The Oscars are here, and finally we shall find out which film will be named the best and whether Rachel Weisz will be recognised as the honorary lesbian dream she truly is.
But more importantly (on the lifestyle desk, anyway), we’ll get to see what everyone’s wearing.
As celebrities arrive on the red carpet, we’ll be rounding up their looks below.
No order, no judgement, just pictures for the perusal of anyone who enjoys seeing pretty dresses and sharp suits.
Keep refreshing throughout the night as this article will be updated live. Exciting times.
Whether with a bold lip or a sharp fringe, celebs made sure to bring their A game when it came to hair and beauty for the Academy Awards.
Everyone looked incredible, obviously (we blame good genes, top styling teams, and obscene wealth), but there are some makeup looks we especially adored – and would consider copying in real life.
Take a look below at our top picks, study the pictures closely, and feel free to use this article as a reference point for your next night out/date/evening at home when you feel like finally using that glitter eyeliner from the back of your cupboard.
Marie Kondo
(Picture: Andrew H. Walker/BEI/REX)
Alongside being the most obviously excited guest in attendance (which we love), Marie Kondon further sparked joy with a fresh, clean makeup look.
Flawless skin with a pink lip and a touch of blush makes us think of cherry blossoms in spring time, while Marie’s fringe is as neat as we’d expect from a tidying wizard.
Laura Harrier
(Picture: David Fisher/REX)
Laura Harrier may have actually convinced us to try two things we left behind in the early noughties: blue eyeshadow, and matching your eye makeup to your outfit.
Elsie Fisher
(Picture: Christopher Polk/REX)
It is simply not fair that Elsie Fisher – who, let us remind you, is 15 – looks so much cooler than us.
That Margot Tenenbaum bob, complete with barette!
That perfect double eyeliner flick!
We are dead.
Amandla Stenberg
(Picture: REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni)
To complement her flapper style dress, Amandla went for a twist on the classic Hollywood wave, using braids to get that signature S shape.
Full eyebrows and matching lips and cheeks gives the actress a glow we can only dream of emulating.
Picture: Save water by turning off the tap when brushing your teeth
Whether it’s plastic in the oceans or diesels poisoning the air we breathe, us humans have developed a lot of bad habits that are putting a strain on the world we live in.
And now, water, that luxury that us first-world types are so fortunate to be able to rely on, is also at risk. The average person in the UK uses around 143 litres of it every day – that’s nearly half a ton, which is about the weight of a cow (fun fact). But with the country’s population growing by nearly a whopping 400,000 every year, there’s going to come a point where this simply isn’t sustainable.
So, what can you do? Well, it may not seem like much, but if we can all make a few small changes to the way we use water, we can collectively make a difference and ensure our water resources don’t disappear.
Here are 10 simple things you can do to reduce your water wastage and be a better human being.
1. Don’t be a drip
Caption: Don’t waste a drop and don’t keep the tap running
Think about it: when you’re brushing your teeth, do you really need to leave the tap running? The answer’s no; once you’ve wet your brush, you don’t need to run the tap again until you’re done.
Also, all the time you spend running the tap waiting for it to get cold is wasting litres – and all for a glass of water. A really easy and clever thing to do is to collect the water in a washing up bowl and then use it for your washing up later in the day, for watering your houseplants or even chucking down the loo instead of flushing.
Or even better, if you want a quick refreshing glass of water why not fill a jug in your fridge? That way, you’ll always have cold water whenever you fancy it.
2. Each cuppa can cost
Picture: How much water do you put in the kettle to make one cup of tea?
Are you one of those people who fills the kettle right up to maximum every time you go to make a cup of tea? Don’t feel too bad – we all do it. But it’s another habit to think about changing, largely because it might save you some pennies on the electricity bill as well as saving water.
You only need to fill your kettle with the water needed for the number of people you’re making teas for – and if that’s just you, just boil a mug’s worth. You’ll have your cuppa much quicker this way, and you won’t be using anywhere near as much energy to heat a smaller amount of water. Double win!
