When Black Lives Matter created the figure of the Karen, it was a sign of that movement’s darker, bullying qualities. What exactly was wrong with a white middle-aged woman who asked to speak to the manager when things were unsatisfactory? The answer seemed to be in the white part and the woman part, and perhaps
I was nine. It was Florence, in mid-July. My parents bravely led my younger brother and me through a day of sweaty sight-seeing. We had just been up and down the Duomo and were cooling ourselves with ice cream in an adjacent square when there was a hideous bang. At first, we thought it was
Over the years, I have spent a pretty penny on therapy. I have also spent a lot of money in Waitrose, of which there is a big branch that I like to call a ‘flagship’, very close to my flat. Of the two, therapy and Waitrose, it is probably Waitrose that has provided the most
I am never allowed to forget that at my fourth birthday party I made clear my expectation to my mother and the gathered guests that I expected to win all the games. The logic was clear and to my mind (still) fair: it was my birthday and so I should win. When this wasn’t passed
As far as chefs and food writers go, Yotam Ottolenghi has been pretty influential on my life – a life that revolves quite heavily around food. Choosing it, thinking about it, pathologising it, eating it and sometimes even cooking it. I was one of those who was delighted when supermarkets started stocking pomegranate molasses, rose
As an urban-dwelling, free-spirited 41-year-old with sleep issues and a whimsical trade – writing – having a baby posed many challenges. The chief of which has been having to constantly work with two other people: baby and baby-daddy. I vowed as the due date approached to get kitted up in ways that would feel reassuring, limiting the cannonball splash effect of
I’d all but forgotten about David Cameron when he returned as foreign secretary under the last government, and the first thing I remembered about him, when he returned, was his chin. By which I mean its prim absence and how, combined with those thin lips and tiny mouth, more like a fish’s than a person’s,
‘Enough! Let’s put a stop to tourism!’ So goes the slogan to be bellowed at a planned protest on 6 July in Barcelona. The city’s mayor has pledged to drive Airbnb out of the city within five years by revoking more than 10,000 licenses for short-term tourist rentals. The announcement follows anti-tourist protests in Mallorca, and
I remember sitting on the bus a few weeks into #MeToo and thinking all the men looked disengaged – buried in their phones or listlessly looking out the window. I imagined them thinking it just wasn’t worth it to look up lest they be accused of making unwanted advances. These days, I spend fewer mornings worrying
Bridgerton is an American fantasy of ye olde England – right down to the absurd if enjoyably playful not-quite colour blind casting and its insinuation that Regency London was peopled with an equal number of Bame and white aristocrats. Even the casting of Queen Charlotte, played by half-Guyanese actress Golda Rosheuvel, is an allusion to
I went to quite a few May balls in my three years as an undergraduate at Cambridge. As an editor at the student newspaper I blagged my way into the top ones – Magdalene, Trinity and John’s – since they were stupidly expensive and even as a 20-year-old student I had the sense to feel
My annus horribilis was 1992. I was in fifth grade (aged ten) and had impulsively cut my hair short over the summer. I turned up to school with auburn ringlets billowing out and up from my head in a wavy sphere. Boy did it get the boys going: constant insults, including ‘Ronald McDonald’ (McDonalds’ clown
For my thirteenth birthday, which coincided roughly with my Bat Mitzvah (the Jewish ceremony for entering adulthood), I had begged for – and got – my own phone line. This was so that I could talk for hours on the phone to friends I had seen all day, or possibly all weekend if they were
On the surface of it, Germany’s new pathway to citizenship sounds like a rare dose of sense from the one country in the Western world whose modern history means it still understands why Israel has a right to exist. One surefire short-hand for establishing who means us ill is by singling out those who mean
Our age of mental hypochondriasis has some surreal, even comic, aspects. I recently met some Gen-Zedders who were actually competing over bagging psychological diagnoses. Unsurprisingly, ADHD was the gateway pathology for these young folk – prescription rates for hyperactivity have jumped a fifth in the last year to 230,000, with doctors claiming to be overwhelmed
There is much to bemoan about the NHS, from the cruel entitlement of its junior doctors to its zest for hiring diversity and inclusion staff when many people can’t even see a GP. I have been a harsh and consistent critic for years. I don’t like the cultish, Big Brother vibes, the gawping black hole
The other day I met a young woman wearing a crop top emblazoned with the words Waystar/Royco – the media conglomerate at the heart of Succession, HBO’s cult television drama about the nasty Roy family and their insane attempts at one-upmanship for control of their father’s company. It won Emmy and Golden Globe awards three
Years ago, in the midst of a dating spree that involved numerous encounters with erratic and callous young men, I often consulted my cousin. She’s a cool, emotionally controlled New Yorker who seemed to have an innate knowledge of how to seize and maintain power in sexual or would-be sexual entanglements. She often advised me
If I had to pick a king of women I’d call a draw between Vermeer, the 17th century painter, and Thomas Hardy, novelist and poet. Both had an outstanding capacity to take women’s interior lives seriously, to see individual women as distinct, intense and complex, and far from corresponding to any feminine stereotype. Whether it’s Vermeer’s
While perusing bins on the John Lewis website, having heard great things about the Brabantia 60-litre, I noticed my stress levels rise – and it wasn’t just because the lid-up height meant the bin wouldn’t fit in my new cabinet. It was because for my whole shopping session there had been a dribble of information
