SILVER MAGAZINE Issue 1 www.silvermagazine.co.uk

It’s often traditional for parents to leave their children an inheritance, whether that’s a grandparent’s treasured belonging, the money from the sale of the family home or a cash sum.

Like many parents, you may be watching your children struggle financially, perhaps with university fee’s, repaying debts or finding it difficult to save for a deposit for their first home – you might want to help them now rather making them wait for their future inheritance. And, that’s where a lifetime mortgage may help.

27% of people who took out a lifetime mortgage in 2020 used it to gift money to their family or friends.*

Release tax-free cash to help your loved ones

Designed exclusively for homeowners aged 55+, a Legal & General Lifetime Mortgage is a loan secured against your home that could allow you to help your children and loved ones now, rather than later:

• Release £10,000 or more tax-free cash

• Choose whether to pay all, some or none of the monthly interest

• Guarantee no negative equity

The loan is usually repaid when the last borrower dies or moves out of the home into long-term care. Interest is charged on the loan, plus any interest already added. So, the amount you owe will increase quickly over time and remember, if you gift money, the recipient may have to pay inheritance tax in the future (find out more at gov.uk/inheritance-tax).

Getting the right advice

We know there’s a lot to think about, that’s why it’s important to us that you get the right financial advice. Our team of specialist advisers are ready to help you make sense of it all. They’ll check if your house is eligible, talk you through all your options, discuss if any means-tested benefits you’re entitled to may be affected, they’ll even tell you if its not right for you, as there could be cheaper ways to borrow money. If you’re considering a lifetime mortgage give our team a call today to find out more, with no obligation, we’re always happy to help.

An indignant friend of mine took to Facebook this week to post a photograph of a magazine her husband had bought her. I won’t say which one, but the cover star is 75, and the coverlines were all about cooking, pretty dresses (seriously), or how to make Christmas magical.

Now I’m all for a magical Christmas if that’s your bag, don’t get me wrong, and there’s absolutely nothing bad about being 75, but she is 50-odd. She was absolutely horrified to be handed a magazine supposedly aimed at her age group, and end up feeling like an ancient Stepford Wife. Not sure how hubby is doing…

This is why we created SILVER

This friend teaches yoga, is a yacht-racing paddleboarder who loves festivals, and regularly goes camping off grid. She dances ‘til dawn, and travels widely. She is a meditating vegetarian. She’s probably living a life that a couple of generations ago would be attributed to someone in their 20s or 30s.

She’s not alone in her lifestyle choices; millions of people over 50 across the UK – the world, in fact – are not acting the way our grandparents did. Not even our parents. I can remember in the ‘70s thinking that 40 was really old. These days, even 80 doesn’t feel like a full innings.

I expect the cover has already told you that SILVER is going to be a bit different from the other magazines for this age group. Some of you will love it, some of you won’t. That’s

fine. The point of SILVER is twofold – we want to challenge ageism; and we want to uphold freedom of choice. Be a yacht-racer, or be a sofa-snuggler, both are good. It’s the assumption that we are largely the latter that bugs me. It’s time to reflect on the real diversity of our age group.

In order to be sure we understood that diversity, we made sure we asked you. We created a huge survey, sent to thousands of people, to ask them everything about their lives, so we understood you fully. You can read the results on page 14. We aren’t here to be some kind of crusading movement, but we are here to make sure we know you, and that we provide you with a magazine that will fire up your lives a little.

Thank you for buying this magazine and taking a leap of faith. Even if you never buy another copy – and I hope you do – it’s enabled us to create something to challenge the norm, which is all I ever wanted to do. We are an independent publisher without huge budgets to create new products and so without our readers we wouldn’t be here – and it’s taken a while, as those who subscribed early on will testify to! Thank you for your patience, and I really hope you enjoy SILVER Magazine.

With love from

Sam Harrington-Lowe Founder and Editor-in-Chief

#life begins

#life begins

Primark responds to cancer

Primark have launched their first collection in support of Breast Cancer Awareness month. Their new campaign has been informed by focus groups made up of cancer patients and oncology nurses and designed specifically for those who have experienced breast cancer. The collection also features lingerie, slippers, and other comfy wardrobe staples. Each piece has been designed with comfort, style and affordability in mind, and the collection has been modelled by real women who have experienced breast cancer. Primark have also donated £250,000 to cancer charities in all the countries in which they operate.

Miss Marple is on the case again

Missing Miss Marple? The nation’s favourite detective will be introduced to a whole new generation in the form of 12 new short stories. Each story will be written by a group of internationally recognised writers, each using their talents to showcase Jane Marple through the lens of their own eyes, while staying true to Agatha Christie’s style. The short story collection will be published by HarperCollins in September 2022.

DB5 JUNIOR No Time To Die Edition

You might not be Bond, but you can drive his classic motor. Aston Martin together with The Little Car Company and EON Productions have created a special limited edition of the DB5 Junior for No Time to Die. The design and specification of the car pays homage to the shared history of all three companies, including Silver Birch paintwork, individually numbered chassis plates, and the iconic Aston Martin badge. It’s an electric twothirds scale version of the original model and comes complete with the Bond-ready gadgets gadgets, and is big enough for one adult and one child to ride in. Only 125 of these cars will be built. There are also ‘Easter eggs’ hidden in the vehicle for lucky owners to find. Fire torpedoes! Starting £90,000 www.thelittlecar.co/db5junior

#life begins

Rock‘n’roll death road trip

Fancy embarking on an unconventional road trip? Love a bit of rock ‘n’ roll? This is for you. This is a road trip map that allows you to visit the death sites of iconic British musicians. Complete with a checklist and directions, this 1,200-mile round trip will start in London, visiting Amy Winehouse’s old residence in Camden. All you have to do is pop the postcode of each place in your satnav and crack on. Along the way, you’ll visit the locations of 14 of our rock stars’ last moments, including Jimi Hendrix, Dusty Springfield, and Ian Curtis. The idea is to visit these places to pay your respects and remember the legends who live in our memories and music collections. Head to the blog on www.stressfreecarrental.com/en/blog

Christmas boxes for pampered pups

The festive period is a time for family, and of course we include our four-legged friends. These Christmas gift boxes contain two pooch-ready Christmas dinners made up of turkey and chicken wet food, accompanied by a double helping of limited-edition meaty treats. Also included are grain-free mouthwatering fresh meats paired with a nutritious fruit and vegetable medley, all kitted out with added probiotics to aid digestion. This ‘ulti-mutt’ Christmas feast (sorry!) is packed in 100% recyclable Tetrapak and will make your dog’s Christmas dreams come true. www.poochandmutt.co.uk

Treat yourself to stylish time

Four years ago, Giles Ellis set about designing a timepiece for himself from scratch. Now he and his brand Schofield Watch Company are one of the most distinguished in Britain. Schofield’s mission is to create ‘beautiful and considered things’. Schofield’s watches are quintessentially British in design, heavy on class and elegance. These Daymark watches are available in two stunning tones – a sophisticated touch for any outfit. www.schofieldwatchcompany.com

FUN IN THE SUN

TOP TOGS

Whether you’re ditching the cold weather for a holiday in the sun or embracing autumn with welcome arms, we’ve got some essential items to add to your shopping list.

FUN IN THE SUN

Accessorize Buckle Footbed Leather Sandals, £20. A must-have for any sunny destination –practical has never looked so good! Complete your look with these baby pink mules.

WINTER ESSENTIALS

Fanfare Ethically Made Cornflower Blue Linen

Top, £99. A staple in any summer or holiday wardrobe, this is a timeless classic that you can re-style again and again.

TK Maxx Crema Trilby Sun Hat, £12.99 Who said essentials have to be boring? This trilby hat will go with all your outfits, keeping you cool and looking flawless.

WINTER ESSENTIALS

Lily Ella Cordelia Poncho in Oatmeal, £74.95 Layering is a key trend this season. The neutral

tone of this poncho makes it a staple item for most occasions.

Oliver Bonas Gingham Check Scarf, £35 This mid-weight scarf promises warmth and sophistication. Pair with more neutral tones for a solid look, or contrast with darker clothes to make it the focus of your attire.

Radley London Chelsea Creek Shearling Bag, £249. LOOK at this gorgeous shearling bag! Wear in multiple ways: as a handbag, a crossbody, or a casual off the shoulder. Bonus points for the natural palette.

In Perfect Harmony

Do we find love? Does it find us?

Do we need to love and feel loved or are we just conditioned to believe so? We know that humans, like our primate cousins, are social creatures, but does it follow that being alone can’t or shouldn’t be our natural state?

And when we are realistically past the stage of becoming parents, do loving relationships become less important or even redundant?

Why do I ask? I’ll tell you. Two years ago I was 60; a couple of years after (another) divorce, bumbling along in one of the most peaceful and contented phases of my life. I was happy with my

relationships than I did on my own, and could happily have stayed single for the rest of my life.

I was ‘self-partnered’, as Emma Watson and Gwyneth Paltrow say, and as smug about it as they were too. Cut to the present and I’ve set up home with Frances, a wonderful woman, and now I genuinely can’t imagine a future without her.

We’ve spent lockdowns together – the first two with my mother – and we’ve moved house twice in three months, yet we haven’t exchanged any cross words. It’s fair to say that neither of us saw this coming, nor were we actively seeking a partner, yet we seem to have found a

of companionship and mutual support. Surprisingly, perhaps, there’s plenty of the oxytocin-fuelled giggling, hand-holding and private joking we usually associate with young love – the way we gaze at each other can be gag-inducing. Some might say we should act our age, whatever that means…

It’s true of course that at our age – even though Frances is yet to reach my Railcard status – we would be very unlucky not to have experienced something like this before. This is not our first rodeo. In fact, I believe that if we were even 10 years younger, this baggage could cause issues of trust or insecurity.

cliché even 20 years ago, conjuring up pictures of a devoted older couple gazing fondly over a port and lemon and a half of mild down the social club, of pipe and slippers, knitting and man-sheds, bingo and bunions. Are we Terry and June? Fuck that.

Growing older is new territory and not just for us

the way we gaze at each other can be gaginducing. Some might Say we S hould act our age, whatever that mean S …

choice to remain single, sharing my bed exclusively with Minnie the dachshund, horrified at suggestions that I should ‘get back in the saddle’ (euw!) and join some seniors’ dating websites. I’d felt lonelier inside

happiness and stability that we’d both been missing all our lives.

There’s delicious intimacy, passion, deep respect, and joyful affection alongside the more prosaic and obvious benefits

Yet here, now, our previous experiences are our strength. This is probably because we’re both old and wise enough to have been honest with each other about our pasts. And scrupulously truthful about our parts in them, warts and all, which let us build honest pictures of each other.

This requires work and isn’t always easy, but the older heart recognises the good sense in it, and once dealt with, if there’s total honesty, the past stays in the past and won’t boobytrap the future. And it’s a lot cheaper than therapy, so it’s a win-win.

What must we look like, eh?

‘Darby and Joan’ was the go-to

In our brave new postmodern Boomer world, the images have shifted noticeably. The ads twinkle at us – motorhomes, cruises, Machu Picchu rather than Bridlington, Ayahuasca over Sanatogen, yoga and facelifts in Turkey. Winters in India, where the pension goes further. The times are indeed a-changin’.

Look at the great bands of our teenage years still selling teenage anthems into their 70s – into our 70s, for God’s sake! Mick and Keef, Stevie Nicks, Pete and Roger still sing of love, but do they mean us? Van Morrison and Bob Dylan sing of a new love (for God), which looks suspiciously like hedging their bets before their rapidly hastening demise.

I don’t see any of them knocking out tunes about knee replacements or menopause, so are they saying my new love is not

Joe McGann sings the praises of love after 60

rock’n’roll enough? Bollocks! They’re Spandex/Spanx-clad, hair-dyed nostalgia merchants, still preaching at the altar of youth – great tunes, but anachronisms, like Acker Bilk and Val Doonican in the pop charts of the seventies.

I’m not going to pretend that I’m now grown up and like opera any more than I appreciate Goa trance or drill – they’re not for me, any more than stamp collecting or colonic irrigation is. I want cultural engagement now, not All Our Yesterdays or repeats of tales of The Unexpected.

My love feels new, modern, and now. I have fresh blood dancing through my veins, and I want to burn as bright as I can alongside the woman I love. There are still new places to visit, new tastes to explore, new music to dance to and there’s nothing left to prove. I’m secure and liberated by my love, my soul mate, and my focus is fixed firmly forward.

There’s no instruction booklet for the next 20 years, so our life from here can be truly bespoke. To get to this age and see and be seen by a woman like Fran

feels like a reward for time served. I’m celebrating this life with her as vividly as possible. We’ve nothing left to prove – to ourselves or each other. Our kids have lives of their own, and we’re lucky enough to have a house and enough to get by.

This is not about consolidation or winding down, not for a second. If neither of us saw this great joy coming, if we believed all this had passed us by, then what other joys await us a little further up the road? What other delicious possibilities are there for us to explore together?

It’s a new love, not like any of the previous loves, so the old rules don’t apply. There’s freedom right there, alongside enough experience to be able to appreciate it. How cool is that?

@JosephMcGann

The Scream Queen Returns

We caught up with the splendid Jamie Lee Curtis at the Venice Film Festival, where we spoke about everything from her first movie role to feminism, and of course discussed the latest instalment in the Halloween series

WORDS Carly Pepperell & Jenny Davis

Some 43 years after she first appeared as Laurie Strode in the original slasher film, Jamie is back, reprising her role in the 12th instalment of the franchise, Halloween Kills. The film, directed by David Gordon Green, picks up exactly where the previous film ended in 2018.

Halloween Kills premiered at the 78th Venice Film Festival, where Jamie just so happened to pick up the Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Curtis is an artist with that rare ability to turn on the star quality while still seeming like someone you’d love to hang out with. We tracked her down at the Festival and had a chance to find out what we can expect from the film, as well as discuss the highlights of her impressive career.

Coming full circle

Jamie’s career began with Halloween, where we met her character Laurie for the first time back in 1978. Her success in the role subsequently earned her back-to-back casting in other horror films, and status as a ‘scream queen’.

She credits her beginnings in the horror scene for her international career spanning six decades, which led to her meeting John Landis. The rest, as they say, is history.

“My performance in Trading Places was a gift from John, who by the way met me, weirdly enough, because of horror films. John did a short that he directed called Coming Soon which is a ‘50s horror film short about those wonderful trailers that you used to see. And he needed somebody to narrate it and who would you call except the young woman who was now in horror movies?

“He met me and… he must have figured out something because the next thing I know, he hired me to be in Trading Places And because of Trading Places A Fish Called Wanda happened, and because of A Fish Called Wanda, True Lies happened. I owe a great deal of gratitude to John Landis for having the courage to hire me in that film, which really did change things.”

On top of her impressive filmography, Curtis has lived a rich life. She has two adopted children with her husband Christopher Guest: a daughter, Annie, and a transgender child, Ruby. Her marriage to Christopher came five months after she saw a picture of him from the film This is Spinal Tap and told her friend Debra Hill: “I’m going to marry that guy.”

She’s very open about the fact that she

The beau T y of human beings is T haT we change. w e are baTT ered and bruised and we emerge and grow

is a recovering alcoholic and was addicted to painkillers. She’s been sober since 1999, and maintains that recovery is the greatest achievement of her life. Jamie was guest of honour at the 11th annual Women In Recovery gala and fundraiser in 2003, which is a California-based non-profit organisation for the rehabilitation of women in need.

All about Halloween

One of the most important things we’ve witnessed is Jamie’s relationship with her character, Laurie. She explained how exciting (and unusual) it is to be an actor in the same role for 43 years – particularly as a female actor, and a survivor.

“The beauty of human beings is that we change. We are battered and bruised and we emerge and grow; our bones heal, we move forward, and then we get battered and bruised again,” she muses.

She explains that what she loves about Laurie is her relatability. Whilst what we’re seeing within Laurie is scripted for the big screen, the fact is that people can identify. “We are all human, and you relate to Laurie because you are wounded too. You are fighting back against demons in your life. And you somehow look at me and Laurie and say ‘I am Laurie.’

“There was a moment during my last shot of the 2018 film, where Laurie is alone in her truck watching Michael leave the prison. And it’s written as ‘Laurie is alone in her truck, there’s alcohol, there’s a gun…’ and 40 years of her experience come back to haunt her. There’s no dialogue, it’s just Laurie alone. It was my last shot of the movie and I prepared in my trailer.

“As I approached the set and the entire crew – I’m someone who likes name tags in movies, where it says, ‘Hi, my name is…’ so I can know everybody’s name – and the entire crew were all wearing name tags that said, ‘We are Laurie Strode’. And what they were saying in

the moment was: ‘We’re all Laurie Strode and we are with you, Jamie, in this moment, as you face it.’ I must tell you, that was a profound moment for me as an actor, and a profound moment for me as a human being. Because it said that we are all the same, we’re all human, we’re all battered, we’re all bruised, but we’re all still here.”

So how did she prepare for the role? “I scare easily. I know it’s a silly thing to say, but I am an untrained actor. I’ve never been to acting class. I prepare emotionally, but that’s my job. I scare easily. And I hate these movies, I loathe them, I do not like to be frightened. I think that genuine, emotional connection to being afraid… you are watching what is happening in real life, on screen.

“There is no psychological preparation. It’s just… I’ve been traumatised, I’ve had sad things happen, and I’ve had violent things happen. So all of these reactions are just natural manifestations of my own experience.”

Success vs criticism

The Halloween franchise is hugely successful; perhaps one of the most well-known franchises worldwide. How does that feel?

“I think what sets these movies apart is there’s not a lot of deep fake – these movies are real. There’s not a lot of CGI. There are real people in real places, doing scary shit. What I love about Halloween, and particularly Halloween Kills, is

CAPTION Jamie at the Venice Film Festival PHOTO Alamy Stock

I did Trading Places, and I Took my shir T off, and I was suddenly whaT T hey called legi T imaT e, an a-lis T er. n ow, T oday, T he women’s movemen T would love l aurie sT rode

that the brutality is real. It’s not a construction.

And again, I think that’s why people attach back to them. They’re real and to the point, even the recreation of a dead person is almost real. And I think that’s what also makes these movies all so special, it’s a little secret sauce.”

But with success comes judgement, as is often the case. One of the most significant criticisms of Jamie’s involvement in this franchise is the anti-feminist comments surrounding the first film. John Carpenter – the original director – used to get very frustrated with people calling the film ‘anti-feminist’ or saying it was ‘women-bashing’, mainly because the only one that didn’t die was the virgin.

But Laurie was smart, capable, and John stated: “she had no time for boys.” As a feminist icon, Jamie’s thoughts around this were important to us, and she admitted herself that “the women’s movement kind of hated me”.

But she feels like maybe this was all back to front, no pun intended…

“I did Trading Places, and I took my shirt off, and I was suddenly what they called legitimate, an A-lister. Now, today, the women’s movement would love Laurie Strode.

“But at that moment it was interesting for me as a young actress, because I’m playing the very thing that we really – I think – respect, particularly

about women; their strength and intelligence and ability to, excuse my pun here, shape shift. And, you know, fight back against the adversity that women have done since the beginning of time. And yet, it was sort of anti-feminist. Anyway, I always thought that was funny.”

An uncertain star

Someone at the Venice Film Festival asked Jamie if she was aware that Trading Places was shown every Christmas Eve in Italy. Of course, it also appears in the UK too. But it seems the US doesn’t get the full unedited version, certainly not on TV. Jamie is surprised.

“Somebody mentioned that to me today and I said, ‘They show it on television?’ and they said, ‘Yes’. And I said: ‘They show all of it on television?’ and they said ‘Yes! It’s a beloved film here in Italy.’ And I’m thinking about 14-year-old boys at Christmas seeing my incredibly beautiful 21-yearold self and thinking ‘Wow – that’s very different from America’. I love that movie.”

Now, in 2021, Jamie has received the Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement. She explained she has mixed feelings about winning this sort of award and is finding it hard to wrap her head around it.

“[That achievement] seems to be sort of closed, whereas I’m working more and more creatively today than I have been since I was born. So it’s odd for me, and yet I am incredibly honoured,” she explains. She thinks of Halloween, A Fish Called Wanda, and True Lies as the three films she’d call her legacy – though explained that of course there were others, work she bluntly refers to as “pieces of shit”. And no, we don’t know what she’s referring to!

If you want to try and get ahead before seeing the latest film, it looks like most of the Halloween films are on Amazon Prime, although goodness only knows which order to watch them in! Wikipedia can probably tell you that. As for Halloween Kills, that hit the big screen on 15 October 2021, are you brave enough to go see it?

CAPTION Trading Places - L-R Eddie Murphy, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dan Aykroyd, 1983 Sir John Landis

CAPTION Laurie in Halloween 1978

CAPTION Laurie in Halloween Kills 2021

We launched a survey to find out exactly who you are, and these are the no-holds-barred results. Get ready for…

THE TruTH NAKED

PHOTOGRAPHER Erika Szostak

PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANT Matt Ryan

MAKEUP & HAIR LoveYoHair

MODELS Bella Kirkus, Adrian Southby, Lesley Burdett

SHOT ON LOCATION Copperdollar Studios, Brighton

Who do you think you are?

WORDS Sam Harrington-Lowe PHOTOS Erika Szostak

he last fifty years have seen a seismic shift in our social patterns and behaviours. There’s been enormous development in technology, medicine, and wellbeing. We’ve walked on the moon, burned bras, dropped acid, and danced all night. We’ve embraced punk and spirituality in equal measures. Travelled the world, fought the winter of discontent and the poll tax, and so much more.

When I was in my late 40s, I started to look at magazines that were aimed at my age group and beyond, and I was dismayed. How could we be so misunderstood? I couldn’t relate to the gentle or genteel content I understood was now apparently my destiny. I can’t knit to save my life, I don’t like cakes, and I still go to festivals.

Where was my tribe?

It seems I was not alone, thank goodness. Mature people say they are patronised in the media and on television; they feel invisible, unseen. So I decided that someone should do something about it. And, well, if you want a job doing, etc…

So we launched SILVER.

From the get-go I knew we needed to understand our readers. And there’s only one way to do this – we asked you. We asked you about absolutely everything, from sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll to religion, money, and family, and all that’s in between. It was a massive survey; we asked upwards of 10,000 people to answer hundreds of questions. And my word, you came through. So here you are in all your glory. The naked truth…

THE SURVEY

We wanted to cover every aspect of people’s lives, but quickly found the survey became too long, so we broke it down into four parts. Nobody was going to make it to the end alive otherwise. The respondents were brilliant though; they completed around 95% of the whole four parts, with only a few questions skipped.

