen. While our whitewashed education painted the Commonwealth as a source of pride, in reality it is actually just a legacy of colonisation, with further hierarchies among Commonwealth citizens too.
There are levels of privilege across these countries, privileges which I benefit from. Not all
Commonwealth citizens can vote like I can, or apply for a working visa to move to the "mother country" like I did either. Being over a day's flight away from where I was born, I’m trying to find my balance between really missing my family and friends, while also feeling really comfortable in London —even though I will soon need to try to renew my visa!
I don’t feel like "home" for me is a fixed and permanent place. Home is my mother’s house in New Zealand, my friends’ house in Newcastle, my aunty's house in Cornwall, and my flat in London. Home is where I feel safe, secure, and comfortable— whether it's around certain people or just by myself.
Geneva-based Afro-feminist, PanAfricanist radical liberation worker, healer and educator
I’ve been a refugee from Zimbabwe for the past 14 years. I think the complexity with refugeedom is a feeling that my trauma can never be finished. It's never done, or undone. Even in my childhood, because of the trauma, I had to disassociate from my own body—which is one of our first homes. Also, because of moving around a lot, "home" couldn’t be static. In order for me to survive, I needed to be adaptable. So, at the age of 11, "home" for me was forming a connection with people who shared the same identities with me—other Black girls.
As I mature into my Black womanhood, I’m invested in seeking home in expansive community spaces, which means I’m creating bonds with people I now view as siblings. We provide support for one another as we navigate white supremacist structures. I’m also returning, with greater knowledge now, to my childhood feelings of body consciousness, and not just in the physical. In my journey to healing I’m thinking about my ancestors’ experiences. How did they navigate healing in
the midst of settler colonialism, terrorism, and the violence of forced migrations? I’ve realised that they understood that concepts like epistemic homelessness and physical displacement are not just a disconnection from land, but tied to spiritual existences as well— including being ripped apart from cultural practices of grounding.
So, for me this feeling of groundedness and home, or the lack of thereof, is not just about materiality. My healing cannot only come from forming a physical connection to any place that I call home, or even belonging to a family structure. I’ve had to disconnect from the idea that all these material forms of belonging are what can provide me with a home, because for me it’s much more liberating to view "home" as a spiritual experience rather than simply a physical one.
Because the concepts of land, migration, and nationality feature heavily in all of our stories, I wanted the opinion of someone with lived and learned expertise on how we can centre healing as we navigate forwards. Dr Ayesha Ahmad, senior lecturer in Global Health at the University of London, researches mental health and humanitarian responses in conflict. Dr Ahmad recognises the burden placed on those who bear mental scars from
trauma associated with their lands: “I wonder what it is like to not feel your own land as wounded.”
Dr Ahmad’s views on how we connect and disconnect from feelings of belonging and unbelonging draw from personal experiences too. “When I visited my ancestral land, trying to reach as near as I could to the village, to the compound, to the mango tree that had been rooted in my memory… I had a strange sensation: I realised that I was now on soil where I was no longer originally from somewhere else, I was in my origins. That story is grounded in the space of land trauma, of migration, of conflict, and of separation. I had to be there
for the story to grow.” Dr Ahmad’s work uses traditional story-telling in trauma therapeutic interventions.
I am unsure if and when I will ever be able to reconnect with the land of my origins. Yet, telling my own story and holding space for others to entrust me with theirs, and sharing openly, has created a comforting solidarity. While itself not the cure to feelings of unbelonging, it strikes me that documenting these lived experiences can also be viewed as creating a form of rootedness whereby a part of each of us will etch a home, if only for a moment, in the minds of those who read and empathise with our stories. n
“ I try to spend most weekends in the Cotswolds, having fun”
No, we're not talking about the legendary 1969 music festival, but the beautiful British market town. Lying just eight miles from Oxford, this lesser-visited gem of the Cotswolds is a remarkably pretty corner of the UK. The name "Woodstock" is an old English word meaning "clearing in the woods". For fans of The Crown there's plenty of royal history here. Elizabeth I was held captive in Woodstock for a year in 1554, Henry II courted "fair Rosamund Clifford" here, and Henry I kept a menagerie in the park. Geoffrey
Chaucer's brother also lived in Woodstock, and it was the birthplace of one Sir Winston Churchill. Though thousands of visitors flock to the area to visit the Unesco World Heritage Site, Blenheim Palace, the town centre itself is also well worth a visit with its elegant Georgian architecture, antique stores, pubs and restaurants. The town is also home to the Oxfordshire and Soldiers of Oxfordshire museums.
Nickie Rogan, 49, has lived in Woodstock since the 2000s, and has raised her family and started an independent business, Townhouse Travel taxis, since her arrival. Visit townhousewoodstock.co.uk to learn more.
I've lived in Woodstock for 20 years. My grandmother was born here, so it has a special place in my heart. I always knew that I wanted to raise my children here.
I run a small independent family taxi and tour company. When I first took over Townhouse Travel I knew there was a huge untapped market beyond being just the local taxi driver. I also sit on the committee for Woodstock small businesses called "Wake Up To Woodstock", I sponsor the local football team, Woodstock Town and and I'm an admin on the local community Facebook pages for Woodstock.
I love where I live, I'm proud of my surroundings and can't wait to share
it with my customers. From visiting Sir Winston Churchill's grave or Blenheim en route, I'm always excited to show off our little slice of heaven, much to the delight of our visitors. Nearly every taxi ride became a little history lesson for our tourists, so, about three years ago I started doing organised trips around the Cotswolds. This has not only proved popular but for me, it's an absolute delight. We're blessed to have Blenheim Palace on our doorstep and I have been involved in celebrity weddings, celebrity filming and equally as exciting, if not a little mad, the Donald Trump visit to the Palace.
The Woodstock community is the best. We all work together whether that be on charitable causes, or boosting the local economy. The COVID-19 lockdowns have also increased awareness of that sense of a tight-knit community.
The community spirit, the beautiful buildings and the independent shops are definitely my favourite things about living here, but my favourite spot has to be Blenheim Palace. As with most residents, it's always where I end up, whether that's for a walk to clear my head, a coffee or to see who’s visiting.
You will find it hard to find somewhere as unique, beautiful and charming as Woodstock. It's just full of good honest people selling and making what they love… oh, and the greatest palace in the country as our back yard!
Rod Craig, 68, is a local artist and musician with work in collections in the UK, Germany and New York, and has exhibited regularly at art galleries and art fairs.
I am extremely fortunate to be able to say that Woodstock has been my home for over 30 years. I started my design business in the town and soon fell in love with the place.
My son took over the business ten years ago and since then I have been painting full time—both in my studio and out on location. Watercolour is my preferred painting medium as its vibrancy and fluidity allow me to create dramatic moods and atmospheric paintings of the town and the surrounding countryside.
When I’m not painting, I can be heard playing the mandolin in various musical ensembles.
Woodstock is such an inspiring and unique place to live and work. There's striking architecture, the lovely water meadows close by and, of course, Blenheim Park on our doorstep.
In many ways, very little has changed in the time we have lived here. Like everywhere, a lot of new homes have been built so there are more people around, but that’s good news for local shops and businesses. The town is thriving and certainly less sleepy than it was 30 years ago!
The community spirit is remarkable here, too. There are a lot of interesting and creative people living here, organising festivals for art, music and literature.
My favourite spot in Woodstock has to be the water meadows, a small wooded area on the edge of town, where the River Glyme flows into Blenheim Park. I walk and paint there a lot, sometimes with only kingfishers, red kites or egrets for company. It’s a very special and tranquil place.
I have produced many paintings locally—the beautiful Cotswold stone houses in the town are a delight for artists and photographers. I find the surrounding countryside most inspiring in the autumn and winter months, allowing me to paint dramatic moods and atmospheres. n
To learn more about Woodstock, visit cotswolds.co.uk
Angella Nazarian is a best-selling author and sought-after international speaker. She recently launched her fourth book, Creative Couples: Collaborations
Attending one “Happiness Course” would be a requirement for all. Making a personal commitment to be joyful is a radical act. Happiness doesn’t come naturally and it has to be practised daily. Just the act of committing to the practice impacts our thoughts and feelings and can become a powerful tool in dealing with challenges. As a women’s group facilitator, I once asked my group to sign a contract of commitment for a month. You would not believe the changes that we noted among ourselves. Yale University’s most popular class in its history, its online course, “The Science of Well-Being,” is
now—due to its overwhelming popularity—being offered free for all.
More women would be in leadership positions all across the board. After more than a decade of researching women’s leadership, I can confidently say that we would have a more equitable and just world if women were more involved in policy-making and government. Women have skillsets that cater towards communication, empathy and emotional intelligence—the key pillars of building a collaborative environment. Studies have shown that women in executive positions tend to outperform their competitors on every level of profitability.
Teachers and doctors would be better paid and more valued. The pandemic has shown us how frontline workers risk their own lives to save the lives of others. And, teachers have one of the most important roles in a child’s life. These heroes need to be celebrated and valued more!
Early child education would put stronger emphasis on compassion and empathy. Many years back, I had an audience with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. In his talk he discussed the importance of teaching compassion towards others in schools. He also added that it is through this kind of education that we can have more impact on
humanity on a global level. What if an empathy-building curriculum was an early prerequisite?
There would be more intergenerational interactions. Last year, Visionary Women, the women’s leadership nonprofit, hosted the iconic Gloria Steinem to hear about her amazing journey. It was exciting to see how many women attended with their mothers or daughters. At one point during the talk, Gloria talked about how “the elderly and the young connect on such a deep level because both are so close to the mystery of the world.” How important it is not to discard or segregate the elderly in our society but to have them be a vital part of our lives. Now it has become a mission for Visionary Women to host intergenerational events.
Travel—even just outside your hometown—should be compulsory. One of the joys of being human is feeling connected to nature and the life energy that binds us. Encouraging more travel for all would broaden our perspectives and enhance our lives. It doesn’t matter if you travel to the next city or to another continent, intermingling in a new environment with different energy stimulates our bodies, minds and souls. n
To learn more about Angella’s work, visit angellanazarian.com
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When disaster strands two US tourists in the jungle, unable to walk and unlikely to be found, they have one hope: a phone with a dying battery illustrations
By Derek BurnettAimee Spevak was supposed to be working. Actually, she was supposed to be on holiday—she had rented a cabin in the Pocono Mountains in August 2018 to get away from the New York City heat. But no one can ever truly break away these days, and Spevak, a freelance medical writer, found herself stuck inside on this lovely summer day, finishing an assignment. She procrastinated a little, surfing the web now and then. When she checked her Facebook news feed, she was delighted to see a notification from her friend Michael Lythcott. Lythcott was an intrepid traveller. In fact, he and Spevak had trekked through Nepal together a few years back. Spevak knew he was in Bali now.
Rather than seeing beautiful travel photos or a detailed narrative of Lythcott’s journey in the post, Spevak saw a few stark words written in white: “Help. In danger. Call police.”
Mikey Lythcott, a 39-year-old graphic designer, had indeed travelled to Bali. He and his friend Stacey Eno, 25, had landed on the Indonesian island just the day before. Excited for their adventure, the two Americans had rented a moped on the outskirts of Ubud and driven into town, where they stayed until the wee hours chatting with strangers from all over the world.
It was pitch-dark, well past 2am, when they headed to their hotel. Lythcott had placed his iPhone in the pouch of the moped and was using it to navigate. As they climbed a hill past the rice paddies and the jungle, he glanced down at the GPS and back up at the road—a curve ahead. Lythcott tapped the brakes to make the turn. He didn’t tap fast enough.
He awoke sometime later to the babble of nearby water. He was flat on his back on a steep slope, surrounded by vegetation. The jungle. He tried to sit up, but his body wouldn’t cooperate. What happened? He wondered. Where am I? In an empty forest? Then it came to him. Bali!
Oh man… I was in a moped accident, he thought. That much came back to him now, nothing more. Nothing about flying 150 feet through the air down this ravine, nothing about slamming into trees.
He took stock. His glasses were gone. The moped was gone, and with it his mobile phone. His left wrist and torso were smashed up badly, as was his back. He couldn’t move his legs. Finally he remembered his companion. “Stacey!” She didn’t answer. “Stacey, where are you?”
“I’m right here.”