3. Shorten your shower
Picture: Turn off the shower while applying products
This is a well-known one, but it’s also one of the easiest. From letting the shower run until it gets warm, to standing in under the shower head for a solid 20 minutes absorbing all the warmth, we are all guilty of overdoing it in the shower – but it’s really simple to cut this habit.
If you need to wait for your shower to warm up, catch the cold water and put it to good use at another point during the day. Switch off the shower every time you apply your hair products and body washes and then back on long enough to rinse off. Just these steps alone could halve your water usage and cut your shower time significantly. You might even have more time to do other things with your new-found free time too, like actually doing something to your hair, or putting some laundry on.
4. Clean less, but clean clever
Picture: Never do half measures – always run a full load
Speaking of laundry, being a responsible adult and cleaning is another area where you can reduce your water usage. It can be as simple as saving up your laundry so you’re only ever doing a full load; this uses less water and energy than doing two half loads.
Or, if you have a dishwasher, only ever put it on when it’s actually full – as tempting as it is to fire it up just to clean your favourite bowl so you don’t have to physically wash it up. Except don’t wash it up, because running a full dishwasher it more water efficient than physically cleaning everything in the sink. Who knew?
5. Make saving water your #1 (and #2) goal
Picture: Traditional flushes can use up to 13 litres of water per flush
When you’re confronted with a dual-flush loo, how often do you actually use the reduced flush option for a number one? If you start doing this, you’ll only be using 4 litres of water, saving you two litres for every one of your household’s 5,000 annual flushes – that adds up to a lot. And if you don’t have a dual-flush loo, get one installed, because the old-style single flush ones waste 13 litres every time. Ouch.
Another alternative is to put a specially made water-absorbent plastic bag that expands in your cistern to fill the space and reduce how much water is used per flush. And, if you really want to go for it, don’t just flush one wee – if it’s yellow, let it mellow and save up to flush in one go! Guests might not be so impressed but the country will be grateful…
6. Get a (water) butt
Picture: Get your garden summer-ready by storing rain water
We live on an island – and it may ALWAYS seem like it’s raining, but that’s actually not true. So, why not make the most of the rainfall we do have and get a water butt in your garden, so that when summer comes around, you have your own personal reservoir for looking after your garden? Water butts can save up to an enormous 5,000 litres a year. Plus, flowers much prefer lovely natural rainwater to tap water. Everybody’s happy.
8. Go veggie
Picture: You can also steam your vegetables to save water
Bit of a random one, but rearing animals for meat and dairy consumes a hell of a lot of water. If we all reduce how much meat we eat – along with all the other reasons we should be eating less of it – our water footprints will be minimised significantly. And, y’know, the animals will be happy too.
10. Make sure your shave is cutting it
Picture: Save water when shaving by filling the sink with water
No, we’re not suggesting you go hairy to save water – although if you want to, go for it. What we’re saying is that when you shave, have some water in the sink or a bowl rather than running the tap while you’re doing it. It’s a time-consuming activity wherever you’re doing it, and you could save as much as 6 litres just by thinking about what you actually need to use.
11. Fix those leaks
Picture: Get those leaks repaired to stop wasting water
Drippy taps, leaking loos and ancient radiators: the bugbears of our lives – particularly if you’re renting and it takes a millennia or two to get anyone to agree to fix anything.
But it’s worth persevering with your dodgy landlords and splashing that cash. You see, you might only really pay attention to your dripping tap when you’re in the room with it, but it continues to drip when you’re not there, and that equates to a lot of water lost over the course of a day, a week, or even a few months.
Get everything repaired – and if you can’t do it straight away, find a way of capturing the leaking water to put to other uses in the meantime.
12. Sometimes measurements do matter
Picture: Switching to a metre let’s you see exactly how much water you’re using
If you’re not on a meter already, get one fitted. When you start to see bills based on what you actually use, rather than a flat quarterly rate, it will really make you think about all the little ways you’re using water.
It’s easy to get one. Just visit your utility supplier’s website – like Thames Water if you live in London – and register your interest in having one installed. It’s completely free to do too, so long as no pipework or tap modifications are required.
