An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
I’m a writer, and I’m raising my son knowing that he might never understand what I do for a living. He’s just turned four. Last year, he was diagnosed with autism. I knew that the NHS was overwhelmed with referrals, so I was expecting a long process. Instead, all it took was a single hospital visit with a pediatrician. She had
AI is set to take over all cognitive tasks in the next few years. Your hard-won career as a paralegal, data analyst, radiologist, coder or novelist is about to be hacked out from under you. So far, so apocalyptic. But what about the jobs that are primarily embodied? Sous-chef, rehabilitation nurse, plumber, dog-trainer? These are expected to lag
Over the past few months, I’ve been training for the London Marathon, so most weekends I’ve been out running more than 20 miles at a stretch. I carry the usual bits to make these long slogs vaguely civilised – energy gels, a water bottle, a couple of fruit pastilles. They help, of course. But there’s one thing I absolutely cannot do without: music. Non-runners sometimes ask
One of the funniest – and in my opinion, falsest – things women have long said is ‘I’m doing it for myself – not for men’ about improving the way they look. Men have rarely said the same about women, which reflects that men have never been principally valued for their looks, historically, as they generally earned far more money than
It’s a funny thing, being a feminist surrounded by women on weight-loss drugs. As someone who recognises the health risks of being clinically obese, I’ve never been a fat liberationist – but pretty much all of us used to be against prescribed beauty standards. In practice this meant we would critique the harmful impacts of
When you have children, it’s incumbent upon you to develop a variety of new skills – paramount amongst which is the ability to ignore unsolicited advice. From the moment you share a grainy black ultrasound with the world, it rolls in. Birth, breastfeeding, sleep, diet, teething, clothing, tantrums… everyone’s got ideas about how to do it right. If your
‘Oi mister! Will you buy us summit in the shop? I got the money.’ ‘Here we go,’ I think, ‘another grotty 15-year-old making the usual request for a bottle of Dmitri Vodka or 20 Benson & Hedges. Reluctantly, remembering my rebellious teens, I agree. Surprisingly, he hands over £80. ‘Can you get me a Montecristo
Nearly one in three British women are now predicted to have no children, compared to around one in 20 in 1970. The assumption is that this is because young women have simply lost interest in becoming parents. But on the contrary, nine out of ten say they hope to become mothers one day, and the desire
There is a moment in a recent University of Cambridge study into Artificial Intelligence in children’s toys that unintentionally recreates one of the most disturbing scenes in film history. The report, AI in the Early Years, published earlier this month, involved observing 14 children aged three to five as they played with a conversational AI soft toy called Gabbo, a
Would you inject yourself with an unapproved drug you could only buy off a sketchy website? Most people instinctively would say no. Yet, throw in a debilitating chronic condition or a crippling insecurity, and the promise of miraculous effects, and the question becomes a lot harder. Such is the quandary faced by those considering taking peptides, the
People say that there is nothing as boring as listening to someone tell you about a dream they have had. I think there may now be something even more tedious: someone telling you about their sleep score. Since my husband bought himself an Apple Watch, he has become a sleep swot. Our morning conversations have become a one-way
There’s a trend on YouTube at the moment for videos in which older people give advice. They speak directly to camera, frankly and without pretension. One can almost sense the care home staff hovering in the background, coaxing their barely extant charges into making one last testament of their time on Earth. The videos have titles such as ‘Things I’d
Recently, I was in my local park when I noticed a young girl staring at me with a puzzled expression. She then turned to her mother and asked: ‘Why is that man hugging a tree?’ It was a good question. Why was an old, cynical, embittered hack like me hugging a tree? The simple answer
I was born in London in 1982 and my parents were neither hippies nor part of the Women’s Liberation Movement. As a result, frank talk about body parts, functions and sexual development was generally non-existent. The arrival of my period was not something I remember having any feelings about whatsoever, and it certainly wasn’t something the womenfolk in
At the present count, we have 14 syringes. Some are stuffed in kitchen drawers, but I have also found an alarming number under my eight-year-old daughter’s bed, suggesting heavy recreational use. But this isn’t a crack den. It’s simply your average British household with small children who take – need? – the family-favourite brand of
This new year, you may find yourself in the gym. The aim, of course, is to mitigate the effects of the gallon of brandy butter consumed over Christmas. But you may also be trying to build the ‘new you’ (clichés abound when it comes to fitness). Yet as a Spectator reader, you might soon find
On New Year’s Eve, at about 3 p.m., I phoned for an ambulance. The pressure sore on the weight-bearing surface of my right amputation stump – one of three on that stump – had torn open, exposing bone: specifically, the cut end of the fibula. Although it was a pain to have to go into
Everyone is giving up something these days. Even before this week’s flood of new year’s resolutions, we’re in the age of subtraction as people shed vices like old skins. Cigarettes, alcohol – those villains have been booed off the stage by the newly health-conscious, whose accusing stare is now turning to a fresh culprit: caffeine.
