G2

I am planning a trip to Crete – and it has cast a magic spell over my life

Reader, it’s important to tell you that I’ve never been to Greece in my life. Not once. But I might be going, for the first time, in the spring. And so, for the last week or so, all my dreams have featured fresh fish cooked to flaky perfection, a...

Veggie Thursdays and vegan surprises!

‘Gay men keep my ego going – they message me all the time!’

I deleted Instagram – and embraced the joys of a truly private life

I first downloaded Instagram when I was 17 and became hooked on it the way most people fall in love: slowly, and then all at once. For a long time, I never considered myself a social media addict. I self-righteously refused to download TikTok, declared...

Jesse Eisenberg’s best film performances – ranked!

5. Café Society (2016) One of Woody Allen’s light jeux d’ésprit comedies, this has an interesting performance from Eisenberg. He plays a nervy romantic who is ventriloquising Allen, but we also see him grow from boy to man. Set in the US in the 30s,...

Is there any game more agonisingly frustrating than golf ?

I hate golf. A good walk spoiled? The whole day spoiled, more like. As with many cases of hate, it has its roots in love. You see, I just love the feeling of hitting the ball sweetly. If you feel the same way, then you’re into golf; if you don’t, then...

I learned to read at 42 and my world opened up

In 2021, at 42 years old, I had the reading age of a four-year-old. I had spent my life up to that point not being able to read and write, navigating the world with careful planning and the help of my wife. During the Covid lockdowns, however, the...

Reform’s Zia Yusuf sounds more and more like Trump every day

Had Reform merely announced its intention to suspend the asylum system for an entire parliamentary term, I’d have just ignored it. Even to dignify its policy platform with a response is to enter its alternate universe, in which it’s preparing for...

‘We were not going to let this rapist destroy our lives’

On the Greek version of Strictly, I learned the power of pure instinct

It was an invitation I accepted in a moment of madness – and, over the next three months, regretted many times a day. I was in over my head, often with my heels literally over my head: I’d signed up to appear on the Greek version of Strictly Come...

The butter boom

Unemployed and menopausal, I sat crying in my car. Now I’m a standup comedian

If anyone had told Barbara Scully five years ago that she would soon be enjoying her “sixth career” – this time as a standup comedian, or comic storyteller – she would have laughed in their face. “But once you get to 60, you realise that failure isn’t...

Making-of documentaries – ranked!

5. Lost in La Mancha (2002) Terry Gilliam had the documentarymakers Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe on set for The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. The anguished result shows why Quixote was abandoned after six days’ shooting in Spain: takes were rendered...

I want to have a nasty accident in Pittsburgh. Let me explain ...

I do like a TV doctor. I’m not talking about proper doctors who sit on studio sofas dispensing wisdom. I’ve nothing against them – why, I worked with Dr Hilary Jones on ITV and he was a very nice chap – but it’s to fictional doctors I want to entrust...

I was deep in heartache – and then my mother fell off a mountain

To steal a well-known line, 2023 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. My annus horribilis began when a long-term relationship broke up in January, only six months after we had bought our first home together. I was about to...

‘Online sex workers literally have to bare it all’

I learned that two magic questions can distract me from spiralling anxiety

As with a lot of teenagers, social confidence was not my strong suit. Throughout my time at school in the early 2010s, I hated the prospect of new social situations and would often lie awake at night overthinking the day to come. What I now know to be...

The Chicks’ songs

10 Easy Silence (2006) The inverse of Taking the Long Way’s two-fisted lead single Not Ready to Make Nice, Easy Silence details the downside of the media storm that followed singer Natalie Maines criticising George Bush and the Iraq war. It sounds...

‘The eels were climbing out of the water to die’

I thought I’d never surf again. My brother gave me back the sea

My brother and I grew up surfing at Porthcawl in south Wales. My earliest memories are of playing in the waves and I learned to bodyboard not long after I learned to walk. When I lost the use of my legs, I felt as if I had lost the sea – and a part of...