Pretty much each question ran ‘tick all that apply’. So if you’re reading the results and the various options come to more than 100%, that’s why.

SO WHO ARE YOU?

The majority of respondents (81%) were aged 50 – 69, with the biggest chunk aged 60 – 64. You’re mostly White British (81%), with the balance being from multiple other ethnicities, such as African Black, British Black and Asian, mixed-race etc. This ethnic split represents the UK national average, or thereabouts. And, as we pretty much expected, 78% of responders were female, with 20% being male, and 2% preferring not to say.

More than half of you have no religion. The highest score for those who were religious was for Christian denominations (33%), although in the ‘Other’ box there were quite a few who named spirituality as a path. No Jedis apparently.

You’re largely a Conservative bunch, with blues taking 34% of the votes here. Labour second with 18%, Lib Dems at 14%, Greens 10% and SNP 4%. A further 20% of respondents felt unrepresented or preferred not to say.

AGEING AND AGEISM

We were thrilled at how positive the responses in this section were. A giant 70% of you are happy with the wisdom that age brings and following closely behind this is ‘being grateful to be here’, at 62%. More than half of you (52%) said that you’ve improved with age and, although there are a fair few people who are exhausted, 51% said they were excited to keep learning new things. And gratifyingly, nobody ticked the ‘I wish I was dead’ box.

Unfortunately, while you lot are mostly happy with your age, it seems like the rest of the world is still to catch up, as ageism is alive and kicking. At work and whilst job hunting were the main areas of concern, but every option received some votes, with respondents reporting ageism when shopping, via politics, within the family, and in social situations.

the naked truth

A few comments identified key issues – one respondent had been told they were too old for a mortgage, and another said they were fed up with receiving emails or marketing that was patronising, “… as if you get stupid as you age”.

YOUR HOPES AND DREAMS

Again, it’s a pretty upbeat outlook here. 15% of you have either met or exceeded your hopes and dreams, and a whopping 69% are mostly happy with life. ‘I have new goals, my priorities have changed’ drew a 58% result, and 24% said that although they hadn’t met their goals and dreams yet, they were still working on it. A contented 15% said though they hadn’t hit their life targets, they were OK with that and happy with their lot. 34% said that they were excited for their next adventure.

Only 6% said they hadn’t met their goals or dreams and were sad or angry about that, and just 2% of you said you’re not happy with your life.

FAMILY LIFE

A positive 45% of you said you felt valued as an elder in your family, and the same percentage said you had a happy family. It was encouraging to see just 5% reporting feeling overlooked or neglected, although that’s still 5%.

One respondent put it: “I am often expected to be the responsible one, but at the same time, my children and siblings don’t take any interest in my life.” And the same percentage (5%) said that their family was unhappy, with lots of drama. 20% of you with adult children said they were still living at home, bearing out our understanding that often big kids just can’t afford to move out anymore.

Although lots of you have no pets, we are a nation of dog lovers – it’s official! With dogs drubbing cats 33% to 22%.

COSMETIC SURGERY

When it comes to aesthetics and cosmetic surgery most of you (60%) haven’t had any work done, but unsurprisingly, most common is Botox and/or fillers. A small percentage (2%) had braved an actual facelift, but higher on the list were chemical peels and dental work. Nearly 20% of respondents said they’d like to try some things but couldn’t afford them – and in the comments they drilled down further to specifics; bingo wings were a concern, breast surgery, scar removal, and hair removal/ implants all featured.

TRAVEL AND HOLIDAYS

When it comes to holidays, the majority of you head for a break once a year. Around a quarter of you have two holidays each year, and a meaty 10% go for three or more!

A staggering 100% of you take holidays in the UK. We’re not sure if that’s as a result of the pandemic or just a love of UKations. A bit of both, perhaps. You like to travel with partners, with friends, and with family; you’re a sociable lot. Really interestingly, the option of leaping on a plane and working it all out when you get there (38%) beats package holidays (28%) and even the all-inclusive (33%).

Rail trips are popular, with standard rail and upmarket

options like the Orient Express gathering a collective 25% of you, but cruises were surprisingly low at around 15%, easily beaten by coach trips, caravans and motorhomes, and even camping. Perhaps everyone is still a bit nervous of cruises?

ENTERTAINMENT

When it comes to heading out, eating out is top of the list with 85% of you loving being fed. You also love to explore the UK –train trips, walking, visiting beaches, and sightseeing all got special mentions in the comments.

The biggies are museums, art galleries, National Trust venues and gardens, train trips, and visiting stately homes. Sporting events like football or rugby were lower down the list at around 10 – 15%, but that’s probably because of our femaleto-male ratio of respondents.

Volunteering is on your list too, with most of you giving back to communities in the way of charity events, sponsored events, animal charities, and volunteering with vulnerable groups and people. The most popular option here was community gardening projects, at around 28%.

TECH

You’re a tech-loving lot. 95% of you have a smartphone, over half of you have other mobile devices, and 32% love new gadgets. Tech in the home and the car is popular – which includes TVs, laptops, gaming consoles etc, and not one person ticked the ‘I hate tech’ box.

Most of you have no home adaptations, but interestingly the two biggest hitters in the Homes section were CCTV and security systems.

MUSIC

Music is huge, with every single type of music getting votes. Rock, ‘70s, and ‘80s making the biggest numbers, but other notables were indie, ‘60s, classical, vintage, and jazz. Also house/ dance music made a good show. Least favourite was folk music with just 10%, despite, as the great Louis Armstrong said: “All music is folk music. I ain’t never heard a horse sing a song.”

For live music, pub gigs and arena gigs are the most popular, and festivals are the third favourite option, with more than a third of you still pulling on your sparkly wellies. Jazz clubs are also pretty popular, with just under 20% of you ticking this box.

When it comes to consuming music, and we’re back in the tech zone, with only 15% of you enjoying music on a traditional hi-fi. Spotify is the most popular channel, at 55%, just pipping radio at 50%. And how you listen to music is also techy – phone/ headphones, laptop, Bluetooth speakers are all equally popular, and Amazon Prime, Alexa, Sonos, internet radio and iPads all got a mention in the comments

Both vinyl (20%) and CDs (30%) were still relatively popular though, with the CDs outperforming iTunes at 25%. Cassettes got a zero!

SOCIAL MEDIA

You love social media. Top of the list with 95% is WhatsApp, and Facebook second at 86%. An honestly surprising third place goes to YouTube, with 81% of you. Something we’d definitely

like to look into more – are you watching music? Are you watching films and documentaries, or following influencers and bloggers? We shall explore further.

Of the other biggies, Instagram is next, with 57% of you using it, and Twitter comes in at 38%. Not one tick for TikTok.

The majority of you spend quite a lot of time online; more of you find content because you’re actually looking for it than because someone else has shared it. And about half of you read a news channel every day, with almost all of you choosing the BBC as your preferred option.

COMMUNICATION

90% of you like to text, but an encouraging 86% also still love meeting up in person. Phone calls beat video calls 67% to 43% – although the high number of video calls would seem from your comments to be something new since lockdown; but an interesting quarter of you don’t like talking on the phone at all.

TV, RADIO, GAMING

No massive surprises here – drama, films, box sets, news, streaming services like Netflix, etc – are all popular. 20% of you are still making it out to the flicks. 5% don’t watch TV at all.

When it comes to radio, 80% are tuning in, but 35% are now into listening to podcasts, citing ‘chit-chat’ as something they like. Comedy takes top billing here, at 55%, but drama, plays, science, and news are all popular. Quizzes got a special mention in the comments a couple of times. Overall radio and podcasts are alive and kicking.

Not massively popular – gaming. 35% of you are happy to play games on your phones but wouldn’t sit at a desk or monitor to play something more committed. 50% of you actively rejected gaming. We had one lovely commenter who said they had a favourite game, which was Lexulous (a crossword game), and we wondered if responders were thinking of things like World of Warcraft or Grand Theft Auto as ‘gaming’, rather than quizzes or Scrabble and so on.

HOBBIES AND CRAFTS

Unsurprisingly, plenty of you love crafting and hobbies, apparently unless it’s model building, playing an instrument, stamp collecting, or train-spotting!

There were so many choices I’ll just pick out some of the notable results: top of the list at 67% was reading books in print; then walking/rambling (57%); surprisingly, cookery was next at 53%; making art such as painting, drawing, and sculpture was then joint fourth with reading books on a device, both at 43%; and crafts such as knitting, crochet, etc were around the same as dancing, winetasting and gardening. And I’ve got to tell you this – we had one dogger. If you don’t know what that is, google it, but brace yourself.

the naked truth

FASHION

When it comes to fashion, around 40% said they don’t care about fancy brands, and the biggest box ticked was the ‘mixed bag’ at 50%; the bag being a mixture of high-end, cheap and cheerful, and second-hand.

You love to get dressed up, but prefer a reason for doing so, like a lunch, or special outing. When you’re at home it’s comfy clothes, but 10% of you never leave the house without looking immaculate. When it comes to choosing clothing and jewellery, you definitely look for quality. Aside from all the glamourous lot though, there’s about 27% of you who just don’t give a fig about this sort of thing anymore.

SEX AND SEXUALITY

Surveys can often throw out surprising outcomes and this one is no exception; 91% of respondents selected ‘straight’ for sexual orientation. 5% are bisexual, 4% are asexual, 2% chose ‘other’… but nobody ticked ‘gay’.

However, a not insignificant 17.5% skipped this question, which

has intrigued us, especially as respondents had the option of ticking the ‘none of your damn business’ box but nobody did.

Are there gay people who have been traumatised by homophobic abuse or a lack of acceptance and still feel under threat? More research is required here, and in the meantime we are committed to including powerful gay voices in SILVER.

We’ve got 64% who masturbate, and 38% describing themselves as ‘sexually adventurous’. Almost a quarter of you use sex toys (23%) or porn (22%) either during masturbation or with a partner, 11% have tried or continue to partake in BDSM activities and enjoy it, while 5.66% gave BDSM a go but didn’t like it.

11% of you have tried sex parties or orgies, while 4% are active swingers. Using sex workers is low on the agenda with just under 2% having seen a sex worker in the past, and nobody saying they currently see one.

RELATIONSHIPS

Around 80% of you are in some kind of monogamous relationship. None of our respondents identify as being polyamorous, or in an open or kinky lifestyle relationship, but 2% have a casual ‘friends-with-benefits’ arrangement. When one includes the sex responses above, it’s clear there are a lot of couples still very active and adventurous in bed. Although perhaps not even in the actual bed, by the sounds of it! You frisky lot.

SEXUAL ASSAULT

As ever, the figures on sexual assault make difficult reading. Nearly half of you have experienced some kind of sexual abuse or assault. 35% have been raped or subjected to sexual abuse by someone known to them, and 17% have experienced this at the hands of a stranger.

Just over half (51%) said there should be more conversation about these issues, although 10% say they still feel awkward talking about it with family and friends. About a quarter of you (22%) believe we are finally talking enough. Only 2% think we talk too much about sexual assault and domestic violence, and 4% take what is probably a fringe view these days, which is that it’s a private matter that should stay private.

MENOPAUSE

Plenty of people (40%) think that menopause issues should be discussed more openly. A further 29% think we have come a long way, but there is still a way to go. There is an entirely expected range of responses to the question about how the menopause is going/how it went. 38% say that it’s not the best but it isn’t the worst either, 19% said it was better than they thought it would be, 8% said it didn’t affect them that much, and 12% are really suffering, saying they couldn’t or cannot cope, and the experience was, or is, ‘awful’. So how is everyone coping? HRT is the most

popular at 34%, followed by exercise (23%), natural supplements (17%), lifestyle changes such as quitting smoking or cutting out the booze (17%), taking antidepressants (12%), and diet change (13%). Then we asked the men about their experiences of living with menopausal women. A whopping 82% said this question was not applicable to them. Thankfully none of them said they didn’t care because it was ‘her problem’, and more than half were sympathetic and supportive. 2% said the menopause had changed the dynamic of the relationship and their lives quite a bit.

EXERCISE

Among the responses, there were cyclists, skateboarders and rollerskaters, snowboarders, skiers and climbers, and Zumba fans. But by far the most popular form of exercise at 43% was dog-walking.

We also have plenty of gym junkies, and yoga and Pilates devotees (26%). Nobody ticked the ‘marathon/distancerunning’ box, which surprised us. And in the comments section, we had plenty of people pipe up with the activities that we missed on the (already long!) list of options, such as canoeing, canyoning, trekking, rambling, hiking, serious gardening, Powerplate, wing chun, boxing, and (most excellently) ‘mosh pit at gigs’.

COVID

Nearly a quarter of you (24%) have had Covid, and 63% know someone who has had Covid. Of these, sadly, 18% died. There isn’t much scepticism about vaccines or the effectiveness of lockdowns among our readers, with 86% having the vaccine. Only 2% have refused, and a small 4% don’t think Covid is as serious as most people think it is.

55% think Covid is more serious than most people think it is, and 45% are not sure if we should be going back to normal. Just 8% think restrictions should have been lifted months ago.

ALCOHOL

Next, we raise a glass of our preferred beverages. 43% still love a drink while 12% are teetotal and 4% count themselves as being in recovery. 37% describe themselves as ‘social drinkers’, and 29% say they drink rarely.

But a proportion of you do have concerns about your alcohol intake, with 6% worried about their drinking and the behaviour that this can lead to, and 4% are concerned they might be an alcoholic.

RECREATIONAL DRUGS

14% of you smoke weed. Cocaine, a prolific powder for many of us in the ‘80s and ‘90s, is still taken by 8%, while 12% take amphetamines and 6% take hallucinogens.

Although 42% don’t do drugs at all now, 24% said they used to. One respondent gave us a detailed history: “I tried everything that was available before I cut out drink and weed in the early 2000s. I sometimes take edibles and have tried microdosing.”

Then there was this intriguing litany: “Not for many years, but largely MDMA/ecstasy, cocaine, hash, skunk, LSD, mushrooms, speed, opium – and a stint of recreational Voltarol.”

Voltarol?!

the naked truth

MENTAL HEALTH

Mental health has rightly become a more mainstream discussion, and this is reflected by the 59% who say they take mental health seriously. One respondent said they take mental health seriously but find it hard to take care of it. 8% identified as neurodivergent and the comments made it clear that more conversation is needed around this.

There’s a range of in-between attitudes to all mental health conditions, but 8% still say a stoic attitude and stiff upper lip is more beneficial for coping.

PHYSICAL HEALTH

Hearts, hearing, and mobility unsurprisingly feature high, but chronic fatigue – post-viral or otherwise – fibromyalgia, and mental health were all flagged up.

22% said they have a disability, which for the purposes of this survey includes hidden disabilities. In the comments, people shared their disabilities and health issues, which included Type 2 diabetes, thyroid conditions, depression, anxiety and chronic fatigue from cancer treatment, fibromyalgia, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure.

Stereotypes about terrible British teeth may be overstated, with 71% of people taking good care of their teeth, although 22% can’t remember when they last saw a dentist.

Eyesight is important to most of you, with 78% going to the optician regularly, although 10% have been wearing the same specs for a decade!

TREATMENTS AND THERAPIES

Nearly half of you like some quality salon time, with 47% enjoying treatments such as manicures, pedicures, and trips to the hairdresser, while 41% are soap-and-water kinda people with occasional treats. When it comes to self-care, 33% like to spoil themselves with nice products, 20% can’t be bothered, and, somewhat depressingly, 4% don’t think they deserve nice things.

Our survey found massage to be the most popular alternative therapy at 51%. Meditation came in second at 46%. Outliers in the survey included psychedelics/microdosing, touch therapy, and eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR).

“I have seen osteopaths and chiropractors in the past with good effect. Acupuncture and EMDR were less useful, but I used EMDR to good effect via YouTube when my dog died,” said one responder.

MENTAL HEALTH THERAPY

There’s a positive attitude here, reflected in the survey results,

RECAP

If this has been way too long to read, here’s a quick recap of the things that stood out:

• You’re largely a positive lot

• Most of you feel valued by your family

• You love tech

• YouTube is surprisingly popular

with 76% of you having seen a therapist or counsellor in the past, 4.5% currently seeing a therapist or counsellor, and a further 4.5% planning to do so. However, the survey also found that 13.33% don’t believe in therapy.

RETIREMENT

Everyone wants to retire. Almost a third of you (31.6%) have retired and another 31.6% are planning to do so in the next five years. A further 21% have started thinking about their retirement. And we’re really feeling the 16% who wish they could retire.

MIDLIFE CRISIS

This section elicited the biggest response, with nearly half sure or thinking they’ve had a midlife crisis. And yes, there were flashy cars and expensive holiday homes.

But a very definite 52.63% told us they have not gone through a midlife crisis. That said, 32% called for it to be seen as a positive thing, and nearly half said it was not a joke.

The causes of a midlife crisis are many and varied. The main cause was the physical changes of ageing (83%), as well as not feeling attractive anymore (56%).

Children leaving the nest, not feeling fulfilled with life, not feeling relevant in the world, and/or not feeling content in a marriage or relationship are all factors. Looking back over one’s career is another cause, including not achieving career goals (28%), and almost the same number hating their job and simply wanting a change.

7% filed for divorce, sold things to fund a lifestyle change, found a new partner, or specifically started a relationship with a younger person. In the comments, both travelling and going out partying again was mentioned as a way of recapturing that feeling of youth.

There are optimists too, such as the person who “did get divorced in my early 50s and have been happier since”, the woman who became “a happier person” after divorcing her husband, and the cheerful soul who described this time as “not a crisis, a rediscovery of self”.

ARE YOU HAPPY?

When we asked this, we got a range of responses. It’s not all joy and optimism – 33.33% worry about the future, 17% feel anxious, and 11% feel like an imposter whose life is not the one they planned out for themselves. 11% are eager to get midlife over and done with, and 6% are either angry, depressed, or bored.

However, to end on a positive note, more than 80% of you are largely happy, with 39% looking forward to what the future brings.

• You’re a sexy bunch

• Spirituality is popular

• Mental and physical health is taken seriously

• Home security is important

• Over a third of you are embracing podcasts

• Midlife crises should be taken more seriously

• One of you enjoys dogging

I was in a fog of depression which had started when I was young. I ’d been bullied at school for my looks "

Real people : The Naked Truth

Yes, there’s middle-age spread, the odd grey hair (ahem!), and waning libidos; but late 40s, 50s and beyond are often when we finally feel comfortable in our own skin. Modern silvers aren’t old biddies; past it, interfering ancient coffin-dodgers – they’re happy with their lives, themselves, and their bodies. Our brave, beautiful, and brutally honest cover models reveal all

WORDS Karen Pasquali Jones PHOTOS Erika Szostak

Lesley Burdett, 51, of New Timber, West Sussex is a divorced mother of three sons

S the Older Model

trangers looking at my body might be jealous or even hate me. I’m naturally slim with a flat stomach, pert little breasts, and have just launched my career as a model. They’d never guess that until my 40s I was so unhappy I wanted to kill myself. I had it all planned. I was going to take pills I’d been stockpiling along with plenty of booze and just slip away. Night after night I’d sit breastfeeding my nine-month-old baby – my third boy – and think how much better the world would be without me in it.

Maybe I had post-natal depression, or perhaps I was just sick of being stuck in back-to-back lousy marriages – three in all – with men who didn’t love me, or certainly not enough, to make me want to stick around.

I was in a fog of depression that had started when I was young. I’d been bullied at school for my looks. The other kids called me ‘birdy big nose,’ and made fun of my thin lips and flat chest. I began to believe I was ugly.

My relationships didn’t help. I went through traumatic break-ups and was ridiculed for being a failure. Hear it enough from someone who says they love you and it begins to seem like the truth.

So I shut down. Suicidal thoughts spiralled through me until I decided to give in to them. And then, as I was going over the final details in my head, my baby bit me as he breastfed. It was the physical and emotional jolt I needed.

I loved him and my other two sons. They needed me. How could I leave them? I decided to get help. I had therapy, got a divorce and slowly happiness crept into my life.

I met a wonderful man whom I love but haven’t married. I grew closer and closer to my sons, and I learnt to have fun. Growing older definitely has changed me. I don’t care what anyone thinks of me anymore. I like me and that’s what matters. If other people don’t, that’s their fucking problem.

I was a synchronised swimmer from the age of 10 and went professional when I was old enough. That means I have good muscle memory, so I can eat and drink what I want and stay a size 8 – 10.

Now I love my body and face. I don’t want big boobs. I like my nose. I’d never have surgery, which was all I used to long for. I’m older, and happy in my skin. I’ve blossomed. I go to festivals in skimpy outfits – I love fashion designer Louise O’Mahoney’s L.O.M festival line – and in February 2020 someone suggested I try modelling. A couple of weeks later, I was asked to model for a shoot and pose for life drawing class. I didn’t mind getting naked. I’m proud of my body and who I am.

I’m proof you can overcome anything to be happy and that you’re never too old to try new things. Who knows? I might be the next Cindy Crawford with wrinkles. If not, who cares? I’ll travel the world with my boyfriend, Dave, and have fun adding more laughter lines to my face.

One moment I'm entertaining strangers as stripper The City Gent,, gradually taking off my three-piece suit on a unicycle... but sit next to me at a dinner party and I wouldn' t say a word"

the Anxious Performer

lAde Southby, aka Count Adriano Fettucini, is a 53-year-old semi-retired unicycle strip tease artist from Brighton

ike most performers I’m terrified before stepping in front of an audience where upon I instantly become a different person – one that’s brave, daring and extrovert.

It’s even scarier when I come off stage though, because I’m anxious and awkward around people.

One moment I’m entertaining strangers as stripper The City Gent, gradually taking off my three-piece suit on a unicycle while juggling a bowler hat, umbrella and briefcase. Or I might be doing a reverse striptease into drag to become Melodie, who is extremely overthe-top, loud and outgoing. I’ve even done the act as a drunk Scotsman in a kilt playing the bagpipes.

But sit next to me at a dinner party and I wouldn’t say a word. I can’t talk to strangers, and I would never go to parties.

I’ve always been a bundle of contradictions and it’s only now, as I get older, that I’m beginning to understand myself. My anxiety is crippling, and I now work hard to deal with it.

Being naked has always made me more relaxed. I shed my anxiety somehow along with my clothes. I’m not shy about my body at all even though I no longer have abs, and my stomach has moved since having surgery to fix a prolapsed disc – the result of a misjudged dismount off the unicycle, where I was catapulted into the audience.

I will wander around naked at home, and forget that I’m not wearing clothes when I open the door. When my kids were younger, one of my sons brought a friend round and begged me to get dressed.

