27 h. ago Sabrina Carpenter may be ‘highly sexualised’ – but that’s not what is most provocative about her | Zoe Williams

The superstar singer is being used in an argument about sex, pornography, the male gaze, female desire and blond hair that has been going on since before her grandmother was born. Meanwhile, her autonomy is overlookedThere are some hot takes on feminism that it’s better to bow out of when this isn’t your first rodeo. The reveal of Sabrina Carpenter’s album cover, which landed last month, was such an event. The photograph shows Carpenter on her hands and knees, with her hair being pulled by (presumably, as you couldn’t see his face) a man. The Daily Mail reported that “over-sexed Sabrina Carpenter” had been “roasted by fans” for her “highly sexualised and provocative album art”.Could we prove that she wasn’t being criticised by people who hated her already, while her fans understood something different from “sexualisation” and were not provoked? Never mind. When you are in the business of slating young women, the onus isn’t upon you to explain what the problem is, or whether it’s you...

Politics

7 d. ago Bored mums in clothes shops of the world unite! Together we could be unstoppable | Zoe Williams

We lock eyes while shepherding unruly, ungrateful teens in and out of changing rooms but don’t speak a word. This needs to changeIf there is a solidarity on Earth tighter than “bored middle-aged mothers in a clothes shop”, I don’t know what it is. Whether in Primark, Urban Outfitters or H&M, the crowd is always the same: some teens are in gangs and they are having a fine old time; others, sometimes in sibling pairs, are with their mum, presumably because they have yet to find a way to detach her from her credit card. It’s like that bit in an action movie where you need a guy’s fingerprint to open a vault, so you cut off his arm, except, regrettably, in this case, they have to take the entire body.Some of us are too hot; others are too embarrassing to be believed and have been told that multiple times between each clothes rack. But the main thing we have in common is that we are all incredibly bored. It’s one of those things about youth that I don’t miss at all, along with p...

Politics

1 week ago You're using plasters WRONG! First aid myth is triggering nasty infections, doctor warns

Dr Zoe Williams, an NHS GP working in London and resident doctor for ITV 's This Morning, warned of the 'biggest mistake' that people make when it comes to wearing plasters.

Events

1 week ago ITV This Morning's Dr Zoe Williams says people using plasters wrong

The resident GP has also cleared up whether you are supposed to pick scabs

Politics

2 w. ago Some people can wear white clothes. I am very much not one of them | Zoe Williams

My talent for attracting coffee stains and mud splatters brings misery to my friends – especially the ones who lend me their pristine white shirtsI have a friend who curates her wardrobe pretty carefully – there’s nothing in it she doesn’t wear – and consequently she gives, sells or lends me a lot of things, and her taste is nonpareil so I never say no. Maybe one item in 10 is white, which unleashes dismay: she has to watch while I stain a pair of cream jeans she has kept pristine for five years, as fast as you can say, “Ooh, what’s this delicious salad dressing?”Once, I splashed mud all the way up the back of a skirt she’d given me while she was cycling behind me, saying, “We’ve really got to get you some mudguards if you want to wear white.” Once, I got Tabasco sauce on her white bra, which was fine because who would see it? And yet, not fine, because how do you get sauce on your bra? Once, I spilled espresso down a white shirt, and that ain’t never coming out – but it actually wa...

Politics

3 w. ago How not to be the most annoying person in a pub quiz – five things I’ve learned | Zoe Williams

As someone who is consistently the worst person on a team, I can impart some advice. And the first is do not harangue your host or the other teams under any circumstancesI am always considered likely to be a quiz asset, because I’m old, and yet I’m a huge quiz deficit – not only usually wrong, but with such confident delivery that I make others in the team, who are right, lose their way, like a magnet on a compass. After another stunning defeat, in which we slipped from a mediocre seventh or eighth back to last place, having had 20 points deducted because I poked the quiz guy with a pencil, I’m ready to pass on some basic quizdom.First, don’t poke the quiz guy with a pencil. Don’t harangue the marking team or try to cut a deal. In fact, keep all extra-team interactions at zero. Forget the captain, forget the person with the best handwriting, choose your most emollient member and make them do the talking for all of you. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago MI6 has appointed its first female leader. What took it so long? | Zoe Williams

From politics to business, the determination to exclude women is purely emotional – a fact that remains as unspoken as it is obviousMI6 has never had a female head in its 116-year history – until now. How fitting that the first woman should be called Blaise Metreweli. That forename has it all: derring-do (courtesy of Modesty Blaise), onomatopoeia, modernity.Metreweli will take over in the autumn as C, the real-life version of M from James Bond. She currently runs Q branch, MI6’s technology division, which apparently is named after the Bond quartermaster. No fictional Q has ever been female, but in real life at least two women, including Metreweli, are thought to have held the role. M can be male or female, except now they succeed or fail by how much they resemble Judi Dench, so all of them, including the incumbent, Ralph Fiennes, are de facto female. Continue reading...

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3 w. ago Blaise Metreweli appointed first ever female MI6 chief as Britain faces 'unprecedented threats'

She is currently Director General ‘Q’, responsible for technology and innovation at the Secret Intelligence Service, a role made famous by the gadgets chief in James Bond films

Events

3 w. ago MI6 appoints first ever female chief to lead secret intelligence service

Blaise Metreweli will become 'C', the only publicly named member of the MI6 intelligence service, in the autumn - the first woman ever to hold the top-secret job

Politics

4 w. ago What's the appeal of AI? It will always reassure you | Zoe Williams

Like many inventions – including mobile phones, Google and Lime bikes – I assumed AI would not catch on. But I’m finding it surprisingly usefulAt the start of the year, a friend asked artificial intelligence how to console his 10-year-old on the death of a pet. I thought this was the most ridiculous thing ever, given that ChatGPT didn’t know the pet, or the 10-year-old. And surely the reason a pet’s death occasions such unique grief is that pets are unique, and therefore cannot be imagined by a machine. So I assumed this wouldn’t catch on – but then I have said that about every new invention, including but not limited to mobile phones, Google and Lime bikes.Now everyone uses AI for everything, and I am slowly waking up to its appeal. Anthropic’s Claude is apparently the more emotionally intelligent, but the beauty of it is that it’s never so intelligent that it would tell you to grow up, get some backbone, and stop asking stupid questions. So you can go to it with anything: “My sist...

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