She was only a few feet away. Lythcott dragged himself toward her through the darkness until he was beside her.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” she said. “Why are we in the woods?”
“We were in an accident. I need you to get up and walk and get us help.”
“I can’t.”
This jolted Lythcott. No one knew they were there. Neither of them could walk. His back was probably broken. He was bleeding out. I think we might die here, he thought.
Making matters worse, he had begun sliding downhill along the wet jungle floor, past thick-trunked banyan trees to whatever terrors lay below.
At last, Lythcott came to rest in a tiny depression on the hillside where he could grasp a tree root. There, in his nook, an eerie calm came over him. If he was going to die, let it be like this, in a peaceful place.
No, he scolded himself. Stop thinking that way. You have to save yourself. You have to save Stacey.
But how would anyone find them? Then he remembered—he had a second phone, the one with his US SIM card that allowed him
to contact the United States. He felt around in his jacket pocket, and there it was! Carefully he pulled it out with his good hand, powered it on, and turned on international data roaming. Battery charge: 42 per cent.
He thought about googling the number for the local police and hoping that whoever answered spoke English. But even if the person did, what would he say? “I’ve been in an accident, and I’m… somewhere?”
An idea struck him. Taking great care not to let the blood-slick phone tumble down the dark ravine, he opened the Facebook app and typed away. Less than two minutes later, Aimee Spevak saw the post.
At first, Spevak had no idea what to do. Then she remembered that Facebook has a function that allows you to call your friends. She gave it a try. To her immense surprise and relief, Lythcott picked up.
“Aimee,” he said, “I’m in the woods.
I don’t know where I am.”
“OK,” Spevak said. “Can you send me your location?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to call somebody, and we’ll get you out of there.”
After they hung up, Lythcott sent her his GPS coordinates on a map using Facebook’s “pin drop” function. Now one person in the world knew where he was.
Spevak, though, had no idea whom to call or how to proceed. But she knew who would: someone in Lythcott’s vast circle of friends from around the globe. She posted a screenshot of the pin drop to the Facebook comment thread and watched nervously as every few seconds another friend jumped into the conversation.
Ricardo Mendes, wanting Lythcott to activate Apple’s Emergency SOS call, wrote, “PRESS THE OFF BUTTON OF YOUR IPHONE 5 TIMES QUICKLY.”
Kaitlin Haggard found all the local police numbers and shared them.
Leah Schlossman aired her frustration: “I can’t get through to any of these numbers and Michael’s line is busy.”
Misty McKenzie-Hill: “Please, please let him be OK.”
Emilie Stein: “Dude, I will fly out tonight and come get you if you need.”
Meanwhile, Stacey Eno slipped in and out of consciousness, confused
and numbed by pain. Her face bones had been shattered. An object had slammed into her mouth in the crash, slicing her tongue and loosening teeth.
“Stacey,” Lythcott said. “I’m trying to get help.”
Eno tried to move her legs but couldn’t get them underneath her. Any movement made her feel as if she might fall down the steep incline to whatever dangers lay below.
She dug her fingernails into the soil and waited for the help that Lythcott hoped was on the way.
Among those glued to Lythcott’s Facebook feed was Josh Hofer, an old friend who was sitting at his office computer in Raleigh, North Carolina. Like Spevak, he’d felt a jolt when he first read Lythcott’s post, then was relieved to
see the pin drop Spevak had posted. But his enthusiasm quickly waned: The location was frustratingly vague. He opened the pin drop on his phone instead of his computer. Instantly it showed greater detail. He took a screenshot and sent it to the US Consulate in Indonesia.
In Los Angeles, Paul Rocha was watching the thread with rapt interest. Lythcott had mustered sufficient consciousness to share that he could hear water nearby. Taking Spevak’s and Hofer’s screenshots, Rocha created a map of his own, with a circle indicating the likeliest search area. Then he posted it to the thread.
In Prague, Lythcott’s friend Caitlin scrutinised the map and concluded that the crash must have occurred between a certain cooking school and a local bar.
A less sketchy picture of the situation was emerging gradually: Lythcott and Eno were outside of Ubud in the jungle near a place called Sweetwater Falls. On the comment thread, friends from all over the world had begun posting contact information for police, hospitals, and ambulance services in Bali, and many of them were bombarding those numbers with calls. Someone posted the number for the US Consulate in Indonesia.
In Surabaya, Indonesia, one island away from Bali, Christine Getzler-Vaughan, a public affairs
officer at the US Consulate General, was monitoring the night-duty emergency phone when it began to ring. “My friend posted on Facebook that he’s hurt and needs help,” the caller said.
Getzler-Vaughan grabbed her notebook. “What’s his name?” she asked. “What’s his last known location?” The caller supplied as much detail as possible. Seconds after they hung up, the phone rang again: another of Lythcott’s friends. And so it went for the next two hours.
Getzler-Vaughan received a landslide of information from the Facebook posse: screenshots, maps, tips, phone numbers, Lythcott’s date of birth, his family contacts. She passed on what she knew to officials in Bali. At 5:29 am, less than an hour after his Facebook SOS, she texted Lythcott: “Someone from our office in Bali has the info your friends have sent us.”
“Can’t move,” he typed back. Then he added: “6 perrxcntt batt.”
Tempers were beginning to fray on Lythcott’s feed. His well-intentioned friends were clogging the thread by voicing concern or requesting updates. In so doing, they were burying important information Balinese authorities would need if they were to rescue him and Eno. “For Christ’s sake, EVERYONE STOP POSTING,” one poster snapped. “Unless you have an update
Mikey Lythcott’s first Facebook post, at 4:36am Bali time, set off a chain reaction of 516 concerned posts from friends around the world that eventually led to his rescue. Here are a few: Help. In danger. Call police.
4:45 am p rague
Leah Schlossman Dude!!!!! Are you OK?
4:46 am p ocono m ountains, p ennsylvania
Aimee Spevak I have a pin drop of Michael’s location.
4:47 am r aleigh, north c arolina
Marcie Dean Corral Here is Tourist Police info: [posts it]
4:48 am c anada
Jackie Klobucar Tried one number so far but won’t let me call.
4:49 am l as v egas
Kaitlin Haggard Here are Indonesian police numbers by district: [posts a link]
4:53 a m r aleigh, n orth c arolina
Josh Hofer Called the same number. I couldn’t communicate with the person at all. He said, “No English.”
4:54 am los a ngeles
Paul Rocha I’m on the line with the US embassy in Bali.
4:59 am h ollywood, Florida
Michelle George Michael says he’s by a waterfall.
4:59 am los a ngeles
Paul Rocha Embassy said he or someone locally needs to dial police and ambulance.
5:00 am the h ague, n etherlands
Elizabeth Elmore I’m sending the duty officer at the US consulate screen grabs of all relevant information right now.
5:07 am v ancouver, British c olum B ia
Jen Sheppard I have some connections in Bali. I’m currently working on this.
5:14 am r aleigh, n orth c arolina
Josh Hofer I’ve been on the phone with an officer for the last ten minutes. Sent them screenshots of his location.
5:17 am los a ngeles
Paul Rocha All: I did a map search using his dropped pin and the fact that he said he’s by a waterfall and this is what I found: [posts map of the suspected area]
5:21 am p ocono mountains, p ennsylvania
Aimee Spevak Spoke with Christine Getzler-Vaughan at Consulate General Surabaya. She has the pin drop of his location; I was able to email it over.
5:44 am v ancouver, British c olum B ia
Jen Sheppard The police have been called by somebody in Ubud and given Mikey’s last known location.
6:21 am p ocono mountains, p ennsylvania
Aimee Spevak I got an email from the American Consulate in Indonesia: “I have spoken with Mikey. We are working to get an ambulance out to him.”
8:14 am p rague
Caitlin UPDATE—HE IS OKAY AND IN THE HOSPITAL!
we need this thread to STOP NOW.” All capital letters—the internet’s cue that you are raising your voice.
Meanwhile, half a world away, Eno and Lythcott lay bleeding in the ravine. Any time Eno came to, she was overwhelmed by her fear of falling. “I’m slipping,” she said.
“Try to hang on,” Lythcott said. “Help is coming.”
“How long?”
He had no idea. His phone battery had died. Now they were truly alone.
Lythcott was drifting in and out of consciousness when he heard the sound of brush rustling. He tensed up. Bali has snakes—cobras and pythons—and he wasn’t exactly in a condition to defend himself. Soon the sound turned into a murmur, then into voices. A search party!
Speaking little English, four rescuers carefully carried Lythcott up to a flatbed truck. Sometime later they placed Eno beside him in the cargo area. Her hair was soaked and matted with blood and grime. More blood covered her torso and legs. Lythcott barely recognised her.
At 8:14am—nearly four hours after Mikey Lythcott posted his plea for help on Facebook—Caitlin from Prague, who had been in constant touch with the hospital in Ubud, posted: “UPDATE—HE IS OKAY AND IN THE HOSPITAL!” Friends from Portland to Pretoria, Seattle to Sydney, breathed a collective sigh of relief. “Thank you, that’s what we all needed to hear,” Jay Holmes posted.
Eno spent eight days at a hospital in Bali before returning to her teaching job in South Korea. She had suffered a fractured wrist, shattered cheekbones, severe injuries to her mouth and tongue, and a badly broken nose. Lythcott’s condition was worse: internal bleeding, collapsed lungs, a broken wrist, broken ribs, a fractured back and skull, a perforated colon, a bruised liver. But three weeks after the crash, he was out of the hospital and recuperating at his sister’s house in Atlanta.
A miracle? Maybe. But there’s a lesson here too. As Georgia Chapman Costa, one of Lythcott’s Facebook friends, put it on the feed: “When people come together, wonderful things happen.” n
The Haliphron Atlanticus octopus has been known to rip the stingers off of Man-O-War fish and use them as whips to defend themselves from predators.
Source: nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/04/giant-deep-sea-octopus-eats-uses-jellyfish/
Research into how we choose our mate reveals some surprises
YOU MAY NOT realise it, but when you gaze into your partner’s eyes, there’s a good chance that you’re looking at a modified reflection of yourself. Researchers have found that people choose mates who tend to be of similar size, shape and ethnicity as themselves… and they may even have facial features in common.
Take Lot Geels from Amsterdam and her American husband, Brock Mosovsky, for example. “We both have blonde hair and blue eyes,” says Lot. “Neither of us is very tall. We’re both built athletically and we’re both mainly of European descent.”
Even if you don’t look like your spouse, you likely share nonphysical characteristics, according to a growing field of research, like education level, socioeconomic standing, religion, personality traits, even core values.
Lot and Brock fall into this category as well. “We both have PhDs and work in research,” she says. “We both live an active lifestyle, mainly rock climbing and skiing/ snowboarding. Our world views are pretty similar, and we’re both hardworking, social and friendly people.”
Researchers have been studying the phenomenon of people with similarities pairing up—known as positive assortative mating— for decades. If you’re sure that “opposites attract,” you may be surprised by research findings, which prove that like attracts like. However, if you believe that “birds of a feather flock together,” you probably understand why people overwhelmingly seek life partners who remind them, on some comforting level, of themselves.
“There’s an element of
predictability when you date somebody of a similar background,” says Ty Tashiro, author of The Science of Happily Ever After. “They’re less threatening, less scary. They’ll be more of a familiar person from the start. Familiarity is something we find attractive.”
For most people, positive assortative mating takes place unconsciously (unless you actively seek someone from the same ethnic background or religion). Here’s how it plays out in real life:
The simplest reason why you may marry someone like yourself hinges on convenience and geography. “You're more likely to meet someone from your own social circles because they go to the same church or school or university or live in the same area,” says Abdel Abdellaoui, a genetics researcher at VU University Amsterdam.
Abdellaoui found that in the Netherlands, people who live in the northern part of the country are genetically distinguishable from people in the southern part of the country because people tend to marry their neighbours. “Many of the genetic similarities can be explained by people with similar ancestries having children,” Abdellaoui says. “Our studies look at whether people
FAMILIARITY IS ATTRACTIVE. WE OVERWHELMINGLY SEEK LIFE PARTNERS WHO REMIND US OF OURSELVES
assortatively mate or not, and they do, clearly. The majority of the spouse pairs resemble each other more than you would expect by chance.”