Britain’s Eurovision crisis is not a problem for parliament

The State of Play inquiry, which is run by the House of Commons’ digital, culture, media and sport select committee, recently announced the five areas on which it will focus in 2026-27. One is: why are our Eurovision entries so bad? The word used by...

I’m 92 and walking is a struggle. But cycling is my life

When Arthur Plummer retired at 65, he bought a secondhand bicycle. His sister was a member of a cycling club for seniors in the Canadian city of Waterloo, Ontario, where they lived, and Plummer joined, too, becoming one of the club’s youngest members....

Busby Berkeley dance routines

1 Lullaby of Broadway from Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935) Of all the musical numbers he directed, Berkeley’s favourite was this 13-minute expressionist nightmare in which a young woman’s nightclubbing gets out of hand. From the most sinister phalanx of...

Get them while you can!

I felt hugely self-conscious about my skin – until I had a revelation

The microphone felt heavier than I expected. As I stood on stage at a London comedy club last December, I looked out at a room full of strangers sitting quietly, waiting for me to make them laugh. It felt nerve-racking and surreal. I had spent years...

‘I’m a wild water nut!’

I was terrified of dentists - until I found one who offered something different

If you had asked me a decade ago whether sitting in the dentist’s chair filled me with dread or made me break out in a cold sweat, I would have laughed and said no – what is there to be afraid of? It was only in 2021, after I had a filling without...

Céline Dion’s greatest songs

1 It’s All Coming Back to Me Now (1996) Writer Jim Steinman claimed It’s All Coming Back to Me Now was inspired by the scene in Wuthering Heights when Heathcliff dances with Cathy’s corpse on a beach. No such scene exists, but that’s Steinman for you....

‘Scots are the kindest people on Earth’

‘I’m seen as a Marmite figure’

Does the hard right really care about women and girls?

It was a busy weekend for the insurgent and hard right, as Reform party delegates re-doubled their commitment to women’s safety by physically attacking a female protester and Patriot Platform, a new group established by Danny Tommo, real name Daniel...

I’m an 82-year-old fashion influencer with 829,000 followers

'It took me till I was 80 to realise that I’m quite an outgoing and loud person,” says Vivienne Truran. Now 82, she has 829,000 followers on Instagram, where she posts daily videos about her outfit choices, including which of her trademark glasses work...

The best giants of the big screen

1 Jason and the Argonauts (1963) Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion bronze statue turning its head is one of the most awe-inspiring moments in film history, the acme of cinema giants, supplemented as it is by an epic Bernard Herrmann score. Knuckleheaded...

I’ve learned the longer it takes to cook, the less you want to eat it

If you ever meet someone from North Macedonia and find yourself short of conversation, then one word will get things going nicely. That word is ajvar. Pronounce it “Ivor”, as in The Engine – not quite right but it’ll do. Depending on who you ask, ajvar...

‘No one talks about actors’ dedication. But I had a perm for five months!’

It’s not prisons that are the problem; it’s our stupid sentencing code

Prisons in England and Wales are full because sentences have increased, and everybody knows this. Lord chief justices know this – four of them said it outright in a report for the Howard League two years ago – ministers know it, and anyone who can...

Television

The Lycett Arms Late Night Lycett proved that Joe Lycett had fully inherited Friday nights on Channel 4. Its follow-up sounds even more TFI-esque, promising “top-drawer comedy entertainment” from Joe and a real east London pub full of celebrity...

Chaka Khan’s greatest songs

1 Rufus and Chaka Khan – Ain’t Nobody (1983) One of the greatest singles of the 80s began life on a contract-fulfilling slate of studio tracks. Khan had left Rufus and had to be coaxed back for one last album. Yet Ain’t Nobody was a synth-funk...

My mum died. And there’s one kind of response I can’t stand

Luckily, I already knew having a comic thought at a tragic moment is a natural stress response, or I might have worried. My mum has died, making me an orphan – and what first popped into my head was how annoyed Larry David would be. In Curb Your...

‘I remember going: oh hello!’