When you spotted Lady Gaga’s outfit for the Oscars red carpet, you probably thought of one person: Audrey Hepburn.
The entire outfit is pure Audrey – the black Alexander McQueen dress, the elbow length gloves, the sleek updo.
But there’s one thing that takes Lady Gaga’s homage to Audrey Hepburn to another level: her necklace.
The necklace Lady Gaga wore for the Oscars is something very, very special.
It’s a 128.54 carat diamond necklace by Tiffany & Co, named ‘the Tiffany Diamond’, and it was last worn by Audrey Hepburn in 1962 for the promotional material for Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
(Picture: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
That’s right. Lady Gaga is the first person to wear this diamond since Audrey Hepburn herself.
You’ll notice the necklace looks a little different – while it’s the same diamond, the chain has been altered to feel more modern. Gaga also wore yellow diamond earrings to match, but didn’t go for a tiara (a crying shame).
This is the first time the necklace has ever been worn on a red carpet.
If you’re wondering how much the thing around Gaga’s neck is worth, let us warn you: it’s well into the millions. Back in the 60s the diamond was advertised for $5 million, which would make it around $30 million now. Whew.
(Picture: Paramount/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock)
Reed Krakoff, Tiffany & Co’s artistic officer, said: ‘Lady Gaga is the ultimate creator, innovator and rule breaker, and I’m thrilled that she will be wearing the legendary Tiffany Diamond on the awards show red carpet for the first time since it was discovered 141 years ago.
Lady Gaga’s stylists, Sandra Amador and Tom Eerebout, added: ‘The chance to work with such an amazing piece of design and history tonight is a creative dream come true.
‘There are so many beautiful jewels in the world, but the radiant Tiffany Diamond, which weighs over 128 carats, is truly exceptional, which is just so fitting for Lady Gaga.’
The term ‘anorexic’ has become a synonym for thin, slim and skinny (Picture: Phébe Lou Morson for Metro.co.uk)
If someone said a person ‘looked anorexic’, it’s safe to say you know what they mean.
The term ‘anorexic’ has become a synonym for thin, slim and skinny.
Last year, Kim Kardashian posted a series of Instagram stories where her sisters Kendall and Khloe bombarded her with comments over how slim she was. Khloe complimented Kim on her hair and hourglass figure, before pointing to her waist and exclaiming ‘but she’s anorexic here.’
This is problematic for a number of reasons. Anorexic is a term to describe someone who has anorexia nervosa – an eating disorder characterised by a paralysing fear of weight gain.
While a common symptom of anorexia is weight loss, the condition is in itself a mental illness. This means people can struggle with all the horrendous psychological symptoms – fear of foods, severe anxiety around eating, strained relationships with family – without being underweight or resembling the emaciated figures commonly associated with the condition.
The illness’s name itself – anorexia nervosa – means ‘nervous loss of appetite’. It does not describe a physical condition.
By using ‘anorexic’ to mean ‘thin’, we’re perpetuating the myth that eating disorders are only serious if the person suffering is severely underweight, which is completely untrue.
I was diagnosed with an eating disorder while at university, after months of struggling with restriction and over-exercise. I confided in a friend, pouring my heart out about how cripplingly painful I found being around food, how being underweight made me suffer with palpitations and how the illness made me an angry, irritable person I didn’t recognise. Her response?
My life was entirely taken over by my illness, but because I didn’t look emaciated like the images in so many women’s magazines at that time, my friend didn’t take me seriously.
‘Oh. Well, you don’t look anorexic.’
After the pain of finally admitting to myself I was ‘sick enough’ to deserve help, that one comment made me feel totally invalidated.
My life was entirely taken over by my illness, but because I didn’t look emaciated like the images in so many women’s magazines at that time, my friend didn’t take me seriously.
You see, the diagnostic criteria for anorexia are exceptionally precise. This means that while restrictive eating disorders are relatively common, very few people are actually diagnosed with anorexia nervosa.
When I was treated, there was a set body mass index (BMI) that would determine whether I had anorexia nervosa or an eating disorder not otherwise specified (a condition now known as otherwise specified eating or feeding disorder, or OSFED).
