There was a time some time before today when us humans as a species routinely immersed ourselves in water. Gentleman frolicked in bathhouses at their leisure, mothers set their children in tin tubs by the fire, where the gentle scrubbing of dirty boys and girls produced a slick-smooth lather, northern Europeans hopped in lakes after their saunas, baptism meant being…
For a whole year now you’ve been gazing fondly at last year’s heart-shaped box of Valentine’s chocolates, fingering tenderly the hollowed out plastic insert and the curved piece of red card, and remembering how the treats tasted and the surprise on the face of your lover, and the night of tender romance which swiftly ensued. Of course your partner would never toss…
It is Christmas, and against all the odds, you find yourself alone in your apartment with the object of the most ardent desire of your only heart. As they mill about the living room in a dressing gown or pop off to the bathroom in order to freshen up, you incorporate the kitchen, and sing opera with gusto while preparing…
Ahhh, there’s nothing quite like a nice warm shower! Especially in winter, when after daring off cosy covers from the bedroom to the bathroom you’re forced to tread cold floors, and only stop shivering once your body’s under the water, or when you come home sodden and have to strip the clinging clothes from your hide, before the respite of…
Goodness aren’t takeaways these days expensive! Time was that a takeaway meant nothing but battered balls full of some indistinguishable pork or other meat, a plastic bag bursting with prawn crackers, curry, poppadoms, and mango chutney, or else a pizza smothered in slices of pepperoni and cheese, which was usually pre-grated cheddar. Now thanks to newfangled high-end delivery services like…
If you’re going to be working for even just one year or a few months – between casual holidays, world tours, sick leaves, or career retrospectives in which you step back so as to take stock – never mind forty or fifty years waiting painstakingly for retirement, either way you’ll want for the period to be a happy one. But the…
Viewing the late 1920s in retrospect, it seems like Louise Brooks had Hollywood at her feet. In 1925 a featured role in the Ziegfeld Follies brought her to the attention of Paramount, and she signed a five-year contract with the studio, quickly winning recognition for her vibrant performances and distinctive look. In 1926 she had a small but memorable role in…
These days it seems more than ever, you can’t countenance a healthy lifestyle if you’re not willing to eat up all your greens. And it’s not only the vegetarians who are saying it: while nobody can agree quite how many vegetables we ought to be eating each day, everyone is unanimous that it must be at least several. Beans and…
Summer is supposed to be a time of high spirits, of ice cream and sandy beaches, of mood-boosting serotonin and bone-benefitting vitamin D. And yet some spend months dreading the coming of the sunny season, because social customs in the West indicate that the hotter it gets, the less clothes we should use to cover our modest areas. Inevitably this leads to…
Abs, much like numbers, are there to be crunched. And the reference to numbers is especially fortuitous in this case, because there are those who would argue that getting abs is all about counting calories, and that only after we’ve added the protein and minused the fat should we start worrying about sit-ups and press-ups, mountain climbers and Russian twists, vigorous…