I’m now a painter and decorator but (when events still happen!) I still perform – for example, at Brighton Fringe Festival with some friends as Der Wunderlich Revue. We do a boylesque act, though we’re hardly boys anymore.

I like being older. I don’t care what anyone thinks. I have my own style – I call it ‘eccentric gentleman’ – and although my anxiety is challenging at times, and can even be overwhelming, I’m happier now than I was when I was younger.

I sometimes ended up in relationships for the security of having somewhere to sleep"

the Rebellious Survivor

Bella Kirkus, 52, is a divorced teaching assistant and mum of two from Kemptown, East Sussex

hen most women or the medical profession talk about the menopause they mention hot flushes, putting on weight, and a dry vagina. In reality it’s fucking horrendous. I’d veer between panicking I was pregnant when my period was late, or didn’t come at all, and was overwhelmed with emotions ranging from raging anger to abject despair. I thought I was going mad, and in the end had a nervous breakdown.

I wasn’t hospitalised, but I probably should have been. I was having nightly panic attacks when I’d wake at 3am and it would feel like someone was driving a fast train through my heart.

The menopause coincided with my first sexual relationship in almost eight years and when I didn’t come on some months, I’d fear I was pregnant and go through so much trauma.

I’m the breadwinner, and have to look after my two kids – one of whom is on the autistic spectrum. I worried that if I was pregnant and couldn’t work, we’d lose everything and I couldn’t put my family through that. I’ve been homeless in the past as my parents were both substance abusers who moved abroad when I was 18.

I had to fend for myself, and at times would face sleeping on the streets. It meant I sometimes ended up in relationships for the security of having somewhere to sleep. I was quite attractive when I was younger, but instead of making life easier, that brought a lot of

unwanted attention and pestering. I was objectified and not seen as me, so I rebelled and refused to be girly.

I’d cut my hair short and wear androgynous clothes. Then guys would say: ‘You’d be so pretty if you were more feminine.’ I found that insulting.

Now I’ve been through the menopause and have gone from a size 8 at my smallest to a 14 I’m no longer pestered. That’s even more insulting as it shows women are no longer considered attractive or even worth objectifying once they’ve lost their youth.

I find going naked a form of therapy. I no longer have a banging body, but going nude in public has made me realise we come in all shapes and sizes, and it’s OK to look the way I do. I go to the nudist beach in Kemptown and have been on a naked bike ride and even a naked flight on the i360 in Brighton.

There were people of all ages from in their 20s and 30s right up to their 70s –and it felt so safe and gentle as well as liberating. Everyone is relaxed and by being so vulnerable to others – showing yourself without any clothes – it makes me stronger.

I’ve never had it easy. Growing up with two addicted parents was hard. My brother was an alcoholic by the age of 12, and I’ve had to care for him as well as look after myself and my kids. I’m still on minimum wage and the menopause was traumatic. But I’ve got through all of it and kept my family together – I care for my brother as well as my kids.

I’m a survivor and after fighting to have a voice all my life I finally have one. When you enter your middle age people judge you as a woman first, then as an older woman, and can’t seem to get past that. I don’t worry anymore about what they think. I’m a survivor and proud of everything I’ve achieved.

Where are all the older lesbians? the silver sapphists

You probably won’t realise it, but Lesbian Visibility Week has existed since 2008. This year, on the event website, the DIVA Media Group stated: “Lesbian Visibility Week aims to show our solidarity with all LGBTQI woman and nonbinary people in the community, as well as celebrate lesbians.”

Yes, you read that right: “as well as”. An event meant to be dedicated to celebrating and making lesbians more visible now has to be shared with “all LGBTQI woman and nonbinary people”. See? We don’t even deserve to have our very own designated week anymore, just as nowadays we don’t appear to deserve lesbian-only spaces, groups, events, discos, publications or marches.

Straight Welsh feminist Hazel Turner-Lyons wrote an article entitled What Women Owe Lesbians. And I quote: “I remain reassured by the visible presence of lesbians in society and enriched by my friendships with lesbians. What damage are we unleashing on women as a whole when we stop lesbians from being able to form their own communities, learn their history and culture, and organise politically?”

Turner-Lyons has put it in a nutshell: if you damage one group of women, it is easier to damage all women. Let’s face it, all women know how none of us are valued or respected or fairly represented in society. We are the 51.9% – the majority, treated as a minority. And within that majority, there lies the

minority of lesbians and then, Russian doll-like, the minority of lesbians aged over 50. The invisible invisibles.

All women suffer inequality

2019 data from the Office of National Statistics showed that women’s salaries were on average 28% lower than men’s. And women would be paid £260,000 less than men during their careers

a decade earlier than men. And you don’t have to stretch the imagination very far to deduce that it’s unmarried, child-free lesbians of a certain age who are often expected to step into the unpaid carer’s role.

In 2009, Dr. Jane Traies published a groundbreaking thesis Now You See Me: The Invisibility of Older Lesbians and reached this damning conclusion: “Older lesbians in Britain today are rendered invisible by a combination of sexism,

If you damage one group of women, it is easier to damage all women...

Out of the 10,014 employers who submitted data, eight out of 10 pay men more than women, with women paid a median hourly rate that was nearly 10% less than their male colleagues.

And, of course, thanks to successive governments who have all had the chance to change the effects of the 1995 and 2011 Pension Acts, nearly four million women (including me) in the UK have lost our state pension until we are 66 –around £50,000 expected pension income per woman.

Finally, a 2019 report by Carers UK found that half of women will be unpaid carers by the time they reach their mid-40s – on average,

ageism, and hetero-sexism; that lack of media representation has been a decisive factor in maintaining their invisibility.”

She was spot on. And that media and cultural invisibility and erasure of lesbians, especially us silver sapphists, has been decisive, particularly in the past decade. For example, there has been a steady stream of stage shows of varying quality that have focused entirely on gay men’s versions of events of the ‘70s and ‘80s – the most recent being Cruise, which has enjoyed a run in a prime West End venue.

But don’t expect a West End show focusing on the lesbian version of events any time soon, even though

Rose Collis makes an impassioned call for older lesbians to be seen, heard and, above all, taken seriously

some of us are trying to remedy this. It was this very lopsided take on gay history that prompted me develop my new solo stage show Forty Years Out (And Counting): Performing The Archive in 2019. I decided it was time for a show that, as I told one funder, ‘flags up the lesbian’, based on my experiences of being an out-andproud lesbian writer, performer, and activist for more than four decades. Three successful pre-lockdown previews showed there are indeed theatre audiences thirsting to hear our side of history.

Note I say ‘lesbian’, not ‘queer’ – that all-encompassing term reclaimed in the early ‘90s that has tediously re-emerged as the PC adjective du jour. One of the negative results of ‘queering’ everything is that any project or organisation with a queer prefix tends to be more successful in getting public and commercial funding, as well as conference, exhibition, publishing and performance space.

But if you use a ‘lesbian’ or ‘dyke’ prefix – hmmm… not so much. Now Facebook won’t even allow anyone to use the term ‘dyke’, without risking warnings and a spell in Zuckerberg Penitentiary.

There’s a need for a history lesson

As Audre Lorde wrote: “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognise, accept, and celebrate those differences… In our

Let me offer some of the worst recent offenders in terms of invisibi

L ity

Exhibit One: In 2019, as the 50th anniversary of the pivotal Stonewall riots in New York drew nigh, there was a debate about who was really there, how they would be identified, who started it, and so on. Most accounts of this historical moment have omitted or downplayed the role of Stormé DeLarverie. As Julia Diana Robertson wrote in Huffington Post in 2017: “Let’s set the record straight (no pun intended): a butch lesbian was responsible for starting the first Stonewall riot.”

And do NOT get me started on Channel 4’s It’s A Sin. Oh, alright then, if you insist…

Exhibit Two: In my view, this much-hyped TV drama was one of the finest examples of cultural work to blatantly and deliberately erase lesbian women from the representation of an era when we were, arguably, at our most visible and politically active. In the early years of the AIDS crisis, lesbians stepped

up – protesting, campaigning, counselling, volunteering, fund-raising, writing.

As Julie Burchill pointed out in her piece for The Spectator, What’s happened to all the lesbians?: “‘I wish I could have paid tribute to the lesbians’ ran a Diva magazine headline about its writer, Russell T. Davies. Well, why didn’t you, then?” Quite.

It does a great disservice to women like me who campaigned, wrote, and mourned alongside our gay brothers. I cannot understand how a drama set in the London lesbian and gay community of the 1980s failed to have any actual lesbians in it – now that’s a sin.

The bitter irony was that it was commissioned by Channel 4, which – under the awesome curatorship of Caroline Spry and Alan Fountain in the ‘80s and ‘90s – commissioned positive programmes about real lesbian lives, including Framed Youth, Women Like Us, Dyke TV, Veronica 4 Rose, and Out on Tuesday. Now, with its cookery, property, DIY, wedding, dating, and medical shows, the channel has gone from the outer realms to Woman’s Realm.

world, divide-and-conquer must become define-and-empower.”

And for that to happen, you need alliances. But in recent years, lesbians have discovered that some of our previous allies are to be found, as the song goes, in all the wrong places.

And therein lies part of the problem – there are still too many gay men of all ages who don’t recognise or acknowledge the huge advantages they have, just by sheer dint of being, y’know, a man. This begets their failure to recognise or, even worse, not care about the appalling, widespread social and economic disadvantages faced by women. Ergo lesbians. Ergo older women. Ergo older lesbians. Such men gag on the term ‘feminists’ but are happy to refer to us as ‘feminazis’. They neither know nor care that they are enabling and supporting lesbian erasure, invisibility, disrespect, and discrimination. @rosecollis

Meanwhile, the BBC contents itself with offering us dykes who are fictional or dead.

The late, great, raging, roaring lesbian Jackie Forster had a mantra that she yelled at meetings, social events or, indeed, any damn place where the majority was being treated like a minority: “What about the women?!!!”

Sadly, her cri de cœur remains more necessary than ever – and not just for

It does a great disservice to women like me who campaigned, wrote, and mourned alongside our gay brothers

lesbians. The question is: who will join in with the shouting?

CAPTION Rose on Gay Pride march, 1983

CAPTION ABOVE Framed Youth, commissioned by Channel 4, 1983/4

out of the shadows

Polari – from the Italian ‘palare’ (meaning ‘to talk’) – is a form of slang most commonly associated with gay men, used more widely during the days when male homosexuality was against the law. The language itself has diverse origins – a combination of Italian and Romantic roots, plus Romany, backslang (saying things backwards), Yiddish, Cockney, and other street and sailor slang, (mostly from London).

The point of Polari was, largely, to avoid the law knowing what the hell you were talking about or getting up to. And so the language is constantly evolving, to keep one step ahead of intelligence. Many of the words have made their way into common parlance.

In 2021, Polari lives on as the inspiration for literary events and awards where the focus is very much on inclusivity. Author Paul Burston talks to SILVER about how Polari is still relevant, how far gay

rights have come in the UK, and how much further there is to go.

What are the origins of Polari?

The origins are complex. At various times, it was spoken by circus folk, sailors, Romany gypsies and other social outsiders, but it’s most commonly associated with gay men. In the 1960s, it was popularised by Kenneth Williams and Hugh Paddick as camp comedy couple Julian and Sandy on the BBC radio show Round the Horne. Their conversation was laced with sexual innuendo and made regular use of Polari. They used slang like ‘bona lallies’, which means ‘nice legs’, and ‘dolly eek’, which means ‘handsome face’, in a knowing way that many gay listeners of the time would have recognised.

Did any other cultural icons use Polari?

Yes, when David Bowie launched

his Ziggy Stardust character and album in 1972, he gave a famous interview to Melody Maker. He camped it up outrageously, claimed he was gay and spoke in Polari to prove his queer credentials; despite being married with a child. His final album Blackstar also contains elements of Polari on the track ‘Girl Loves Me’.

Why was Polari important to the gay community during the 20th century?

Polari was sometimes referred to as ‘the lost language of gay men’ and it was most popular after WWII and before the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, when male homosexuality was still against the law. Thousands of gay and bisexual men were imprisoned for consensual sex acts. Men used Polari as a coded way of communicating with each other at a time when being openly homosexual carried the risk of arrest.

Are there any words that became more widely used?

Some words made it into common parlance, such as ‘naff’, which originally meant ‘straight’ or ‘Not Available For Fucking’!

Was the 1967 Sexual Offences Act a watershed moment for gay men?

Contrary to popular belief, the act didn’t actually make gay sex legal. It only decriminalised it under certain circumstances. The age of consent for gay men was set at 21, compared to 16 for heterosexuals. Homosexual acts were tolerated, providing they took place in private and no more than two people were present.

The freedoms that straight people take for granted weren’t afforded to us. If a nosy neighbour spotted two men kissing inside their own home and reported them to the police, they could be charged with a public disorder offence. You could be fired from your job or refused

out shadows of the

Author Paul Burston reflects on how Polari, a coded language with a colourful history, is still having an influence on LGBTQ culture today

shadows

accommodation simply for being gay. It’s worth remembering that this remained the case until a mere 20 years ago. Public displays of affection could and often did still lead to arrest.

Were there any other law changes that were really important?

Astonishingly, the specifically gay crime of ‘gross indecency’, for which Oscar Wilde was imprisoned more than a century ago, remained in law until as recently as 2003. These days we have an equal age of consent, partnership rights and employment rights. All of these things were unthinkable back in 1967.

Is it easier to be a gay man in the UK today?

Yes, a lot has changed since 1967. But homophobia hasn’t gone away. It still isn’t safe to walk the streets holding your partner’s hand or looking a certain way. There’s always an element of risk involved.

These days we have an equal age of consent, partnership rights, and employment rights. All of these things were unthinkable back in 1967 "

Polari words in common Parlance

Bevvy: drink

Bijou: small

Butch: masculine; masculine lesbian

Camp: effeminate (origin: kamp = known as male prostitute)

Carsey: toilet, also spelt khazi

Crimper: hairdresser

Dish: an attractive male; buttocks

Dizzy: scatterbrained

Drag: clothes, especially women’s clothes

Just recently there’ve been violent homophobic attacks on gay men in Birmingham, Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool and London. A friend of mine was attacked in Brighton. I’ve been assaulted many times in London. It’s easier now than it used to be but it’s still far from ideal.

Do you think it’s harder for lesbians?

It has always been harder for lesbians. They weren’t criminalised the way gay men were, but they did face persecution and were often invisible in a way gay men weren’t. And the notorious Section 28 affected lesbians just as much as gay men, by describing relationships as ‘pretended family relationships’ and making any discussion of our lives during sex education lessons unlawful.

Many young people who grew up lesbian or gay were taught that it was shameful.

Lesbians were at the forefront of the fight against Section 28 and heavily involved in AIDS activism - a fact often glossed over or forgotten. As women, lesbians are doubly oppressed as they also don’t enjoy male privilege. And misogyny and sexism aren’t the exclusive preserve of straight men; some gay men can be just as bad.

These days, there are very few lesbian-only social spaces left, and ongoing disputes between some sections of the lesbian community and some trans activists have led to a lot of animosity and division. I fully support trans rights. I also think it’s important for gay men to support our lesbian sisters, just as they supported us during the AIDS crisis. In fact, I consider it my moral duty.

You’re celebrating Polari to ensure that history doesn’t get forgotten. Tell us about that.

I created a live event, a literary

Fruit: queen

Mince: walk (affectedly)

Naff: bad, drab

Scarper: to run off

Scotch: leg (scotch peg)

Slap: makeup

Trade: sex

Troll: to walk about (especially looking for trade)

salon, to help celebrate and explore the language. Polari is a live showcase for LGBTQ literary talent. It started in 2007 in Soho, London, and grew quickly. We’re currently based at the Southbank Centre, and tour regularly, thanks to Arts Council funding.

I think of it as a cabaret or variety show in which all the acts are writers of one kind or another – authors, poets, spoken word performers. It’s very diverse and very inclusive. Everyone is welcome, regardless of gender or sexuality. And we run two book prizes, for debut and established LGBTQ writers; they’re the only such prizes in the UK. And we’ve been touring the UK, as we have every year since 2014.

For more information about Polari events: www.polarisalon.com @paulburston

Cosmeti Cinfidelity

People lying to their partners about having treatments like Botox and fillers is on the rise. Is this ever okay? We spoke to Emily Kerrison, of Emily Kerrison Aesthetics, who talked – anonymously of course – to a couple of her secretive clients for us. The answers are pretty interesting…

HER

She lives with her partner, and she has Botox and fillers on the quiet…

Q: Why don’t you tell your partner?

A: It’s something I do for myself. When did couples suddenly have to share every little detail with each other?

Q: Do you tell other people?

A: My sister and a couple of my friends know, but we all go together. We like to make a thing of it, like a spa day or shopping trip. One of my girlfriends also keeps it from her partner.

Q: Do you think your partner suspects anything?

A: Honestly, I don’t think he pays much attention. If he does suspect something, he hasn’t mentioned it to me.

Q: Did your partner notice anything different about your appearance during lockdown?

A: There was one time he said I looked tired, but I blamed it on the stress of pandemic. We were all tired!

Q: What’s the most extravagant excuse you have come up with for why you may have looked different?

A: Once, my skin was noticeably more wrinkled and I said I’d run out of my decent

retinol treatment, and so was using a knockoff I’d ordered online.

Q: Do you feel you still ‘need’ treatments after going without for months? Or has this changed how you feel?

A: Yes. If anything, the glimpse into what I’d look like with no filler and no Botox made me feel depressed.

Q: How long have you been getting treatments?

A: Around four years. I never knew about the abundance of treatments available until my friend confessed over a mimosa that she’d been going for skin peels and fillers. I thought I’d try it out just once, and it was life-changing.

Q: Will you ever tell your partner?

A: It’s gone on for so long, I don’t really see how. I thought lockdown would give me a good excuse. I thought after Covid I could say: “Wow, look at my face, this pandemic has aged me. I might test out Botox.” But then there wasn’t really a direct ‘end’ that I could jump aboard and use as an excuse.

Q: Do you feel your partner would be annoyed if they found out?

A: Possibly. He’d probably feel more annoyed at himself for not realising. I earn my own money so he couldn’t be annoyed about what I spend it on.

Q: What’s the hardest thing about keeping it a secret?

A: Waiting for him to notice.

Q: Between you and me, are there other secrets you keep?

A: There may have been a one-night stand, pre-pandemic… I’m not exactly proud of that.

Q: Do you think your other half keeps secrets from you? And if so, what would they be?

A: I don’t think so. If he did, it might be a secret gambling addiction or something. He’s not so good with the secrets though. He thinks I don’t know he watches porn most days.

Q: Do you think you might come clean? Surely after a few more years you might have to?

A: Maybe if he asks directly, I’ll answer. I could say something like “Yes, I just went for a little sample to see if I like it. What do you think?” But I’m not going to bring it up for no reason.

Q: What do you think the response will be?

A: He’d probably say something irritating like: “You don’t need it, you’re beautiful as you are.”

Q: Would you rather be honest?

A: Honestly? No. I like the naughty feeling of having secrets.

HIM

He’s a married man who gets Botox and has never told his wife…

Q: Why don’t you tell your partner?

A: Partly down to the cost, initially. I thought I’d get moaned at for spending what could be considered a reasonable amount for looks (although she probably spends almost as much on Tropic moisturisers and other lotions etc anyway!)

Q: Do you tell other people, or is everyone in the dark?

A: A couple of my very close friends are aware, but it’s not something I would freely tell people – although I will joke about it from time to time: “I look younger thanks to Botox, etc.”

Q: Have you ever had any comments about your appearance?

A: Yes, people have often said I look wellrested, or really well. My wife has since commented that it’s not fair how I’m ageing better than she feels she is…

Q: Do you think your partner suspects anything?

A: Yes, she has said: “I’m sure you’ve secretly been having Botox!”. Awkward.

Q: Did your partner notice anything different about your appearance during lockdown?

A: No, thankfully she didn’t notice I was beginning to age again; just noticed after I suddenly started looking younger once more.

Q: What’s the most extravagant excuse you have come up with for why you may have looked different?

A: I said it’s because I’m drinking more water, perhaps that is the reason why.

Q: Do you feel you still ‘need’ treatments after going without for months? Or has this changed how you feel?

A: Definitely still need treatments, it makes me feel younger, generally happier in my own skin, and less stressed and weathered. I’d say it’s even more important post-

lockdown as everyone seems to carry a stressed older look at the moment (or their Botox has worn off too!).

Q: How long have you been getting treatments?

A: About two years now.

Q: Will you ever tell your partner?

A: I’d like to, but I think it’s now got to the point where she would be annoyed I hadn’t told her sooner, so it’s a lose/lose situation. I might just say that I’ve had it as I was noticing I was getting older and pretend it’s a recent thing.

Q: Do you feel your partner would be annoyed if they found out?

A: Possibly, especially financially; although as mentioned above, it’s probably no more expensive than her treatments, it’s just that mine work!

Q: What’s the hardest thing about keeping it a secret?

A: The swelling from the initial injections. Although the drive back home is just long enough for the swelling to have gone by the time I get in.

Q: Between you and me, are there other secrets you keep?

A: Yes.

Q: Do you think your other half keeps secrets from you?

A: Possibly, although I wouldn’t have thought so. I guess that’s the point of secrets!

Q: Do you think you might come clean?

A: Yes, quite possibly, but probably not about how long.

Q: What do you think the response will be?

A: She will say “I knew it!”

Q: Would you rather be honest?

A: Yeah, but I quite like people thinking I’m naturally younger-looking.

ASK THE EXPERT

So is lying in a relationship ever a good thing?

Dennis Relojo-Howell, founder of psychology website Psychreg and a PhD researcher in clinical psychology at the University of Edinburgh, says that couples lying to each other is more common than we think.

“Some studies suggest that couples lie to each other on an average of three times a week. In most cases, people lie to protect their personal interests. But people also lie in a relationship to protect it from breaking up. For instance, we may hide our expenses from our partner to avoid getting into an argument.

“Lies can also be an indication of more widespread selfishness and disregard for the other party, which can make them feel unloved and unwanted.

“The first step towards curbing lying is to identify the reason behind it. Identifying triggers can help with understanding why you lie. It’s also helpful for both parties for you to apologise to your significant other for lying to them.”

www.psychreg.org

Alex Mellor-Brook is co-founder of Select Personal Introductions.

“How little is your ‘little white lie’? Telling lies to your partner is pretty common in a relationship. But what size lie are you telling? Protecting someone’s feelings, saving face, or avoiding confrontation can be an incentive to fabricate the truth.

