Lifestyle - Saturday, April 18, 2026

This raspberry-rhubarb tart is for people who don’t like sweet desserts.

Herbs, spices and love may be the secret to great falafel, but which supermarket versions hit chickpea perfection and which are over-processed duds? • The best tinned and jarred chickpeas It was surprisingly hard to find good, traditional falafels in the supermarkets for this test. While most of those on offer were delicious, many had long, complex ingredients lists, other than two standouts made with just chickpeas, herbs, spices and sodium bicarbonate. Even some of the better falafels had unnecessarily long ingredients lists, despite being relatively minimally processed, but at their worst, some of these falafels were much more processed and included dehydrated potato flakes, pea protein, refined soya bean oil and stabilisers. The best, however, were delicious and contained lots of herbs, spices and even love. Continue reading...

For The post This Is What I Do When I Feel Off (and Can’t Explain Why) appeared first on Camille Styles .

Nearly every passenger on board wrote Cruz Anguiano a note of support after his successful treatment for Stage 4 cancer.

The comedian and broadcaster on moaning about his eyebags, being stabbed by muggers, and his publicity-shy pet Born in County Dublin, Graham Norton, 63, studied at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London. In the 1990s, he was a standup and appeared in the sitcom Father Ted. Since 2007, he has presented The Graham Norton Show for the BBC. He hosts Eurovision, is a judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, and is presenting new reality show The Neighbourhood, which starts on 24 April on ITV. He has won nine Baftas and written three memoirs and five novels. He is married and lives in London and West Cork. When were you happiest? Our wedding weekend in Ireland. Continue reading...

Five multiple-choice questions – set by children – to test your knowledge, and a chance to submit your own junior brainteasers for future quizzes ​Submit a question Molly Oldfield hosts Everything Under the Sun , a podcast answering children’s questions. Do check out her books, Everything Under the Sun and Everything Under the Sun: Quiz Book , as well as her new title, Everything Under the Sun: All Around the World . Continue reading...

From early English and perpendicular to Deal or No Deal Nigeria, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz 1 Which world-famous ancient site was the capital of the Nabataean people? 2 What is a shark’s skeleton made of? 3 On 15 February 1971, what went from 240 to 100? 4 Which England footballer presented Deal or No Deal Nigeria? 5 Ju Ae is the daughter and possible heir of which leader? 6 United Downs in Cornwall is the UK’s first of what type of power plant? 7 Which US magazine was founded in 1925 by Harold Ross and Jane Grant? 8 Who was the first British entrant to win Eurovision? What links: 9 Dead Man Walking; Monster’s Ball; The Green Mile; True Crime? 10 Early English; decorated; perpendicular? 11 Flute-playing rapper; tears in Turin; Paranoid singer? 12 Gretna, Scotland and Marshall Meadows Bay, Northumberland (c2,700 miles)? 13 Solon; Hammurabi; Moses; Justinian; Napoleon? 14 Christie’s rostrum; Comic Relief nose; Coronation emblem; Linn turntable? 15 1949 Orwell novel (35); 1982 Prince song (17); 2014 Taylor Swift album (25)? Continue reading...

The machair is nature’s dazzling display on these remote islands, but this rare habitat also plays a vital role for wildlife and the resurgent crofting community Some 8,000 years ago, behind the retreating glaciers, a remarkable environment was born on the western fringes of Scotland’s Outer Hebridean islands, forged by the wind and waves. It began with rising sea levels and sweeping Atlantic gales depositing crushed shell-sand inland; this settled over glacial sediment to form a coastal belt of lime-rich soil. Buffered from the sea by mounting sand dunes, this winter-wet and summer-sunned substrate produced one of Europe’s rarest habitats: the “machair”, Gaelic for “fertile grassy plain”. Abounding in diverse, colourful wildflowers and an array of associated wildlife, coastal machair is a precious, globally important outpost of biodiversity, supporting everything from purple orchids and nodding blue campanulas to endangered birdlife, otters and rare bumblebees. As a wildflower fanatic, visiting the Outer Hebrides in peak machair bloom has long been an aspiration. Over the years, I’d read accounts of its arresting, vibrant seasonality – its shifting blankets of red and white clover, yellow trefoil and creamy eyebright, bold against the sky. Although remnant machair is also found in north-west Ireland, its greatest extent lies on this Scottish archipelago, notably the islands of Barra, Uist and Harris. Continue reading...

Letter writer wants to know how you “graciously accept something so over-the-top and unexpected.”

At 65 and without living relatives, a newly retired letter writer doesn’t know where to start in finding purpose.