Lifestyle

Being spontaneous is overrated, say Mia and Elijah, who find timetabling sex means it never gets forgotten • How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously OK, you’re volunteering on Tuesday, and I’m going fishing on Thursday, so we’re going to have sex on Monday and Friday Continue reading...

A softer start to spring. The post 31 Small Ways to Refresh Your Life This March appeared first on Camille Styles .

The I'm a Celebrity winner was at the music event at the Co-op Arena on Saturday night.

Spring is (almost) in the air and our fashion expert is celebrating with everything from vintage brooches to a smile-when-you-see-it card case • How to have a guilt-free wardrobe clearout Spring is coming. It’s not here yet, but on a good day, you can feel it. Magnolia buds on the trees. A sliver of daylight on the evening commute. Taking your gloves out of your handbag. (Not the umbrella , though. That would be reckless.) From a chic and bouncy new pair of trainers to a classic spring jacket – or the vintage accessory that could revamp the jacket you’re wearing right now – read on. Continue reading...

This rugged promontory is thriving thanks to community-run cafes, restaurants and inns, which can all be visited on a spectacular coastal walk Cliff is sitting in his farm truck scanning the hillsides with powerful binoculars. “It’s the rams,” he says. “They can stray at this time of year.” I follow his direction of gaze, down a golden hillside covered in bracken and boulders to a dark patch in the valley bottom. “Hopefully not down there,” he adds. “That’s the quaking bog.” Sometimes a chance encounter can transform your appreciation of an area, and that is about to happen for me. I’m heading up Craig y Garn mountain to catch the sunrise over the Llŷn peninsula and the first rays are already stealing over the tops of distant Cadair Idris, rousing giant shadows from under the trees. Cliff, who also happens to be my landlord for the week, points to the house on a hill above the bog: “Where you’re staying was my great-grandmother’s house – or at least what is now the living room. She kept one pig, one sheep and one cow, and made buttermilk where the conservatory is.” Continue reading...

Things will get better in time, but it’s not your responsibility to resolve this I’ve been best friends with Ellie [all names have been changed] for more than half my life. She’s truly one of the best friends I’ve ever had. I started dating Will three years ago, and we have a good relationship. Ellie was in a long-term relationship with Tim for five years, and for two of those years the four of us were a little friendship group. S ix months ago, Ellie and Tim broke up, which really shook our group dynamic. Our larger, mixed-gender friendship circle has now split a bit into “boys v girls ”. I still see Tim as he and Will are good friends, but it’s awkward . The issue is that Tim has been confiding in Will about the breakup. Tim has a lot of anger towards Ellie and it’s causing Will to dislike her too. Ellie and Tim weren’t right for each other and probably should have broken up sooner. Ellie wasn’t a great girlfriend to Tim, but there was no cheating or abuse, just two people who didn’t work well together. Continue reading...

Now that gen Z is eschewing booze and all-night raves, are we moving into a hospitality era when the big posh breakfast might well be the main event? For 5am Club people such as myself, who love to be up, caffeinated and scribbling on Post-it notes pre-dawn, the Four Seasons’ recent launch of London’s first Michelin-starred breakfast is perfect. Now we can do all that over a £70, five-course tasting menu served at a counter in a genteel, pastel-shaded dining room. If, that is, you can get a booking, in which case well done; otherwise, you could simply sit a little farther from the counter and order almost the same food off the normal breakfast menu, only without all the explanations. Regardless, chef Yannick Alléno is clearly doing the world a favour by luring all of us early risers to one room and distracting us with lobster flatbread and a bespoke “amuse juice”, because we are clearly some of the most annoying people on Earth. Have you ever heard one of my bumptious 5.46am WhatsApp admin voice notes? Or woken, blearily, to the sound of me rearranging furniture or stomping at a walking desk ? People like me are a menace. We need to be contained so the polite world can sleep. Not only that, but, from a business point of view, the idea of offering snooze-averse diners pricey, Michelin-starred chia puddings is rather genius. We can now all meet and entertain equally up-and-at-’em colleagues over salted maple pancakes and fancy french toast. After all, does fine dining strictly have to wait until lunchtime? Perhaps now that gen Z is eschewing booze and all-night raves, we’re moving into a hospitality era when the big, posh breakfast may well be the main event. Continue reading...

