So here we come out of the woodwork – the people who’ve always believed in social equality and justice, and who have gone on working for it, often as volunteers, bringing up our children to value community and openness.
My son used to attend a school that prided itself, rightly, on its super-efficient organisational abilities. We would get regular after-school phone calls from teachers telling us that Maume Jnr had done well in one class or another that day.
For each person chuntering furiously at footage of 69-year-old Lord Sewel cavorting in an orange bra, seemingly ripped on cocaine, nestling a large vodka, surrounded by jovial ladies of the night – I’ll wager there will be others quietly impressed the old boy still has it in him. Because what are cocaine come-downs even like aged almost 70? They’re bleak enough aged 27, which is why yoga studios are full of cowed, new-leaf-turning thirty-somethings, replacing MDMA and mojito splurges with the “downward facing dog”. Читать дальше...
I’ll start with a multiple choice question, one I imagine teachers will be adding to their sex education classes come September. What is the first thing a girl should do post-coitus? a) Take a selfie and upload it to Facebook, b) Spend 30 minutes in the shower rinsing every last scrap of shame from her skin, or c) Leap out of bed and fix her spent lover a tray of milk and cookies.
If everyone knows what you wore last night, can you wear the same next week?
Whether it's for naps, entertainment or giving mum and dad a break, our panel of parents and mini testers have given this selection their seal of approval
Government ministers are finally heading off on their holidays this week. Everyone in Westminster is rather exhausted – which also goes some way to explaining the bizarre Labour leadership contest – and in need of a break. Some MPs will be packing their suitcases with worthy books to relax with on the beach, while others plan to remind themselves of what their families look like after months of electioneering and adjusting to a surprise majority.
As a new dad myself, I was slightly perturbed to read this morning that “Men adopt 'traditional views on gender roles' after becoming a father for first time” – in other words, first-time dads suddenly become a little bit more sexist soon after their bouncy babies are handed to them. But then, as a scientist, I had to delve deeper into the veracity of these claims – and why couples in the UK are apparently becoming less enlightened during parenthood (a time when it pays to be more open-minded... Читать дальше...
Women who say they have been sexually abused or raped are silenced on a daily basis – particularly if the man they accuse is powerful, famous and well respected. This is a horrifying truth upon which today’s chilling New York Magazine’s front page shines a light.
There was great power in the moment when Minnie Goetze, female protagonist of The Diary of a Teenage Girl, said: “I had sex today. Holy shit.” She had sex. She said it for all of us to hear. She didn’t ‘lose her virginity’. She didn’t ‘become a woman’, courtesy of a man. She had sex, and she wasn’t even embarrassed or ashamed; in fact, despite having bedded her mother’s boyfriend, she was kind of proud of it. When I saw this on-screen, I felt ecstatic. In three short words, Minnie opened up a... Читать дальше...
Sandra Bland was laid to rest over the weekend. Her death, at the age of 28, has sparked an intense debate in America about the nature of civil liberties, police professionalism and courtesy, and the role that race and gender played in the affair. It should not be lost on any of us that Sandra Bland was in Texas because she was starting a new life. Or that she left a voicemail on her friends phone during her time in custody, in which she asked "how did switching lanes with no signal turn into... Читать дальше...
Did you watch Chris Froome, become the first Briton in history to win the Tour de France for a second time? No? Chances are you didn’t. Despite the ubiquity of “Mamils” (middle-aged men in lycra) and the soaring popularity of cycling, the Tour de France sadly still appears to have limited television viewing appeal.
A news anchor left his on-screen colleague cringing when he claimed that Amazon has become the world's biggest retailer because it sells sex toys.
The rich are different from you and me. For one thing, they have different problems. It is not the shadow of the food bank, the threat of disappearing tax credits or Jeremy Hunt’s decision to quietly kill off his promise to cap care bills for the over-65s that keeps the residents of the capital’s wealthiest areas, such as Knightsbridge and Chelsea, awake at night.
David Cameron is in no doubt why he is flying to Malaysia and Indonesia this week. He will be “packing a plane full of business people”, he wrote in a national newspaper last week, and going to South-east Asia to sell, sell, sell. “My message to South-east Asia is simple,” he went on. “When it comes to new markets, Britain means business.”
What is a win worth when taken with a cup of cold piss? Even in victory there is defeat. Chris Froome’s triumphant ride to Paris to claim a second Tour de France, unfairly contaminated as it was by years of doubt and suspicion, turns the yellow jersey radioactive.
That both Samuel Beckett and Oscar Wilde attended the same secondary school - Portora Royal School in Enniskillen in Northern Ireland - gives the establishment a cachet that not even Eton can derive from its umpteen prime ministers. Just how differently the two great dramatists turned out is a good subject for discussion, but during the opening weekend of the 4th Happy Days Enniskillen International Beckett Festival, there was at least one moment when one's thoughts turned to Wilde, and to his... Читать дальше...
Like many teachers, as well as students and parents, I am already holding my breath over this summer’s results following the debacle over exam marking in the past few years. Experienced teachers know their classes and what they are capable of.
When Birmingham’s multimillion-pound new library announced it was being forced to slash its opening hours due to budget cuts less than two years after opening, the humiliation looked like it might turn the architectural landmark into an expensive white elephant.
