12 h. ago I’m ready to join the brave new world of women who are leaving their family at home – and holidaying alone | Zoe Williams

Women are ditching their families to seek adventures on their own terms. What took us so long?A couple of weeks ago, I got an email about a press trip I would never countenance. It was long haul and it was about fitness, so it would have involved a lot of exercise and early nights. Even if I enjoyed those things, I wouldn’t have been desperate to spend a week with other people who enjoyed them. But even as I was hitting delete, I started to wonder what that would actually be like: being somewhere different, without anyone to please except myself, without anything to do except exactly what I wanted. Plainly, it would be amazing. So I said “yes” and it turned out they meant the other Zoe Williams, the one who is a doctor and used to be a Gladiator, and is incredibly fit already, and yes, in retrospect, that should have been obvious all along.So, without meaning to and without going anywhere, I’ve arrived in the fastest-growing travel demographic: the female solo traveller, aged 45 to ...

Politics

3 d. ago Tourists issued major flood warning as three people dead in holiday hotspot

Bulgaria has been hit by a wrath of floods which has killed at least three people. The Navy has been deployed as people desperately try to find their loved ones who have been swept into the sea

Events

9 d. ago We Americans love remaking British TV. Must the UK remake our odious politicians? | Dave Schilling

A recent trip to Britain from my native California presented some worrying truths about our shared political futureI’ve always wanted to visit the UK. This might sound absurd to you, considering I’m from California – home of sunshine, half-naked bodies and the studio where they film Jeopardy. What could possibly pull me to the cold, damp, gray shores of England? The oppressively brown food? The dodgy colonialist history? Tesco? No, it was the glowing box that vibrated with whatever passed for culture in my small town: television.British TV was an obsession in my house, via those purveyors of affordable, exotic entertainment at PBS. We’d get classy fare through the Masterpiece Theatre series, but also more downmarket comedies like Are You Being Served? (a variety of sexually obsessed retail clerks trip over each other) or Keeping Up Appearances (lower-middle-class oafs desperately wish they were posh). I had no concept of what people were saying in their thick accents or most of the ...

Politics

9 d. ago Everyone who buys or sells on Vinted urged to be aware of InPost issue

People who are using InPost and Yodel when sending or receiving items on Vinted have reported noticing ongoing issues with the service, meaning things are arriving late

Events

1 week ago Vinted user shares top five items to sell this autumn that shoppers are 'desperate to buy'

Vinted sellers have reported a recent jump in sales for these must-have autumnal items.

Economics

1 week ago Major bank issues urgent warning over 'serious' scam costing victims up to £500

The bank said it has seen a "huge" increase in the number of people falling victim to the scam due to desperation to complete their driving licenses amid long waiting lists.

Events

1 week ago People 'desperate to buy' 5 Vinted items as sellers urged to cash in now

A Vinted seller has shared the five items that are selling well on the second-hand platform this autumn as she urges people to clear out their wardrobes and list unwanted items

Economics

1 week ago Vinted seller shares five items people are 'desperate to buy' this autumn

Vinted seller Sam has shared the five items to sell on the popular online marketplace to earn some extra cash in the run up to Christmas - as users reported a jump in their sales

Politics

1 week ago 'People desperately want something different, they just need someone to get behind'

The Stockport Community Group's decision could have a huge impact on how the council is run

Politics

2 w. ago A historic opportunity for the British left is being thrown away. This very public Your Party row must stop now | Yanis Varoufakis and Ken Loach

People desperately want and need a party with socialist values. Future generations will be damning if this failsWe write as friends and comrades.The need for a new party of the left has long been clear. It is now more urgent as Keir Starmer’s Labour party falls headlong into one moral void after another: surrendering to corporate raiders and the City, cutting disability benefits, placating racists, rescinding political rights, colluding with Israel’s genocide etc. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago ‘If he can be found, every one of the users can be’: unmasking the man behind toxic gossip website Tattle Life

For almost a decade, the site has torn apart the lives of celebrities and ordinary people alike, while its creator’s identity has remained a mystery. Until one couple turned super sleuths On Friday 13 June this year, a name that many people had been desperately trying to uncover for almost a decade was finally revealed. In a Northern Irish courtroom, a former vegan recipe content creator turned internet entrepreneur from Somerset was exposed as the hitherto anonymous proprietor of a gossip website named Tattle Life. His true identity is Sebastian Bond, and his unmasking may have kickstarted the biggest flurry of celebrity lawsuits since the Leveson inquiry revealed the extent of phone hacking in British tabloids.Tattle Life is a members-only forum that invites users to create and contribute to publicly readable threads of what it calls “commentary and critiques of people that choose to monetise their personal life as a business and release it into the public domain”. The site itself...

Events

4 w. ago UN issues emergency funding appeal to help survivors of devastating Afghan earthquake

The United Nations is issuing an emergency appeal for nearly $140 million in desperately needed funding to help nearly half a million people affected by the devastating earthquake in eastern Afghanistan

Events

4 w. ago Hundreds of Brits queue to register with NHS dentist sparking urgent warning

About 150 desperate people lined up outside the Bristol practice from the early morning on camp chairs and with coffee flasks despite Labour planning to end the NHS dentistry crisis

Events