Of course, you may not always live in the neighbourhood where you were raised. If you attend university, you move onto a campus where you’re surrounded by your intellectual and socioeconomic equals. Once you start working, you may relocate to a city where it’s easier to find a job in your field, then spend the majority of your waking hours interacting
with business associates with the same education level and similar socioeconomic standing.
If you’re a lawyer, you’re much more likely to fall in love with a lawyer or another professional you meet through colleagues or friends. You’ve still found a partner through positive assortative mating, but your similarities are less physically obvious. “Higher-educated spouses have children that have a little more genetic variation that those with lower education because they migrate less,” Abdellaoui says.
A MAN WHO’S TALLER THAN 90 PER CENT OF MEN WILL LIKELY MARRY A WOMAN WHO’S TALLER THAN 90 PER CENT OF WOMEN
If you’ve ever done a double-take because you’ve seen a beautiful woman walking hand-in-hand with a really unattractive man, you won’t be surprised to learn that research confirms that this doesn’t happen often: most people assortatively mate for levels of attractiveness.
“The most attractive people will pair up with the most attractive, and the medium attractiveness
people will pair up and the lowest attractiveness people match up,” Tashiro says. “You can get mismatches, of course, usually due to socioeconomic differences. In general, you get attractive people with attractive people.” This doesn’t mean that unattractive people don’t find attractive people appealing. Rather, Tashiro explains, “people are self-aware of their standing in the world of attractiveness and realise that their best chance of reciprocated
attraction is with those at roughly the same level.”
“There’s a thing called fidelity insurance,” says John Speakman, a professor at the University of Aberdeen’s Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences. “What that suggests is that we choose partners that are around our level of physical attractiveness because we’re trying to ensure our partner doesn’t cheat on us.”
effect is due to how people change each other over time,” says Paul Eastwick, an assistant professor at the Attraction and Relationships Research Lab at the University of Texas at Austin.
Fidelity insurance and assortative mating may also influence choices regarding potential mates’ body types. Speakman’s research has shown that obese people tend to be married to other obese people. “If you ask people of a range of body weights what they find attractive, they all choose slim people,” Speakman says. “But obese people may not see slim people as a good choice for a lifetime partner.”
Because this is a relatively new field of study, it’s unknown whether married obese couples tend to be obese when they meet. Researchers speculate that some couples grow obese together, due to shared diet and exercise habits. For the same reasons, researchers think that slender partners stay fit because of shared healthy habits.
“People end up with partners who are similar to them in terms of attractiveness, but part of that
Assortative mating doesn’t stop with weight. Tall people tend to pair up. So do short ones. “In the 1950s and 1960s, researchers measured couples for things like wrist circumference, head size, leg length, foot size,” says Anthony Little, lecturer at the University of Stirling. “What they found is that you get small but positive correlations for a lot of these body measurements. In some ways, that isn’t surprising. Tall people pair up with tall people, heavier people pair up with heavier people.”
Because men are taller than women, couples match by height ratios, not exact measurements. A man who’s taller than 90 per cent of other men will likely marry a woman who’s taller than roughly 90 per cent of other women. “It’s really rare to see a tall woman with a short man,” Speakman says, “unless the man has phenomenal resources to offset his height, like Tom Cruise.”
Many people select partners who look like them in some way, whether that's the same hair colour and
complexion or a similar shape to the cheekbones or jawline. “It’s all about visual exposure,” Little says. “The more we see something, the more we like it. We may like people who look like us because we are so familiar with our own features.”
Some research suggests that people are reassured by others who look like themselves. “There is some evidence that we are more likely to trust a novel face if that face is morphed slightly to look like our own face,” Eastwick says.
Many spouses share qualities like approachability, generosity and kindness. “Several studies conducted in different countries have shown that spouses have similar values of altruistic traits,” says Arnaud Tognetti, a researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse.
Some studies have found that the more time spouses spend together, the more likely they are to have similar levels of generosity and cooperation. But Tognetti, in a recent study, found that some couples share similar levels of generosity and cooperation from the start of their relationships, which may help them seem more appealing to each other.
“Cooperative behaviours may be a signal of the propensity to engage in other altruistic actions, such as childcare and provisioning,”
Tognetti says. “By choosing a cooperative partner, people could select a mother/father who will invest a lot of energy, time and resources to take care of their children. Because parental investment (from both parents) is a crucial resource, reproduction with a cooperative mate who invests in offspring is likely to be beneficial.”
People also assortatively mate for personality traits. “We found the best evidence that couples are alike for extroversion: being sociable, friendly and approachable,” Little says. “We also found positive correlations between couples for confidence, conscientiousness and having a broad range of interests.”
The reverse is also true: some studies have found that couples assortatively mate for conditions like depression, anxiety and ADHD. “The more severe the symptoms are, the stronger the assortative mating,” Abdellaoui says. “We’re not yet sure why. Perhaps they have a stronger bond because they’ve shared similar stressful experiences.”
If you share many similarities with your partner, rejoice: some research has shown that the more you have in common, the more likely you are to stay together. “In a cross-sample of the population, relationship
length was positively correlated with similarity,” Little says. “There is research suggesting that couples are less likely to stick together if they are dissimilar. People who stay together are the most similar.”
Lot Geels has found that the traits and qualities that she and her husband share have helped them to forge a deep bond. “I think that definitely makes things easier,” she says. “We don’t disagree on important things in life.”
For now, there’s no recipe to ensure a blissful union: researchers haven’t found that the presence or absence of any specific characteristics can improve relationship quality.
“We are not even close to being able to predict the success of your relationship,” Abdellaoui says. “I would not dare to advise someone on partner choice on what we know, especially genetics-wise. Just follow your heart.” n
Going fast isn’t an option on the Oxford Canal—to the delight of all who cruise this charming waterway
BY TARA ISABELLA BURTON FROM NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELERAWINGED GRYPHON IS PLAYING A UKULELE on Broad Street.
At the nearby Bodleian Library, a caterpillar dispenses nutritional advice to children in pinafores. In front of the Pitt Rivers Museum, a Mock Turtle leads a lobster quadrille dance.
Me? I’m taking in this annual celebration of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, written by Oxford University lecturer Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (better known by his pen name, Lewis Carroll).
I lived on St Barnabas Street from 2009 to 2010, when I was an undergraduate at Oxford University. Every day was a cultural shock as I tried to reconcile English reserve with my American exuberance—a balance that I still am not sure I’ve struck. But today I’m looking at my university home, which sits 60 miles northwest of London, from another angle entirely.
EAGER FOR AN ADVENTURE, a local friend, Sarah Heenan, and I have hired the Hertford, a canal boat, to spend one week cruising the Oxford Canal, an 18th-century waterway that runs from Oxford north almost 80 miles to Hawkesbury Junction. The experience, we’re discovering, is hardly that of Oxford University, with its Gothic towers. Nor is it of Oxford the town, a staid, prosperous place that is unfailingly polite and invariably aloof. For narrow-boaters such as us, the canal embodies a different, less straitlaced, way of life.
“Along a canal,” explains Heenan, who grew up in a nearby Cotswolds village, “you say hello to everybody.”
As Heenan and I rev our engine— we’re our own captains after a boat-handling tutorial—we spot an elderly twosome strolling the canal’s towpath. They spy Heenan’s glass of Pimm’s. “And very good, too!” the woman calls out as we pass. We raise our glasses to toast her.
Cruising along, I find myself peering into back gardens, wondering who tends to them. Who owns the stone bust of Napoleon? The carving of a rabbit shooting a frog?
I ask Heenan if I’m breaking some fundamental rule of Englishness by looking. She bursts into laughter. “That’s the most English thing of all!” she says. “Deep down, we’re all really nosy.”
Near the village of Wolvercote, we are preparing to dock when a comely man dressed in a white vest and jeans leaps onto our narrowboat and grabs the tie-up rope.
“Don’t worry,” he says, when we have secured the vessel. “You’re no worse than I was my first time.”
Priced out of property in Oxford, Mike Pitman—a documentary filmmaker and musician in his
PHOTOS: (PREVIOUS SPREAD) ©STEPHEN SYKES/ALAMY. (THIS SPREAD) ©DAVID NIGEL OWENS/GETTY IMAGES
“Canal pace” allows for impromptu stops along the way
twenties—bought a boat and has lived ever since along the water, part of a community of artists.
“Before living on a boat, I never knew any of my neighbours by name,” Pitman shares. Here on the water, he knows everyone.
“We look out for each other,” he says, by monitoring mooring spaces when one of them is away, pet-sitting or helping with boat repairs. Another boater, a photographer named Jeff Slade, ambles over. He and Pitman trade news: two buzzards have taken up residence in a canalside tree; one of the moorhens has appeared with five chicks. At first these boaters’ attention to nature’s details surprises me. So far on our cruise, the landscape has been overwhelmingly green. But as we wend past bend after identical bend, thatch-roofed village after thatch-roofed village, the landscape’s uniformity breaks apart like a kaleidoscope. At four miles per hour—the speed limit of the canal— it’s impossible to not look at every branch, every leaf, a little longer, a little more carefully. I start to notice the difference between Japanese and giant knotweed, elderflowers and Queen Anne’s lace. A few days ago, all this was a vague notion I had of “countryside.” Today, each branch, each bush, each bend of the canal contains universes.
IN THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS, Rat tells Mole, “there is nothing—
absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” Kenneth Grahame’s classic children’s novel featuring animals dwelling by a river was inspired in part by Grahame’s school days on the Oxford Canal.
Aboard the Hertford, there always is something to do: piloting, mooring, unmooring, filling the water tank. The routine of locks is the most ceaseless of all. Every hour or so we stop to open one gate, cruise into the lock, slide up the panels (called paddles) to let water flow into the lock and make the boat rise (we are heading upstream), open the exit gate, then reset everything.
The routine gives structure to the meandering of days. I find myself taking pride in winching up a particularly heavy paddle or forcing a stuck gate. I like the tangible, physical results.
The locks, Heenan and I soon realise, double as social hubs, where strangers exchange travel advice or boating gossip, or help less experienced boaters. Arriving at a lock now means seeing familiar faces: the redheaded Scottish family of four; the bachelor party group; Derek, a retiree from Birmingham, who stays behind to help us close the gate.
It’s just good boating etiquette, Derek says after I thank him. He lives on his boat alone, a rarity given the amount of work cruising entails. But he never worries. “People help me
The locks serve as social hubs for meeting people
on the locks all the time, so I help them. That’s just how it is.”
Besides, he adds, he’s not in any rush. Nobody here is.
I understand what “canal pace” means. We’re speeding as quickly as we can to make the village of King’s Sutton by nightfall. Dusk glints golden on the water as we cruise past Upper Heyford. Sheep nip at long grasses in the shadow of its Gothic church tower. It’s the most idyllic spot we’ve seen on the canal so far, but it’s not on our schedule. I turn off the engine anyway.
A few minutes later, a young man appears on the towpath, walking his dog. As he gets close, the dog
scampers onto our deck before its owner can stop it. Mortified, he stutters out an apology.
We laugh it off, retrieve the dog, make conversation. Kevin, we learn, is a local. I invite him to join us for a drink. Under normal circumstances here, this would be considered only slightly less brazen than proposing marriage. But we’re on a boat.
For a moment, Kevin looks surprised, even nervous. Then he takes a deep breath and steps on deck. We hand him a Pimm’s and clink glasses. At last he smiles. Kevin admits he wonders about the boats he sees cruising by. Still, he could never imagine doing it himself. “You’d have to say hello to people all the time, be friendly. We couldn’t have that!”
PHOTO: ©CHRIS MELLOR/GETTY IMAGES
THERE IS ONE PLACE, Heenan points out, where people always say hello. The pub is to locals what locks are to boaters: the one socially sanctioned space where talking to strangers is actively encouraged.
Each pub will has its own character. There’s the Boat Inn, in Thrupp, where locals vie to buy the geriatric pub dog, Ollie, potato chips. There’s the brick Bell Inn, in Lower Heyford, where an elderly man enters, only to start at the sight of Heenan and me on a sofa (we’re sitting in his customary seat, another regular explains).
But nothing compares to the rambunctious energy of the Red Lion Inn, in the thatch-roofed village of Cropredy. In the corridor to the bathroom I find framed limericks
riffing on regulars’ drunken antics and dietary misfortunes.
