Carrie and Jill: the real summit
The remainder of the G7 summit is effortlessly overshadowed by the leaders’ spouses
Melanie McDonagh
Melanie McDonagh is an Irish journalist working in London.
Thursday
Tuesday
Naomi Osaka is tennis’s Meghan Markle
Crying mental health and running away is ungracious as well as infuriating
Sunday
Boris, Carrie and the politics of weddings
From our UK edition
Well! The PM’s nuptials have taken everyone unawares. And it’s hard not to feel that a small and informal wedding is better right now than something big and flashy next year, as per the excited coverage of the implications of his ‘save the date’ message to friends, faithfully passed onto the papers last week. Instead:
Monday
The rise of British cheese
From our UK edition
Say cheese. Now, say ‘British Cheese’ and what comes to mind? A nice bit of Cheddar? A wedge of Stilton? Fair enough; but would you be surprised to know there are now no fewer than 800 British and Irish cheeses, many of them new? There has been an upsurge in cheesemaking in Britain. Some of
Friday
Identity politics is ruining children’s books
Kamala Harris’s new work is the latest case of identity politics in the kindergarten
Monday
Boris should be ashamed of his treatment of Shaun Bailey
From our UK edition
What with all the excitement about Hartlepool and the understandable fuss about Scotland, there’s one aspect of the elections that seems to have passed everyone by, and that’s the result of the mayoral contest in London. You may have missed it: Sadiq Khan won, with 1.2 million votes. But the Tory candidate, Shaun Bailey, did
Friday
Move over Meghan: classic books every child should read
From our UK edition
There are so many better ways to spend thirteen quid on children’s books than on Meghan Markle’s The Bench; how about something that children might actually enjoy, which isn’t written to gratify the vanity of the author? Here are a few of the ones that I liked and that your children (or you) might like.
Wednesday
What is the point of Meghan Markle’s new children’s book?
From our UK edition
Meghan Markle has written a book for children. Of course she has. There is no celeb, no matter how busy, who doesn’t have a children’s book in them, because children’s books, you might think if you didn’t know better, don’t need plot or character or much in the way of style. It was either that,
Tuesday
The best staycation hampers to take on holiday
From our UK edition
We may as well get used to the idea that we’re going to be spending an awful lot of time on home turf this year. From 12 April we’re allowed staycations, or self-catering holidays, which can of course be lovely. But they do need a bit of forward planning. I spent a weekend in a
Friday
Prince Philip epitomised a very British stoicism
From our UK edition
So, Prince Philip has died, at home in Windsor Castle, thank goodness, and the Queen could be near him at the end. That’s something to be grateful for. The other thing to be grateful for is a life well lived. More than a man has passed with Prince Philip. A culture, the sensibility of his
Friday
What Seaspiracy gets right and wrong about eating fish
From our UK edition
Who will have a fishy on a little dishy/Who will have a fishy/When the boats come in? Far fewer of us, probably, after the new Netflix documentary, Seaspiracy, 90 minutes of devastating criticism of the fishing industry. Among the more eyecatching assertions is that the oceans will be empty of fish by 2048 and that
Thursday
Europe’s panic: what’s behind their vaccine meltdown?
From our UK edition
39 min listen
As the EU threatens a vaccine export ban, is their blind panic a sign of incoming crisis? (1:15) Plus, will a new Instagram account for teenage girls to report sexual assault restart a battle of the sexes? (18:05) And finally, what is it like to be one of the last British babies born under the
Teenage life has never been so fraught
From our UK edition
You’ve heard about Everyone’s Invited? It’s the controversial new website for female students, mostly schoolgirls, to unburden themselves about boys behaving badly. It has trashed the reputation of some independent schools, Dulwich being the latest. There are sections for St Paul’s, Eton and Latymer Upper — and, among the private schools, my son’s state school,
Thursday
Why Pontins thinks I’m an ‘undesirable guest’
From our UK edition
Oh curses, one less option for the summer holidays. Pontins, the holiday camp for those who don’t mind bringing their own cleaning products, has been exposed for issuing a list of surnames belonging to ‘undesirable guests’. Under the legend ‘You Shall Not Pass’ on the company intranet was an instruction: ‘Please be aware that several
Tuesday
Where to order your post-Brexit fish
From our UK edition
It’s Lent, and you know what that means? Fish, that’s what. Once, the point of the whole fast and abstinence thing was to eschew meat, which meant eating fish instead. Indeed, the fish-fasting association was so important for the fishing industry that when the Reformation came, much Catholic practice was jettisoned, but not the obligation
Sunday
In defence of Shaun Bailey
From our UK edition
It’s possible I am alone in not minding about Shaun Bailey’s observations during the hunt for poor Sarah Everard. Before her body was found, he tweeted that ‘as a father and husband it breaks me to think that my wife and daughter have to live in fear in their own city. It doesn’t have to
The trouble with mindfulness
From our UK edition
Mindfulness makes you smug. And not just mindfulness; a whole raft of alternative spiritual practices such as chakra cleansing and past life regressions feed a sense of superiority over normal mortals. That’s the finding of research from Radboud University in Nijmegen in the Netherlands involving some 3,700 people. The leader of the research, Professor Roos
Wednesday
Can Harry and Meghan back up their incendiary allegations?
From our UK edition
Well! On the bright side, Oprah Winfrey got her money’s worth. Also on the bright side, Prince Harry is sixth in line to the throne so bear in mind folks last night’s interview by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex does not, really, matter in the great scheme of things. On the final bright note,
Thursday
Meghan, Harry and the trouble with Oprah’s ‘truth’
From our UK edition
Obviously, I can’t wait for the Meghan and Harry audience with Oprah Winfrey. Alas, it’s going to be broadcast at about one o’clock in the morning our time (I’m still thinking popcorn at the office around a flat screen). But meanwhile there are tasters from the programme to keep us happy. What got me going
Tuesday
What ‘Britain’s wokest headteacher’ gets wrong
From our UK edition
Ah, a story for our times. And I think you know how it’s going to go. There was this junior school in Yorkshire which had houses named after various figures in English history; Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, Lord Nelson. And then? You can take it from here. Some very agitated pupils got together and