“How often you tell a lie, how manipulative it becomes, and the reason why you lied can end in a toxic situation. Relationships are built on trust and lies can undermine all your hard work.

“If you do find yourself lying about something and it doesn’t sit well with you, own it. ‘I said or did this and I wasn’t completely truthful. I’m sorry I should have been honest with you.’ Before you tell a lie ask yourself why? Is it for an easy life? Do I really want to keep lying to the person I love?”

www.selectservices.co.uk

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New tricks to go glam Get the look

Naomi Campbell always dazzles. But this is a subtle masterclass in how to soften your makeup as you mature

She’s famously sober these days, so her skin will benefit from increased hydration, and there’s no doubt she can afford great skin care. But if you’ve been using the same makeup forever, it’s time for a change.

Using the right primers, foundations, and concealers can make a world of difference. Less is more. Heavy makeup accentuates pores and creases; and too much powder dries out skin and makes it look flaky. Aim for dewy and fresh, not cake and bake.

SKIN

Aim for dewy and fresh, not cake and bake

Prepare your skin with a light and lovely primer, and it’ll help soften open pores and fine lines etc. We love the Pro-Collagen Insta-Smooth Primer from Elemis, £58.

Once your skin is prepped, aim for a light concealer. The Lancôme Teint Idole Ultra Wear All Over Concealer, £25, is a really flexible option. It can act as a primer too; meaning one less layer, and less chance of caking and creasing.

Foundation. Pick something light with a dewy sheen, rather than a heavy matte finish. We love the Illamasqua Skin Base Foundation, £33.

For blush, go for a light liquid, like the Armani Neo Nude, £32, and just pat a small amount on the apple of your cheek. A light dusting of very fine powder will do to finish.

LIPS

Finally, lips! Warmer nudes will work better than garish brights for this look. Use a slightly darker lip pencil around the outside edges, and blot to help avoid bleeding. A softer glossy-type lipstick always brings the glamour. We’ve fallen in love with Victoria Beckham’s Posh Lipstick –shown here in ‘Pout’, £34.

like this Illamasqua Illustrator Pen, £21, but those with fairer skin should swap for browns. Stick to only the top lid, with just a sweep of eyeshadow colour along the lower line. Mascara; again, brown is less harsh for more mature fair skin, but for some real pizzazz or a night out, don’t shy away from some false eyelashes to make your eyes pop!

For eyeshadow, Naomi has some warm, tawny russets fading to palest lilac on her lids here. Accentuate the outside of the top lid with the darker colours, and bring lighter colour closer to the nose. We found this gorgeous little Chanel palette, Les 4 Ombres – 378 Douceur et Sérénité, £44, had a really simple range of colours to create a similar look. Beware of too much sparkle though – it can travel around your face and settle into creases.

beauty is more than skin deep face values

Things change as we age, there’s no two ways about it. Beauty columnist Karen Davis tells you how to turn that change, quite literally, into the time of your life…

When I reached my late 40s, I found myself in a perfect storm. A career on the slide, children flown, and the fun of the menopause to embrace. But I also realised that, although mid-life can be a very real challenge, it can also be a force for positive change. And the more I worked through the issues of maturing, and menopause, and madness, the more I realised that I needed a tribe.

What I wanted was for others to know that they’re not alone. So, being the sort of person I am, I wrote an Amazon #1 best-selling book on

how to live mid-life well, as you do. I called it Time of Your Life – a clever play on words, as I like to imagine. I wanted to explore what it was like for women who a hundred years ago would have been being measured for their coffin. And look instead at ways of celebrating that.

I also realised that there were other parts of my world that weren’t in tandem with this kind of positive/realistic outlook, and one of them was close to my heart. Beauty products. I decided it was high time we celebrated the mature client, and started my beauty subscription box for over-40s.

How to get the best from your skin and makeup

Wrinkles, lines, jowls – the list of words that you quite often see associated with skin over 50 isn’t an inspiring mix. But let me tell you, at SILVER, we are looking at things differently. Here are the top ten things you can do to encourage great skin over 50.

WATER

This doesn’t surprise you, does it? We can topically apply products that help retain water on the skin’s surface but nothing beats drinking it – two litres day regardless of how many loo breaks that makes.

MOVE

Nothing

Guess what I called it.

And now I’m here to partner with SILVER Magazine to curate and develop gorgeous beauty boxes, just for you. Chosen specifically for more mature skins and bodies; just wait until you see what we have to offer!

I really want you to value YOU – inside and out. And I hope this exclusive collection of absolutely gorgeous beauty products goes some way towards making that happen. And for good measure, here’s some advice from an old beauty PR pro. www.toyl.co.uk

EAT THE RAINBOW

Get the fruit and veg down you. Berries, walnuts, seeds, probiotic yoghurt – you know the drill.

SUPPLEMENTS

Now, I’m not a doctor so always consult yours before taking supplements, but it’s a pretty fair guess that you will be light on Omega3, Zinc, Vit C, magnesium and a few others. Vit D is also worth a look at as well.

SPF

Sun damage will sap your glow. SPF30 every day, even in winter. One of my favourites is Ultrasun FACE SPF30 (25ml / £11 / www.ultrasun.com).

EXFOLIATE

Every few days the top layer of skin needs to be turned over because we need to allow the fresh skin cells below to come through. However, we were brought up with facial ‘scrubs’. You remember, the stuff with bits in it. All facial scrubs with bits – whether it’s oats, apricot kernels, coconut fibre – I don’t care, bin them. They really scratch your skin. Go for a liquid exfoliator such as Jane Scrivner’s Skinfoliate (150ml / £29); its a mix of very mild acids – use at night a couple of times each week after cleansing.

SERUMS

These are the money shot in beauty terms after the age of 50. If you want to splash the cash, here is the place to do it. Top choice for me is BioEffect EGF Serum (15ml / £130 / www.bioeffect.co.uk) because it retains moisture in the skin superbly, and we want that because moisture plumps, giving glow and freshness.

MASKS

DOUBLE CLEANSE

Double cleanse is a new phenomenon. At night only, the first cleanse is with something like Emma Hardie’s Moringa Cleansing Balm (100ml / £47 / www.emmahardie.com), an oilbased cleanser that you gently massage into skin. Once done, use a water-soluble cleanser like Gatineau’s Micellar Milk Cleanser (200ml / £23 / www.gatineau.com) – you’ll really see the difference in tone and glow if you keep this up.

LOOK AT YOUR SKIN

Here’s a crazy thought – why don’t you look at your skin each day and think about what it needs? If you’ve had a heavy night, bring out the big guns such as day serums, liquid exfoliators, face oils, eye creams and moisturisers. If your skin is looking half decent, dial it down with a light moisturiser and serum. Give your skin what it asks you for.

Sleep is key and I’ve been road testing SleepSmug’s Contoured 3D Blackout Sleep Mask (£12 / www.sleepsmug.com). It’s shaped a bit like a padded bra so that the mask doesn’t rest on your eyes (so if you have lash extensions it’s no bother) but does keep the light out. I’ve also been checking out Sensory Retreats Self-Heating Eye Masks (£3.95 / www.sensoryretreats.com). These are single-use as a heated eye mask (you can keep as a regular eye mask rather than throwing it away) and if you pop a bit of eye cream on before you use it works a treat!

CULTIVATORS CHANGE of

Nothing Resets like Nature

Reset your skin for a healthy glow

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SILVER Exclusive Beauty BoxOffer

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Capitalising on your summer sun-kissed legs, or planning a winter sun break?

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We’re giving away one Silver Autumn Beauty Box to a lucky reader! To enter simply visit the SILVER Magazine website: www.silvermagazine.co.uk/category/ competitions

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Whether you’re headed for winter sun, booking festivals for next year, or simply revving up your party game, do it in Glorious Technicolor

PHOTOGRAPHER Erika Szostak

LIGHTING ASSISTANT Lili Harrington-Lowe

PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Carly Pepperell

MAKEUP ARTIST Charlene Howells

HAIR Melodie at Restore

MODELS Helene Evans and Laura Hazeldine

STYLIST Sam Harrington-Lowe

WARDROBE Genevieve Ng and Bella Currie

SOCIAL AND LOCATIONS Nathalie Croxon

t he Last of

val Festi

un val F the

Helene wears Heart-Shaped Sunglasses with Pink Lens, ASOS DESIGN, £14 Cami Wrap Maxi Dress with Lace Up Back, ASOS DESIGN, £35 It’s Always Sunny Trainers (opposite), Irregular Choice, £119 It’s Always Sunny Crossbody Bag (opposite), Irregular Choice, £39.99 Poodle Oodle Necklace, Irregular Choice, £19 Pink Fur Coat, model’s own

Helene wears Short Sleeve Pyjama Set in Orange, ASOS DESIGN, £32 Summer Slips, Irregular Choice, £99 Mid Square Sunglasses with Bevel in Pale Yellow, ASOS DESIGN, £12 Beaded Necklace in Turquoise, & Other Stories, £17 Vest, model’s own

Laura wears

Sunglasses with Pink Lens in Green, ASOS DESIGN, £13.50 Co-ord: Vendala Fringed Crop Top, L.O.M Fashion, £120 and Vendala Leggings, L.O.M Fashion, £99

Laura wears Street Ready Sunglasses in Pink, Vans, £12

It’s Always Sunny Trainers, Irregular Choice, £119 Co-ord: Indus Sequin Leggings in Dahlia, £135 and Twinks

Sequin Crop Top in Dahlia, £48, both Rosa Bloom Bracelet, model’s own

Laura as per previous page, He L ene wears Körpermitose Fringed Catsuit, L.O.M Fashion, £185 Forest of Dreams Sequin Festival Robe, L.O.M Fashion, £160 Booyah Sandals in Purple, Irregular Choice, £49.99

Sunglasses, model’s own

Laura wears

Chillaxing Sandals, Irregular Choice, £49.99

Opposite:

Mitosis Party Catsuit, L.O.M Fashion, £155

Körpermitose Shoulder Cape, L.O.M Fashion, £120

Top hat and Sunglasses, model’s own

Has it been so long in lockdown that you don’t have a clue what to wear when you go out?

s party season kicks off, who better to turn to for inspiration than jazzy Jeff Goldblum, working his cool and classic on the red carpet. Pairing black and blue takes a bit of skill, but we love what he’s got here – black coat, dark blue tie, black shoes. It’s a elegant look with a bit of a twist.

PAUL

Autumn Vibes

It’s AW21 and we’re looking at warm chromatics mixed with black and white staples. Block colours, bold patterns, coffees and creams. A pick of some of our faves…

FATFACE Checked Cape £35

RIVER ISLAND Mac £110

MATALAN Paperbag Checked Trousers £16

F&FCashmere Mink

V-neck Jumper £59

NOLOGO Tina Malhamé Hand-Printed Zig-Zag Shirt Dress £79

LISA SNOWDON FOR KALEIDOSCOPE –Windowpane Check Jacket £79, Leather Cropped Trousers £159

ASPIGA Suede Ankle Boot in Coffee £145

BARBOUR GLENDEVON Knit Cardigan £99.95

F&F Black Fur Headband £6

DUNE

JOHN LEWIS Cream Teddy Coat £68

OLIVER BONAS Black And Gold Scarf £35

CREW CLOTHING COMPANY Fisherman

holiday wear for chaps get-upGustav’s

Chap editor Gustav Temple on how to cut a late summer sartorial dash anywhere from the French Riviera to Bognor Regis

Chap style icons such as David Niven and Ronald Coleman, usually swaddled in dashing winter wear for photographs, provide little guidance for togs for wintering in the sun. What we do know is that the winter layering process must be stripped down in balmier climes. Wearing fewer layers requires more thought, as each of those fewer layers must be the sine qua non of their function.

HOW TO PARE TO THE BONE

You may only have space for one jacket in your luggage, so make sure it will cover all eventualities – including feeling rather warm under the collar. If the destination you optimistically booked earlier this year happens to have made it to the coveted Green List, the temptation may be to ‘go native’ and loaf about in khaki shorts, flip-flops – and a T-shirt. This, for a chap, would be a dereliction of duty, a sop to the multitude.

If the clobber outlined below sounds like it will need several trunks to be transported, the answer is to wear the main components on the journey and fill your hand luggage with the rest of the lighter items. It is perfectly plausible to visit a hot country, including the UK with its legendary three-day heatwaves, in an ensemble that not only prevents one from slowly melting in the midday sun, but which also displays gentlemanly sartorial credentials.

You never know – a chance encounter with a stray countess at the beach bar may lead to an invitation to a cocktail party, and that’s where your flip-flops would severely let you down.

TROUSERS

Lightness of cloth is paramount when strolling about during the passeggiata hour, but so too is lightness of colour, especially if wearing a dark blazer.

SHIRT

If (or rather, because) you are wearing a jacket or blazer, this is very likely to be removed when the sun is high in the sky, so opt for something that tells its own story, such as a navy striped linen shirt, £95, from www.sirplus.co.uk. This company also makes short-sleeved shirts, which may be necessary in the tropics, such as a yellow Tencel Cuban shirt in cotton, £95. Under no circumstances is it acceptable to wear a Hawaiian shirt, unless you have been invited to a fancy-dress party while on your hols.

JACKET

Although sartorial rules dictate that one’s trousers should always be darker than one’s jacket, the Riviera look is the exception, and obeys the light chino/dark blazer diktat. For the vintage look, Darcy Clothing offer a lightweight cotton moleskin cricket trouser at £86, while those unafraid to clothe their pins in a more contemporary silhouette can head straight over to Spoke London for a pair of their cotton lightweights at £99. Walker Slater’s linen pantaloons are also worth a try, especially their Edward Trousers at £145, for which the matching jacket may also be acquired.

This will be your most essential item, as you will need it for the journey abroad, so as many pockets as possible is a prerequisite for all the millions of forms, vaccine certificates et cetera you will need to present at the airport.

For a lightweight cotton twill jacket, Universal Works presents the most favourable option, the London jacket, £175, which boasts a total of five pockets, including one for a pocket square. It comes in colours ranging from cream to dark navy.

Walker Slater’s collaboration with The Chap resulted in the Chap Linen Suit (jacket £245, as worn by yours truly, pictured), available from www.thechap.co.uk. A cream linen three-piece suit is the ideal garment in which to saunter about the summer streets of any resort in the world. The cut of the jacket gives a relaxed fit with soft shoulders, a single vent, two flap pockets and a breast pocket and threebutton fastening. The lightweight satin viscose part-lining ensures further relaxation potential when temperatures begin to soar.

SUNGLASSES

Probably the most important accessory to pack is one’s lunettes de soleil, for without these you will be so blinded by the sunlight that admiring glances from the local populace will go unnoticed.

Why are decent sunglasses, or spectacles for that matter, so darned expensive? Nobody knows, but the answer is not to grab a cheap pair at the airport. Kirk Originals’ Warwick in amber tortoiseshell with dark green lenses will set you back £225, but you will never grow out of them.

The more economical option comes from Dead Men’s Spex, whose range is so vast – and helpfully categorised by decade – that you are likely to find something similar to those you covet elsewhere, at a much more affordable price. Their Classic American Atomic Age frames in black acetate frame with metal brow detailing are £60, plus £45 for non-prescription polarised lenses.

fashion

FOOTWEAR

A word of warning to the travelling chap, whether to foreign climes or the English Riviera: you are very likely to encounter the shoeless. While exterior temperatures will, it must be admitted, preclude the full brogue boot on the beach, there is no need to allow standards to drop as low as the flip-flop.

Even the popular Birkenstock sandal flies dangerously close to being infra dig. Why would a grown man wish to be shod like a five-year-old boy? It is worth adding that there is no known trouser that looks good with such a scandalous sandal.

Grenson has produced the Quincy Sandal, priced at £180, based on those available in most traditional shoe shops in southern Europe, which at least covers the toes and the heel. A more wallet-friendly pair, the Angulus, is available from www.footway.com at £116.

For a shoe that one could actually enter a restaurant wearing, saddle shoes are another light option. Rocket Originals and Collectif make them for men, priced at £99 and £95 respectively. Loafers also cut the mustard. Jones the Bootmaker makes an acceptable penny loafer for £89, and don’t forget to stick a penny into the upper for that preppy detail. But don’t go too preppy and wear

climes, and Pachacuti make the highest grade, peddled from a website site called www.panamas.co.uk. Prices for their ethically produced Ecuadorean Panamas range from £85 to £320, but their prices reflect a product built to survive the fierce summers and tropical downpours of equatorial regions.

Olney’s Panamas, available from www.hatsandcaps. co.uk, are more affordable, starting at £60 for a white one with a traditional black band – a tradition that began with the death of Queen Victoria and never stopped. Of course, the main purpose of wearing a Panama is to advertise to the other tourists that a British gentleman is in town, but if you wish to rule out every last shred of uncertainty, then wear a straw boater.

NECKWEAR

It is around the throat that a chap may display his dandy credentials most effectively, and the least sweltering neck adornment is of course the cravat.

The more sartorially adventurous may wish to brave the foulard, or neckerchief, for a slightly more playboy look. Geoff Stocker (www.geoffstocker.com) has turned his pocket square skills to what he has named a bandana, in 30% silk and 70% cotton, measuring 24 inches on each side. It is designed to be thrown around the throat carelessly, so that it flaps in the breeze and pretty ladies can spot one from a distance. It is appropriately called ‘The Waking Dream’ and costs £85 (5). The Chap cravat, £35, based on the peacock pocket square, will liven up any plain shirt with its

the main purpose of wearing a Panama is to advertise that a British gentleman is in town

SOCKS

You could try strutting about in a pair of loafers or deck shoes without socks, but this will not mark you out as a man of style, and certainly not as a British gentleman. The lightest socks on the market that eschew any absurd patterns or motifs are from Dueple (dueplesocks.com), who also make rather fetching ribbed socks for winter. Their Fine Guage 220 Needle Socks, £9.90, come in a huge range of plain bold colours, as well as white or black.

Gustav Temple has been editor of The Chap Magazine – Britain’s longest-serving gentleman’s quarterly – for 20 years. The Chap aims to help men up their sartorial game. www.thechap.co.uk

@thechapmag

GaryKemp moving not

PHOTOS Malcolm Venville

moving forward, t looking back

The former Spandau Ballet songwriter and guitarist talks about his first solo album in 25 years, and how ageing in the music industry is no bad thing

responsible for some of the 1980s’ most memorable songs, including True Gold, and Through The Barricades, there’s no denying that Gary Kemp is a talented songwriter. Now, with INSOLO, his first solo album since 1995’s Little Bruises, Kemp’s lyrics have taken on a more reflective stance, as he explores the passage of time and the concept of facing up to “other incarnations of myself”.

These ‘other incarnations’ span decades. Spandau Ballet was formed in 1979, when Kemp was 20. The band had 23 hit singles, all written by Kemp, spending a combined total of more than 500 weeks in the UK charts, and achieving more than 25 million album sales worldwide.

Today, at 61, Kemp explains that he experienced something of an epiphany when writing the new album. “I realised that I never had to lie again in a song,” he says. “When you’re a kid writing lyrics, you’re making most of it up. You’re listening to other songs

people are still making judgements on the music that I made as a 20-year-old

and you think, ‘Oh, I need to write a song about that subject’. But when you get to a certain age, you’ve lived through most of those subjects.”

While this could, arguably, make the songwriting process somewhat easier, it could also evoke a certain wistfulness – something that Kemp isn’t afraid to embrace. “I think a lot of the words [on the album] were inspired by me feeling my own mortality, about having more behind me than in front of me and trying to come to terms with that.”

Is this something he worries about a lot? “My kids make me feel young,” he admits. “And the whole music business makes you feel young. But the problem is that in the music business, you’re also constantly being shown younger versions of yourself.” He continues: “I’m still being critiqued on my 22-year-old self. You know, people are still making judgements on the music that I made as a 20-year-old.”

Kemp explores this theme in one particularly poignant track on the album, I Remember You. “It’s about me looking back on a younger, stronger, sharper version of myself. At times with regret, but at other times with longing.”

There is T his cons Tan T demand T o ge T s pandau Balle T B ack T oge T her.

Bu T we don’ T comple T ely enjoy B eing in T he same room as each o T her

He wrote the album during lockdown in 2020, the situation allowing him to explore the feelings of isolation, and reflect on the past. “It was definitely a great escape for me because on the other side of my life, I had the pressures of the family being together every day; I was doing home schooling. And we were being inundated with bad news and more bad news; I was just at my wits’ end. And I remember going into the piano room and writing the track Too Much. At the end of the day, I just wanted to protect my family.”

When you get to a certain age, I think you need to W rite a song about getting older, and about losing a lot of your physical poW er

Kemp lives in London with his second wife, costume designer Lauren Barber, and their three sons. “I’ve been with my wife for the past 20 years but there are versions of myself that she doesn’t know, that maybe have no connection to me now,” he muses.

Has this deep dive into the past make him think about touring with Spandau Ballet again? And perhaps putting their well-publicised differences behind them?

“There is this constant demand to get Spandau Ballet back together,” he says. “But we don’t completely enjoy being in the same room as each other. I think unless you can be creative in a studio and do new music together, then just going out doing the stuff that you wrote years ago isn’t enough to be a band.”

Kemp describes being on the road again when they reformed (once in 2009 and again, briefly, in 2018) as being ‘stressful’, and something that he doesn’t need right now. “It would be great fun to play on stage with the band because we make a sound that was really good, and unique, and special,” he admits, “and I’m really proud of that. But I think what Spandau fans don’t understand is that life isn’t as easy as just us appearing on stage.”

It’s not as if Kemp has much time for a Spandau Ballet reunion, anyway. As well as his solo material, he’s busy touring as guitarist and co-lead vocalist in Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets, formed by Pink Floyd drummer Mason to perform early Pink Floyd material. He also has a successful podcast, Rockonteurs, with Saucerful of Secrets bassist Guy Pratt. Each week they invite music industry royalty from the 1980s to the present day to discuss “the real stories behind real music”. Previous guests have included John

Taylor, Gary Numan, Jon Bon Jovi, and Noel Gallagher, as well as younger brother Martin, with whom he’s always been close.

It’s no surprise that Kemp is still very well connected in the music world. In fact, he was able to call on some of his industry mates to contribute to INSOLO, among them Queen’s Roger Taylor –playing drums on the aforementioned Too Much – and The Feeling’s Richard Jones and brother Martin Kemp playing bass on some tracks too. Nick Mason also worked on the album, and has clearly been a recent influence in Kemp’s career.

