38 h. ago Women reveal the key moments they realised they'd hit their 40s

A poll of 1,500 women aged 40 plus found 19% didn't accept they had completed their fourth decade until they were at least two or more months into it.

Events

57 h. ago Harry Potter fans just realising Filch actor's son is a telly star in real life

David Bradley has enjoyed a lengthy and successful career in showbusiness, with roles in the Harry Potter franchise and Game of Thrones, and his son has also followed him into the limelight

Politics

3 d. ago 'My dad made a deathbed confession and it has destroyed everything I thought I knew about my life'

A woman has shared how her dad made a shocking deathbed confession that made her realise 'everything she knew about her life was a lie' - but it did bring her family a little closer

Events

3 d. ago British woman is mauled by a shark on Caribbean holiday and watched 'blood pour everywhere' and thought she would die

Rachel Smith, 26, was on holiday with her sister when the metre-long beast bit through her left hand as she swam in Jamaica, leaving her ring finger hanging off.

Events

3 d. ago Could the right question bring some magic to your meetings? | Emma Beddington

Do you die a little every time you sit down with your workmates? Try asking them about their first ever concert, or the last time they blew up a balloonIs there enough magic in your meetings? I can hear the hollow laughter from here. Research from the London School of Economics found that more than a third of meetings are considered unproductive, which seems awfully low to anyone who has been to a meeting, ever.“People throw meetings at problems,” Priya Parker, meeting specialist and author of The Art of Gathering, lamented on the Fixable podcast recently, before offering her solution. Asked for a quick fix, she suggested kicking off with “a magical question”: one that everyone would be interested in answering and in hearing others answer. Her suggestion: “What was your first ever concert, and who took you?” Continue reading...

Politics

6 d. ago Quinie: Forefowk, Mind Me review – collecting songs on horseback, this Scottish musician is alive with ideas

(Upset the Rhythm)With folk songs gathered from a gallop across Argyll, Josie Vallely’s album is a resonant tribute to her ancestral landTravellers’ songs sung in Scots are the focus of Josie Vallely, a gutsy, Glasgow-based artist performing as Quinie (pronounced “q-why-nee”; “young woman” in the Doric dialect), whose third album acknowledges ancestors watching over her. It includes traditional singers Lizzie Higgins, Jeannie Robertson and Sheila Stewart, whose rawness drones, speaks and soars over these 11 varied tracks, mixing tunes from fiddles, Gaelic sean-nós singing, and canntaireachd (the vocal mimicry of pipe music).Quinie collected these songs from people using a method that fits the album’s strange, rustic mood: she rode her horse, Maisie, across Argyll (“you pay attention to all your senses, have different conversations with people and connect to older ways of doing things,” she writes in the liner notes of this journey; she’s also made a 15-minute film). On Auld Horse, h...

Culture

9 d. ago 'I watched a woman be prosecuted for an illegal abortion, now I want to change the law'

'Abortion should not still be illegal in this country'

Events

1 week ago I’ve been living each day as if it were my first – and the results amazed me | Emma Beddington

From a disobedient dishwasher to a letter from the taxman, it turns out everything is more palatable with a sprinkling of childlike wonderReading about ways to foster joy last week (I know, most of us would settle for waking without lingering dread, but why not dream big occasionally?), I was captivated by the memoirist and cancer survivor Suleika Jaouad’s suggestion: live each day like it’s your first. When Jaouad’s leukaemia returned last year, well-wishers urged her to live each day like it was her last, but the pressure to carpe each second of every damn diem left her feeling panicked and exhausted. Instead, she cultivated a sense of freshly hatched curiosity and playfulness, which she says helped.I loved this, but doubted the feasibility – can you really convince your tired, cynical self to feel joyful astonishment? I tried living yesterday as if it were my first; not like an actual newborn (red-faced, frequently crying, utterly incompetent – I’m all that already), but with chi...

Politics

1 week ago Ruth Langsford's huge decision after Eamonn Holmes split with surprise result

Ruth Langsford is enjoying time with pals after realising there’s “life after Eamonn Holmes" - and now, a year on from the couple's shock split, she's vowed to have fun

Politics

2 w. ago Watch: Woman tries to drive through street festival to get to work

A woman tried to drive her car through a street festival to get to work on Saturday (May 10), police said.