From Harry Styles' trousers, to Jade's red carpet confession - here's what went down at the Brits.

The documentary host and presenter discusses female independence and snobbery about reality TV.

The singer won four awards, including best artist and album, as the Brits headed to Manchester.

Find out who won what at the biggest night in British music, from Olivia Dean to Sam Fender.

Stars including Olivia Dean, Lola Young and Rosalía turned out for the Brit Awards in Manchester.

Designers seek to shake off controversy over January show with emphasis on ‘instantly recognisable’ womenswear Neither Dolce nor Gabbana would comment on the all-white casting that clouded their menswear show in January, though it seems they read the headlines. More than a third of the looks at their womenswear show in Milan on Saturday were modelled by women of colour. Instead, they wanted to talk about identity. Not politics, but more tellingly, theirs. “Our collections speak to us, our identity, our values,” said the pair after the show. “We never wanted to follow trends.” Their aim instead, they said, was to make “instantly recognisable” clothes that “when you see [them] … you think: ‘Oh, that’s Dolce & Gabbana,’ without reading the label.” Continue reading...

Which wedge is utterly brie-liant, and which stinks the place out? Let the tasting commence … • The best supermarket chutneys Brie and baguette is one of life’s simplest pleasures, to be enjoyed anywhere from a park bench to halfway up a mountain, and with no knife or kit required. It’s a soft, white, mould-ripened cheese made from raw or pasteurised cow’s milk, and has a characteristically soft texture. Gently warmed milk is separated into curds with rennet, then inoculated with Penicillium candidum (sometimes called P camemberti) , which gives it that characteristic flavour and white mould rind. It’s then transferred to moulds, salted and ripened for a month or longer. It originally hails from the Brie region in northern France. Continue reading...

New memoir, new mindset. The post Our Favorite Inspiring Memoirs That Read Like Fiction appeared first on Camille Styles .

The property in the Borders is described as one of Scotland’s "most important historic houses".

From Curthose, Rufus and Beauclerc to ‘the Somme with Santana’, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz 1 Which country is named after the creator god Ptah? 2 What did music writer David Hepworth call “the Somme with Santana”? 3 Which wildlife census attracts more than half a million participants each January? 4 What is the largest blood vessel in the body? 5 China’s Hou Yifan is the women’s world no 1 in what game? 6 Which fabric’s name comes from the Persian for “milk and sugar”? 7 Which philosopher designed the Panopticon prison? 8 Who was infamously acquitted of an 1892 axe murder in Massachusetts? What links: 9 Yates, white; Cavendish, green; Millar (now York), polka dot; Wiggins, yellow? 10 Curthose; Rufus; Beauclerc? 11 Gentlemen only, ladies forbidden; New York, London; port out, starboard home? 12 Taurus-Littrow (17); Descartes Highlands (16); Hadley-Apennine (15); Fra Mauro (14)? 13 Jonathan Anderson; Matthieu Blazy; Sarah Burton; Demna; Alessandro Michele? 14 Georgie Fame; Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot; Beyoncé and Jay-Z? 15 Mississippi v Loire; East, Harlem and Hudson v Foss and Ouse? Continue reading...