Those same regulars hold court from 6 to 10pm at the bar, engaging in sometimes raucous mockery of one another. An elderly live-aboard boater named Mick helps me understand this proper village pub.
“When I came in here, I hit my head on those”—he points out the low ceiling beams—“and the barmaid, instead of helping me, laughed.” He waits for me to get it.
“That’s what a proper pub is! People taking the mickey out of you, teasing you, even if you’re a stranger.”
I tell him about our dawdling in bucolic Upper Heyford, and he remarks, “That’s nothing. It took me three and a half weeks to get here— I saw a field full of cows I liked.”
Outside, church bells begin to ring the 11pm hour. We’re approaching closing time, but tonight’s patrons show no signs of leaving—and the barmaid just continues to chat with everyone.
“When they close, they close,” shrugs Mick.
IF A PUB—England’s great equaliser, where rich and poor, locals and transients come together—has an opposite, it’s the stately country manor. Of the three or four manors we pass, it’s the palatial Rousham House that most piques my interest. This 17th-century residence, still lived in by descendants of the
original owners, is visitable only by appointment, but the acres of gardens are open daily. They were designed in the 1700s by the architect and artist William Kent, who pioneered the “natural” landscape.
“This is the ultimate English domestic fantasy,” says Heenan, “the private garden that feels like it’s in wilderness.”
Passages wind through hedges, past hidden lakes, toward purpose-built “ruins” and classical arcades that lead nowhere. I watch a lone peacock sashay in front of the round pigeon house, which echoes with the coos of pigeons and doves. Passing Rousham House, I search for clues to the inhabitants within. “Home Rule,” says a sticker on the front door. I sneak a glance into the windows. Everything is museum-perfect—panelled walls, oil paintings, gold brocade wallpaper—except one touch: the most outstanding collection of ugly pottery figurines I’ve ever seen. I think of Heenan’s insistence on nosiness, and smile. Englishness has rubbed off on me after all.
OUR FINAL NIGHT, we moor in north Oxford, a short walk from my old university quarters. I feel almost regretful. What else did I miss when I lived here? How did I fail to explore this path that started in my own backyard?
A thrush flutters down to my feet. Once, I might have scared it away. But a week on the water has left me slower, more careful in my movements. The bird lets me photograph it at close range before it vanishes.
I remember a plaque I’d seen along the nearby River Thames, part of a local initiative to record oral histories.
“My father was a great plant lover…” it reads. “We spent a whole afternoon by the river at Godstow in the beautiful spring sunshine, searching the meadows for birthwort, which we didn’t find. I thought it was a real waste of time, but now I look back on that afternoon as a lovely day spent with my eccentric dad.”
I understand. On the water there is no such thing as a waste of time. n
During the 1928 Olympic Games, legendary Australian rower Bobby Pearce stopped mid-race in order to let a family of ducks pass unharmed, giving his opponents a five-length lead. All looked lost until the last 1,000 metres, when Pearce pulled ahead by 30 seconds, winning Australia the gold medal and setting a new record.
Source:todayifoundout.com/index.php/2016/03/one-time-olympic-rower-stopped-let-ducks-swim-past-still-won-gold-medal
Our reader Elaine Argyle on why you should make time to visit the thriving town of Long Eaton
As I stand at the Long Eaton marketplace, there is a sense of excitement in the air almost as tangible as the fresh produce on display. Today is Long Eaton market day and in the early morning sun, stall holders are arriving and noisily setting up their pitches. While the town is covered by the Nottingham postcode, it is actually in the Erewash district of Derbyshire, situated just off junction 25 of the M1.
Although Long Eaton lies directly on the route to popular tourist destinations in Derbyshire and beyond, it is often overlooked by those passing by.
While now generally seen as part of the conurbation situated between the
cities of Nottingham and Derby, Long Eaton has its roots in agriculture. This agricultural heritage can still be seen on its market days which run on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
In spite of its name, the central area of Long Eaton is compact and can be quickly traversed on foot. On the left side of the market place is York Chambers, a micro-pub located in a Grade Two-listed building and serving a range of real ales, wine and cider, while on the right is Clifford Health Club. Based in a Victorian mill, it attracts people from miles around for its spa days. Further down the pedestrianised high street is Rowells, thought to be the oldest traditional drapery shop in Britain and a treasure trove of haberdashery goods. While
it I stroll to the adjacent Duchess Theatre which is the home of performing arts in Long Eaton which was converted from a derelict Methodist church and school hall in the 1980s.
the shop has now closed down following the retirement of its thirdgeneration owner, its lace curtains, towels and rugs are still on display in the dusty shop window.
Even though Long Eaton has often been seen as a poor relation to its neighbouring cities, it is predicted that as the economy will restart after the coronavirus lockdown.
My next destination is a prime example of this regeneration. This is the Cleaver Coffee Company and Butchers Bar, an independently run steak house and café which are both based in yet another vast Victorian mill in which original features and contemporary art combine. Here I enjoy the intoxicating taste and aroma of my takeaway coffee. With
For those wishing to go slightly further afield, about a mile from here, down Pasture Lane, is the recently opened Spring Lakes Water Park which was built on a former gravel pit. Alternatively, walk a short distance down the canal and you will get to Trent Lock which is the first lock on the Erewash canal and the point where the counties of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire meet.
For me, the ultimate appeal of Long Eaton lies in its contrasts. In spite of its urban setting and good transport links, it has easy access to green spaces and still retains its character, history and authenticity. With many of us holidaying at home this year, why not pay it a visit? n
Tell us about your favourite holiday (send a photo too) and if we print it, we’ll pay £50. Email excerpts@readersdigest.co.uk
Tokyo’s best-known landmarks include its Imperial Palace, Ginza’s sea of neon and the Senso-ji temple. Missing from the list is this gobsmacking Roman Catholic seat in the northerly neighbourhood of Sekiguchi.
After a wooden church on the site was destroyed during the Second World War, the architect Kenzo Tange won a competition to design its replacement. Completed in 1964, Tange’s soaring concrete structure—apparently simple, yet complex in shape—was inspired by the lightness of birds.
His design also utilises cathedrals’ traditional cruciform plan; eight wing-like walls fold inwards before four curve outwards to form the shape of a cross. This quartet is wildly and dramatically asymmetrical in height—one reaches 128ft—and slant. Making for constantly-changing plays of light inside, all four also star narrow, full-length vertical windows.
Compared to its gleaming, stainless-steel facade, St Mary’s unpolished concrete interior feels almost cave-like and monastic. Imposing but calm, the nave contains 600 seats as well as Japan’s largest pipe organ. During Masses—held, in Japanese, on Sundays at 8am, 10am and 12pm—the acoustics are sensational.
Near the main church stands an arrow-like, 202ft-bell tower. Again clad in steel and equally impressive, its hyperbolic sides closely resemble the main building.
Tange went on to snag both the RIBA Gold Medal and Pritzker Prize, yet his wondrous landmark remains cruelly overlooked. After snapping the cathedral in 2015, renowned architectural photographer Edmund Sumner lauded St Mary’s as a “modernist brutal classic”, before lamenting that it was “still not as widely known as it should be.” n
By Richard Mellor2021 holds hope for more positivity than our previous year but with whatever comes next, getting on top of your money is a great start
Hands up who thought the new year would let us move on and forget 2020? Yet with the uncertainty and disruption likely to carry on, I thought it would be useful to share some ways you can take control of your money.
This might not solve all your problems, but it will put you in the position to tackle them, helping you to consolidate your financial
Andy Webb is a personal finance journalist and runs the award-winning money blog, Be Clever With Your Cash
security and prepare for any unforeseen circumstances.
If you’re a little nervous about dealing with your finances, then take it step by step. But make sure this doesn’t become another unresolved resolution. Clear time each week and put it in your diary so you don’t forget.
Step 1: Find your starting point
The most important part is properly understanding the current state of your finances. It’s the building block that makes everything else so much easier.
Gather any documents you have for your different bank accounts, investments, savings, bills and debts. Basically anything where
money goes out or comes in. Write down all the figures, or put them in a spreadsheet or online calculator, so you can see the full picture. And it helps to take it further.
THIS IS THE BUILDING BLOCK THAT MAKES EVERYTHING SO MUCH EASIER
Look at those expenses to see where the money is really going. You might be surprised to see just how much you spend—even after a year of lockdowns and restrictions.
Get a feeling of where changes need to be made, and think about how. Unless you’re already super savvy there’s a good chance there will be places where you overspend or neglect.
Do this and you’ll have a far more accurate idea of how healthy your finances really are.
Step 2: Decide what it is that you want to change
Next, you need to think about what you want for your life, and how money can help you get there.
Decide what your goals are in the short, medium and long term. Maybe it’s the need to get a newer car or ensuring you’ve enough to get you through retirement.
Perhaps there’s simply a desire to be financially secure.
It’s really important to chat to others in your household about this too, as well as making sure any trusted adults are aware of any existing money issues.
Not only could this help you work out solutions to any problems, you need to be in this together to make any changes lasting.
Step 3: Plan how you’ll do it
Goals sorted, what needs to happen next to get you where you want to be? This could be anything from drastically cutting back on luxury expenses through to putting more into your pension.
Be specific about this. How and where will you spend less? How
much more can you afford to invest and where will you do it?
Within this plan you’ll want to create a spending budget. If you took detailed notes or built a spreadsheet in step one, it will be really helpful here.
Identify how you’ll free up more cash for your goals from your existing spending, or how you’ll find new sources of income.
You might need further help here. That could be seeking a financial advisor for things involving retirement and investments through to meeting debt advisors to guide you through solutions.
And there are plenty of resources online and books that will help you work out the best way to do everything in between. n
Q: My New Year’s Resolution for 2020 was to get out of my considerable overdraft, but with a year of COVID complications it has only gotten worse. I find myself spending on entertainment or as a comfort when times are uncertain. Do you have any advice or mottos that might help me to resist the urge to spend? - Alice, 44
A: Hi Alice, you won’t have been alone. Research by Admiral at the height of lockdown found 37% of Brits shopped to fill the time. But in your case, it’s a very expensive distraction.
Changes that came into force in summer 2020 forced banks to axe their existing mixes of overdraft interest and fees in place of a fixed interest rate. Depending on who you bank with you’re now paying between 35% and 39.9% interest.
For some people this might mean they pay less. But that’s unlikely to be the case for you since it sounds like you’re overdrawn most, if not all, of the month.
So, before we look at your spending, the priority needs to be moving that debt somewhere cheaper. First, if you have any
savings at all, use them to reduce the amount you owe.
Next, see if you can get a 0% overdraft (Nationwide offers this at the time of writing) or a 0% Money Transfer credit card. If not, or if it doesn’t cover the whole amount, then talk to your bank and see if they’ll pause or reduce the interest. Failing that, getting a loan to clear it could work out a lot cheaper.
So how can you stop that lockdown spending? Well if you wipe your existing overdraft, ask your bank to switch it off so you can’t start growing it again. Similarly, get rid of any credit cards you’re tempted by. And when you’re out of the house only take cash with you. That helps cut the means to spend—next try to reduce the temptation. Ideally, find an alternative way to use your time. Then unsubscribe from any email newsletters you get and cancel any post catalogues. If you find yourself online shopping, leave items in the basket for 48 hours. That could be enough to convince you that you don’t really want it. There are also tools like Icebox which prevents you making impulse purchases. Good luck! n
Strangely I didn’t like this dish when I was younger, but in Jamaica they make their own spin on polenta called Tun Cornmeal. Normally served with saltfish or a meat protein, I decided to recreate the spirit of Tun Cornmeal using curry roasted squash. This rendition of the dish has thyme, curry spicing, coconut cream and spring onions which are flavours that heavily remind me of home. Jamaican curry is less aromatic than other curries and more deep and richly flavoured from meat. I wanted to roast squash in the curry spices to create a lighter accompaniment for the Polenta itself, which is creamy and so savoury in flavour.
