It took a while, over the holidays, to work out how to stop my exhausted, frail mother-in-law jumping up constantly to fetch more food without ever...

05.01.2025 20

Emma Beddington

Why worry about your body falling apart at 44 or 60 when you could fret about your brain at 58 or 70?

I don’t believe ageing is linear: I reckon we have long plateaux, then everything falls apart all at once. I realised this at the close of my...

22.12.2024 6

Emma Beddington

Lisa Kudrow is right: friendship ‘takes work’. But you wouldn’t know it from TV

Lisa Kudrow says being and staying friends with her Friends co-stars was tough at times. “That six-way relationship took some work – and we did...

20.12.2024 6

Emma Beddington

Is there anything more condescending than being called ‘buddy’?

It’s “word of the year” time, so I was hoping to offer you mine, but I appear to have only learned one new expression in 2024: zwizz de cachalot,...

09.12.2024 8

Emma Beddington

Once I would have squirmed if a barista knew my order. But I’m learning to love being a regular

We went to the same cafe almost every day during our month-long trip to Venice. It was the same one as on my last trip, its windows stuffed full of...

08.12.2024 5

Emma Beddington

Winter is coming – and so is my 50th birthday. It’s time to eat all the pastries and grab all the joy

Support for seasonal self-love comes from an unexpected quarter: the French daily Libération has issued a plea for us to embrace our “winter...

18.11.2024 20

Emma Beddington

If reason can’t save the world, no wonder magic and superstition are on the rise

How good must it feel to gather up physical manifestations of your anxieties, shove them in a giant papier-mache demon and set fire to them?...

17.11.2024 30

Emma Beddington

I’ve gained a whole new insight into my personality – from a cat psychiatrist

The only time I have ever mentioned my bird-lover’s slight – slight! – ambivalence towards cats in a public forum, it brought me the angriest...

11.11.2024 4

Emma Beddington

Tom Hanks reckons 35 is the worst age. This is why he’s wrong

If you’re 34, watch out: Tom Hanks says 35 is the worst age. Why ask Hanks – delightful as he seems – as opposed to, say, the highly qualified...

10.11.2024 7

Emma Beddington

Is the British obsession with class starting to wane?

Rejoice: British class distinctions are finally crumbling. Yes, the gap between rich and poor is as big as ever and I am, inexplicably, unhappily,...

04.11.2024 3

Emma Beddington

Welcome to the new era of midlife lust! I need a lie down …

Are middle-aged women absolute horndogs and does that make for good box office? That’s what Grazia wondered recently, asking if the film industry...

03.11.2024 3

Emma Beddington

If my Netflix recommendations are anything to go by, I am tragically basic

A single female friend is feeling uncomfortably targeted by Netflix. The content categories the streamer is now offering on her homepage include...

28.10.2024 4

Emma Beddington

Want to understand British irony, humour and politics? Visit the NHS suggestions website

Do you ever wonder if the British might be a fundamentally unserious people? I do, though I should stress that I include myself; a thoroughly...

27.10.2024 10

Emma Beddington

Bad buffet behaviour is out of control. So should we be fined for our food waste?

Should you be penalised for having eyes bigger than your belly? A Cornish pub is trying it out: Mark Graham, the landlord of the Star Inn, now...

21.10.2024 10

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The internet wants me to spend £500 on a jumper. How can I say no?

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‘New year, new you’? How are we supposed to find the time?

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Why tell someone ‘I love you’ when you could overfeed, ridicule or ignore them?

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