If I drifted even 0.1 of a BMI point over that, I technically didn’t have anorexia anymore – which of course, led me to resist putting on weight because I felt that once I wasn’t in that low enough zone I no longer deserved help. And you’d better believe that comment from my friend sent me back that way.
I was far from the only person to struggle with this way of thinking. The fact is, eating disorders can lead to extremely dangerous physical consequences whether you’re underweight, overweight or in the middle.
Restricted eating can lead to infertility, osteoporosis and, like I experienced, irregular heart rhythms. Self-induced vomiting can cause internal injuries to the stomach and lungs, as well as severe electrolyte loss that can lead to heart failure.
By reducing the name of one eating disorder to simply mean ‘thin’, we turn the meaning of an eating disorder to simply refer to weight – a single symptom of many.
And while this may seem trivial to some, we’re already in a position where people are turned away from specialised eating disorder treatment for not being at a low enough weight, meaning they’re left to get worse.
Continuing to reduce the concept of anorexia to just size and weight permeates the minds of those struggling, who are left, like I was, feeling like they aren’t sick enough to deserve treatment and steadily getting worse.
It’s a small change. If you want to say someone or something is thin, say ‘thin’, say ‘skinny’, say what you want. Just don’t say ‘anorexic’.
More support
If you suspect you, a family member or friend has an eating disorder, contact Beat on 0808 801 0677 or at help@beateatingdisorders.org.uk, for information and advice on the best way to get appropriate treatment
‘I hate Islam,’ revealed 19-year-old Muslim student Mariam Khan to a Quran teacher at her local Mosque. After confiding in the elderly ‘aunty’ figure – a middle-aged Pakistani woman who spoke little English, a young Mariam gave her an A-Z list of things she didn’t like.
‘Oh, that’s not Islam, that’s culture,’ replied the teacher. And in that quick interaction – one where Mariam felt heard – she realised a lot of her grievances were aimed at the cultural impositions and not inherently the religion of Islam.
And yet when it comes to representations of Muslim women, it’s these cultural aspects of it that the media focuses on.
‘That was one of the most empowering things to happen to me,’ Mariam tells Metro.co.uk. ‘If someone hadn’t made that distinction I don’t know where I’d be because culture suffocates women.
‘Culture is so intertwined with religion, it’s hard to pull them apart.’
The impositions of culture, the empowerment in religion, plus a myriad of other topics like sex, sexuality, mental health, sexism are all topics Mariam and 16 other writers explore in a new book It’s Not About the Burqa.
Literature graduate Mariam Khan was tired of the way Muslim women were being depicted (Picture: Mariam Khan)
Whenever any issue arises in the news regarding Muslims, the limelight is usually on men.
When it comes to discussing Muslim women’s issues, Muslim women are still left out of the conversation – especially when looking at Muslim women’s clothing. It seems everyone has an opinion about the burqa.
In an attempt to take back the narrative and show that there are many sides to Muslim women and not the traditional submissive damsels in distress without agency that the media portrays, Mariam decided to call upon other Muslim women from various walks of life to recount their experiences.
Having been inspired by Nikesh Shukla’s The Good Immigrant, Mariam decided she was tired of waiting to hear these voices reflect her and her communities.
‘I was tired of waiting for someone else to show Muslim women in a diverse way true to who we actually are and what our identity is,’ she explains. ‘I was tired of this single narrative that was constantly perpetuated around us.’
Last nights #ItsNotAbouttheBurqa launch was amazing. These essays from muslim women are but a few that the world needs to hear and make normal. Proud of the women and @helloiammariam for bringing everyone together.
The compilation explores how mental health is brushed under the carpet, queerness, losing one’s virginity, divorce, racism in the workplace, and of course gender.
One essay looks at representation and how it’s not used to foster meaningful change but rather show how ‘woke’ brands are without real engagement with Muslim women, another about being the only Muslim woman in a far-right rally, and another in an Australian oil rig dominated by men.
‘One thing I wanted to do from the offset is to provide a diverse representation of Muslim women as is possible,’ continues Mariam.