Curry ingredients:
• 1 medium sized squash
• ½ can chickpeas
• 1½ tbsp medium Jamaican curry powder
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1½ tbsp olive oil
Polenta ingredients:
• 30g dried creamed coconut
• 160g or 1 cup coarse cornmeal
• 475ml or 2 cup boiling water
• 1 vegetable stock cup
• 1tsp fresh thyme
• 475ml or 2 cups oat milk
• Two spring onions (chop separating the green tops from the white bottoms)
• One clove of garlic chopped
• Freshly grated nutmeg
• 2 tbsp of nutritional yeast
• ½ tsp olive oil
• 50g of vegan cream cheese
• Salt and pepper to taste
1. Start by preheating the oven to 180°C.
2. Cut the squash into wedges and place on a lined baking tray. Add half the chickpeas. Add the olive oil, garlic powder, curry powder and salt on top of the squash and chickpeas. Using your hands, massage the spices and oil until everything is evenly coated.
3. Place in the oven to roast for 25 minutes.
1. As the squash is roasting, make the polenta. Start by taking a medium sized saucepan and bringing to a medium heat. Add ½ teaspoon of olive oil and start to fry the white ends of the spring onion, garlic and fresh thyme. Allow to soften for a minute.
2. Add the boiling water, oat milk, creamed coconut and stock cube. Bring to a boil. With a whisk, continuously stir as you slowly add the polenta. Whisk for around 2 minutes, keeping on a medium/low heat.
3. Add the nutritional yeast and the vegan cream cheese which will add extra richness. Once whisked in, turn to the lowest setting and stir with a wooden spoon continuously for another 8-10 minutes until the polenta is cooked.
4. Finally add the freshly grated nutmeg and the green tops of the onions for the last 30 seconds. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Divide into bowls and serve with the roasted squash and chickpeas. n
Discover more recipes from Denai on Instagram: @Dees_Table
This month, we’re luxuriating in the deliciously pungent aromas of the French nation’s favourite bistro classic: onion soup. A perfect marriage of silky onions, rich, savoury broth, crunchy toasted bread and layers of gooey cheese, this French national treasure will really hit the spot on a cold winter evening.
1 Melt the butter in a large pan on a medium-low heat. Add the onions, turn down the heat and leave them to cook until they take on a deep, golden-brown colour, stirring regularly.
2 Season with salt and pepper and keep browning the onions for at least an hour on a low heat, stirring occasionally.
3 Pick the leaves from the thyme and add them to the onions along with the flour and cook for another 2–3 minutes.
4 Add the vinegar and cider while still stirring the onions, then slowly add the stock.
5 Turn up the heat and bring the onions to a simmer, then reduce it slightly and let the soup cook for about an hour, stirring occasionally.
6 Meanwhile, prepare the croutons. Cut the baguette into 8 thin slices and heat a couple of spoons of butter in a small pan.
7 Heat the grill and place the slices on a baking tray. Brush them with the melted butter and rub them with garlic, then grill until golden brown. Remove the slices but leave the grill on.
8 Add the brandy to the soup, ladle into oven-proof bowls, top each bowl with two croutons and a mound of cheese and grill until the cheese is bubbling. Serve immediately.
Serves: 2
Cooking time:
2.5 hours
Ingredients:
• 4 yellow onions, thinly sliced
• 80g unsalted butter
• 3 springs thyme
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 400ml medium cider
• 600ml beef, chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 baguette
• 1 garlic clove
• 100g gruyere or parmesan cheese, grated
• 1 dash of brandy (optional)
Give your décor a new year update with this smart paint effect to add character and interest to any space
1
Begin by preparing your surfaces for painting, by wiping down the walls to remove any dust and dirt, or using a sugar soap solution to get rid of grease or more stubborn stains. Whilst the walls are drying, use this time to decide where you’d like the divide of your two—or more— colours to be positioned. You may want to create a simple horizontal
stripe, or go bolder with a multilayered geometric design.
2
For the best results, paint the entire wall in the lighter coloured paint, cutting-in and rolling as you would a regular painted wall. Repeat this with two coats and leave to dry thoroughly. Once dry, use a tape measure and
pencil to mark the colour divide onto the wall, using a spirit level to continue the line and ensure that it’s straight.
3
Stick painter’s tape along the pencil line, with the bottom of the tape sitting flush to the marking. Smooth this down firmly along the wall, to prevent the paint from bleeding into the other section later on. Make sure you always test your chosen tape on the wall beforehand, to make sure it’s good quality and doesn’t damage the wall when removed.
4
Apply your second paint colour to the bottom section of the wall, overlapping the masking tape slightly with your brush. Follow the paint instructions for the number of coats required and gently peel away the masking tape once you’ve applied the final coat and the paint is still wet. Leave the wall to dry thoroughly . n
Homes and gardens writer and stylist Cassie Pryce specialises in interior trends and discovering new season shopping
With the growing popularity in meat substitutes, we take a look at how it fares next to the real thing
Did you know that cutting meat and dairy products from your diet can reduce your food carbon footprint by 73 per cent? It’s likely you’ve heard similar statistics before, which might have even grabbed your attention long enough to try a plant-based lifestyle for a while. However, for some, cutting out delicious meaty products forever seems too daunting, or restrictive, to sustain long term.
It’s true that we’re creatures of habit, so it’s no wonder that the dishes we’ve grown to love might be difficult to give up even when we intend to do so with the most earnest of intentions. But for those who are serious about making a personal change, all the exciting new food technology popping up around us could drastically modify the way we as a nation consume food. Typically consisting of soy, gluten or pea protein bases, studies have shown that fake meat burgers use around 90 per cent less water than their beef counterparts, so for all those looking to make a change without altering their diet too much, this could be
wonderful news. As ever though, however good this may sound, it’s not a perfect system. Meat substitutes have their constraints too, with some of the highest carbon emission of all plant-based food (around the same as poultry) yet—as it stands from an ecological perspective—the good still far outweighs the bad when used to replace red meat. If health is a big concern for you, you might be better off sticking to vegetables and enjoying fake meat as a treat, (just as you would with real meat) as some brands can be overprocessed or may not contain sufficient nutrients.
Currently, companies are racing to create the first “lab grown” meat products as a seemingly simple answer to everyone’s concerns, however with all the ethical apprehensions, questions about health and cost of production being excessively high, this is a long way from becoming a reality in mass production.
The exciting thing to take from this, whichever side you may be on, is that the fake meat industry is growing at such a rapid speed, it’s bound to produce a viable sustainable option soon, so keep watching this space. n
Rudy and Matthew’s London-based vegan butcher is leading the fake meat game
How did you start creating vegan meat? With the launch of Rudy’s Dirty Vegan Diner in Camden, 2018, we set out to prove that plant-based food is not all about lettuce leaves and celery sticks but that it could be just as indulgent as eating meat. The concept was built to combine my first-hand knowledge of authentic US junk food that is so often disassociated from vegan eats, with Matthew’s kitchen skills and passion for vegan cuisine.
What are the biggest challenges we’re currently facing from the meat industry? Meat production is just not sustainable for the planet, not to mention animal welfare concerns. The problem is that an animal-product diet has been ingrained into society for such a long time, so education about how to live a healthy and sustainable vegan way of life is the key to success. As well as being able to produce alternatives that are just as delicious, to entice those who wouldn’t usually choose a plantbased product.
What does Rudy’s do to help our planet? We’ve made it our mission to help people
discover how diverse and indulgent vegan cookery can be by creating a range of quality meat alternatives to reimagine classic American dishes. We want to make a vegan lifestyle as accessible as possible, whether that means someone switching to a completely plant-based diet or just trying their hand at a more flexitarian outlook. If we can contribute in any way to build conversations around reducing meat consumption and fighting animal cruelty, then we feel as though we have positively impacted vegans and meateaters alike.
Do you have a favourite product?
Our hero product is the pastrami that Matthew created—and it’s easy to see why everyone loves it. We sell it by the slice in the butcher and also as part of the epic Rudy’s Reuben sandwich in our diner. It’s made with freshly baked rye bread, ample vegan pastrami, sliced cheeze, pickles, sauerkraut, grilled and crispy onion and Russian and creamy “cheese” dressings, all piled high for an epic sandwich. What more could you want? It also now comes in DIY kit form so our customers can recreate the dish all over the UK. n
At a time when we're all reflecting on our futures, it might be the best opportunity to pounce on some self-care
I'm not someone who buys into the "new year, new you" marketing that seems to be everywhere in January. I'm the same person in January that I was in December… a person with a neverending wish list, and a never-ending to-do list! I don't make New Year's resolutions because I can never stick to them; I seem to find a way to make exceptions to everything, so there isn't much point. Also, I don't feel a huge urge for self-improvement, at least not the kind being suggested to me by brands trying to sell me something. I'm fairly happy with the way things are, despite being far from perfect.
Perhaps because 2020 was such an unusual and challenging year for all of us, I do feel a need to self-nurture rather than self-improve. My priorities
Lisa Lennkh is a banker turned fashion writer, stylist and blogger. Her blog, The Sequinist, focuses on sparkle and statement style for midlife women
have shifted. It has especially shifted in my fashion choices. Perhaps it is because I have spent more quiet time with myself this year, but now I dress even more for me and much more for being at home. Comfort is a bigger priority when I dress than it ever used to be. At the moment, I'm more interested in the perfect pair of slippers than the perfect pair of sparkly party shoes!
Now that the holidays are behind us, I'm taking a discerning look at my wish list and thinking about few of the things I hoped I might get for Christmas but didn't. What things on that list would nurture me, make my life easier, or at least more enjoyable? I've boiled it right down to a few non-frivolous but lifeenhancing items.
First is a big glamorous tote bag. No more carrying around an annoying assortment of cloth bags when I'm doing errands and going to work. I am getting a beautiful big canvas bag with sturdy straps, customised with my own colours and initials, that will hold everything
I need to carry as I go about my day, from water bottle to wallet to spare shoes. My ideal would be to find something along the lines of a good second-hand Louis Vuitton Neverfull bag. It is neat and compact, but can expand to hold a fortune of volume and weight. This will also work perfectly as a carry on bag once we start to travel again.
Second is a truly luxurious bathrobe. I want something sustainable, soft, and pure cotton. I've not found the perfect one yet, but the hunt is on. I want to make that hour between having a shower and getting dressed for the day to be a time of enjoyment… a reminder to myself to be present and enjoy this daily ritual instead of rushing.
Third is a cashmere poncho, the longest and biggest one I can find. So far, the recycled cashmere one
from Winser London which I've mentioned before is still top of my list. My home office is always much colder than the rest of the house; it is just silly to be cold all day, relying on big cups of hot tea to warm me up. Wrapping myself in a luxurious long cashmere poncho over my other layers should keep me toasty, and will be a more stylish option than the blanket under my desk I'm currently using to keep warm.
A tote bag, a dressing gown, and a poncho may not make the top ten list of fashion's must-have items, but elevating and enhancing my everyday life is more important right now. These three things will make my own daily routines easier and more enjoyable, which is even better than a new year's resolution. n
Could it truly be the "magical Ingredient" we've all heard so much about?
Though hyaluronic acid might be marketed as a beauty breakthrough, it’s been a core ingredient in many of our products for years. Don’t be intimidated by the "acid" part of its name—it’s a naturally occurring bodily sugar, which works to keep your skin, connective tissues and eyes well lubricated.
Just like collagen and elastin, hyaluronic acid levels in our bodies wane over time, and by adding extra doses of it to your beauty routine, experts say that we can significantly hydrate our skin by encouraging the acid to draw moisture to the surface, giving off a more youthful, dewy appearance. As it is something that is already found naturally in the body, allergic reaction rates are quite low, although patch testing is considered good practice whenever trying out a new beauty product on the skin.
Used sparingly as a serum, the verdict is good. If you’ve already got
a fairly established cleansing and moisturising routine, a hyaluronic addition is pretty inexpensive and easy to adopt—basic serum formulas retail for as little as five pounds and a small pipette-worth goes a long way. Particularly thirsty skin may benefit from a slightly hardier concoction— look for products that are teamed with cooling ingredients such as green tea to soothe inflammation.
Like all hyped products, however, you’ll only see the effects if your skin actually needs it. For those with oily or combination skin types, hyaluronic acid is likely to be less useful than salicylic or glycolic acid, merely sitting on the surface rather than sinking in.
Always read the labels, and use sparingly until you know what suits your skin—a one-off face mask or the occasional dab in a problem area might be all that you need. n
by Jenessa WilliamsWe are fearful of the present, uncertain of the future and longing for the past that used to be.