You don’t have to travel to Japan to see a stunning floral display. Every spring, this corner of Extremadura is transformed as two million trees come into bloom It’s late March and the villagers of the Jerte valley in Extremadura, Spain’s wild west, are twitchy – as if they’re hosting a party and wondering if all the guests will show up. The event they’re waiting for is the flowering of the valley’s cherry trees, which number about two million. So far, only a handful – a variety called Royal Tioga – have dared to don their frilly spring frocks. The rest are still clutching their drab grey winter garb. Predicting the arrival of blossom is always tricky, but thanks to an unseasonably wet March the trees are three weeks late when I visit. With snow still cloaking the surrounding sierras, the tourist office in Cabezuela del Valle, halfway up the valley, is hastily finding alternative activities for the coachloads of blossom-seekers from Madrid. As with any nature-reliant activity, such as whale watching or aurora hunting, timing is challenging. But unlike hit-and-miss spectacles involving wild animals, at least I know the blossoming will happen eventually. (Sadly wildfires later affected parts of the Jerte valley last summer, but thankfully few cherry trees were affected.) Continue reading...

Tender jarred chickpeas make this colourful vegetarian dish a bit of a breeze to bring together Every now and then, something comes along in the food industry that is “better than sliced bread”, and right now I would say that thing is jarred chickpeas. Due to the way they’re processed, cooked at a lower temperature and for a shorter time, they tend to be softer than tinned and ready to eat in salads (a tinned chickpea, on the other hand, might need a five-minute boil to get to the same degree of softness). In any case, it’s safe to say that this innovation has led to an increase in my eating of chickpeas in salads, and today’s dish is a recent favourite. Continue reading...

Brigitte, 27, an admissions officer for a nursery group, meets Jack, 30, a teacher What were you hoping for? Great food, great company and hopefully an evening that could be the beginning of something. Continue reading...

Director Koshi Nakanishi says balancing action and horror within the game has been a huge challenge.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is the latest in a long line of famous people photographed in the back of a car.

Click here to access the print version. Normal sudoku rules apply, except the numbers in the cells contained within dotted lines add up to the figures in the corner. No number can be repeated within each shape formed by dotted lines. Continue reading...

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A conflict emerged for the panel deciding this year’s National Designer award: whether to champion creativity or commercial appeal Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email The process to select this year’s National Designer award winner was one of the most contentious in recent history, with one judge describing the result as a missed opportunity. Established in 1997 at Melbourne Fashion festival, the award is widely regarded as an important step on the route to becoming a legacy Australian designer, with past winners including Toni Maticevski and Romance Was Born. Continue reading...

Can David and Victoria's youngest son escape the "nepo baby" label and find success with his band?

Years of singlehood, dating apps and humiliating set-ups left me skeptical. But Calling in ‘the One’ – surprisingly – worked In January 2023, a friend recommended I read a dating self-help book with her. “I think we need to read this,” she said. “My friend did it and that’s how she met her husband.” But when the book arrived, I discovered it wasn’t a recommendation so much as an enlistment. Continue reading...

Flow meets function. The post Small Living Room Ideas That Feel Calm, Airy, and Beautiful appeared first on Camille Styles .

Why some spaces help us relax—and others quietly stress us out. The post How I Designed My Home to Calm My Nervous System appeared first on Camille Styles .

Could the royal family’s latest troubles usher in a new era of diplomatic dressing? As Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was taken into police custody last week, his brother King Charles made a “surprise” appearance on the front row at the opening of London fashion week . Styled in one of his staple jaunty ties, clashing pocket handkerchief and British-made suit, it sent the message loud and clear: this was business as usual. That message persisted when, at the Baftas at the weekend, the Prince and Princess of Wales showed a united front in coordinated burgundy velvet ( “Pantone diplomacy” , as the New York Times put it). Catherine’s blush Gucci gown showed not just solidarity in hue but also, arguably, signalled her ethics in a week when the royal family’s came under fire: she’d worn the dress before, on a previous outing. Continue reading...