“He opened me up to a different audience, I suppose, which has given the ability to be able to put more complex musical arrangements on this record. I really felt that now, more than ever, I had to make some new music that represented me today, and that wasn’t like songs that I write for other people, or the songs I wrote for Tony [Hadley] to sing. These are songs that could only be sung by me.”

So does this album represent a departure into different musical territory? “In 1983, it just so happened that at that particular time I wrote True and that changed our lives. I found a sound with that band that I really liked. But it’s not who I am completely.”

What does he think about today’s artists? “I’m a hugely eclectic lover of music, and there are current artists like St. Vincent, for example, who I think are extraordinary. But I hear stories about people writing songs that go straight to the chorus because they just want to get it on TikTok. And there are the record company executives who are utterly depressed at having to just sign TikTok songs. I’m not in that world. I never grew up in that world.”

With all this looking back at the past, is he happy with life? “Yeah, everything’s fine. When you get to a certain age, I think you need to write a song about getting older, and about losing a lot of your physical power. And I’m hoping that people will find something in that.

“At the moment, I’m really happy in the world that I’m in, which isn’t being in Spandau Ballet, but it’s still respecting everything we did and wanting to be creative in a more autonomous way, really.”

INSOLO is out now

Club Nootropicana

In an attempt to fend off early senior moments, comedian Simon Evans road-tests nootropics

PHOTOS Steve Best

ootropics are – according to Wikipedia –“drugs, supplements and other substances that are claimed to improve cognitive function, particularly executive functions, memory, creativity or motivation in healthy individuals”. The word ‘claimed’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.

Lately, a number of beautifully packaged and branded subpharmacological propositions are being marketed at silver panthers, or whatever the marketing goons are calling the 50+ demographic this week. Basically, the target market is old-timers who are hoping to regain a fraction of the wakefulness and mental grip we took for granted not so long ago. I wanted to find out if these nonprescription novelties worked. I am 56, and general wear and tear is setting in.

Memory is a thing I remember fondly

This getting-old lark doesn’t sound so bad if you can laugh at yourself, I had thought, expecting it to start happening when I was 70. But no, it kicked in at 54. Suddenly, I was unable to ascend the stairs without blood draining from the brain to such a degree that I forgot the word ‘scissors’ long enough to remember that that’s why I went upstairs in the first place.

Two flights of stairs to the attic room and I was wiped clean. I could barely remember what year it was let alone the purpose of the mission. I had to stick a list of things I might go upstairs for to the landing wall. But I couldn’t read it because I lost my glasses. So I’d look for clues and spot a cup of tea I made half an hour earlier from a previous futile expedition upstairs.

The tea would be cold, most likely with an insect floating on the surface, but still look drinkable. So I’d take the tea downstairs, scoop out the fatality, and pop it in the microwave so my spirits would be revived and I could start again. Because – obviously – I’d rather take a layer of skin off my lower lip than admit defeat and waste 4p on a new teabag.

Halfway down the stairs, I’d congratulate myself for my economic insight. Perhaps I could share the tip with Martin Lewis at MoneySavingExpert. com. Save money on hot drinks by sweeping the house for half-finished mugs of forgotten tea whenever you go upstairs.

Lost in this reverie, I failed to notice the cat asleep on the ninth step. Five years ago, my wife bought the cat in a conspiracy with the kids. I assume they chose it deliberately to blend in with the stair carpet. If not, it really is the most extraordinary coincidence. I wouldn’t be surprised if she took a swatch to the breeders to get a good match.

“That’s the colour and the pile I want! If he is going to trip and fall to his death, it needs to look

plausible,” she would have said, while cheerfully packing the feline into the car.

I have not yet fallen to my death, but I have had a few close calls. It is at best very unsettling

and providing subordinate services to my wife who is the main breadwinner and Head of Household – is perhaps not the best test of a world-class intellect.

ThaT cycle can go on for hours. u p and down, in and ou T of rooms, back To T he ki Tchen, open T he microwave, find anoT her forgoTT en cup of T ea

when a step gets up and bolts from beneath your feet, leaving you grasping the banister, heart thumping, system surging with cortisol and adrenaline. This is when I need a biscuit with my tea. I look for the biscuits in the kitchen – and there they are in a sealed packet. That’s why I was looking for the scissors! That cycle can go on for hours. Up and down the stairs, in and out of rooms, back to the kitchen, open the microwave, find another forgotten cup of tea…

Searching for a remedy

It is enough to drive you insane – and into the arms of snake oil salesmen, offering you a return to your scissor-sharp mind. So, courtesy of SILVER, I received taster packs of such products. Dr. Vegan offers Vegan Minds pills for memory and focus and Stay Calm pills to manage stress and anxiety. These were to be taken with food, which in my case often means burgers, bacon, or fish, but Dr. Vegan did not specifically counsel against meat-eating, except as a general moral principle.

Noggin meanwhile offers uppers and downers called Oomph and Pause (rather than Oomph and ‘00 mph’, which would have pleased me, but probably lost sales). These had a slightly more impressive list of ingredients than the vegan option – lion’s mane mushroom, rhodiola rosea extract and magnesium, alongside the usual alphabetical suspects. Vegan Minds contains no magnesium (OMG!) but did have something called ‘BacoMind’ that I hoped might be a concession to carnivores.

So,did they work?

Hard to say. Perhaps I should have set myself specific tasks to determine the enhancement of my cognitive capacities but my daily pandemic schedule – walking the dog, tinkering with copy

But I didn’t feel myself undergoing the kind of transformation one sees depicted in movies by flickering digital code and bullets floating harmlessly past your head. To be fair, neither of them did any harm either. And seeing one’s urine turn the colour of lemon curd, as one’s kidneys frantically try to eject the excess minerals, does at least remind you of your good intentions.

I was a poor judge of the third product. Centra Peak, another vitamin-and-mineral concoction, arrived in stylish, masculine navy and bronze packaging. It too has a strong ingredient game, featuring several unique elements with harvested-from-the-secrets-of-the-rainforestsounding names. Mucuna pruriens alone is worth the price of admission.

But I cannot pronounce a verdict on Centra Peak because its USP is that it is a male vitality booster that will “enhance your testosterone production”. If it can do so, more power to its elbow. But I found that my testosterone was catastrophically low some years ago and have been on a proper testosterone replacement therapy programme ever since. My testosterone levels were those traditionally associated with an 80-year-old man.

Better the devil you know

As far as over-the-counter remedies go, however, do any of them give you the kick that a double shot of artisan Arabica – or even a heavy spoonful of instant – can? No, I am afraid not.

When it comes to delivering a cognitive boost, three simple, legal things have worked for me. One is caffeine, obviously, and I dose up on that regularly. I’m sorry to say the second one is nicotine. I don’t use it anymore. But nicotine is a proven, effective cognitive enhancer.

But the third and most surprising boost was changing my diet. Wheat-based foods – bread, pasta, biscuits, and pies – and all sugars are gone. I eat toast in the evening much as one might take sleeping pills.

We are all different and trial-and-error is the only way to find out what works for you. But anything that pretends to deliver the punch of a controlled substance, presented in a jar that looks tasteful on your spice rack, is probably worth taking with a significant pinch of flavourenhancing sea minerals.

@thesimonevans

food and drink

Nutrition Magic Mushrooms

As the sun becomes more elusive, and everyone starts to think about Vitamin D again, you can bet mushroom recipes will pop up all over the place. But there’s more going on here than just a supply of Vitamin D. Medicinal mushrooms support your immune system, are packed with antioxidants, and contribute to gut health. Kirsten Chick explains there’s more to mushrooms than meets the eye…

Medicinal mushrooms include oriental mushrooms such as shiitake, reishi and maitake, as well as chaga, cordyceps, coriolus and many more. Their medicinal properties are largely, but not exclusively, due to substances they contain called beta-glucans – so make sure any powdered form you are buying contains these.

Beta-glucans are known to modulate the effect of both the innate and adaptive immune systems – so both the more generalised protection they afford and their ability to target specific diseases and threats. They have also been studied for their anti-tumour abilities, which may be directly related to their effect on the immune system.

obtainable in the UK for many years now. Fresh shiitake mushrooms are making a regular appearance in some supermarkets, and dried, whole shiitake have been reconstituted in oriental soup and stir-fry recipes for several decades.

Mushrooms can have great benefits for fungal issues and the immune system

For a while it was thought by some that mushrooms were to be avoided by anyone with a candida or other fungal issue, and by anyone with cancer – but it seems, in fact, that the opposite is true. Mushrooms, whether categorized as medicinal or not, can have great benefits for fungal issues and the immune system.

Shiitake are perhaps the best known of medicinal mushrooms, and have been readily

You can also buy shiitake powder, and other mushroom powders, either on their own or combined with other medicinal mushrooms, sometimes in capsule form to be taken like a supplement. However, I prefer to use all of these in cooking. I stir-fry whole mushrooms into stir-fries and mix the powders into soups, sauces, smoothies and even hot drinks, such as dandelion coffee and cocoa. Try my immune-boosting hot chocolate recipe, below.

It’s not just the oriental mushrooms that have been getting attention. Mushrooms are now known to be the richest food source of a powerful pair of antioxidants: ergothioneine and glutathione. Such compounds protect your skin, heart, blood vessels, nerves and DNA, and so are important in the prevention of conditions such as Alzheimer’s, MS, heart attacks and strokes.

Porcini mushrooms (or ‘ceps’) have been found to be the best source. Ergothioneine and glutathione levels are maintained even when you cook them, so mushroom soup, grilled mushrooms and baked mushrooms are all excellent sources.

Ceps are also an excellent source of ergosterol, as are reishi, chaga and other medicinal mushrooms. Ergosterol has been studied for its anticancer effects in a number of different cancer cell types, including breast, ovarian, colon, laryngeal, and more.

And if that wasn’t enough to get you reaching for some mushrooms, their polysaccharide content is excellent food for the microbes in your gut that form such an integral part of your immune system.

Excerpt from Kirsten Chick’s book, Nutrition Brought to Life, Alchimia Publishing, RRP £14.99

www.alchimiapublishing.com

@kirstenchick1

Immune-boosting hot chocolate

The cocoa and medicinal mushrooms contain a wealth of nutrients for your immune system.

Ingredients (serves 2)

• 2 cups plant-based milk (e.g. almond, oat, brown rice, coconut, hemp, etc)

• 4 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder

• 1-2 tsp reishi mushroom powder – or any medicinal mushroom powder blend

• 1-2 tsp raw (unpasteurised) honey, preferably local (optional)

1. Make a paste by stirring together the honey, cocoa powder, mushroom powder and a splash of the milk – half in one mug, half in another.

2. Gently warm the rest of the milk in a small pan.

3. Pour the milk into the mugs, stir well and enjoy.

TINA IS SCALING NEW HEIGHTS THANKS TO TURMERIC+

As we get older skeletal and muscular discomfort is more common and daily activities may become more difficult, particularly as pressure in joints increases wear and tear on ageing cartilage.

Tina, 60, who lives in Bedfordshire, is a live-in carer, a physically demanding job which involves daily manual handling including the moving and positioning of clients. She balances work with trail running, hiking, dancing, rock climbing and other outdoor pursuits and likes to push herself to the limits.

“In my forties I had a serious car accident, which led to months of rehabilitation. My injuries left me with one leg shorter than the other and my hip, knee and ankle on my left hand side take the strain as they have to overcompensate.

Tina was told she would probably not be able to do all the activities she loved so much, again. But, as she explains, “I was determined, and in the last 12 years I have worked really hard to overcome my injuries.

Tina spotted an advertisement for Turmeric+ in the press which had helped others stay active: “I thought to myself: I really ought to give it a try”. So she signed up and to say she was pleased with the results would be an understatement.

“After 10 days I thought - wow - I no longer dread facing the day. I feel so much more like my old self.”

Turmeric+ is formulated with a number of key ingredients, including vitamin C which helps maintain healthy cartilage. It also contains compounds called curcuminoids from turmeric roots, the most notable of which is curcumin and is what makes turmeric such a powerful spice. Some turmeric products offer high levels of curcumin but unless this is easily absorbed by the body, the higher amounts make little difference.

FutureYou Cambridge is offering new customers the chance to try its fl agship product, Turmeric+, for just the cost of the £1.50 postage.*

Turmeric+ was formulated by FutureYou Cambridge, well-known for its sciencebacked

‘I was on such a high afterwards it felt like chariots of fire.’

The need for easy absorption is what led the scientists at FutureYou Cambridge to create Turmeric+ using the patented ‘Curcuma Phospholipid Complex’ formulation. It’s thirty times more absorbable than standard turmeric.

“I had recently stopped trail running, but after taking Turmeric+ I thought I would give it a try again. I did an hours’ run

health supplements. The company, based in Cambridge, regularly consults with highlyregarded scientifi c and nutritional experts and has also developed close ties with worldleading educational institutions.

Since launching the product the company has continually received positive feedback from happy customers, particularly on Trustpilot, the independent online review platform.

‘The product appears to meet all its promises and the service levels from FutureYou

(8.5km) and felt great. I was on such a high afterwards it felt like chariots of fi re. Even after not running for weeks, I felt like I had grown wings. It was such a euphoric feeling that nothing could ruin my day”.

Tina is now looking ahead to her next challenge - climbing the equivalent height and distance of Mount Everest, around Keswick.

Cambridge is fi rst class,’ said another. ‘We’re very happy to give people their fi rst pack for free so they can experience it for themselves,’ says Adam Cleevely, the company’s CEO.

‘It might sound bonkers but it really isn’t. We’re that confi dent in the effectiveness of our formulation.

‘I can’t think of a better way to convince people. If they like it, they will stick with it. Tens of thousands of customers already do.’

winter treats Tasty things

HÄAGEN-DAZS NEW CHRISTMAS FLAVOURS

Ice cream in cold weather?! You bet! Rum

Salted Caramel & Biscuit, and Irish Whiskey & Chocolate Waffle are the two new irresistible flavours from HäagenDazs to indulge in. The brand is bringing winter cocktails to life in the form of delicious ice creams, perfect for enjoying in front of a Christmas film. (ABV content: 0.5%). Available from all major retailers, £4.99 per tub

DICKIE’S BANGERS

Here to put a new twist on your traditional bangers ‘n’ mash are Dickie’s Burgers. Inspired by the nation’s favourite tipples, there’s a flavour for everyone. With 9.5% of booze in each sausage to ensure no taste is lost, accompanied by 84% of prime British pork shoulder, quality is ensured. We’ve opted for Bloody Mary bangers ‘n’ mash to spice up our weekends. Which will you choose?! dickiesbangers.co.uk, £4.95 for a pack of three

BOOK FLASK

Searching for an inconspicuous place to hide your secret stash of booze? Or perhaps a fun Christmas gift? Kikkerland’s Chemistry Book Flask provides you with a classy, versatile item that looks great on the shelf and works wonders for holding your concoctions. Hidden inside the black volume is a stainless-steel flask. You’re guaranteed durability, however the night goes. kikkerland.co.uk, £20

TURTLE TOFU PRESS

Making your own tofu is simpler than you think, and this cute Turtle Tofu Press makes it even easier. It’s made from bamboo, which is a naturally antibacterial material, with a silicone band to keep the two parts together when not in use. The best part? It’s a cute little turtle that will brighten up each and every home it lives in! downyourhighstreet.co.uk, £28.95

RAW CHOCOLATE COMPANY

Fortissimo Chocolate have launched the ‘live in wonder’ rebrand of their Raw Chocolate Company, a brand renowned for its delicious consciousness. There’s a load of new flavours to choose from too, and this chocolate is vegan, delicious, and kept as close to its natural state as possible. Guilt-free goodness. therawchocolatecompany.com, £2.99 for 60g bar, £4.99 for 110g bag

ITSU CHRISTMAS GYOZA

Combine your love for Asian-inspired food, healthy eating, and a traditional Christmas meal with itsu’s limited edition gyozas. These soft steamed dumplings are filled with all the best festive flavours: turkey, pork, bacon, sage, and cranberry. Less whacky than you’d think. Waitrose and Ocado, £3.75 for 12

BYRUBY READY MEALS

It’s been a long day (heck, it’s been a long year) and sometimes you just don’t want to do the cooking and washing up. That’s where byRuby comes in. Winner of the Great British Food Awards in 2020, byRuby delivers special homemade meals directly to your door. All you need to do is choose your meal, pick your portion size, and have it delivered. Special and sumptuous meals, made lovingly for you. byruby.co.uk, £5.25 for one, £9 for two

ERCOL BALLATTA DRINKS CABINET

We’ve fallen in love with this. It’s both classy and handy. Ercol’s gorgeous Ballatta drinks cabinet is perfect for hosting over the holiday season, or for enjoying a ‘quiet’ night in with your significant other. With an adjustable shelf, LED lighting, and maximum storage, you really can’t go wrong. ercol.com, £1,800

SNOWGLOBE GIN LIQUEUR

collect alcohol bottles if they’re a unique, fun shape? Well, we’ve got just the thing for you. These snowglobe gin liqueurs are the perfect addition to both your Christmas decorations and your beverage. Peer inside the bottle to reveal a cosy holiday scene, enjoy the edible 23 carat gold leaf, and shake to experience snowfall. With unique packaging and an enticingly festive flavour – orange and gingerbread –what more could you ask for?

Yes, a little over the top, but whatever. Available from Very and Harvey Nichols, £26 for 500ml

NORTH & CHICK PODCAST

Join Hayley North and Kirsten Chick as they discuss all things food, community, and wellbeing. With a special guest appearing on each episode, you can expect individuality and exclusivity every time. For discussion that’s relatable, honest, and very often about food and nutrition, subscribe to the North & Chick podcast today: audioboom.com/channel/northandchick

food and drink

Great British hedgerow heaven

Here’s a scrumptious sneak peek at one of the GBBO recipes – plus a chance to win your own GBBO book in our exclusive giveaway

A

re you the sort of person out foraging berries now, scratching yourself to bits in the pursuit of purple crumbles and gins? Then this is for you. Here’s an exclusive sneak peek at one of the GBBO autumn recipes – plus a chance to win your own GBBO book in our exclusive giveaway…

Blackberry & pear crumble cake

SERVES 8 / HANDS ON 30 MINS, PLUS COOLING / BAKE 1 ½ HOURS

Juicy pears and blackberries are a wonderful match for each other, and both are abundant during autumn. Comprising layers of cake, nutty crumble, and juicy fruit, this bake would make a delicious pudding, served with a bowl of crème fraiche or ice cream. Or simply as an ideal weekend teatime treat, just as it is.

Ingredients

• 225g unsalted butter, softened

• 150g caster sugar, plus 1 extra tbsp for the pears

• 3 pears, peeled, cored and each cut into 8 wedges

• 50g demerara sugar

• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

• 275g plain flour

• 50g blanched hazelnuts, toasted and roughly chopped

• 3 large eggs, lightly beaten

• 2 tsp baking powder

• pinch of salt

• 150g soured cream

• 150g blackberries, plus optional extra to decorate

• crème fraîche, or double cream, lightly whipped, to serve (optional)

You will need

20cm springform tin, greased, then base lined with greased baking paper

Method

1 Melt 25g of the butter in a large frying pan over a low–medium heat. Add the 1 tablespoon of caster sugar and the pears. Cook for about 10 minutes, turning frequently, until the pears are tender and lightly caramelised. Remove from the heat and leave to cool. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/Gas Mark 4 and make the crumble topping.

2 Melt 50g of the butter, pour it into a bowl and leave it to cool slightly. Add the demerara sugar, cinnamon and 75g of the plain flour and mix well. Stir in the toasted hazelnuts and set aside.

3 Beat together the remaining 150g of butter and the 150g of caster sugar in a stand mixer fitter with the beater, on medium speed for 3–5 minutes,

until pale and creamy, scraping down the inside of the bowl from time to time. Add the eggs, a little at a time, beating well between each addition. Sift the remaining 200g of plain flour, along with the baking powder and the salt, into the bowl. Add the soured cream and mix again until smooth.

4 Spoon about two thirds of the sponge mixture into the prepared tin, spread it level and scatter over one third of the crumble topping. Top with the remaining sponge mixture and spread it level again.

5 Scatter another third of the crumble topping over the sponge mixture and arrange the cooked pear wedges and the blackberries on top. Scatter over the remaining crumble topping.

6 Bake the cake on the middle shelf for about 1 and a half hours, until risen and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. (Loosely cover the top of the cake with baking paper or foil halfway through baking if the top is browning too quickly.)

7 Leave the cake to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then remove it and transfer it to a wire rack and cool to room temperature before serving –with a few extra blackberries and with crème fraiche, or lightly whipped double cream, if you prefer.

The GreaT Bri T ish Bake Off:

A Bake for All Seasons is published in hardback by Sphere, priced £22. eBook also available.

EXCLUSIVE GBBO RECIPE BOOK GIVEAWAY

win

Your chance to get your flour-covered mitts on one of these wonderful GBBO recipe books. We’ll keep it very simple; simply email us with your name, address, and phone number, and we’ll pick 10 of you lucky lunatics out of a hat to win a book. Hit us an email at GBBObook@silvermagazine. co.uk – closing date 31 October 2021. Ts&Cs apply, non-transferable etc, etc, you know the drill. You can also enter via our website and our Facebook page. Enter as many different ways as you like, but only one entry per way.

Wrapped up CHRISTMAS

Join us this season for everything from festive afternoon tea to a glamorous New Year’s Eve ball. With roaring fires, twinkling lights and our huge Christmas Tree, our hotel is the perfect setting to make the most of this special time.

Find out more at grandbrighton.co.uk/christmas

Step back in time on the Isles of Scilly

For walkers, ramblers, and lovers of countryside and sea, a spring or autumn escape to the Isles of Scilly is like revisiting lost childhood, says Sam Harrington-Lowe

It feels extraordinary to finally be writing this article. It was more than two years ago that I went, and then – well, you know what happened after that. But at last I can share this with you, the absolute joy that was my little trip to Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. Spoiler alert – it’s one of the loveliest holidays I’ve ever had in the UK.

Sadly, some of the things I got to experience – like a friendly little flight from London, or the hotel Mount Haven – don’t exist anymore. The pandemic has put paid.

However, if ever there was an utterly gorgeous place to go for a spring or autumn trip, it’s here. And there is still plenty to do – or not do, if relaxing is more your thing.

WHERE DID YOU STAY?

Let’s start with the land side, Cornwall. I stayed in Marazion, at The Godolphin Hotel, which must have one of the best views

of St Michael’s Mount in the area. During the summer this part of Cornwall is extremely busy, which is really not for the faint-hearted. If you ask the locals how they feel about it, you’ll get a mixed reaction. They’re glad of the trade, of course, but hate the fact you can barely walk on the pavements because it’s so busy. Early season though – or late season – and it’s a gorgeous part of the world. I was there in June, before school holidays, and it was perfect. Autumn, after the kids go back to school, is also apparently a brilliant time to go.