Even in the Blitz of World War 2 people went about life as best they could. But, the country fell silent to Covid-19
How did lockdown a ect you?
People lost their jobs and incomes, children’s schooling was interrupted, weddings were postponed and even funerals could not occur in the usual manner.
Unable to bid farewell to a loved one was one of the saddest events in lockdown. Death lives long in the minds of those who are left behind.
We saw ‘the good, the bad and the ugly’ of human nature being played out during lockdown.
Could things have been done di erently? Would they have made a di erence?
Would you have chosen to be in the shoes of the Prime Minister in handling this crisis?
LOCKDOWN 2020 touches the lives of most people. Read it and identify your life in the words of the author.
We have to accept the new normal and look after ourselves. We would then be able to return to a semblance of the quality life we had.
Will Covid-19 be the last or could it happen again? The answer is in LOCKDOWN 2020
www.barnesandnoble.com
A brutal, emotionally-charged drama featuring Oscar-worthy performances that’ll have you gasping for air
Picture this: a one-shot, 30-minute opening sequence of a film, depicting an excruciating home birth—screams, groans, agonising contractions, involuntary burps and stressful last-minute midwife mix-ups galore. A Lars von Trier-worthy intro that knocks the wind out of you—all that before the opening credits even begin to roll. Pieces of a Woman is no Sunday family viewing: it’s an unsparing drama about a couple navigating their first pregnancy and then, the subsequent tragedy of losing their child with every harrowing detail on show. This unflinchingly authentic depiction was doubtlessly influenced by the fact
that the writer and director of the film, Kata Weber and Kornel Mundruczo—a real life couple—went through this traumatic ordeal themselves. In fact, everything about this film, from the deft dialogue to the fervent performances feels more like a gut-churningly realistic documentary than a fiction film.
But it’s the cast that’s really the fulcrum of Pieces of a Woman; Shia LaBeouf hits some serious emotional depths as the unsettled husband, Sean, while Vanessa Kirby succumbs to a black hole of despair as the grieving mother, Martha. The film also stars screen legend Ellen Burstyn of Exorcist fame as Martha’s domineering mother, Elizabeth. While we certainly do not recommend this film to anyone who’s trying for or expecting a baby, it’s certainly a movie worth making time for if you’re looking for a truly innovative, visceral piece of cinema.
Pieces of a Woman was executive-produced by none other than film maestro
Martin Scorsese who expressed his admiration for the movie, saying: “It’s lucky to see a movie that takes you by surprise. It’s a privilege to help it find the wide audience it deserves.” The director has been long known for supporting and promoting up-and-coming filmmakers. Here are some other outstanding recent movies he executive-produced, that are definitely worth checking out:
BY Eva Mackevic
This highly unpleasant but utterly transfixing Shirley Jackson biopic directed by Josephine Decker was also our recent film of the month.
Starring the superb Elizabeth Moss and Michael Stuhlbarg, the film feels like an inspired but deeply noxious remake of the 1966 classic, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
A neurotic, anxietyinducing nail-biter, Uncut Gems made quite the splash back in 2019.
Starring Adam Sandler as a hustling jeweller who gets into some serious trouble, this film was a life’s work for Josh and Benny Safdie. The film also features what must be one of the greatest suckerpunch endings in recent cinema.
A ponderous, moody cocktail of a film from Joanna Hogg, largely based on the director’s early years as a film student in 1980s Britain. Quiet and content in its simplicity, it tells the story of a kind but gullible young woman who falls for an arrogant but infuriatingly charming man. As you’d imagine, trouble ensues.
The winner of the Best Screenplay award at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, Happy As Lazzaro is a spellbinding piece of cinema from indie director Alice Rohrwacher. Telling the story of a gentle young boy and the mysterious village he lives in, the film dresses gritty realism with sprinkles of magic.
We enter the new year looking back, uncomfortable as that might be at times. The justconcluded Small Axe (iPlayer) stands as one of the boldest projects the BBC has undertaken of late: five films, of various lengths, that address underfilmed and underdiscussed aspects of Black British history. Incisively overseen by 12 Years a Slave’s Steve McQueen, and showcasing an extraordinary array of homegrown talent, the series put moments of real societal struggle in the Sunday night slot traditionally reserved for such genteel diversions as Downton Abbey.
Series opener Mangrove dramatises the trial of The Mangrove Nine, arrested in West London in 1970 after protesting against police brutality. Red, White and Blue follows an earnest young police recruit (John Boyega) as he bumps up against institutionalised racism.
Yet it hasn’t always been hardship: the wonderful Lovers Rock offers a closely remembered, sublimely soundtracked account of an early 1980s house party, from fumbling introductions to last dances and lasting connections in the first light of dawn. This is England, too.
America has started to pick over its own turbulent racial history for lessons, albeit in unexpected ways. The Good Lord Bird (Sky Atlantic; NOW TV) is a rambunctious Western about John Brown, the phony Reverend and committed abolitionist whose single-handed efforts to free the slaves informed the later Civil War. As played full-throttle by a begrimed Ethan Hawke, this Brown isn’t some noble white saviour, rather eccentric bordering on the cuckoo, but then that may be this thunderously engaging show’s point: sometimes it requires a dash of madness to do the right thing.
by Mike McCahill
Desmond’s:S1-6 (All4/Netflix)
More recent British history: this longtime mainstay of the Channel 4 schedules, created by Trix Worrell and centred on a Peckham Rye barbershop, remains as cheering as you recall, its characterful ensemble headed by the late, great Norman Beaton.
As Long As the Songbirds Sing
by Kitchman/Schmidt
Like everyone else at the moment, I wistfully reminisce about the days of live music. I miss the heady romance of stumbling into a random little club late at night (because everywhere else is already closed) just to discover there’s an open mic night on, and the band on stage is playing some easy-going jazz to the sound of clinking ice cubes and low-key chatter. This very scene emerged before my eyes as I was listening to the lambent, gentle album that is As Long As the Songbirds Sing. Coincidentally, that’s how guitarist James Kitchman and vocalist Sylvia Schmidt met: on stage at one of London’s late-night jam sessions some six years ago. The duo shares a palpable rooting in folklore and both hail from rural backgrounds with strong musical traditions. That’s what As Long as the Songbirds Sing is all about: comforting, familiarly plaintive folk songs about nature, home and broken hearts.
The album is soothingly minimalist; it’s just Schmidt with her beautiful, undulating vocals that blend jazz and folk traditions, and Kitchman lovingly plucking the strings of his electric guitar, following the vocals as tenderly as a lover tracing his partner’s face. Tracks like “Lowlands” flirt with Brian Eno-esque ambient, while “The Lass from the Low Country” features some gorgeously melodic jazz guitar.
A timeless, cosy record, it exudes the warmth and intimacy of Joni Mitchell, Tori Amos and Alison Krauss—perfect for a tea-and-blanket night in, while we wait for those music clubs to re-open.
by Eva MackevicAlso out this month:
Gas Lit by Divide and Dissolve
A slightly more left-field yet equally impressive music offering this month is this record from the multidimensional duo, Divide and Dissolve. A heavy, ominous explosion of percussion, saxophone and guitar, GasLitis one mighty metal album that—like a superb horror movie score—will fill you with unsettling awe, but also, a deep appreciation of the innovative and expressive ways the band approaches the genre.
It’s self-assured, aggressively eloquent and carries a strong political message, with members Takiaya Reed and Sylvie Nehill vowing “to undermine and destroy the white supremacist colonial framework.”
Unsettling mother-daughter relations are at the heart of our literary pick this month—a gripping psychological thriller
The Push by Ashley Audrain (Michael Joseph, £12.99)
Ever since Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on a Train (published at the start of 2015) hit the big time, January has traditionally been the month when publishers get extremely excited about psychological thrillers by first-time authors—ideally with unreliable narrators. And sure enough, if you go to Amazon, you’ll see that The Push is described by its publisher Michael Joseph as “2021’s Most Astonishing Debut”. Yet while this verdict is possibly/shamelessly premature, it’s not hard to understand why they have such high hopes for this book.
“Man hands on misery to man,” wrote the ever-cheery Philip Larkin. Here, though, it’s women who do the handing. The narrator—unreliable or otherwise—is Blythe Connor, whose
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
mother Cecilia never liked her very much. Then again, Celia’s own mother didn’t like her very much either. So when Blythe has a daughter, Violet, she’s determined to break the cycle— and to be like all those other mums out there who apparently delight in their maternity and are smitten by their children. Unfortunately, she doesn’t like Violet very much. Worse, the dislike is mutual.
But is Blythe wrong to believe that, even as a young child, Violet is capable of deliberately terrible acts? Her husband certainly thinks Blythe is being, at the very least, irrational—but one of the things that makes this such
an gripping read is that for much of the novel the reader isn’t sure who the monster is (or maybe who the monsters are).
The theme of mothers not feeling what mothers are supposed to feel is perhaps not such a startling taboo as the publishers suggest. For a start, Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin—like The Push, written in the second person by the narrator to her husband—covered a lot of similar ground in 2003. The same idea has also cropped up pretty regularly in psychological thrillers since. Nonetheless, there’s no denying that Ashley Audrain tucks into it with real page-turning aplomb all the way to the final explosive twist.
Michael Joseph have surely still got a bit carried away with their hype. But don’t let that put you off. This remains a fine and darkly unsettling novel by a writer of obvious talent.
Can you guess the writer from these clues (the fewer you need the better)?
1. He shares his initials with the author of the Booker-Prize winning novel The Sea,TheSea.
2. His own Booker winner was named after a Dutch city; another of his novels, after a day of the week.
3. His novel Atonement was turned into an Oscar-nominated film.
Answer on p126
ASpringtimeAffair
by Katie Fforde (Arrow, £8.99).
The latest offering from one of Britain’s most deservedly popular romantic authors. Might a mother and daughter both be about to find love? (I know what my guess is.)
TheMinistryofTruth
by Dorian Lynskey (Picador, £9.99).
Engrossing exploration of George Orwell’s NineteenEighty-Four,and why it’s had an impact on the world like few other novels.
Invisible Girl
by Lisa Jewell (Arrow, £8.99).
After a successful romcom career, Jewell now writes thrillers—and this twisting tale of a missing woman is a properly gripping one.
Motherwell
by Deborah Orr (W & N, £9.99).
Typically honest, bracing memoir of her Scottish childhood from the muchmissed journalist who died last year.
Highfire
by Eoin Colfer (Jo Fletcher Books, £8.99). The ArtemisFowlauthor with his first book for adults: a wild fantasy tale featuring, among much else, a vodka-swilling dragon. Huge fun.
A gripping retelling of John Lennon’s murder which sent shockwaves through the world
James Patterson is not so much an author as an industry. One of America’s bestselling novelists— and the most borrowed from British libraries every year since 2008—he’s published around 200 books, many with the aid of co-writers. Bestknown for his crime fiction, he now turns to one of the 20th century’s most notorious real crimes: the 1980 shooting of John Lennon in New York by Mark Chapman. The book’s title, in fact, is misleading. We do get the details of Lennon’s last days. But we get plenty, too, about his life before that, from childhood onwards. There’s also a distinctly thriller-like structure—to go with the thriller-like prose—as Lennon’s full story is interspersed with increasingly sinister scenes of Chapman arriving in New York; hanging around the Dakota building where Lennon lived with Yoko; obsessively reading The Catcher in
the Rye; and gradually steeling himself to carry out his chilling planned murder. Patterson’s admiration for Lennon is clear. Nonetheless, the thoroughly researched biography does remind us again what a contradictory and often troubled character he was. Meanwhile, the book has a convincing stab at explaining Chapman’s motives: a mixture of Christian outrage at Lennon’s 1966 declaration that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus, a belief that Lennon was a despicable hypocrite for singing “imagine no possessions” while having quite a lot of them, and a desire (tragically successful) for the world to know his name. Yet in the end, Chapman still feels—rightly, I would suggest—like something of a blank: the nobody he tried so hard not to be.
This passage takes place just after the shooting, when Chapman has been apprehended by the Dakota’s
doorman, Jose Perdomo. Peter Cullen and Steve Spiro are the first police officers to arrive…
Spiro and Cullen draw their weapons and slowly pass through the archway of the Dakota.
Cullen sees a familiar face. It’s Jose Perdomo.
‘Jose, what the hell is going on here?’
