My life completely turned around: is manifesting the key to happiness or wishful thinking?

 Posted on April 27, 2024  |  11 minutes  |  2310 words  |  Delta Gatti

Health & wellbeingThe controversial concept of willing your goals into existence has leapt in popularity since Covid began. But how do you do it – and can it help you realise your dreams? In the first months of the UK’s spring 2020 lockdown, Jennifer Doyle, a teacher and single mother, was at a low point. “I was in a bit of a hole, struggling to cope on my own and focusing only on the negatives of my life,” says the 39-year-old. [Read More]

Republican senator finally ends crusade to defend white nationalists

 Posted on April 27, 2024  |  5 minutes  |  1016 words  |  Merlyn Hunt

Republicans This article is more than 6 months oldThis article is more than 6 months oldTommy Tuberville, from Alabama, had seemed determined to support extremists despite condemnation from his colleagues Politicians typically enter office with a variety of interests, goals and focuses. A wave of progressive Democrats were elected in 2018 with the stated goal of bringing universal healthcare to the US. Franklin Delano Roosevelt promised to lead the country out of the Great Depression with the New Deal. [Read More]

The top 10 unforgettable faces in art | Art

 Posted on April 27, 2024  |  5 minutes  |  905 words  |  Merlyn Hunt

Top 10s in artArtThe top 10 unforgettable faces in artFrom Manet's dreamy barmaid to Warhol's multicoloured Marilyn Monroe, ancient Egypt's beauty queen and Da Vinci's enigmatic lady … here are the painted faces you'll never forget The top 10 sexiest artworks The top 10 criminal artists The top 10 surrealist artworks Edouard Manet – A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882)The lost, sad, daydreaming face of the barmaid in Manet's painting of Paris nightlife is the mask of a modern woman. [Read More]

Wendy review Peter Pan fantasy that never grows up into an interesting film

 Posted on April 27, 2024  |  3 minutes  |  527 words  |  Delta Gatti

Sundance 2020ReviewBeasts of the Southern Wild director Benh Zeitlin returns with an overlong and sometimes excruciating update of the Pan story Wendy, a spin on JM Barrie’s Peter Pan myth, takes all the chaos, noise and lack-of-focus of director Benh Zeitlin’s earlier picture Beasts of the Southern Wild and amplifies it. The 2012 surprise hit, which went from Sundance discovery to four Academy Award nominations, got a tremendous amount of mileage from its peculiarity of place and heartfelt father-daughter relationship. [Read More]

'She couldn't take any more' | Gender

 Posted on April 26, 2024  |  9 minutes  |  1728 words  |  Christie Applegate

Gender'She couldn't take any more'At the age of 16, Lindsay Armstrong was raped. Her attacker was found guilty in court, but three weeks later she killed herself. Lindsay's mother tells Kirsty Scott why she believes her daughter's ordeal in the witness box was partly to blameAt 10.45pm on September 7 last year, Linda Armstrong made a call to her daughter Lindsay on her mobile phone, as she always did when the 16-year-old was out for the evening. [Read More]

10 of the best books set in Turkey - that will take you there

 Posted on April 26, 2024  |  8 minutes  |  1558 words  |  Christie Applegate

Literary tripsThese novels – and one classical epic – evoke the cities, landscapes and cultures of Turkey ‘you’re unlikely to find on a beach holiday’ More in this series: Germany | Russia | Ireland | Latin America While Turkey can be proud of its literary traditions – especially poetry heavily influenced by Persian verse forms – it is nevertheless a nation without its own Tolstoy, Flaubert or Austen. Only in the 20th century, when the fall of the Ottomans signalled a decisive tilt west, did the country begin to turn out great novelists. [Read More]

Amaryllis Fleming | | The Guardian

 Posted on April 26, 2024  |  5 minutes  |  979 words  |  Merlyn Hunt

ObituaryAmaryllis FlemingA dedicated and talented cellist who worked with some of the greatest musicians of her day but was seldom recordedAmaryllis Fleming, who has died aged 73, was a dedicated and influential musician, who might have had a more glamorous career had she been less self-critical. She was the half-sister of James Bond creator Ian, and press reports concentrated on her bohemian private life, tending to obscure her musical talents: she was represented as a " [Read More]

Stories told in the dark haunting visions from the painter who operated on his own genital

 Posted on April 26, 2024  |  5 minutes  |  1061 words  |  Merlyn Hunt

Messages from the unconscious … Untitled (Pink Moon) by Forrest Bess. Photograph: Robert Glowacki Photography/Collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody/Modern Art, LondonMessages from the unconscious … Untitled (Pink Moon) by Forrest Bess. Photograph: Robert Glowacki Photography/Collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody/Modern Art, LondonPaintingReviewCamden Art Centre, London Forrest Bess was attached to a camouflage unit during the second world war before suffering a breakdown. He then began to transcribe his nocturnal visions, with alarming results [Read More]

Supertrawlers making a mockery of UKs protected seas | Fishing

 Posted on April 26, 2024  |  5 minutes  |  881 words  |  Christie Applegate

Fishing This article is more than 3 years oldSupertrawlers ‘making a mockery’ of UK’s protected seasThis article is more than 3 years oldVast vessels spent almost 3,000 hours fishing in officially protected areas in 2019 Supertrawlers spent almost 3,000 hours fishing in UK marine protected areas in 2019, making “a mockery of the word ‘protected’,” according to campaigners. Supertrawlers are those over 100 metres in length and can catch hundreds of tonnes of fish every day, using nets up to a mile long. [Read More]

Wake Up, Sir! by Jonathan Ames review reinventing Jeeves and Wooster

 Posted on April 26, 2024  |  4 minutes  |  702 words  |  Barrett Giampaolo

Nicholas Lezard's choiceFictionReviewA superb and audacious take on PG Wodehouse that turns Bertie Wooster into a neurotic American “Hilarious”, says a quote on the front of this book. The same word is repeated four times, in quotes from reputable American publications. You can understand why British publishers might want to exploit this. Still, I’ll be the judge of that, I thought, and then started on this odd and most extraordinary book. [Read More]