From magical swimming spots to museums and pizza joints, our readers share their top Welsh discoveries I’m a fan of the lesser-known beaches along the dramatic and rugged Glamorgan Heritage coastline ; Wick, Monknash and Nash Point. One of my favourite routes requires a scenic hike across fields and a precipitous scramble down Cwm Bach ladder. The reward is a gorgeous expanse of rocky beach with only the occasional distant naturist and huge stepped cliffs absolutely full of fossils, including some enormous ammonites. The nearby ancient Plough & Harrow feels like a step back in time and you’re being served beer in someone’s living room. P Thomas Continue reading...

The star, nominated for five prizes at the Brits, plays a low-key gig to get Manchester in the mood.

It’s almost time to swap your chunky winter jumper for a knitted polo top. Here are three ways to style it Continue reading...

Treating the underlying acne can help. But stress relief measures like meditation can too – and may depend on the severity Hi Ugly, I tend to get pimples, especially around my period. This is fine and normal. What’s not fine is that I cannot stop picking at them, making my skin irritated and red. Why is this column called ‘Ask Ugly’? How should I be styling my pubic hair? How do I deal with imperfection? My father had plastic surgery. Now he wants me and my mother to get work done I want to ignore beauty culture. But I’ll never get anywhere if I don’t look a certain way Continue reading...

Her Turner Prize-nominated messy bed caused a stir in the late 1990s and is now going back on display.

From a Sichuan-inspired lasagne and a simple macaroni cheese to pasta al forno with meatballs, here are a few easy, inspired recipes to enjoy hot from the oven • Sign up here for our weekly food newsletter, Feast The other day, I climbed the communal stairs and opened the front door to the smell of cheese on toast . A welcome aroma made even more welcome when I realised that it was actually the tips of pasta tubes turning golden among grated cheese and creamy bechamel sauce. To add to the pleasant scene, my partner, Vincenzo, was washing up. Because that is the thing about pasta al forno – baked pasta – the time between finishing the construction and the eating is around about 25 minutes. That is, exactly the right amount of time to wash up and wipe up, or delegate those tasks to someone else while you make a salad and open a bottle of wine. There are few things as beautiful, inviting and complete as baked pasta and a clean kitchen. The baked-pasta galaxy is a big one, with many stars. Ann and Franco Taruschio provide a brilliant recipe for a classic lasagne bolognese , made with fresh pasta, a rich (but not tomato-rich) ragu and parmesan-enriched bechamel. While their recipe is undoubtedly written for fresh pasta – either homemade or bought – it can and should be adapted for dried pasta, too. Just remember to plunge the dried sheets in boiling water for 30 seconds before using them, even if the packet instructions say not to soak them. Also, make the bechamel slightly more liquid by increasing the milk by 100ml. Meanwhile, for a lasagne recipe specifically written for dried pasta and with a juicy, tomato-rich meat sauce, look to Katie Stewart via Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall . Alternatively, Tamal Ray has a fantastic-sounding Sichuan-inspired lasagne made with pork mince, fermented bean ragu, bechamel and chard (pictured top). Continue reading...

Minimal effort, maximum payoff. The post These No-Bake Ricotta Cheesecake Bars Are My “Simplicity Era” Dessert appeared first on Camille Styles .

This former industrial quartier is now getting noticed for its community-focused art spaces, lively local bars and inexpensive north African food On a hill that rises up between Belleville’s Chinatown and Père-Lachaise cemetery, Ménilmontant was once a rural hamlet with vines and farms, before becoming more industrial in the 19th century. The quartier boasts a united, colourful community whose working-class Parisian roots have long been integrated with a strong north African diaspora. Bohemian, arty and socially committed, it remains off the tourist trail with no notable museums or monuments; it’s just a genuinely Parisian neighbourhood. The locals were bemused to learn that Time Out made Ménilmontant one of its World’s Coolest Neighbourhoods for 2025, though tourists who do venture here to discover a glimpse of a fast-disappearing Paris are sure of a warm welcome. Continue reading...

India’s female bodybuilders, unnatural Italian models, Asian cyborgs and erased Afghan women … here are the highlights of the many-stranded PhotoVogue festival, in Milan for fashion week Continue reading...