The new year has its first new muse: “Punk Alice”. At Dior’s haute couture show in Paris, Lewis Carroll’s feisty heroine got a 21st-century makeover. Imagine Alice, she of Wonderland fame, but in her Charli xcx-inspired Brat era and with a wardrobe handmade by the finest seamstresses in Paris. There you start to get the…
A study has found that songbird chicks are being killed by high levels of pesticides, found in pet flea treatments, in the pet fur used by their parents to line their nests. Researchers found that 100% of the 103 blue and great tit nests lined with fur that were collected contained fipronil, which is banned…
This month’s news celebrates heat-sensitive tongues, forests in the air and the mind-blowing potential of stone. Everything you need to know about design this month. Karina Thompson’s art quilt from the show Made in the Midlands. Photograph: Made In The Middle While the Midlands is best known as the birthplace of the industrial revolution, the…
I’m imagining myself teaching a class on grief. “This,” I tell my young students, “is how you think your life will go.” I draw a chalk line that wends gently upward in a steady, predictable run from childhood to old age. Education, school, work, adventures, love, purpose, a peaceful death in old age. No dust,…
I’ve long been a January apologist. Few would claim it’s their favourite month, but I love the optimism of a fresh new year, offering the reset so many crave. In January, you can still believe that this is the year in which you’ll find the perfect work-life balance, become a chiselled Adonis, and finally achieve…
When I was about 19 or 20 I was driving through a genteel, leafy suburb on the north shore of Sydney when that most menacing of all Australian wildlife – a huntsman spider – raced across my windscreen. On the inside. My arachnophobia is so intense that I would have vastly preferred it if a…