lifestyle

‘I have played a lot of powerful, well-dressed women in my career,” says Gillian Anderson. They flash before your eyes: Margaret Thatcher (The Crown), Eleanor Roosevelt (The First Lady), Emily Maitlis (the Prince Andrew/Newsnight drama Scoop) – as well as the formidable sex therapist in the Netflix hit Sex Education, a role that led to…

I don’t know what to put it down to, but I’ve always been a collector, a completist, a statistician – and maybe a little competitive. As a schoolboy in Canada, I was fascinated by the Guinness Book of Records and Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!. I would memorise the records and amaze my friends by quoting them. Little…

“There’s lots of chat at the moment about #SkinnyTok,” Jenny Stevens, the Guardian’s deputy features editor, tells Helen Pidd. “The TikTok influencers, TikTok users, who are documenting their extreme weight-loss journeys. “I’ve looked through that hashtag and I think, wow, some of these people are really, really unwell. And I think that there is a…

They are typically worn around public swimming pools in the hope of avoiding a verruca. Or slipped on post-pedicure. Now, flip-flops are moving beyond communal showers and nail salons. Along with rattling ice cubes in glasses of rosé, this summer’s soundtrack is gearing up to be peppered with the distinctive noise of flip-flops slapping pavements….

“Who would like to hear about what happens when you’re dying?” In the final episode of the FX series Dying for Sex, a hospice nurse with an oddly comforting sense of enthusiasm explains to a patient what to expect as she dies. “Death is not a mystery. It is not a medical disaster. It is…