15 h. 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...

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5 d. ago Steven Bartlett issues brutal verdict on people who wear suits to interviews

People have been left stunned after businessman and host of Diary of a CEO, Steven Bartlett, revealed what he wants to see people turn up to job interviews wearing. And it's not a suit

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7 d. 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...

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8 d. 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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1 week ago Stop using bleach to remove suncream stains as 1 natural item works better

A clothing expert has shared her top tips for removing suncream stains from white clothes - and it turns out bleach is a big no-no

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2 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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3 w. ago It’s been a big, beautiful week of bad news for Trump. But don’t expect it to stick | Zoe Williams

Elon Musk is tapping out, and a court has stepped in on tariffs. But the wheels coming off doesn’t mean the bus is stoppingNothing is going according to plan for the Trump administration. The big, beautiful bill, originally vaunted to save the US taxpayer at least $2tn, so far, according to projections, delivers savings in the region of $9.4bn. Elon Musk has exited government, saying he wasn’t in favour of the bill, which could be big, or beautiful, but in this case, not both. Musk’s government contract ran for only 120 days, so it would have been up at the end of this week anyway.Just to try to lasso those words back to an observable reality where they might mean something, the bill isn’t all that big; there are some very vindictive moves around Medicaid entitlement, intended to fund tax cuts elsewhere, that will have seismically bad outcomes for vulnerable individuals without necessarily burning a hole in anyone else’s pocket. Tips and overtime are exempted from tax, but probably ...

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3 w. ago Dr Zoe Williams on how to prepare for menopause in your 30s and 40s

The TV doctor wants women to be aware of what’s coming, and feel empowered

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3 w. ago Think you know a lot about Dickens? Then who’s this Herbert character? | Zoe Williams

This minor figure from Great Expectations has sown panic at the GCSEs. Be honest: have you even heard of him?It’s unwise to drill too deeply into the exact questions that come up in a GCSE paper. You can’t get a proper sense of proportion when: you most likely don’t know the answer the examiners are looking for, or anything about the subject; your kid can’t remember what they wrote anyway; and someone on TikTok has the mark scheme. But do they really? Or is it more TikTok nonsense? You’ll either get sucked into the catastrophe-vortex, or you fall into the trap of minimising, looking over your metaphorical half-moon glasses and going, “I’m sure it’ll be fine, darling,” like an Edwardian dad.All parents and teachers know this, which is what made last week so very unusual. The English paper set by one of the main examining boards has a character question that encourages pupils to engage deeply with someone in the key text. It might not be the main character, but usually it will be one ...

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3 w. ago Dr Zoe Williams: How I’m preparing my body for menopause – and why our 30s and 40s is the perfect time

The TV doctor wants women to be aware of what’s coming, but feel empowered.

Politics

4 w. ago I can still hear people talking over my noise cancelling headphones

I've bought noise cancelling headphones, but I can still hear people talking near me when I wear them. Can I get my money back?

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4 w. ago I can still hear people talking over my noise cancelling headphones. Can I get a refund? DEAN DUNHAM replies

I've bought noise cancelling headphones, but I can still hear people talking near me when I wear them. Can I get my money back?

Politics

4 w. ago Are millennials really substituting dogs for children? Obviously not – as any dog owner would know | Zoe Williams

Take it from me: far from being fungible objects of love, canines and kids are the opposite of each other in so many waysSometimes, when surprising new findings are published, you can’t help but wonder why they asked that particular question, even as your interest is piqued by the answers. Last week, European Psychologist published a review of recent advances in pet research, and wrote: “Given the two trends of more dogs being viewed as family members and a decline in the number of children, an important question arises: are people choosing dogs as a substitute for children?”The authors concluded: well, sometimes. One study found that 16% of dog owners actively thought of their dogs as children; another commented on the frequency with which owners referred to themselves as “pet parents”, their best friends as “fur babies”. However, they also cautioned that, “contrary to popular belief, only a small minority of dog owners actually treat their pets like human children. In most cases, ...

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