The Godolphin nestles in the heart of Marazion, right on the beach in a dip surrounded by craft shops and small eateries. I loved the soothing décor; it’s all pale blues and wood, and white paint, you know the vibe. Beachy, but upmarket. It’s got a great restaurant, which has indoor and outdoor dining, and the food there, whether it was a full English (Cornish?!), a lunch burger, or a fancy evening meal, was all top notch. And it’s dog-friendly. Unsurprisingly it’s not hugely cheap, but there are plenty of little B&Bs knocking about if you’re on a budget and

CAPTION View from the window of St Michael’s Mount at The Godolphin, Marazion

PHOTO The Godolphin

CAPTION Fresh fish supper at The Godolphin

wanted to be in the same area. We did fall in love with The Godolphin – the view of the Mount, the food, the happy sunny buzz – a good place to treat yourself to. Locally there are also plenty of sandy beaches, for those of you who like a bit of sunbathing and swimming.

When we went across to St Mary’s, which is the largest of the Isles, we were based in a gorgeous hotel called The Star Castle. This is a four-star, 16th-century actual castle – if you’re tall, prepare for some ducking through doorways. We had a cottage with stunning views over the bay, and a friendly resident blackbird. I spent ages picking the raisins out of some garibaldi biscuits for him – they are incredibly trusting.

Sadly, I can’t really talk about the hotel we stayed at when we returned to the mainland. The Mount Haven was really lovely – but it’s permanently closed now, according to their website, and I’m not sure what will happen to it. It seems there are some issues with the building itself. But it was a corker, and the food...Oh, my word! Anyway…

WHAT DID YOU DO?

We crammed a lot in. We landed initially in Marazion, via Newquay (although coming in by train you’ll arrive at Penzance, which is a just a few miles up the road). We stayed at The Godolphin there, right on the glorious Mount’s Bay – a sweeping sandy stretch that includes the walkway across to St Michael’s Mount at low tide. Don’t get caught!

While on the mainland side, we got a couple of Rover-type bus passes and went for a day out at St Ives, which is on the north coast of Cornwall. The bus gives you a cracking look at a good section of Cornwall as it crosses the land, which is well worth doing.

St Ives is a different buzz to Marazion – more bustling, fishing, people, shops… Personally I was glad to be staying in the quieter south, but those who want a bit more to do would love St Ives. We had a really cracking lunch there at the Porthminster Kitchen and browsed the crafty shops and ate clotted-cream ice-cream, obviously. There was a man patiently building stone sculptures on the beach and we watched him for a bit, before dozing home on a joggly bus. We did not meet a man with seven wives at any point.

CAPTION St Ives during summer

CAPTION Building stone sculptures in St Ives

CAPTION St Ives from the air PHOTO Chester Robinson

CAPTION St Michaels Mount

PHOTO Matt Jessop

CAPTION The view of the other side from St Michaels Mount

CAPTION Cornish hake fillet and lobster at Porthminster Kitchen, St Ives

One of the absolute highlights was getting the little Skybus plane across to St Mary’s from the mainland. The flight goes from Land’s End – there is a boat if you’re more inclined to do water than air (I’ll tell you about that in a sec) – and it’s huge fun! We had a gloriously clear day and absolutely loved the little flight. Once we landed there, we headed to The Star Castle, where we were based for the next three nights.

From St Mary’s, we had a day in Tresco. Now Tresco is really something. It’s a world away from the modern reality – beautiful gardens (you must go to the subtropical Tresco Abbey Garden), breath-taking forest and beach action, no vehicles… definitely one for the walkers. It’s also unbelievably hard to get a room there. There aren’t many hotels or B&Bs, so there’s lots of day-trippers coming in on the boats, and huge competition for the bed stock on the island – and they plan to keep it that way. But it’s very exclusive, very beautiful, and I think I want to live there forever.

Hilariously, when we were back at St Mary’s, we ate a (massive) lazy late Sunday breakfast and then couldn’t face lunch at lunchtime. In our innocence we’d thought we could get something later, so we relaxed, had a walk and a snooze, and then went to find a nice pub. Ha! We got lost in the rain on a Sunday afternoon with nowhere to eat, bickering as we tried place after place, getting wetter and wetter. Thank god for the Co-Op and bedroom picnic. Who knew that things closed on Sunday afternoons on St Mary’s?! It was like the 1970s – all the pubs shut at 2.30pm. Anyway, we found out, and now you know too.

I live just outside Brighton and it’s a very different pace of life. It feels like stepping back in time – Mary Wesley style, not Graham Greene. The locals are friendly, and as soon as you arrive there’s a sensation of slowing down, which is blissful.

RETURN JOURNEY FROM ST MARY’S

Having flown out to St Mary’s from the mainland

via the Skybus, we came back on the ferry, which is The Scillonian. She’s a vintage vessel, with a very flat bottom, and she’s definitely a challenge for those without good sealegs. I’ve never seen so many dispensing containers for sick bags on a single vehicle. I didn’t care, I’ve got great sealegs, but even on a calm day it was a choppy experience. Something to watch out for. If you get seasick AND you’re afraid of flying, well maybe the Isles aren’t for you. But of the two, I’d say the boat is probably the tougher gig – at least the flight is very short!

HOW ABOUT EATING OUT?

The standard of food we had across the board both on the mainland and throughout the Isles was generally very good. Lots of local produce on menus and some really creative dishes. It’s a fish-lover’s idea of heaven, the whole region. Standouts include the Porthminster restaurant at St Ives, where the fish menu was outstanding, and the dinner menus at both the Star Castle on St Mary’s, and The Godolphin.

We only had one iffy eating experience, which

was Juliet’s on St Mary’s. Lovely venue, with great views from the garden; but chaotic staff and badly put-together meals. I won’t scare you with a photo of the thing they told me was a steak. There didn’t even seem to be a manager running the shift. We had forebodings when, as we approached the entrance, a couple came out laughing in disbelief and told us not to bother. The couple on the table next to us were kicking off about their meals too.

CAPTION View of St Mary’s, the largest of the Isles of Scilly

CAPTION Star Castle pudding: Fruit tart with Chantilly Cream

CAPTION Tresco Abbey Garden

PHOTO visitislesofscilly.com

CAPTION Yep, we got in that!

CAPTION Star Castle starter: Tenderstem broccoli, Helford Blue, almond and samphire

Maybe Juliet’s was having a bad night, but anyway. We left hungry, but they did refund our bill.

ANYTHING TO WATCH OUT FOR?

Well, things close on Sundays. And in fact, during low season (i.e. any time that isn’t July to September) you’ll probably find that a lot of pubs and bars close during all the afternoons. Also, once you’re on the Isles, getting around can take some planning. There’s about two cabs on St Mary’s and you need to book in advance if you’re going anywhere. As for Tresco – lace up your walking boots.

The whole region has got a warm microclimate, as I said before, and this means not just better plant life, but all sorts of exciting marine life, like dolphins, whales, porpoises, seals. Some epic beetles and moths too.

WOULD YOU GO AGAIN?

Sigh. I had a love affair with the estate agent window when I was there. I would LOVE to live there, on a romantic level. But I could make do with the occasional trip down, and will definitely go again. I’d like to try autumn, when the gardens and flora across the whole Isles are winding down a bit. The climate there makes it more hospitable for a much longer season than the mainland. Yes, I’d go there again like a shot.

GETTING THERE

We flew on a Flybe plane from London Heathrow to Newquay, which was great – a quick flight, proper gin and tonic, bada bing, bada boom. Unfortunately, Flybe went into administration so that’s no longer an option. If you want to fly from London, there are direct flights between July and September with BA and Easyjet, but in low season the flights are with Ryanair, and ‘not direct’

– which frankly could mean going via anywhere in the world. Other airlines I could find that go to Newquay are Loganair (from Teesside) and there are probably others, but you’ll have to do a bit of searching. One flight offered a 35-hour option, with various layovers. Take my advice though – let the train take the strain.

From London, by far the best way to travel to and from Cornwall in my opinion is the sleeper train, run by Great Western Railway, which we caught back. And if you are as train-happy as I am, and live in the north of the country, maybe a sleeper to London followed by a sleeper to Cornwall? I’ve got a romantic love of trains, especially sleepers –I’m desperately trying to plan a tip on the Orient Express – because there’s something lovely about going to sleep on a rocking train and waking up somewhere completely different.

If anyone has read Emily Barr’s novel TheSleeper you’ll know about this London to Cornwall train. They call it the Night Riviera Sleeper and it goes from Paddington to Penzance with a bunch of stops along the way. I love the name, it’s so Agatha Christie somehow. And there are lots of nice little touches for Cabin Class holders. There are First Class lounges with showers and comp food and drink at either end (Penzance/Paddington), and there’s a private lounge coach and bar that serves hot food and cold gin. You book your wake-up call and a breakfast – bacon roll and tea for me please – and off you go, to be gently awakened as someone knocks on your cabin door and brings you your brekkie. There are singles and doubles, and it’s – in my view – very reasonably priced. You can just book a normal reclining seat and doze all the way, but you’d probably arrive with neck ache. You can of course go in the daytime as a normal passenger too.

@SamHL

PRICES

I had to check these afresh as I imagined they’ve changed a bit, but this is what I dug out for you. All prices are based on visiting during May and will be subject to change. Don’t come for me if they’re hugely different when you look.

HOTELS

Both The Godolphin and The Star Castle are priced similarly, starting around £200 – £230 for single occupancy B&B. The Star Castle has some dinner, bed, bed and breakfast packages that start around £260. www.thegodolphin.com

www.star-castle.co.uk

TRAIN FROM LONDON RETURN

This varies hugely but a single cabin is about £90 low season, and a double £120. I found a return cabin fare in May 2022 for £124 for single occupancy. The website is pretty easy to navigate though.

www.gwr.com

SKYBUS AND SCILLONIAN CROSSINGS

Prices based on one way (return prices are on application, no idea why).

SKYBUS – from £97.95

SCILLONIAN FERRY – from £61.95

www.islesofscilly-travel.co.uk

CAPTION The beach at Tresco

PHOTO visitislesofscilly.com

holiday heroesLezard’s

Nicholas Lezard shares his top five holiday reads. Perfect whether you’re planning to get away, or if the only trip you’re taking is in your mind

1. The Golden Rule, Amanda Craig

There is nothing that can make you tear through a book like taking it on holiday (major disclaimer: not if you’re on holiday with children. Let’s assume you’re not). Of course, you need the right kind of holiday book. It shouldn’t involve too much concentration, unless you’re the kind of person who takes Proust in your luggage.

Craig’s latest novel, just out in paperback, is a nifty potboiler. Two women on a train are having hellish times with their husbands, so they each agree – in the manner of Highsmith and Hitchcock in Strangers on a Train, to murder the other’s; the idea being that, with nothing to connect them, the crimes can be committed with impunity. Of course, as with the original story, it all goes horribly wrong. Like Craig’s last book, The Lie of the Land, which is at least as good, the plot cranks up until by the end there’s a race against time to stop something really terrible happening. Craig is concerned about the state of the nation, so we get a lot about the class system and how ghastly things are for Cornish natives. The Lie of the Land was about how ghastly things are for people in Devon. You might not be going abroad, but there are plenty of you heading west for holidays, so take one or the other, depending on where you’re going.

The Golden Rule by Amanda Craig (Little, Brown) £8.99 paperback, £16.99 hardback

I have been known to do this, and even took an original Tuscan edition of Dante to Italy – without a translation. (I did better than I thought I would...).

But it shouldn’t be mindless. No Da Vinci Code, no 50 Shades of anything. And it’s nice if it involves travel, especially to the place you’re travelling to.

@nicklezard

2. Widowland, CJ Carey

It is a by-law in most parts of the country that each holiday cottage must contain a copy of Richard Harris’s Fatherland, which is set in an imaginary past in which the Nazis won World War II. But you’ve all read that by now, haven’t you? So try this one for your alternate history fix: a new novel by an established writer normally known as Jane Thynne. Thynne/Carey has, with her Clara Vine novels, considerable experience when it comes to writing books set during the last war. Here, though, we are in 1953, in a miserably Nazi-occupied Britain, very plausibly imagined. Our heroine, Rose, is employed rewriting literary classics to conform with the authorities’ stifling attitude towards women: you know, make Dorothea Casaubon or Jane Eyre less intelligent and independent, that kind of thing. Women are divided into categories, depending on their utility as baby-providers. So as well as Harris, it’s also 1984 meets The Handmaid’s Tale. As I was reading this I was thinking “Hang on, there was something the Nazis did that was even worse than this”, but it gradually becomes apparent that Carey knows very well what she’s doing.

Widowland by CJ Carey (Quercus Publishing) £8.99, £14.99 hardback

3. Journey by Moonlight, Antal Szerb

This 1937 Hungarian novel wasn’t translated into English until 2001 and a lot of people are now very happy it has been. The translator, Len Rix, learned Hungarian precisely to translate this book, which is generally considered by cultured Hungarians to be absolutely essential reading. It’s narrated by Mihály, a man for whom the word “diffident” might have been coined. He accidentally, or accidentally-on-purpose, abandons his wife Erzi during their honeymoon and then goes wandering through Italy in a kind of existentialist daze. It’s a book with serious themes – such as the Hungarian fascination with suicide – yet it deals with them with such a tender, humorous grace that you don’t feel as if you’re reading anything substantial at all. Until you get to the end and realise you’ve just read one of the best novels ever written, and feel like starting it again. I’ve recommended this novel perhaps more often than I have any other, and I’ve never had any complaints yet. If you’re holidaying in Wales, read his The Pendragon Legend, which is more of a romp, with ghosts and spies and castles, like a grown-up Tintin adventure.

Journey by Moonlight by Antal Szerb (Pushkin Press)

£8.99 paperback

4. The Killing Floor, Lee Child

Frankly, anything featuring Child’s errant army veteran, Jack Reacher, will do. The Killing Floor, from 1997, is the first.

If you haven’t come across him, Reacher is a giant of a man, an exmilitary policeman with more than a touch of the Sherlock Holmes about him, peripatetic, whose only luggage is an ATM card, travelling toothbrush, an expired US passport and the clothes he stands up in. He travels by Greyhound bus or hitchhikes all over the US, and always ends up, despite wanting a quiet life, involved in the most heinous plots, often in out-of-the-way places, but he does get to go to New York or Paris or London every so often. He is usually up against some seriously evil hombres and the odds are stacked incredibly against him, but he is as tough as he is smart, and always acts honorably to decent people. Hates racists and misogynists. We love him. Bonus fact: Lee Child’s prose is impeccable, like stripped-down Chandler.

The Killing Floor by Lee Child, (Transworld) £8.99 paperback

5. Earthly Powers, Anthony Burgess

Many years ago, as a young man, I went on a trip all the way up Italy on the back of a friend’s motorbike. This was my holiday read, and I don’t think I’ve ever had a better one. Burgess had a brain the size of a planet, and this book takes us all around the globe and through the 20thCentury, tackling the big questions of good and evil and whatnot, and yet without it ever being a strain on the reader. It’s perhaps the most deliberately outrageous opening line of all novels: “It was the afternoon of my 81st birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.” My Italian motorbike-riding friend, who like many Italians is suspicious of the Catholic Church and homosexuality, read this with a shudder and handed it back to me. I know I said holiday books shouldn’t involve too much concentration – and amazingly, you don’t need too much to enjoy this. Just let it all wash over you.

Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess (Hutchinson)

£10.99 paperback

ship ship Hooray!

Once synonymous with buffets, bingo, and Jane McDonald (sorry Jane!), modern cruise ships are now glamorous five-star hotels at sea or specialist bucket list trips along rivers

Cruising is back and is making waves as the safest – and easiest way – to travel right now. While air passengers have to wrestle with traffic lights, passenger locator forms, and huge queues at border controls, the cruise industry has made a

Ocean c ruises

Best for pampering Celebrity Cruises

Gwyneth Paltrow, the Wellness Goddess, is taking healing to the high seas. The Hollywood actress is now the Well-Being Advisor for Celebrity Cruises and is steaming ahead with her own particular brand of wellness on board their ships.

raft of changes to make stepping aboard simple.

Complimentary PCR tests for adults or antigen swabs at the cruise terminal for children, along with Seacation itineraries, meant that travelstarved Brits were able to sail this summer, even if

There are four wellness cruises setting sail from Miami this autumn and heading around the Caribbean, and while Gwyneth might not be on board, she’s helped design every detail and hand-picked the experts, including a clairvoyant and trampoline fitness guru.

Closer to home, Celebrity Silhouette – which has undergone a swanky multimillion pound makeover and now boasts an AquaSpa with treatments including Botox on board – is offering cruises to Spain, Portugal and the Canaries.

Setting sail from Southampton, guests can relax knowing they’re heading towards the winter sun. The only question remaining is will there be vagina-scented candles in the cabin?

A seven-night cruise from Southampton starts from £1,419 per person for an inside stateroom calling at Bilbao, Vigo, Porto, Lisbon, La Coruna, returning to Southampton. Drinks, Wi-Fi and tips are included. www.celebritycruises.com

it was around the UK.

Now that restrictions are relaxing, there’s a cruise for everyone – all you have to do is decide where you want to explore. SILVER’S done all the hard work for you, with a round-up of our favourite cruises.

Best for thrill-seekers royal Caribbean

Think that cruising is about bingo, ballroom dancing and being in bed by 10pm? Think again – though there’s nothing wrong with a bit of dabbing and Double Shuffle.

Modern ships are resorts at sea that boast fine dining, award-winning entertainment and thrills and spills galore. And no one does adrenalinefuelled fun better than Royal Caribbean, who currently have their Quantum Class (that’s ‘giant’ to you and me) ship Anthem of the Seas sailing around Britain.

Designed to keep every generation entertained,

Best for LGBt Disney Cruise Line

It may be the most famous kid-friendly brand in the world, but with its glamorous ships harking back to the Golden Age of sailing, Disney Cruise Line is a great escape for adults, too.

Walt Disney World hosts LGBT days every year and the cruise line is just as inclusive.

You can say ‘I do’ on board, with Disney organising same-sex marriages, or soak up the magic with Mickey Mouse or even Elsa and Anna on a Frozen-themed cruise.

There are activities galore in the incredible (and free) kids’ clubs while over-18s can slip away to the Quiet Cove Pool area – an adult-exclusive retreat with pools and whirlpool spas – or head to one of the very sophisticated bars.

A three-night UK Staycation Sailing (no ports of call) departing from London Tilbury starts from £1,971 for two guests in a verandah stateroom. www.disneycruise.disney.go.com

Best for afforda B le luxury Saga Crui S e S

there’s never a dull moment on board. Head to Ripcord by iFly for the ultimate skydiving experience, or catch a wave – or not! – on FlowRider, the cruise line’s surf simulator. Or enjoy bumper cars in SeaPlex, the largest indoor activity space at sea.

Later on, catch Kevin Kennedy of Coronation Street fame – he played Curly Watts – in the Tony Award-winning West End production of We Will Rock You or dine at Jamie’s Italian before ordering a cocktail mixed by a pair of robotic bartenders at the Bionic Bar.

A five-night British Isles Cruise sailing from Southampton starts from £469 for an interior cabin calling at Liverpool and Belfast. www.RoyalCaribbean.uk

Saga Cruises may be designed for the over-50s but you’ll find the passengers clasping a Cosmopolitan rather than a cup of cocoa on board. Their ships are boutique hotels at sea and, while they may be small by cruise standards, they are big on glamour. Saga’s latest ship, Spirit of Discovery, is heading to the land of the midnight sun after her summer season around Britain.

Carrying just 999 guests at full capacity, there are five restaurants, including Asian fusion, Italian, and a steakhouse, along with a library and state-of-the-art spa.

Guests have a door-to-door chauffeur service up to 250 miles each way, Wi-Fi, dining and drinks on board along with all gratuities, 24-hour room service, sightseeing tours and even travel insurance included.

A seven-night all-inclusive Magic of the Fjords cruise from Dover on 20 April 20 2022 starts from £2,029 per person for an inside stateroom, calling at Bergen, Skjolden, Flam, and Stavanger in Norway before returning home. www.travel.saga.co.uk

Best for party lovers virgin voyages

Fancy painting the ship, if not the town, red? All aboard Sir Richard Branson’s £500million ship, Scarlet Lady, which is making waves in the cruising industry with her glamorous but daring décor and ‘dance ‘til dawn’ itineraries.

The first of Virgin Voyages’ adults-only four ships is designed to look like a giant yacht and has a tattoo parlour, record shop, more than 20 restaurants, festival-style entertainment, and a nightclub on board.

Cabins boast a pleasure pack for when you want to go ‘below deck’ which contain a vibrator, condom, and a ring you wouldn’t use to propose, along with beds that can be switched into a sofa during the day and an app you can shake to order a bottle of champagne.

For those lucky enough to afford the Mega RockStar Massive Suites, they will sail in style with their own music room, two RockStar Agents to cater to their every whim, a turntable, fullystocked bar and a giant terrace complete with outside rain shower and whirlpool.

Pack something red for the Scarlet Party but after dancing until late, head to one of the fun (and free) workout classes – we loved the VHS Workout where complimentary neon legwarmers and headbands add to the sweaty fun.

Scarlet Lady’s twin Valiant Lady makes her debut next spring. A three night Long Weekender in Zeebrugge sailing out of Portsmouth on 18 March 18 2022 starts from £998 for two in an Insider cabin. www.virginvoyages.com

RIVER C R uis E s travel

Best for Bucket List

Panache c ruises

With a private butler, submarine and two helicopters, Scenic Eclipse is the ultimate in ultra-luxury cruising.

Helen Mirren said that sailing on board the 228-passenger six-star ship was ‘an exceptional cruising experience,’ and it’s no wonder.

Inspired by the sleek contours of a sailing yacht, a voyage on Scenic Eclipse includes French cuisine, a Senses Spa, Zodiac and Kayak adventures, snorkel gear and world-class entertainment as well as unlimited drinks, flights, chauffeur transfers and preand post-cruise hotel stays.

A 10-night Incredible Iberian Discovery voyage from Lisbon to Barcelona departing 27 April 2022 starts from £6,244 per person. www.panachecruises.com

Best for Christmas lovers

Ti Tan Travel Cruises

Dreaming of a white Christmas, and chestnuts roasting by an open fire? Treat yourself to the ultimate gift of a cruise down the Rhine to see the traditional Christmas markets.