The security guard points to a doughy man in an overcoat with his nose stuck in a paperback book.
‘He shot John Lennon!’ Perdomo cries through trembling lips.
Cullen motions his partner to stay with the suspect. Spiro points his gun at the man, who throws his hands up in surrender.
‘Don’t hurt me,’ he pleads. ‘I’m unarmed. Please don’t let anyone hurt me.’
Spiro grabs the suspect and faces him against the wall, kicking his feet apart.
Cullen enters the Dakota guardhouse, where John is lying face down. Porter Jay Hastings is ready to apply a tourniquet to John’s wounds, but there is little more he can do than remove John’s glasses and cover him with his uniform coat.
‘It’s okay, John, you’ll be all right,’ Hastings whispers. Trickles of blood are beginning to seep from the corners of John’s mouth.
Cullen searches the suspect for weapons, and when he’s clear,
shouts, ‘Cuff him, Steve!’
Spiro slaps a pair of handcuffs on the suspect’s wrists. The man winces. ‘I acted alone,’ he says. ‘I’m the only one.’
Cullen and Spiro lead Mark into the street. ‘Nobody’s gonna hurt you,’ Spiro tells him. ‘Just do as you’re told.’
Mark freezes. ‘My book, my book!’ he says frantically.
His life is contained inside those pages. Cullen reaches down and grabs The Catcher in the Rye from the pavement. He hands it to Mark as they put him into the back of the squad car.
He feels safe. And he has his book—his message—to keep him company.
The enormity of what he’s done settles on him. The dream is no longer a dream but an unshakable, unalterable reality.
He has gone from unseen to *seen*.
From unknown to *known*.
From nobody to *somebody*.
There will be fan clubs, of course,
The Last Days of John Lennon by James Patterson, with Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge, is published by Century at £20
and psychiatrists. Lots of famous psychiatrists who will all fight for a chance to speak to him, to get in his mind and try to answer the unanswerable question of *why*. He will never provide them with a direct answer. He has to keep them guessing, because once they figure him out, they’ll move on to someone else. That’s how the celebrity game is played.
Soon, everyone in this city will be battling one another to get a glimpse of him, the man who killed John Lennon. His name will be all over the papers, all over the news—all over the world—in just a few hours.
Mark takes in a deep breath. Smiles.
From the corner of his eye he catches movement outside his window. He turns his head slightly to his right, hears some commotion, and then he sees someone crouching, looking at him.
It’s Yoko.
She stares at him through the glass. Mark stares back. ’’
And the name of the author is…
Ian McEwan—who won the Booker Prize for Amsterdamand also wrote Saturday.TheSea, TheSeais by Iris Murdoch.
Lennon in the late 1970s
“John is not releasing records, but he’s still making home recordings with and for his toddler son, Sean.
‘Do you need anybody?’ the little boy sings with feeling. ‘I need somebody to love.’
‘Very good,’ John says when Sean names the tune as ‘my favourite song’, the one off Sgt.Pepperthat his father has played for him over and over.
‘Who’s singing? You?’ Sean asks.
‘No. Ringo,’ John answers, ‘but Paul and I are singing it with him.’
When Sean asks the name of the song, John has a flash of forgetfulness. ‘Oh,’ he remembers. ‘A Little Help from My Friends’, that’s what it’s called.’*
John tries to be Sean’s best friend as well as his teacher. John plays him the guitar, and they watch TheMuppet Show together. He makes a nighttime ritual for the two of them, flicking the lights off and on in a rhythm.
‘Good night, Sean,’ he says in a soothing voice.”
*Clip available on YouTube
George Butler is an award-winning artist specialising in current affairs. His book Drawn Across Borders records front line drawings in war zones and refugee camps (Walker Studio, £15)
In 1941, the artist Ronald Searle became a prisoner-of-war in Singapore. Throughout his captivity in the infamous Japanese camp, despite the risk, Searle made drawings, determined to record his experiences. On the most basic level, it’s an extraordinary record of the lives and deaths of his fellow prisoners and their guards. He also hid over 400 drawings during his time in the camp under the beds of men with cholera so the guards wouldn’t find them. It’s the most powerful visual record of any event that I have ever seen and I have always strived to recreate the sentiment, the fluidity and the braveness of his work.
There is a paragraph near the beginning of this book that made me stop in my tracks when I first read it. Adam Nicholson considers the German biologist Jakob von Uexküll’s concept about different species called Umwelt, which I think is untranslatable into English, but acknowledges that no single species could ever view the world through the eyes of another. In this case, the great migratory birds who set out across vast seas. It made me consider whether, realistically, I could ever empathise with other species on this earth enough to share their point of view through drawings. I suspect not, but I am going to keep trying.
Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne illustrated by EH Shepard
As a child, I never really read without drawings to break the text up. The drawings by EH Shepard in Winniethe Poohmade those stories come alive for me. My memory is always heavily linked to visual prompts and so these books have stayed with me. It wasn’t until much later that I realised drawing and writing could be more than the sum of their two parts. Even later when I started to read longer books as a boy, it was books with illustrations that drew me in like the illustrations by Ralph Steadman for AnimalFarm.
James O'Malley explains how Starlink can revolutionise internet connectivity around the world
If you live in a city, then it's easy to take internet connectivity for granted. There’s fast broadband and rock-solid 4G everywhere, meaning that you’re never in danger of missing a WhatsApp message, that important email, or the latest viral video sensation.
But in more rural areas, it is a different story. Connectivity is patchy. As of 2018, the last time figures were published, seven per cent of rural households could not access broadband faster than 10Mbps, despite the average speed in cities being 52Mbps. Around the world, the situation is even more disparate: there are cities like Seoul in South Korea, where residents can receive up to a jaw-dropping 2,500Mbps, and, of course, there are still huge swathes of territory, from deserts to oceans, that the internet is still yet to reach.
But the urban/rural divide could be set to vanish over the next few years thanks to rocket company SpaceX and an astonishingly ambitious project called Starlink. The aim is to use thousands of satellites in orbit above our heads to deliver broadband-comparable internet speeds to literally everywhere on Earth, with no need for expensive wires, transmitters or other infrastructure on the ground. And how fast exactly will it be? Claims have been made that it could reach speeds of up to 1Gbps, which is 20 times faster than what most British homes receive today.
This might sound like science fiction, but—amazingly—the satellites are already being launched.
The project is the brainchild of SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who made his fortune as one of the co-founders of payments app PayPal, and who has since become better
known as the eccentric CEO of both SpaceX and the electric car company, Tesla.
For the first phase of the company’s satellite network to work, SpaceX will need to launch 1,440 satellites to form a grid over the Earth, and to fully complete the network it will require thousands more. If you think this sounds like a lot, you’re not wrong. At present, there are only around 2,000 or so other satellites in Lower Earth Orbit in total. So if Starlink’s ambitions are realised, it could double or triple the number of satellites in orbit.
But the company is well on its way to achieving this. So far, just over 700 have been successfully launched and the first internet connections using the system are already being tested. What makes it affordable for the company is that unlike “traditional” satellites, Starlink satellites are much smaller, meaning that with one rocket the company can launch up to 60 more satellites at a time.
So how will Starlink work for us on the ground? At the moment we’re probably some time away from having our phones connect directly to the satellites instead of ordinary terrestrial phone masts. But it is likely that over the next few years, Starlink could begin to offer groundstation satellite receivers that will connect to the satellites and then, in turn, you could connect your computer or phone to that. A bit like
a wifi hotspot today. In fact, the company is already testing such ground stations with a native American tribe in Washington State.
However, not everyone loves Starlink. There is one drawback to having so many satellites in orbit around the Earth: they risk making life a lot more difficult for astronomers. Because Starlink satellites are much more numerous and fly much lower than other satellites, they can be visible to the naked eye, appearing as fast-moving stars in the sky at night. And having bright lights in the sky isn’t ideal when you are trying to observe actual stars. So to mitigate this criticism, SpaceX is working on painting or coating the next generations of Starlink satellites, to make them less reflective.
Ultimately though, for all of the protestations, it is surely inevitable that Starlink, and rival massive satellite constellations offering similar internet connectivity, will become an essential part of Earth’s telecommunications backbone. The obvious utility of such a network would be just too compelling for governments, businesses and individuals to resist. The urban/rural digital divide will no longer exist.
And you’ll never need to worry about missing an email—whether you’re at work in the city, at home in the country, or even on holiday trekking Mount Everest. n
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My brother is renowned for his extremely hot curries. Once, his father-in-law came for dinner and brought a bottle of wine. When my brother asked him what kind of wine he had brought to go with the meal, his father-in-law replied, "I'm not sure, but I thought it might go with heartburn!"
KEITH LODGE, HullWhen my son was seven, his teacher—who knew we had been trying for a baby for a few years— said that the class would pray for a baby for his mum and dad.
Dylan, obviously thinking he was all knowledgeable about such things replied that prayer was not what was needed, but a strong sperm would help!
ABBY GEORGE DenbighshireA little girl in my class came to school really excited one morning. Mummy and Daddy had bought her an eagle. The rest of the class enthused about this wonderful pet.
I didn't have time to question her more about it but when her mother
picked her up we discussed it. She meant a beagle!
ABIGAIL GEORGE, DenbighshireMy friend’s mother-in-law went to a supermarket. She came out of the store and carried a small bag full of shopping to her red car and started fiddling around in her purse to get her car keys—but she couldn’t find them. She searched her pockets but no luck. So she went back in the store and asked the lady at the till if she had dropped her car keys on the counter while paying her bill
After looking around, the till lady said no. Now Dorothy got worried.
A gentleman nearby noticed the situation so he came to Dorothy and said, "Madam, can I help you?"
Dorothy was pleased and took him to the car where (using paper clips) the man opened the car door, somehow started the engine and told her to go straight to her home. She thanked him and drove home. She had a spare key for her car so she wasn’t worried. But she got a big
"WHAT #HASHTAGS ARE YOU GIVING UP FOR NEW YEAR?"
surprise when she reached her driveway. She saw her actual car parked in the drive and realised she brought someone else’s car instead!
HARIKRISHNA PATEL, London
My wife reacted strongly when I put an idea to her.
“What?” she shrieked.
I tried again but she interrupted me with, “When a woman says ‘What?’ it's not because she didn't hear you. It's because she's giving you a chance to change what you said.'"
SCOTT YETTON, Cambridgeshire
My brother came home from our local fête, shoeless. I asked him what had happened.
“I'm very cross” he explained, “with the person who stole my trainers when I was on the bouncy castle.
They should grow up!”
He's 29...
PAULA MADDOCKS, Hertfordshire
I overheard my son talking to his friend, telling him he had learned something new in school that day and it was very interesting.
His friend enquired what it was and he replied, "The word 'knickers' begins with a K!"
DANI DAVID, Hertfordshire
We were planning our US holiday, hopefully for next year, and our son was listening. When his mum mentioned we could be going to Seattle, he asked, “Who is Attle and why do we have to go and see him?”
JASON DAVID, Hertfordshire
My five-year-old grandson was showing his dad what toy he would like for Christmas. After he was told that it was too expensive, he lovingly tapped his dad on the arm and said, “That's okay, Daddy, it won't be a problem for Santa!”
KEITH LODGE, HullMy husband came into the room to find me with an anxious look on my face and desperately wringing my hands together.
“Whatever is the matter?” he asked.
“Nothing” I replied, “except I’ve just put on some very sticky hand lotion and I can’t get rid of the darn stuff!”
LIZ TUBBY, Norfolk
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
Our species sure accomplishes a lot. In fact, some psychologists suggest we should be called human doings rather than human beings. In celebration of our need to keep busy, here’s a quiz featuring words from our endlessly active language
BY ROB LUTES1. quash
A: suppress completely.
B: scrape clean.
C: mix together.
2. shear
A: cling to.
B: cut something off.
C: prolonged and highpitched scream.
3. abscond
A: scramble up a difficult incline.
B: slip and fall.
C: leave with something that doesn’t belong to you.
4. inculcate
A: ward off.
B: teach through frequent instruction.
C: breathe deeply.
5. lambaste
A: soak in brine.
B: criticise harshly.
C: cook at very low heat.
6. skulk
A: move secretively.
B: worry excessively.
C: excavate hurriedly.
7. lollygag
A: laugh out loud.
