I lost my father to alcohol, in every sense. We still live in fear for his future, but we finally have a relationship again I wasn't around to witness my dad's rapid decline between 2005 and 2007, I would hear stories by the time it was too late to do anything about them, but my conscience finally crept up on me, and with news coming in that perhaps he might not make it beyond the next year, I w..
The campaign for a limit on rent hikes and a fair deal for private sector renters won't stop until the government admits failure and starts looking for solutions. Every time it seems that the housing crisis couldn't get any worse, it does. Our social housing stock is fast diminishing, buying a home is still and impossible dream for many and the rental market is both viciously competitive and inc..
This landmark strike is not just about pay and working conditions; it's about showing that resistance to the government is possible If we need a reminder of why we should be focusing fire on the government - not the internal machinations of the opposition - then today is it. England's junior doctors have been driven into their first national strike for four decades. Usually politicians and the m..
Clangermackys, needs and poodles, strangled eggs - young children don't just invent language, they spruce it up as they learn to talk Helping a tiny baby to learn your language is like building a bonfire with words for twigs. Nothing happens for ages. You keep putting the bloody twigs on and trudging back and forth in a cold, damp field. You may have a faulty pelvic floor and much rather be watc..
Obviously the teachers have to talk, and the manicurists. You just silently indicate what color, though when you're on a spiritual voyage, it's amazing how you stop caring about material stuff. Got to be Bali, if you ask me. Nothing against British retreats - I did this brilliant one in Wales, total silence for six days; it helps there's no phone signal. They've got this incredibly nurturing spa..
We met at a wedding of mutual friends: an outdoor mishmash of English and Scottish, traditional and unique. After the ceremony you asked me the way to the portable toilets and I took you to the appropriate field myself. We discovered en route that we had both brought the same dish to add to the wedding buffet. This sparked a friendly rivalry that drew dotted line between us for the remainder of ..
I will hate myself until I turn into Gisele Bundchen is not a reasonable, reachablke goal. Don't treat yourself that way this year It's the third week in January. You're probably on a diet. More than any other axis of life - more than our careers, our relationships, our finances - we're trained to ring in the dawn of each year with a hyper-critical evaluation of our bodies. Even if we don't plun..
After 20 years of marriage, Joanne Walker and her husband agreed to split. Then he fell seriously ill and had no one else to turn to - but was it even her place to take charge any more? It was over. Just like that. I'd stopped listening to him; he couldn't understand me. The usual stuff. We took our time - a couple of years, in fact - getting around to untangling our relationship. We had been to..
He has no home and only the clothes the stands up in. She has a sparer room. This is what happened when Yasser and Helen moved in together, as seen through both their eyes... "You are not going to like me saying this," my dad said, "but you need to get a lock on your bedroom door and a lock on your bathroom door. Men can get very frisky when they are away from their wives." I rolled my eyes, hun..
Grit your teeth, it's time to plan your family trip. When I ask Maddy(12) which has been her favorite family trip ever, she says, without any need for reflection, "Walking in Slovakia - the Tatra mountains - all those days we did going from hut to hut." Now you might nod and think this seems reasonable. The Tatras are an impressively jagged range, with forbidding gorges, snowy summits and paths ..
Our relationship with food has become disordered and obsessive. As the new year brings diet madness, it needn't be such a struggle to learn good eating habits So many of our anxieties around diet take the form of a search for the perfect food, the one that will cure all our ills. Eat this! Don't eat that! We obsess about the properties of various ingredients: the protein, the omega oils, the vit..
A reluctant landlady leaves feedback for the travelers who stay in her home. This week : dealing with a malevolent drunk I'd never been scared before by any of my guests, or their behavior, not really. But when Val arrived, I was. My first instinct was to turn her away, but how could I do that? Her verifications checked out, her money was paid, and what was a 72-year-old woman going to do anyway..
Women can struggle to make themselves heard in the workplace. But, according to the experts, they need just a few simple stage techniques to make colleagues listen up. So, is learning to act the best way to win at work? Sitting in an almost empty studio, I am slowly reciting details of my weekend to a drama teacher while picking up cups from a table in front of me and putting them down again - o..
It's the job of a food stylist to make products look delicious on camera - even if the makeover leaves the meal inedible. Six stylists tell us their tricks Behind most professional food photos is a stylist who tricks the viewer. These deceits range from a touch of lipstick to redden a strawberry, to "milkshakes" made from mashed potatoes. It's not that food stylists are liars and cheats. They're..
Some of us might be drinking kombucha and eating plangoes this year, but the rest might prefer a decent local chippy, a proper pie or a late-night sandwich shop. Here is one food writer's new year wish list By now, you will have read your fill of 2016 food predictions. Be it melon juice becoming a "thing" over at the Daily Mirror or analysis the Food People taking a bold punt on the influence of..