Watch treetops glisten from the 130-passenger MS Serenade 1 as she sails towards some of Germany’s most picturesque towns, where you can glug sweet glühwein in Cologne and see the life-size nativity in Rüdesheim.

Back on board, feast on a Gala Christmas dinner along with unlimited wine and beer. Just make sure you leave room in your suitcase to take home all those presents.

A four-night cruise departing Folkestone on 7 December 2021 includes Titan’s award-winning VIP door-to-door travel service, Eurotunnel or ferry crossings, entertainment. www.titantravel.co.uk

Best for wine connoisseurs

Viking Cruises

Known for some of the world’s finest wine and even finer living, a cruise through Bordeaux on board a Viking Longship is the epitome of good taste.

Drink in the culture of the vineyards in Aquataine, which was once Europe’s richest kingdom, and visit the villages of Saint-Emilion, Medoc, and Sauternes to sip your favourite tipple.

Learn the secrets of the terroir before hunting for truffles in Perigord and savouring oysters in Arachon Bay. But while the cruise is all about France, the Viking Longship is distinctly Nordic.

All bleached wood and muted colour palette, Viking Longship Forsetti is an uber-cool home away from home from which to explore.

An eight-day Chateaux, Rivers and Wine cruise departing Bordeaux on 5 November 2021 starts from £2,145. www.viking.com

Best for families

CroisiEurop E Family Club

Kids sail for free while you explore the Rhine on a CroisiEurope Family Club cruise that will keep everyone entertained.

As well as onboard activities, children can enjoy adapted excursions, a cabin next to their parents, and kids’ menu.

The voyage includes a gala dinner of French cuisine, a boat tour of Strasbourg, and – for mum and dad and grandparents – a medley of delicious wines.

A six-day Romantic Rhine Valley and the Rock of the Lorelei cruise departing Strasbourg starts at £950 per person. Children under 16 travel free, excluding excursions. www.croisieurope.co.uk

Best for history B uffs or classical music lovers Uniworld Panache c r U ises

Waltz through history with an enchanting cruise down the Danube from Budapest to Nuremberg via Vienna.

Watch the world-famous Lipizzaner white stallions perform at the Spanish Riding School and listen to the Viennese Chamber Orchestra perform Mozart’s overture from Le Nozze di Figaro while dancers perform the Viennese waltz.

Home for the week is the bijou SS Beatrice, part of the Uniworld Cruises fleet, which boasts the highest staff-to-guest ratio in river cruising.

With just 154 passengers, unlimited spirits and wines along with five-star farm-totable cuisine, and exclusive excursions all included, this is boutique cruising at its best.

A seven-night Delightful Danube cruise from Budapest to Nuremberg on 15 June, 2022 starts from £3,581 per person. www.panachecruises.com

Look at that S car go!

Once upon a time, I was an expat cliché. I still had the usual worries about bills and boyfriends that I couldn’t leave behind in Sydney, but this was sweetened by the fact I was working as a motoring journalist in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. I saw obscenely expensive cars so often, I thought nothing of parking next to a Lamborghini Gallardo at the supermarket. When I wasn’t driving around in my gas-guzzling Mitsubishi Pajero SUV, I reviewed all manner of expensive cars.

Irresponsible highlights of this era include barrelling a Bugatti Veyron at 180mph on a public road, looning in Lamborghinis around Qatar’s motorcycle track, and monkeying about in a Mercedes SLK on the Monaco road where Grace Kelly died. My carbon footprint must have looked like a coal miner’s lung.

A hybrid virgin in the Middle East

In 2010, Julian Millward-Hopkins, the late, great Mercedes Middle East PR manager, put me behind the wheel of a hybrid Merc. He was honest enough to tell me he wasn’t sure how many would be sold in the Emirates unless a sheikh set an example and bought one, but it was important to at least try to create a market for hybrids in the land where oil reigns supreme. By the time I left the Middle East for London

in 2011 there were few signs that the UAE was embracing greener motoring. Fast-forward to 2021 and there are only about 4,000 electric cars on UK roads, compared to nearly 300,000 pureelectric cars on UK, and more than 600,000 if including plug-in hybrids.

Embracing electric

As I look wistfully at my blue petrol-powered Volkswagen Polo on the drive, I know my next car will probably be electric. You can’t fight progress, despite valid arguments about the often-unsavoury supply chains for electric car components, or whether it’ll all be a waste of time if we charge our cars with electricity from dirty power stations.

But what if I got in early and went electric sooner rather than later? And what if I got myself a really awesome option? Curious, I found myself exploring the Tesla UK website. My only real-world experience with a Tesla was last year, when, bizarrely, I went to Switzerland for the day to tour a food processing factory for a story. After flying to Zurich (remember planes?), I got a train to Uzwil where I was picked up from the station in a black Tesla Model X. It was slick, the quality control was insanely perfect, and it was so quiet I felt like I was in a mobile hearing test booth.

But for my virtual shopping trip, I thought the Model S saloon might be more suitable than a

Model X – I cannot think of the last time I needed to transport seven adults anywhere – and I started looking at my options. Let’s see if I can have top-of-the-line everything in my Tesla, I thought, clicked on ‘Model S Plaid’ and got busy.

So what comes with the Plaid S?

If I were to eschew the Plaid options, the base model dual motor all-wheel-drive Model S would set me back £87,980. But I wanted a Plaid, an all-wheel-drive with three motors, with a starting price of £118,930 and estimated delivery for the end of 2022. If I must wait more than a year for my new car, I may as well make it a good ‘un.

The stats are pretty impressive. A top speed of 200mph, a 0–60mph sprint of 1.99 seconds, 1,020 horsepower, and a single-charge range of 405 miles. In a country the size of the UK, that would be ample for most journeys so range anxiety wouldn’t be a massive problem, especially as more electric car charging stations are appearing. I regularly see a Tesla juicing up in the Asda car park. Perhaps they can’t afford Waitrose after handing over their life savings to Elon Musk.

My Plaid would grant me access to more than 25,000 superchargers globally so I could top it up to a 200-mile range in 15 minutes. The trip planner looked embarrassingly easy to use,

Georgia Lewis tries to atone for her gas-guzzling past and takes an online test drive to customise her very own zero-emissions Tesla Model S Plaid...

with the website suggesting a 208-mile jaunt from London to Manchester and currently less achievable journeys, such as Munich to Zurich (196 miles), Amsterdam to Brussels (131 miles), and Brussels to my beloved Paris (194 miles). For anyone who has experienced Google Maps rage after being sent down a country lane the width of a pencil, this would be a boon.

For my £118,930, I’d get as standard a pearl white multi-coat paint job, 19-inch wheel and an all-black carbon fibre interior. Bargain! But I wanted more and started clicking the most expensive options – soon I created a red multicoat Plaid (£2,500) with a black and white carbon fibre interior (£2,000).

Then I got really carried away and added £3,400 worth of ‘Enhanced Autopilot’ to give me auto lane change, that freaky self-parking function, and ‘Summon’, which helps you locate your car. As someone who once spent nearly an hour in a Sydney carpark in 40-degree heat trying to find an un-air-conditioned Mitsubishi Colt, this was appealing. Click!

While I was at it, I figured £6,800 was a price worth paying for ‘Full Self-Driving Capability’, although the fine print made it clear I would not be able to simply sit in the back with a bottle of champagne and a trashy novel while my Plaid chauffeured me around. For now, my £6,800 would prevent me from running traffic lights and stop signs. Tediously, “the currently enabled features require active

driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous” but I would receive updates via the car’s software in the years ahead. I’d basically be buying a giant laptop on wheels.

After the extras Savings!

The s TaT s are pre TT y impressive. a Top speed of 200mph, a 0-60mph sprin T of 1.99 seconds, 1,020 horsepower, and a singlecharge range of 405 miles

After my clicking rampage, it was the moment of truth – my Tesla S Plaid would cost me £130,280, or a mere £125,280 “After Est. Savings”. I’m always up for a bargain so I investigated how much I could save on this beast. I clicked on ‘I commute to London’ because one day I might want to take my new Tesla from the wilds of Zone 4 into glamorous Zone 1. This turned out to be a savings bonanza – I’d get £9,000 off because of the London congestion incentive and the computer estimated I’d save £5,000 a year in fuel. This made it a £116,280 car.

Like a mad impetuous fool, I clicked on ‘Continue to payment’. To my surprise, the only money that was due today was £100. Somehow, I figured the deposit would be a bit higher than the cost of a purple

sequined jumpsuit I saw on sale in Monsoon today. That was, obviously, the point where I bailed out of this absurd online excursion. I may have at least £100 in the bank but if I had the remaining £116,180 kicking about, I’d probably be really boring and throw it at the mortgage. And continue tootling around South London in the petrol-powered blue Polo....

So you want to get into crypto?

You can hardly have missed hearing about Bitcoin, Ethereum, probably even Dogecoin by now.

Is it a great way to make fast millions? I’ll tell you how it’s going for me…

WORDS Sam Harrington-Lowe

Anumber of years ago, a mate of mine called Daz told me to buy Bitcoin. To give this some framework, Daz is a serial agitator and social disruptor, with a background in challenging ‘The Man’ and seeking alternative lifestyles. He explained how it was digital, wasn’t 3D like the tenner in my pocket, was created by a mysterious figure called Satoshi Nakamoto whom nobody knew, and was going to disrupt the standardised currencies of the world. He talked about blockchains and wallets and I sort of understood it. “Anarchic,” I thought.

Some of this sounded attractive. Some of it sounded like nonsense. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe Daz – it just sounded vague, I wasn’t really interested. At the beginning, one bitcoin was around $0.10. Jump forward to April 2021 and Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $63,707.34. If I’d invested even a hundred quid then, I’d have been sitting on nearly half a million at that point – around £460,000.

That’s a pretty good yield for a ten-year investment, at such a low stake. But this is an extreme example, and Bitcoin has been through

many ups and downs during that time. Summer saw it drop down to around the $31,000 mark. But understandably I find myself wishing I’d taken a leap of faith. Sorry Daz, you did tell me.

OK crypto, let' s have a look then

Fast forward to 2020 and the pandemic, and I found myself with a sudden interest in investing money. I figured airline shares were crashing, but would rise again, maybe a good punt. So I rang another mate of mine, Steve, a futures broker. What did he think? Should I buy into Easyjet? Their shares were through the floor. He had a look and advised wait a bit, it would go lower. We talked about how I could buy some shares, and how it all worked. He was really helpful, giving me calm and measured advice. This is a man who has traded and made millions for his clients; I trusted him implicitly. So what did I do next?

I bought Dogecoin.

I still don’t know why I made that decision. Perhaps because it was so cheap. Definitely because the memes on Twitter about it were hilarious. Partly because I’d seen Elon Musk shilling it. And I liked the idea – it was fun. So I bought a ton of it at $0.03, and joined the #DogeArmy.

Steve called. “So, you’ve essentially gone through the process of looking at a fairly sensible investment with a safe yield, to buying a shitcoin with no development team and no usage options?” he asked. I had to admit that yes, that was exactly what I’d done.

But I didn’t care; I was having a ball. Dogecoin was rising, and I figured I’d invested so little, so I didn’t care. It was keeping me amused, spending hours on Twitter laughing at Doge memes and watching my wallet grow. I was also amused at how irritated the Bitcoin maxis were getting. One Bitcoiner I know posted in a chat group: “why won’t Doge just go away?!!” I’m afraid I chuckled.

Dogecoin continued to rise so, in a fit of being sensible, I bought into Bitcoin, using my Doge

profits. And then some Ether because hey, why not? And when Dogecoin hit around the $0.70 mark I had some kind of God-given flash of insight and sold enough to pay off my original stake. The timing was perfect – it’s dropped steadily since then, and currently sits at around the $0.25 mark. Basically now I am playing with house money across the board. I can tell you, it makes the game a lot less stressful.

Shitcoins can ruin lives... really fast

Not everyone has been lucky like me. Many bought into Doge when it was close to its ATH, buying in at $0.69, thinking it would go ‘to the moon’, and then watched their money disappear. Many have lost a great deal. And not just on Doge – on all sorts of shitcoins. The scams are myriad.

So this brings me to the point of crypto. A lot of where the heart of this lies is in its usage. Are you buying crypto because you want to decentralise finance and take the power away from banks and the old boys’ club? Or are you buying it as an investment, like you would buy gold, or stocks?

The original Bitcoiners didn’t set up to be a commodity. The idea was to take away the power, to have a currency that people could use to buy things, tip each other, purchase stuff… really stick it to The Man. The way all cryptocurrencies work is that ‘nobody’ is in charge. Anyone can mine coins, with the right kit, and anyone can work on development; nobody runs the game. But increasingly that’s not how it all feels to me.

I’m no expert, so this is all just my opinion, but it seems to me that Bitcoin is leaning towards acting like the very thing it railed against. Bitcoin maxis are consistently aggravated by altcoins taking over some of their market capital. They see Bitcoin and its

Say what?!

Bitcoin maxi (maximalist): a coiner who believes only Bitcoin is valid

Shitcoin: coins with little stability, likely to pump and burn fast

Altcoins: alternatives to maincoin (Bitcoin) that are a bit more serious

Fiat: ‘normal’ government-issue money

De-Fi: decentralised finance

Dogecoin: a shitcoin based on the Doge meme, originally created to mock the crypto world

ATH: all time high

Sats: short for Satoshi, the smallest denomination of Bitcoin – 1 sat = 0.00000001 BTC

Noob: a person new to the game

Whale: a person or body (such as a trading platform) who holds a huge amount of coin

FUD: fear, uncertainty, doubt

Diamond hands: when you steel yourself and hold your coins and don’t panic sell

finite supply as the future of de-fi, and for a currency that’s supposed to not be centralised, it really does kinda feel like they want to be front and centre. And just like fiat, there is a small number of people who own a very large proportion of the currency in circulation. It’s also very male-oriented. So how is this different to banks and fiat billionaires?

So, you’ve gone through the proce SS of looking at a S en S ible inve S tment with a Safe yield, to buying a S hitcoin with no development team and no u Sage?

At the time of writing, Bitcoin has just been adopted by El Salvador as a legal tender, to mixed reception, and it looks like Paraguay is going the same way. Poorer countries are seeing Bitcoin as a way of escaping the dominance of the dollar and build themselves some independence. But it’s clear not everyone in El Salvador is happy – the need for internet access and a device to actually use Bitcoin prevents many of them being able to use the currency, so mass adoption still has some way to go.

So is it worth throwing everything at Bitcoin?

This is a hard question, which goes back to the ‘why you are in it’ consideration. Bitcoin maxis would say yes, of course. And there’s an elegance in just stacking sats, as they call it, and watching it grow. Bitcoin is by far the most stable cryptocurrency – you are far less likely to lose your investment.

But if you’re in there for the fun of it too, like me, then dabbling with other coins can be attractive. I’ve got lucky a couple of times, buying low and selling high, but it takes time, watching and

checking the markets. I’m increasingly falling into a more hands-off pattern. I hold Bitcoin, Ether and a few other bits and bobs, but I’m done with the dicking about. I got lucky; I’m not going to push it. I’m just glad the money I have tied up in my portfolio isn’t something I’m relying on, or risking.

Other factors

There is SO MUCH I’m not including in this article about Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency world, and how it all works, and what FUD does, and what the four phases of investment mean and so on. But I’ve only so much space here. I think another article might have to happen.

But I’m not a crypto millionaire. In fact, aside from cleverly selling my Doge at its ATH my crypto wallet is noodling along okay, but I’m not rich out of it. I’m a classic noob – I’ve made mistakes. But I didn’t panic sell, and now as we enter Q4 everything is going up again. So it’s important to have ‘diamond hands’ and some patience!

Anyway, the biggest bit of advice I have for anyone thinking of getting involved is only to invest what you can afford, and do your own research.. And hopefully we can all go to the moon some day. I just don’t know if it will be Bitcoin that takes us.

@SamHL

Time to clap back

It’s a week after England’s Euro 2020 final against Italy, a week after the torrent of abuse against Rashford, Sancho and Saka, a few hours after Lewis Hamilton received similar treatment after winning the British Grand Prix. Idly flicking through the papers, a small report caught the eye. “The German men’s Olympic football team left the pitch before the end of their friendly against Honduras after defender Jordan Torunarigha was allegedly racially abused. The game, played behind closed doors in Wakayama…”

Racism in football is nothing new. You don’t have to be a football fan to be familiar with the image of Liverpool’s John Barnes backheeling a banana that had been thrown at him during a game with city rivals Everton in 1988. Racism, violence, the ‘English disease’, In-ger-land… Football – the beautiful game with some less than beautiful friends.

Things though are changing. Not the racism – that’s been with us forever and will be with us forever. What’s changed is that player passivity has gone. The years of media-trained auto responses where no one says anything, partly because their clubs don’t trust them and partly for fear of upsetting sponsors, might just be over. To nick from Howard Beale in the classic 1976 film Network, they’re mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore.

Maybe it was Tyrone Mings who best caught the mood. “You don’t get to stoke the fire at the beginning of the tournament by labelling our anti-racism message as ‘Gesture Politics’ & then pretend to be disgusted when the very thing we’re campaigning against happens,” he Tweeted after Home Secretary Priti Patel tried to score some political brownie points after the final. Racism. Like taxes and the poor… But in the past few years it has become more directed, more personalised. It has become social media-ised.

“People use emojis because they know that the actual words will likely be spotted by the bots. Emojis and emoticons are harder for the social media filters to see, and direct messages, which again are harder to filter out,”

Times are changing, and footballers aren’t prepared to stay silent on racism anymore, says Jed Novick

Joey D’Urso, investigations writer at The Athletic, told The Media Show. ”Whatever social media sites seem to do, it’s never enough. What they need to do is spend more money on human moderators because the automatic algorithms are not working and they should just put their hands in their extremely deep pockets and pay more people to do better at this. But that’s obviously a very expensive solution.”

Cecilia King, author of The Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination, says: “If you have three billion users around the world, even if you do have tens of thousands of human moderators and AI, you’re never going to be able to suppress the amount of hate speech,

the amount of misinformation, the amount of harmful content that surfaces.”

The power and accountability of the social media platforms is a question not likely to go away any time soon. Whose responsibility is regulation? “It’s not good business for tech

CAPTION Marcus Rashford PHOTOS BBC Pictures

giants to make editorial decisions. For them, it’s much easier for government to come up with regulation, because they know that most governments are not very sophisticated about how they think about regulation.”

In other words, if it’s the government’s responsibility, it’s not their responsibility.

If something goes wrong – well to use a phrase that every parent knows, it’s not my fault. And if we’re waiting for our government to make a moral judgement, settle down, pull up a chair. We may be some time.

The first draft of the Online Safety Bill came out in March and one of the key things in it is that the government can fine the tech giants 10% of their own global turnover. More specifically, they have indicated that senior executives of Twitter, Instagram and Facebook could be charged for allowing hate speach to take place on their platforms. Of course, it’s just a draft.

So do you report it or not report it? Well, of course you report it because these people must be brought to account. But if you report it, it spreads and becomes a story instead of staying a nasty lonely tweet sent by a sad bloke sitting in a shed somewhere. Reporting it gives it life.

And it’s that life that makes it so powerful. For footballers, as for the rest of us, the social media platforms are a fantastically effective way of communicating, of reaching people. If you have something to say, what better way of saying it? As a form of direct communication it’s more effective than anything we’ve had before.

Marcus Rashford has 11.5 million Instagram fans and 4.8 million followers on Twitter. That’s a lot of people. Enough people to cause change. Mind you, if you really want to cause change, Cristiano Ronaldo has 316 million followers on Insta and 92.7 million followers on Twitter.

If Ronaldo was a country, he’d be the fourth most populous country on the planet. Being the good professional and in the interests of research, I followed him and can tell you a) he’s not fat, b) he looks good in beachwear and c) he plays football. Governments are not quaking.

Anyway.

For someone like Marcus Rashford, someone who has a passion, a message – a mission – that channel of communication, unencumbered by media slant or interference, is too good not to use. Obviously his fame – come on, he plays for Manchester United – gets the initial attention, but he has something else.

“He is passionate and talks from the heart”, says Jo Ralling of The Food Foundation, the organisation Rashford works through to get his message across. “But it’s the authenticity of his voice and his ability to connect with the community and people he grew up with that makes him totally unique.”

platforms with the same vigour and ferocity that they currently do when you infringe copyright. The sheer volume of racism, bullying and resulting mental torture to individuals is too toxic to ignore. There HAS to be some accountability.”

“For black footballers, being on Instagram is not even fun for us anymore,” said Crystal Palace’s Wilfried Zaha, one of the few highprofile professionals who doesn’t take the knee before playing. (“I will continue to stand tall.”)

they’re mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore

Increasingly other footballers are using these channels for their own ends, and in the wake of the Euros we’ve heard about Raheem Sterling and Jordan Henderson, among others, both receiving MBEs for their work in the community (Sterling for work with racial equality, Henderson for charity work with the NHS).

But if you haven’t got a mission, it’s not hard to come to a different conclusion. On March 26, former Arsenal star Thierry Henry put this out: “Hi Guys. From tomorrow morning I will be removing myself from social media until the people in power are able to regulate their

Depressingly, in a piece like this, every time a name is mentioned, a story of racist abuse is cited. When Tyrone Mings made his England debut in Bulgaria in October 2019, he was so proud he flew his family out to Sofia to watch the game. He was racially abused throughout, and while England won the match 6-0, it scarred the memory.

Last summer, a 12-year-old boy was arrested after sending Zaha racist messages on Twitter. A 12-year-old boy.

But still. Those prepared to get up and stand up aren’t giving up the fight.

For a famous black footballer, why stay on social? Would Marcus Rashford have the same impact if, like Henry, he came off social media?

Probably. He is, in the very real, very physical world, the star striker of the biggest football club on the planet. Every utterance would still cause ripples. Every time he opened his mouth he’d still cause Boris Johnson to call a photoop wearing a Man Utd shirt.

The temptation for him to just close it down, to follow Henry and say “enough is enough” must be enormous, especially now he has his name, his platform and his profile. But how cool would it be if, instead of doing that, he used his platform to create change in social media? To bring accountability, to put the racists back in their shed. After all, he’s taken on the government and done more than most to combat child food poverty, so what are a few social media companies?