In news that will surprise no one, it emerges that vegan children are thinner, shorter and – dare we say it – sicklier than their counterparts. A recent study by the University of Florence details how children who follow a vegan or vegetarian diet are deficient in vitamins and minerals and consistently exhibit a lower
Christmas Day in a care home is often thought to be the saddest shift of the year: a place where staff trudge in reluctantly through the dark and cold, while the rest of the country unwraps presents and gets merry; where residents sit quietly, reminiscing about the happiness of Christmases past. And yet, for those
It began when one of the care home residents I look after asked me to take her picture for her Facebook account. Harmless enough – until I noticed the photo had been requested by Michael Bublé. The messages were affectionate and convincing and before long she was being asked for personal information. I had to
In the mid-1990s, ecstasy was a drug of the suburbs. My friends and I, all A-level students and shortly to become beneficiaries of the final years of higher education that didn’t come with tuition fees, did not fit the model of ‘drug users’ that the media, still in thrall to 1980s heroin hyperbole, fixated on.
Anyone who has allowed themselves to spend time on TikTok – to say nothing of those who have ever looked at porn on the internet – will have an inkling of the vortex that lurks. Even for those of us who have so far resisted full-blown internet addiction, the ever growing appetite can never be
By now, you have probably given up on Sober October. I’ve never done it, mainly because I’ve been sober for 15 years. There’s two things, however, that I’m truly thankful for. The first is that I gave up drinking before Instagram stories became a widespread means of social documentary. The second is that I had
Turning 24 came with more than just cake and candles. Alongside the celebrations came a barrage of life-determining questions: when are you getting married? Where do you see yourself living? When will your job become a career? With a single step into my mid-twenties, I felt suddenly catapulted into a new world of adult expectations.
My son’s first birthday has arrived, which feels like a much bigger milestone for us than it is for him. I had to let go of any expectations around motherhood early. At eight months pregnant I learnt that I could not have the calm, candlelit water birth I had planned (does anyone actually have one
I am not sure about the protocol for arguing with a royal essay, but at the possible cost of my head I will respectfully disagree with the Princess of Wales’s call for parents to ban smartphones from family mealtimes, written with Professor Robert Waldinger of Harvard Medical School. ‘Our smartphones, tablets and computers have become
Is there a more obnoxious introduction in 21st-century Britain than the words ‘I’m a runner’? ‘I’m a runner,’ followed by the gulp of a protein shake or (shudder) the announcement of a 5k personal best. ‘I’m a runner,’ from a wheezing wannabe in carbon-plated trainers: ‘The shoes Kelvin Kiptum wore when he broke the marathon world
There’s much to enjoy about the autumn months in the UK. Teenagers are restricted to school playgrounds rather than the high street between the hours of nine and three. Landlords in rural pubs start remembering that they have a fireplace that might be worth lighting. And provincial airports become populated with polite, cashmere-wearing pensioners on