‘It looked stunning on Joanna Lumley!’

I became a grocer - it made my body stronger and quieted my mind

When Robert Solomon’s working hours were cut during the pandemic – he did building management and tech support for a nonprofit organisation – he got an extra job at a food cooperative, helping to stock the store. It was, he says, the most ordinary job,...

‘It’s refreshing and fun to be nasty about yourself’

I live to declutter – and I won’t let my husband get in the way

Older doesn’t always mean wiser. Jo Whiley has spoken about a home hack she picked up from Dame Judi Dench, and I’m opposed to it with every fibre of my being. Whiley is in a new phase – her four children are grownup – so she recently began the most...

‘When are you going to pay me back?!’

I was abused as a child and thought I had healed. Then I began to drink

I sent myself a letter and realised what’s missing in modern life

Last January, I received a letter. Most of my post was predictably boring – a statement from the water company, my credit card bill, the occasional update about my pension contributions – but this letter was different. The envelope felt heavier than...

Frank Ocean songs

See the full list of 20 at theguardian.com/music 10 White Ferrari (2016) White Ferrari is far from the usual driving anthem; rather, it evokes someone lost in thoughts and memories as they motor along. It’s daring – there is no chorus, the...

Nice while it lasted …

My stammer made life a misery – then a song gave me back my voice

For most of my life, I had one goal: don’t get found out. I was a covert stammerer (or stutterer). Nobody realised I had a speech disability, because whenever I felt I was going to get stuck on a word, I switched it or stayed silent. You’d never catch...

Rejoice, serfs, for the King of the North is touring his domain

Andy Burnham is going on a “listening tour”, travelling the country on a bus to find out what real people are concerned about. I’ve heard commentators rationalise the idea in various ways: apparently it underscores the difference between him and his...

‘I’ve sat at the very precipice of life’

River Phoenix’s best films

1 My Own Private Ihado (1991) The boldness of Phoenix and Keanu Reeves in playing sex workers should not be underestimated. But the narcoleptic hustler Mike, who turns tricks while searching for his mother, was no ordinary job for Phoenix. The...

They know what I like, but they won’t sell it to me

We live, as I’m sure someone’s chief growth officer has recently said, in a golden age for data capture. Jeff Bezos knows what I buy, read and watch; Mark Zuckerberg will be aware that I recently sold a dog transport box. I’ve been conditioned into...

‘I’ll always be that girl who’s rough around the edges’

Does Andy Burnham hate London? Does anyone care?

I’ve seen no evidence of Andy being anti-London,” the capital’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, told the Evening Standard last week, which is quaint and adorable: evidence is so 2009. This is all about feels. Some feel that the prime minister disfavours the capital...

I learned to love my arms – after decades of hating and hiding them

Aren’t you hot in that?” was the question that plagued my summers as a teenager. I would never bare my arms; instead, I would cover up with a trusty black cardigan. Even T-shirts felt too revealing; too tight on the arms, too clinging to the body. I...

The best songs by the Kinks

1 Waterloo Sunset (1967) Critic Robert Christgau called Waterloo Sunset “the most beautiful song in the English language”: it’s among the greatest singles of the 60s, possibly one of the greatest pop songs of all time. On top of a beautiful melody,...

Buzz off !

I’d lost my libido – but it flooded back when I saw Richard Ashcroft on stage

When the world entered lockdown in 2020, I’d just moved into a new flat where, at the age of 56, I found myself living alone for the first time in my life. I’d been separated for nearly a decade from the father of my two kids – one of whom had already...

In the strange world of short-form video, no one can take a breath

It’s not the worst thing about social media, but something dreadful is happening in short-form videos. At first I thought my phone was on the blink. Then I assumed I was just unlucky, that this aberration was practised only by the creators of the very...

The age of extreme job anxiety is upon us

The personal experience of longterm unemployment is one people rarely share, for completely understandable reasons. There’s a bit of superstition that saying it out loud will bed it in. Even if they’re clearly in the grip of superstitions of their own...

Swoon with a view!