CAPTION Thierry Henry has ditched social media due to racism

CAPTION Bukayo Saka - along with team mates Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho - were subject to a horrifying racist backlash after losing to Italy in the Euro 2020s

Insomnia

…it’s 3.56am. Just me, and the red numbers on my alarm clock. I see some grey light poking under the blinds. Planes start circling overhead. The milkman delivers his cargo (who still gets milk delivered in this day and age?). And now, the kicker: the birds start the dawn chorus that signals the start of another interminable day. People the world over salute the sun and I fucking hate it

Five Years

Earlier

6th July

7 HOURS, 22 MINUTES

Two heavy Sainsbury’s bags in hand, I navigate the front door. I’m still in gym gear from my Power Plate class. This is my ‘magic Friday’ routine, when I am not in the office. I’m surprised to see my husband standing in the living room.

My husband and I have been together for 13 years, married for nine, but busy careers and the competitive tiredness caused by two children born 20 months apart mean things have started to fracture. (I am 42; he is a couple of years younger.) I know things haven’t been great for a while, but I distracted myself with my job, friends, and family. He starts speaking. I only hear part of what he’s saying – such is my discombobulation – but the upshot is this; he wants to call time on our marriage.

I have heard people talking about Sliding Doors moments, about rugs being pulled from under them. Now I know what they mean. Nothing will ever be the same again.

I can’t recall exactly what happens next but I do have one mission and I won’t be swayed from it. Our boy is having his sixth birthday party

the next day and I am making a football pitch cake. (The Sainsbury’s bags contain roll-out icing, green food colouring and some little goals. I had even sketched out the lines on a piece of paper. This was going to be a major achievement; I am no baker.) Somehow, I manage to sleepwalk through the making of the cake. At some point, I call my best friend and burst into tears, but mostly I am on autopilot.

19th July 0 HOURS, 0 MINUTES

I am upset, exhausted and worried about the future. On Sunday night I visit P, a ‘school mum’ friend who is a therapist. We have been confidantes for some time. For ethical reasons, P won’t counsel me formally, though she recommends a colleague who might. For now, I stick that in my back pocket.

P says I need to act with ‘grace’ and ‘restraint’ towards my nowformer partner.

The most important thing is for me to get some sleep, she says, so I can continue to take care of the rest of my life – especially as she knows my history of insomnia.

I wonder about sleeping tablets, which I used briefly and intermittently during my Insomnia Mini-Crash. They did occasionally

grab me a few hours here and there. P can’t advise me, but I resolve to see my GP the next day and ask for some pills.

20th July

0 HOURS, 0 MINUTES

I am dazed with sleeplessness. On the way to work, I stop off at the walk-in service at my local GP practice. I tell the doctor I have had some bad personal news. He is harried, in a rush. Almost without looking up, he grabs his green prescription pad and writes me a two-week prescription for temazepam, an old-fashioned sleeping pill. He then ‘ups’ my trazodone, the anti-depressant I have been taking in small doses as a sleep aid for the past four years…

Year Eight…

10th September

0 HOURS, 0 MINUTES …still, I don’t sleep.

From the frazzled neurons of my brain comes a thought. I’ve had insomnia for almost a decade now. There has to be a more effective treatment than drugs and the entry-level talking therapy offered by the NHS.

Maybe things have moved on since I first sought treatment…

Last week, I begged my father to help me find another way. He has heard of a private GP with a sympathetic reputation. Tonight, the doctor comes to call.

The GP tells me there is an NHS ‘sleep clinic’ based within a 90-minute drive. I am ecstatic. How come this has never shown up in my Googling before? The doctor promises to write a referral letter to the clinic. “We offer diagnostic tests and treatments to people with a great range of sleep disorders from all around the UK,” reads its impressive website. This bodes well!

Excerptfrom MirandaLevy’s book, The Insomnia

Diaries: How I Learned to Sleep Again. Thisengaging read doesn’t justrevealher ownfrustratedjourneythrough sleeplessness,it’salsopackedwith usefultips,ideas,andadvice.Follow herjourneythroughmanyupsand downstoaneventualresolution, andsomehappysleepagain!

The Insomnia Diaries: How I learned to Sleep Again byMirandaLevy (Paperback)£9.99

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Whether it is buildings, contents or both: plush pied-a-terre, modern mansion, a cosy cottage, or a classic two-up two-down.

And with specialised policies to cover high cost valuables including art, antiques, jewellery and watches, we can protect all types of home and contents requirements to fulfil your expectations at competitive prices.

eginsurance.co.uk/silver

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Small but perfectly formed

Whether you’ve downsized or you’re just the sort of person who never has enough space, there’s no need to cramp your style, says

Georgia Lewis

1. Ab fab bubbles: Ditch the crystals for a fun chandelier with a quirky, modern take on traditional chandeliers. Clear bubble chandelier by Dowsing and Reynolds, £133.99. www.dowsingandreynolds.com

2. The only way is up: Maximise drawer storage by going upwards rather than outwards. A narrow-buthigh tallboy works well in bedrooms without being obtrusive. Tallboy chest of drawers by Bensons for Beds, £349.99.

www.bensonsforbeds.co.uk

3. Take a corner: An awkward angle can easily be transformed into a work space with a desk that doesn’t conform to the traditional rectangular shape. Corner writing desk with two drawers by The House Office, £145.95.

www.thehouseoffice.co.uk

4. Antique lightshow: Period properties can be illuminated sympathetically without expensive, enormous light fittings. A simple design in brass and glass will look timeless. Pendant light fitting by dar lighting group, £70.80. www.darlighting.co.uk

5. Light touch: A simple lamp with a shelf is easier to install than wall or ceiling lights as well as being a great bedside table alternative. Lamp with tray by Go Modern Furniture, £820.

www.gomodern.co.uk

6. Screen time: Versatile screens make it easy to divide a room without building a wall, and they create an instant changing space in the boudoir. This is a budgetbusting example but it oozes fabulousness. Empire screen by LUXXU, £16,000. www.luxxu.net

7. Console general: A console table is easily dismissed as a silly frivolity but a slender design works in a hallway, living room or even as a vanity table. Mirrored console table by The French Bedroom Company, £377 www.frenchbedroom company.co.uk

8. Work it: Comfort doesn’t need to be sacrificed with a compact desk chair. Seek out smaller versions of chunkier desk chairs for style and support. Small office chair by LUXXU, £2,036. www.luxxu.net

9. Fly the nest: The retro classic nest of tables has made a comeback, which is a good thing

– it’s a versatile alternative to a chunky coffee table. Set of three nesting side tables by Cult Furniture, £209. www.cultfurniture.com

10. Barfly brilliance: There’s no reason why space-saving bar-style furniture can’t work as well for early morning coffee as it does for an afterwork martini. Glass bar table with bar stool set by Danetti, £377. www.danetti.com

11. Guest star: A spacesaving alternative to a chunky sofa bed, why not consider a foldaway guest bed that converts into a soft bench seat when not in use? Bed-in-a-bun by Loaf, £745. www.loaf.com

12. New flames: If your walls are brick or concrete, you can have a wall-mounted fireplace for an atmospheric heating option that looks much more inviting than the average radiator. White wall fire by Le Feu, £1,599. www.lefeu.co.uk

13. Chilling out: Retro fridges and freezers –with modern inner workings – have grown in popularity and the good news is that there are new models suited to compact kitchens. Undercounter freezer by Bush, £279.99. www.argos.co.uk

14. Table talk: If you simply must have a proper coffee table, a piece that features handy storage will make the most of a cosy living room. Round coffee table by Sweetpea & Willow, £234. www.sweetpeaandwillow.com

Bitchin’stitchin’

Knit one, purl one, look out! We meet three women who are taking knitting to the next level with projects that are a million miles from twee baby blankets or genteel cardigans

PPaula

Thanks to social media, Paula Sharpe, 51, has embraced yarn-bombing. This is the oftenanarchic outdoor art of wrapping things such as trees, bollards, bridges, park benches and bike racks. It turns the idea of graffiti on its head. The movement is believed to have started when a woman in Houston covered her shop door handle with a specially adapted tea-cosy. And there is often a serious message – yarn-bombing aims to reclaim public places and is synonymous with feminism, as traditionally ‘female’ arts reclaim space dominated by men.

“I saw some pictures on Instagram of yarnbombing abroad and then my mind went into overdrive,” she says. “I am very creative and from that moment, I had to have a book at the side of the bed because I would wake in the night with an idea.”

She says yarn-bombing is an accessible way to get involved in knitting and crochet: “It’s such an easy thing to do and if you need inspiration, the internet is full of examples.”

Her proudest yarn-bombing achievement was the result of an open-minded vicar and the help of creativi-Tea, her craft group.

“My local church needed funds and the vicar very bravely said, ‘I trust you’,” Paula recalls. “My imagination went wild, we raised over £3,000 for church repairs and more than 4,000 people visited our little church to see the yarn bomb. I was so proud. “In the future, I would love to yarn-bomb my village, making a trail around the village for people to follow,” she says.

@PaulaSharpe

Clare

December 2002 in Hackney, where she used to live.

Clare, 47, a textile artist and avid knitter, holds the Guinness World Record for creating the world’s largest crochet hook. She is thrilled that knitting has grown in popularity in the past 20 years when she would stand out as the only young person knitting on a train. Her work breaks down traditional knitting barriers. Instead of rustling up winter woollies, she has used knitting to create friezes of street scenes, or reproduce common sights. Her designs include a knitted pigeon stealing crisps from an abandoned packet and scenes of a siege that occurred in

“I love creating unique designs that tell a story,” she says.

The rise of YouTube tutorials has made it easier for more people to get stitching, even if there has been no family history of passing knitting skills down the generations. And during the pandemic, plenty of people with time on their hands decided to give wool a whirl.

“I think that over the past year, there’s been even more uptake, as people have looked for something to do while on furlough or lockdown,” says Clare.

As well as YouTube tutorials and plentiful online resources for self-taught knitters, Clare advises joining a local group: “Learning with others is always easier than trying to learn on your own.”

“It’s an amazing way to improve well-being, to create a lovely safe space to work,” she says. “People seem to enjoy getting together and knitting. It makes an instant community.”

www.claresams.co.uk

aula Sharpe, Clare Sams, and Samia Khalaf Tossio have thrown the knitting rule book out the window with their incredible creations. They’re having fun, they’re making public statements and supporting good causes with their work and they are urging more people to pick up needles and crochet hooks – or even use their fingers - to get wild and woolly.

Samia

Samia, 52, creates colourful, textured finger-knitted clothes as well as yarnbombing activities that make powerful public statements.

She has created yarn-bombing projects in South London, including a remembrance tree and a poignant tribute to Sabina Nessa, the schoolteacher who was murdered this year. These works have had a powerful impact on people in her local community.

“A lady passed by while I was adjusting the poppies on the remembrance tree – she was overjoyed by it all, it lifted her spirits entirely as she was supporting her good friend who was receiving palliative care,” Samia recalls. “She took a photo of me with the tree for her friend. I gave her my warmest smile, and wept quietly when she left.”

“This yarn-bombing lark really does reach people’s hearts in such beautiful ways. I am humbled and grateful for being able to generate joyful ripples for those who need it,” she says.

Samia learned how to finger-knit after her mother died of colon cancer in 2015 –she found an online finger-knitting tutorial and found the craft to be “completely therapeutic” during the grieving process. She says she turned a heartbreaking part

Knits-tagram

of her life into a positive when she taught around 300 people to finger-knit as part of her first yarn-bombing project. Samia’s bold, bright finger-knitted garments are also for sale on her website.

As for yarn-bombing ambitions, she would love to do a project for the Olympics, the Paralympics, Trafalgar Square or London’s South Bank: “Anywhere that making magic can happen with colour, fluff and a whole lot of heart, so that any Tom, Dick and Harriet can stop and get involved right there.”

www.samiart.co.uk

A big knitting and crochet-loving community has sprung up on Instagram over the past few years. The term #knitting has over 20 million hits on Instagram alone, with #crochetersofinstagram coming in second. A click on the hashtag brings up myriad creations, from jumpers and cardigans to slightly more left-field knitted designs including table centrepieces, figurines, jewellery and even underwear.

t he t om Daley effect

In between winning gold at the Tokyo Olympics with his synchronised diving partner Matty Lee, Tom Daley was spotted knitting by the pool. He

claims knitting helps him to stay calm during stressful competitions. The cardigan with its Olympic rings and Team GB logo caused quite a stir when he revealed the finished article during the games. It was auctioned to raise money for a brain tumour charity.

g o ol D school

Among the tragic cardigans and ill-advised sleeveless pullovers, there are some gems to be found in vintage knitting patterns. From funky dresses that are perfect for reviving ’60s style to absolutely hilarious projects, there are plenty of great ideas to create something unique. At www.freevintageknitting.com, there is a treasure trove of free retro patterns to

download, such as this superb doggy sweater: https://freevintageknitting.com/dogsweater-patterns/coats291/punchinello-dogsweater-pattern

CAPTION Punchinello Dog Sweater

SILVER subscriptions

Our next quality quarterly will be thudding through letterboxes in early January. The Winter/Spring issue will focus on 2022 and all it may bring – new beginnings, health, wealth, and happiness.

Like this issue, it’s going to be for our mature mavericks, people who want to read something different…

Early bird sp E

If you signed up for a single copy; firstly, thank you! Because you took a leap of faith with us, you lot have a very special offer. Also, you’re free to share this with the friends you think will love it.

Go to this paGE and si G n up for a y E ar’s subscription: www.shop.silv E rmaGazin s ubscrib E for a y E ar for Subscribe for a year, and when you reach the checkout, add the coupon code SILVPREM – your code will save you a fiver!

Anyone signing up using this code is going straight in the Silver competition to win this hamper. Terms and conditions apply. Closing date 15 December 2021. Winner chosen at random, prize is non-transferable.

MARSHALL AND BROWN KINGSTON HAMPER

Selected to please even the most discerning palate, this hamper is filled with exciting and luxurious foods, including the award-winning Jerk House mustard sauce and spicy condiments. There are also handmade rum truffles, Mama Brownʼs scrumptious Rum Cakes, and a bottle of premium Appleton rum.

If you get lost, go to www.silvermagazine.co.uk and follow the signs to subscribe. Don’t forget your code.

SILVER STUMPERS

To celebrate our Naked Truth theme, QI researcher Adam Jacot de Boinod created these brain-bogglers for you in our quiz. If quizzes aren’t your thing we have good old classic crossword and suduko puzzles for you

THE NAKED Truth quiz

1. In the 1975 film The Naked Civil Servant, which role does John Hurt play?

2. What is a buff-ball?

3. In the Bible, after Adam and Eve ate from what, “the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked”?

4. Which Hollywood film star expertly performed a glove striptease to the song Put the Blame on Mame in the 1946 film Gilda?

5. Who famously and radically painted a nude woman casually lunching with two fully dressed men called Le déjeuner sur l’herbe?

6. In Hollywood from 1934 until the 1960s what was the name of the code that was strictly enforced to restrict nudity in films produced by the studios?

7. Who appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair in 1991 seven months pregnant?

8. The Naked Lunch is a 1959 novel by which American writer?

9. What word, coined by Thomas Carlyle, means ‘nakedness for religious reasons’?

10. Which outspoken female campaigner, prevalent between the 1960s and 1980s, worked remorselessly to remove sex and nudity from the airwaves?

11. What is meant by a ‘dry bath’?

12. Which French artist painted a series of bather paintings that were among the earliest representations of abstract nude females?

13. Which poet wrote “The nakedness of woman is the  work of God”?

14. What was the original purpose for a gymnasium?

15. 1960s photographer Lewis Morley snapped the iconic photograph of whom posed naked astride a modern plywood chair?

answers

crossword

Across

1. Sound of a bell (4)

4. Most precipitous (8)

8. Not manufactured by machine (8)

9. Sailors (4)

10. Parched (4)

11. Nightclothes (7)

13. Showing unusual talent (4)

15. Tavern (3)

16. At what time (4)

17. Try (7)

19. Junkie (4)

22. Engineering qualification (1,3)

23. Event (8)

24. Not defeated (8)

25. Christmas (4)

Down

2. D-Day beach (5)

3. Opponent of new technologies (7)

4. Fly (4)

5. All of us (8)

6. Middle Eastern bread (5)

7. Superficial area (7)

12. Typo (8)

14. Among (7)

16. Laundry time (7)

18. Two under par (5)

20. Pertaining to the kidneys (5)

21. Scrutinise (4)

answers

Down: 2 Omaha, 3 Luddite, 4 Soar, 5 Everyone, 6 Pitta, 7 Surface, 12 Misprint, 14 Between, 16 Washday, 18 Eagle, 20 Renal, 21 Scan.

13 Able, 15 Inn, 16 When, 17 Attempt, 19 User, 22 C Eng, 23 Incident, 24 Unbeaten, 25 Yule.

Across: 1 Toll, 4 Steepest, 8 Handmade, 9 Tars, 10 Arid, 11 Pyjamas,

suduko

answers

Aries

March 21 – April 20

Love – Attend events you were going to avoid. They help you move on, and Venus wants to help you accept that the past is the past.

Money – Train for the skills to earn the money your sign can spend so well. You say you don’t have time, but you’re wrong. Start now by gravitating to what you love.

Life stuff – Let go of what was making you unhappy, and embrace the new, real you. Money you put into the home an age ago finally pays off and saves you finances.

Taurus

April 21 – May 21

Love – Pick yourself up when you fall. Show how strong you are. Choices become yours. You get to make the decisions in relationships now.

Money – Stop throwing good money after bad. You may think you’re doing a certain person a favour investing in them, but they’ll never learn. Invest in you for once.

Life stuff – Drama which you thought you had got away with to come to the fore, but to work out in your favour! An older person may be in the wrong, but this time it’s worth letting them have their way. Events soon prove why.

Gemini

May 22 – June 21

Love – Stop going back to the past. You have high standards, and I don’t know why you pretend otherwise. You need a physical and a mental attraction, or you’ll be selling yourself short.

Money – Watch out for others spending your money for you.

Someone’s making a fool of you.

Reign them in, or better still, get rid.  Life stuff – Keep the faith. Don’t lose your perseverance, and always trust your gut instinct. Your sign is given its intuition for a reason so make sure you use it.

Cancer

June 22 – July 23

Love – Pretend you’re 21 again. You never did lose the kid in you. Staying young at heart will put you in the path of those who make your life a happier place.

Money – Don’t be a follower but lead by example and find passions that make you the individual that got you your reputation. Putting money into the home though is allowed and advised.

Life stuff – Stop putting up with the emotional blackmail that family use on you time and time again. Know whom to distance yourself from, before you lose your selfrespect. You’ve got this!

Leo

July 24 – August 23

Love – Reconcile if you want to; don’t worry what others think. Making your own choices gains you respect on a level like you’ve never experienced before.

Money – Your earning potential goes up, through social links and old friends. This is a time to use those contacts. Get in there!

Life stuff – Being truthful with yourself, as well as others. You’re ready to move on and your honesty also gets you a better circle of friends and maybe even lovers.

Libra

Sept 24 – October 23

Love – Not everyone is a clairvoyant! Go to the source and tell the person yourself, and not their friends and family!  Money – You become successful over the coming months by following your heart, not investing in others. Do a job you love, and you’ll never have to work another day.

Life stuff – Clear out everything that reminds you of the past. Venus gives you the passion to find fresh starts and new beginnings.

horoscopes

by Claire Petulengro

Clairvoyant and astrologer Claire Petulengro is a Romany gypsy from the famous Petulengro family. She has written 18 books and appears in more than 100 newspapers and magazines worldwide. To book a reading, go to www.clairepetulengro.tv

Virgo

August 24 – Sept 23

Love – Be careful what you get into. Are they really single?! You deserve better than that.

Money – Sort your credit rating. Tidy your paperwork up and get your finances in order. You’re old enough to make the rest of your life the best of your life.

Life stuff – Making life a daring adventure.  Be the one who puts the younger generation to shame by living it to the full.  You’ve earnt it and you know you need to make up for who held you back last year.

Scorpio

Oct 24-Nov 22

Love – Stop worrying about what you did in the past. Also telling lies for others in love and covering for them could get you a bad reputation. Tell them to do their own dirty work.  Money – Stop wasting money. You’re going to want to travel soon. Budget now as if you’ve booked that dream holiday and turn it into a reality.  Life stuff – Children are of special significance, and you may even find yourself having to look after someone else’s. Don’t worry, the best part is you can give them back!

Sagitarius

Nov 23 – December 21

Love – Move a relationship to the next level. You may have said you didn’t want to give more before, but now the nerves have subsided and it’s time.  Money – Work out what you want to do, and your sign will find a way of getting it for free. Your element of fire makes you the best salesperson in the zodiac.

Life stuff – Stop lying to yourself and work on finding out what makes you happy. Foreign accents and links are strong now, and money and love put the cherry on the cake in this colourful chapter approaching.

Capricorn

Dec 22 – January 20

Love – A certain person has finally grown on your close ones, and you can all now grow together. News of a birth or pregnancy brings out some new emotions in you.

Money – Stop spending it before you’ve got it, or you’ll take the joy out of waiting. The best things come to those who wait, so find that patience you’ve got hidden somewhere.

Life stuff – Stop worrying about what others think and embrace a bigger, bolder version of you. Dress how you want, do what you want. Your age allows it but you have not yet claimed it. That time is now.

Aquarius

Jan 21-Feb 19

Love – Deal with old emotions. Process what has come to an end and stop clinging on. You are remembering things as you wished they were, not the reality.  Money – Save, don’t spend, as unexpected travel that links to romance will require every spare penny!

Life stuff – Be more you, and you’ll attract the kind of people you need into your inner circle, and not the faces you have been making do with.

Pisces

February 20-March 20

Love – This is your season to flirt. Jupiter helps you grow in ways you didn’t think were possible. Where before there were fears, now there are nerves of steel. Go! Money – Saturn is making you too sensible. You need to live a little. Make the coming months about experiencing the kind of life you promised yourself you’d live.

Life stuff – Texts and emails you send can help make your life more colourful. You don’t have to hide behind a screen though. Make it a face-to-face meeting sooner rather than later.

More and more young people are having serious mental health issues. Sometimes this is because they are autistic and have been missed for referral and diagnosis.

Did you know four times as many boys are diagnosed autistic as girls? We believe many autistic girls are being missed because they are able to ‘mask’ their autism to fit in with their peers. However, masking is not good for mental health; it leads to anxiety, school avoidance and depression.

We need change so that these girls are recognised and supported earlier so they can be the awesome autistic young adults they are.

Autistic Girls Network is an organisation working to support, educate, and bring change.

We offer support to autistic people and their families through our private Facebook group, and resources on our website.

But we’re only small and we need your help. Maybe you can volunteer for us, or if you’re able, donate.

You can complete our volunteer form online, or donate either using the QR code or visit our GoFundMe page.

gofundme.com/launch-autistic-girls-network-as-a-charity

autisticgirlsnetwork.org

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