Life

Tuesday

Bill McMorris

The difference between children and tattoos

Mrs. McMorris and I have five daughters — and much like the WNBA nobody is watching them. Unattended children are best kept to the cozy culs-de-sac of the suburbs where the only threat to life and limb is inattentive Amazon delivery drivers, rather than the city where they could fall prey to inattentive pit-bull owners — or worse, watchful public-school teachers. Every father knows the first thing to do when moving to the suburbs is to find a cheap handyman who will respond within the hour to any text message. All the better if he is a licensed plumber, which is how Mrs. McMorris and I found Scott from All Total Service plumbing. Scott is indifferent to my career as a journalist, though he cares deeply about his Nextdoor rating.

children

Wednesday

Siôn Simon

What going blind taught me about humanity

From our UK edition

Twenty-one years ago, when I was a young Labour MP, I wrote a piece in these pages about going blind. I described a rare degenerative eye condition called choroideremia, which shrinks and darkens one’s vision until eventually there’s nothing left. I started to see less in my late teens; by the time I wrote the piece in 2002 I was 33 and perhaps half-blind, but could still manage to do most things pretty well.  The daily differences were such, though, that people could tell there was something not quite right. I would do things – such as failing to see, and therefore to shake, an outstretched hand – which just seemed odd. I worried that my bumping into and tripping over things all the time would make people think I was drunk.

Friday

Christopher Sandford

Danny Bonaduce’s guide to survival

It’s just after nine on a gray Pacific Northwest morning, and Danny Bonaduce, the once winsome redheaded child star of TV’s The Partridge Family, is dispensing life advice on Seattle’s 102.5 KZOK classic-rock radio station. “My ex-husband has a gambling problem and won’t ever show up for our two kids,” one distressed young woman announces. “Keep a journal. Write down what he does wrong, it’ll be useful one day in court,” says Danny, speaking in his familiar rapid-fire, gravelly voice. “He has to perform if he’s ever going to see the kids. You’re not a bad person, he is. The kids know that. Be strong. Hang tough.” “My twelve-year-old son is cool,” the next caller says, “but he’s rude to his mom. Should I intervene?” “Intervene?

bonaduce

Tuesday

Jane Stannus

The barbarism of Canada’s euthanasia regime

“After a recent experience caring for a patient receiving medical assistance in dying, I felt distressed and uncomfortable. How should I manage these emotions?” According to the website of the College of Nurses of Ontario, that’s a frequently asked question for healthcare professionals involved in euthanasia. Perhaps Canadian health science programs ought to have some mandatory classes on Shakespeare. He wrote quite a bit about coping with the pangs of conscience, particularly after having been an accessory to the unnatural death of another.

Thursday

James Jeffrey

Souvlaki with graffiti

I’m drawn to sketchiness but even by my sketchy-drawn standards, the state of Athens is deflating. The cradle of Western civilization now appears to be the graffiti capital of the Western world. The luridly colored scrawls are everywhere; Greek grannies air their carpets over balconies marred by multicolored tags and swirls. The Parthenon temple still looks mighty grand atop the ancient Acropolis citadel, but down in the modern city a lot of people look hard-up and downtrodden: lined faces, permanent frowns, hastened aging, disheveled clothes. Wandering through central Athens, I passed two shuttered shops set back from the street. About twenty homeless people lounged in the alcove, amicably passing round substances to smoke and ingest.

Athens

Friday

Olivia Grant

John Paul Getty: a life of miserliness, mistresses and hotel hopping

From our UK edition

I grew up watching re-runs of ‘Thelma and Louise’ on VHS and mouthing Geena Davis’s line, ‘I don’t remember ever feeling this awake’, in the bathroom mirror, so when my agent rang to tell me that Ridley Scott had ‘responded’ to my audition tape I was a little excited. The audition in question was for the part of John Paul Getty’s mistress in Ridley’s new biopic, All the Money in the World, about the aforementioned oil billionaire who was initially played by the substantially younger Kevin Spacey in full prosthetics. Just a few months later there I was in full 70s costume shooting in Hatfield House, blissfully unaware that the film would become a huge talking point, even before its release date.