Politics

2 w. ago What’s better than a cafe, wilderness retreat or spa? A silent cafe, wilderness retreat or spa | Emma Beddington

Imagine going somewhere and not having to hear all about a stranger’s toxic boyfriend, pitch deck or hernia opDemand for silent experiences is on the rise: apparently silent book clubs, a concept launched in San Francisco in 2012, are spreading like quiet wildfire, with “1,600 chapters in 54 countries”, according to the BBC, including about 100 in the UK. In the same article, Eventbrite reported a 460% increase in silent book events organised at the beginning of 2025 compared with the same period in 2024.Silent cafes – sacred safe spaces where you won’t have to hear about anyone’s transversal skill set, toxic boyfriend, pitch deck or hernia op – are proliferating, too. The algorithm thinks, correctly, that I would enjoy a silent reading cafe in Tokyo and there are silent cafes in Osaka, China and Turkey. Silent travel was decreed a “top travel trend” last year by Condé Nast Traveller, spanning everything from full-on week-long retreats and a certified “wilderness quiet park” in Ecua...

Politics

3 w. ago I watched a woman clear her shower drain – and realised I had to get my own life in order | Emma Beddington

From answering emails to booking appointments, there’s nothing I haven’t postponed and postponed and postponed. TikToker Christi Newrutzen showed me a better wayHow long would the tasks we’re putting off actually take? TikToker Christi Newrutzen has gone viral for timing herself completing chores she has been avoiding. “I have been procrastinating on making a dentist’s appointment for three years,” Newrutzen said in one video, viewed 3.6m times (presumably by people like me, ducking their own drudgery) before filming herself doing it in a mere nine minutes. Clearing her shower drain for the first time ever took only seven (albeit impressively revolting) minutes.Newrutzen is comfortingly unvarnished and relatable; people have started thanking her for inspiring them to tackle the long-neglected corners of their own lives. After a week of algorithmic nudging to watch her, I too felt compelled to try, despite a sense of foreboding. (Surely I have good reasons for letting things fester?)...

Politics

3 w. ago Shocking moment woman spits biscuits at Home Bargains staff member's face after tearing items from shelves

She was previously banned from the store for eating biscuits she picked off the shelf.

Events

3 w. ago Do we ever stop feeling anxious, angry or sad about relationships? Not if my older friends are any guide | Emma Beddington

The generations are more segregated than ever. Yet we have so much in commonI’ve always felt a bit pathetic for not having a proper peer group. In dark moments, it feels like a moral failing and an indictment of my social skills. In kinder moments I recognise it’s also partly a product of being sick and sad at university, then successively too pregnant, too preoccupied with babies and too peripatetic to make or maintain ties. In calmer times, I’ve forged slightly more of a social life, but mostly it’s not made up of my gen X peers, but rather people who are occasionally younger, usually significantly older. Now I’m wondering – am I lucky?This thought was prompted by an Atlantic podcast discussing the demographic moment we’re living in – the usual pyramidal population structure is becoming squarer, with similar numbers of older and younger people – and asking whether we’re making the most of it. The conclusion was we probably aren’t. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Alec Baldwin’s Rust caused a woman’s tragic death. Watching it is a miserable experience

Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was killed on the set of this overlong western – and only her work is of any value here

Events

3 w. ago LGBTQ+ charities warn of ‘genuine crisis’ for trans people after UK ruling

Charities say the judgment creates ‘a legal framework that simply cannot uphold the dignity’ of trans peopleFourteen national LGBTQ+ charities have written to Keir Starmer seeking an urgent meeting to discuss what they describe as “a genuine crisis for the rights, dignity and inclusion of trans people in the UK” after the supreme court’s ruling on biological sex.The UK supreme court ruled last month that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 referred only to “a biological woman” and to “biological sex”, with subsequent advice from the equality watchdog amounting to a blanket ban on trans people using toilets and other services of the gender they identify as. Continue reading...

Events