B: spend time idly.
C: eat sweets.
8. vitiate
A: impair the quality of.
B: talk negatively about.
C: embark on a new journey or activity.
9. nettle
A: cause physical harm.
B: prevent someone from escaping.
C: aggravate.
10. convoke
A: make more bearable or less severe.
B: quick and clever reply to an insult.
C: call a meeting.
11. impute
A: attribute blame.
B: gauge importance.
C: complain about.
12. blandish
A: bore.
B: coax with flattery.
C: conceal from view.
13. cadge
A: tease about a physical limitation.
B: make a defamatory statement.
C: receive something without paying for it.
14. avulse
A: tear away.
B: twist.
C: immerse in water.
15. yammer
A: snore deafeningly.
B: talk loudly and at length.
C: prop with planks.
1. quash—[A] suppress completely. A day after the president fled the country, the military sent in troops to quash the uprising.
2. shear—[B] cut something off. Each fall, Angus would shear every sheep in the flock and sell the wool to private traders.
3. abscond—[C] leave with something that doesn’t belong to you. Kelly hoped none of the tenants would abscond with the crystal light fixtures in her rental home.
4. inculcate—[B] teach through frequent instruction. It took just one summer for Todd, a staunch environmentalist, to inculcate Oleka with respect for the natural world.
5. lambaste—[B] criticise harshly. After every performance, the obsessive director would lambaste any cast member who made errors.
6. skulk—[A] move secretively. With closing time near, thieves skulked behind the restaurant.
7. lollygag—[B] spend time idly. Alvaro didn’t lollygag after the tour, and recorded six new songs in his first week at home.
8. vitiate—[A] impair the quality of. The rookie lawyer’s many mistakes vitiated the contract.
9. nettle—[C] aggravate. The tour guide’s superior attitude nettled Ted, but he soon grew to appreciate her depth of knowledge.
10. convoke—[C] call a meeting. Seeing the dire quarterly report, Sameer decided to convoke his advisers to discuss the future.
11. impute—[A] attribute blame. With subtle jibes, Irene imputed the broken chair to Harry’s fit of anger.
12. blandish—[B] coax with flattery. Telling him he was the best student in the school, Jenny tried to blandish Jeong into sharing his class notes with her.
13. cadge—[C] receive something without paying for it. Billy cadged not only drinks but a meal from the wealthy club members.
14. avulse—[A] tear away. Elijah’s awkward sideways move with his right ankle was enough to avulse a part of bone from his tendon.
Fence of stakes for defensive purposes
Alternative suggestions: "Fizzy drink for the Queen"
15. yammer—[B] talk loudly and at length. Glenda tends to yammer on, unaware no one is listening.
VOCABULARY RATINGS
7–10: fair
11–12: good
13–15: excellent
After spending far too much time on apps and social media over the last few years, Gemma decided it was time for a change.
“I’d started to get really frustrated with how I was spending my spare time”, said Gemma, 54 from London. “One day, I realised I’d checked my phone over 100 times. Something had to give.”
“So, I deleted my social media apps from my phone and made a promise to myself to do something more positive with my time.”
At first, it wasn’t easy for Gemma to find things to do.
“I’m embarrassed to admit that I’d stopped reading as much over the last couple of years. But, then a friend recommended Readly to me. I’d always loved reading magazines and thought it was time to give them a go again.
The selection is amazing: food, fitness, lifestyle, culture, crafts and
hobbies are all covered. I’ve been using Readly in the evenings to relax instead of watching TV. I’ve also found it great for inspiration and ideas for new recipes. We’ve been doing some re-decorating, so the interior design section has been really helpful. Having so many past issues to browse through is just fantastic. I can’t think how much I would’ve had to spend to get all that content. If you read more than a couple of magazines, you’ll be saving money each month.
My husband loves the car, sport and business magazines. And we cuddle up and do the puzzles and crosswords together now as well!
As it’s a family membership, I’ve shared my subscription with my daughter who has started using it. She’s a teacher and loves getting inspiration from the kids news, science and history magazines.”
To find out more about Readly, and to try 1 month for free, please go to www.readly.com/digest
Challenge yourself by solving these puzzles, then check your answers on p139
This hexagon is made of identical equilateral triangles (triangles with three equal sides). If you don’t count rotations or reflections, then there are three different shapes you can make by joining four such triangles fully edge to edge. First, determine what these three shapes are. Next, figure out how to use two copies of each of them to make the hexagon. There’s only one solution (not counting rotations and reflections).
Subdivide this region along the grid lines into non-overlapping squares and rectangles. Each of these rectangles or squares must contain exactly one number that matches the number of small cells that make up its area. Can you draw the correct boundaries?
Kanoko is volunteering for a programme delivering meals to people with limited mobility, and she has a budget of £100 to shop for fish-burger ingredients. It costs £4 for a package of ten fish patties and £3 for a package of eight buns. How many packages of each should she buy to maximise the number of fish burgers she can assemble? She can have extra ingredients leftover, but she won’t serve a patty without a bun or vice versa.
This grid represents a bird’s-eye view of a city’s downtown core. Place a number from 1 to 5—representing a building’s height in storeys—in each square so that no two buildings in any row or column have the same height. The numbers outside the grid tell you how many buildings are visible in the corresponding row or column to an observer looking in from that direction. Higher buildings block the view of lower ones behind them. Can you determine the heights of all 25 buildings?
There are nine steps to building a widget, but certain steps can only be started once other ones are finished. This process is diagrammed in the flow chart: if a line joins two circles, the circle on the left marks a step that must finish before the one on the right can begin. You have three workers, though not every worker is trained to perform every step. You’ve noted the length of time it takes each worker to complete each step they can do. If they started now, how soon could you have a brand new widget in your hands?
(or a reflection or rotation of the same solution).
Fishy Business Kanoko should buy 13 packages of patties and 16 packages of buns. She’ll spend exactly £100 and assemble 128 fish burgers. Skyscrapers
What is the sum total of the dots on the eleven hidden sides of these three dice?
WIN £30 for every reader’s joke we publish!
Go to readersdigest.co.uk/contact-us or facebook.com/readersdigestuk
My girlfriend asked me to list the reasons that I became an Elvis impersonator. I said, “One… for the money.”
Comedian DANIEL EDISON
Every time the news says something is “every parent’s worst nightmare” why does it always involve their children? Surely everyone’s worst nightmare is being strangled by a ten-foot version of yourself as a baby. I’m sorry but this is just a fact.
Comedian ADAM HESS
“What do we want?”
“A compilation album!”
“What shall we call it?”
“Now!” Seen on Twitter
“I’m never jogging behind a council van in winter again,” he said, through gritted teeth.
Comedian GARY DELANEY
I bought some shoes from a drug dealer. I don’t know what he laced them with, but I was tripping all day!
LEANNE SKARRAT, Manchester
I’m lazy. But not the guy who named Newfoundland-lazy.
JEFF WNI via TwitterDuring COVID-19 my career started to sound like a Dr Seuss book.
“Will you do comedy on a boat? How about comedy in a coat? Will you do comedy in front of cars?
Whatever you do, never agree to spell “part” backwards. It’s a TRAP!
Seen online
Maybe comedy outside bars?”
Stand up here, stand up there, because my career isn’t going anywhere.
Comedian TYLER FOWLER
I’m going to stay up all night this New Year’s Eve. Not to usher the new year in, but to make sure that this old one leaves!
Seen on Reddit
At the start of 2020, I made a resolution to lose ten pounds… only 15 more to go!
Seen on Twitter
I asked my girlfriend for a photograph of her riding a horse with high heels on. You see, for me, there’s nothing sexier than a really tall horse.
Seen on Reddit
Getting Greek mythology wrong is my Hercules thumb.
Submitted via Twitter
Daft Doggies
THESE HILARIOUS POOCH PICS WERE WINNERS AT THE 2020 COMEDY PET PHOTOS AWARDS via boredpanda.com
People are mocking me for spending all of my hard-earned savings on a beginner’s levitation course.
I’m just going to rise above it.
Seen on Twitter
The inventor of Ovaltine must be a malty millionaire by now.
Seen on Facebook
I named my son and daughter War and Peace. It’s a long story.
Submitted via email
I’ve been trying to sell a thermos with absolutely no capacity to hold liquid. It’s a tankless flask.
Comedian PAUL EGGLESTONMy next door neighbour got a job painting those social distancing street markings. You can say what you like about Trevor, but at least you will always know where you stand with him.
Comedian OLAF FALAFEL
I’ve recorded an album titled Obsessed With Sex. It’s only got one track, mind.
Comedian PAUL EGGLESTON
CROSSWORD ANSWERS
More children than ever experienced home schooling during 2020 and Twitter users have been sharing their funniest moments
@VicWhitPic: I was going through the alphabet with my four-year-old. He was stuck on T. I asked him, “What does Mummy like to drink?” Without missing a beat, he shouted, “Wine!”
@Seamirac1979: My sister-inlaw gave me a mug with the words “Shut the hell up” etched into the bottom. I accidentally gave my nineyear-old some tea in it while he was Zooming his teacher.
@Sloane04180851: I’m homeschooling four children while looking after my one and two year olds. Not a funny story, just a cry for help.
Across: 1 Oval, 4 Posthumous, 9 Electrical, 10 Cain, 11 Half-dozen, 13 Loser, 16 Toga, 17 Peers, 21 Inure, 22 Mariner, 23 Larva, 24 Steps, 27 Sync, 30 Patch, 33 Sovereign, 35 Inca, 36 Bottomless, 37 Exaggerate, 38 So-so
Down: 2 Village, 3 Lucifer, 4 Period, 5 Sachet, 6 Holy, 7 Macao, 8 Unite, 12 Nouns, 13 Lairs, 14 Sauce, 15 Reels, 17 Polyp, 18 Egret, 19 Smash, 20 Irons, 25 Trellis, 26 Pegasus, 28 Contra, 29 Before, 31 Annex, 32 Clang, 34 Able
We talked to the witty comedian Susan Murray
WHO INSPIRES YOUR COMEDY?
At age of 14 The Young Ones absolutely blew my mind. Other huge influences for me are Black Adder , Billy Connelly, Dave Allen, Harry Enfield and Wanda Sykes.
WHAT’S YOU FAVOURITE PART OF PERFORMING? Three things:
1. Not having to set a morning alarm. Instead I have a Mourning Alarm for jokes that die.
2. When a new joke gets a round of applause first time (then it dies the next three times before coming back to life. Jokes are weird).
3. Other comedians. I finally found my tribe.
WHAT’S YOUR PET PEEVE? Usually, in non-pandemic times it’s people who don’t do their jobs properly. But currently it’s non/chin-maskers.
either it gives you a full blown panic attack or you have no ears.
DO YOU HAVE A FUNNY TALE ABOUT A TIME THINGS WENT WRONG ON STAGE? While performing at Jongleurs, Portsmouth about ten years ago. The lights didn’t work, then the sound went. The backdrop was black so the acts all looked like shouting floating heads.
WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE ONELINER? Whenever I walk into one of my East London local shops I think, When all this is over, I will still wear a mask in here .
WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE OF YOUR OWN JOKES? I have an unhealthy obsession with plane crashes and I sing a song about them to the tune of “These Are A Few Of My Favourite Things”. Come see me and I’ll sing it for you. Maybe. n
Susan Murray runs Red Imp Comedy Club in Walthamstow which is currently running online. Visit redimpcomedy. com for more information
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-January.
If your entry gets the most votes, you’ll win £50.
Submit to captions@readersdigest.co.uk by January 7. We’ll announce the winner in our February issue.
It’s a Beat the Cartoonist first this month, as our cartoonist’s caption “You know the drill, we never speak of this after November 5th, OK?” drew with reader, William Bannister’s submission “Oh sweetie, I hope these fireworks go on forever!” Congrats to you both! But who will prove victorious next month?
The biggest-selling singles artist of the 1980s looks back on his amazing career
Joey Tyson meets the people dedicating their lives to returning European land to its natural state, from reintroducing bison in Kent to bringing wild wolves back to Italy
Having photographs taken of loved ones after they die is not at all as morbid as it sounds
LAUGH
Response Premium by Doro connects seniors to loved ones or a fully-trained care team at the touch of a button on their mobile phone. So, they can get out there and keep doing what they love – and so can you.
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