‘It’s a collection of essays from many different Muslims to hound in on the point that a Muslim woman can be more than a hijabi or woman in a burqa or niqab.
‘There’s nothing wrong with those things, there are so many iterations of a Muslim woman in society. And I have to keep asking why there’s only that one side of a Muslim woman that’s being shown.’
Despite offering a plethora of voices, Mariam still worried about not doing justice to the rich diversity of Muslim women.
‘I worried the most about not being diverse enough, as there are only 17 perspectives. But you can never capture everyone, what you can intend to do is capture a wider representation of a minority to cause a fairer representation instead of having a single story of a group who share one value.
‘I still wanted to go beyond the brown Muslim experience.
‘When it comes to representation we need to question the meaningfulness of it now. Someone just showing us a Muslim woman without offering her a platform for her opinion raises a question about meaningful representation, it’s just at face value.
‘If we’re never allowed to talk, no progress, all we’re going to essentially be used as is figureheads for a capitalistic world.’
Another recurring theme is Muslim men’s attitudes to Muslim women, but Mariam has little concern about the way they consume the essays.
‘When I was writing this, I didn’t just want to interrogate the outside world (i.e media) but also the community. In regards to Muslim men’s reaction, I wasn’t apprehensive about being called out for “airing our dirty laundry”, they can have whatever reaction they want (as long as they read the book).
‘Men are always looking at what women are doing that make them look bad but hardly the inverse. If men really want to have a conversation, they should, I’m not out here to explain things to them.’
With the same unapologeticness, the other writers go about to dissect, question, and demonstrate the way the world is set up for Muslim women; it’s refreshing and badass.
It’s Not About The Burqa: Muslim Women on Faith, Feminism, Sexuality, and Race is out now.
Guests hoping to stay in the spare bedroom of Jenni and Terry Koenig’s home will first have to find a clearing in the tropical rainforest they have built inside it, as the perfect home-from-home for Enzo, their pet sloth.
Jenni, 40, who has three children with Terry, 39, has transformed the room in their four-bedroom house an hour’s drive from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, into a paradise for the tree-dwelling animal, more commonly found in the tropical rainforests of South and Central America.
Jenni – who bought six-year-old Enzo for £4,520 12 months ago, said: ‘Sloths need heat and humidity and I realised that, with the right kind of equipment, you can keep them pretty much anywhere.’
Longing for a pet sloth since childhood, after reading about them in the National Geographic magazine, Jenni – who has 11 other unusual pets, including a hedgehog, two sugar gliders, which are marsupials, and two giant Flemish rabbits – finally bought Enzo from a woman in Kentucky nearly 500 miles away.
And in February 2018, she and her husband set out to collect him, having spent £380 and 20 hours kitting out their spare room, previously their oldest daughter’s bedroom before she left to go to university, with an infrared heater and cool mist humidifier, along with ropes and towers for him to climb on.
‘Bringing him back in the car inside a crate I remember feeling excited, but so nervous about looking after him,’ she said.
‘I’d wanted a sloth for so long and we’d done everything we could to make our home right for him. But you just have to hope it works out.’
A year on, Enzo – who is a two-toed sloth, bred in captivity – is very much part of the family, although Jenni admits they have a way to go before he is fully domesticated.
‘He doesn’t like to be picked up,’ she explained. ‘He’ll move away from you if you try to do so.
Enzo in his cot (Picture:PA Real Life)
‘He is also yet to meet the rest of the animals in our home and, at the moment, only stays in the spare bedroom, which is three metres by three-and-a-half metres and has one window.
‘But we don’t want to rush him at all and our aim is to make him as relaxed with his environment as possible.’
A massive animal lover, Jenni already had her sugar gliders, giant bunnies, two Shar Pei dogs and a Labrador-cross, two guinea pigs, a hedgehog and a black cat when, around six years ago, she first saw sloths being sold on the internet.
But Terry was not keen, standing firm until 2016, when the couple saw one in the flesh for the first time on a trip to Greenville Zoo, Wisconsin, and he too instantly fell in love with the unusual animals with very slow metabolisms.
‘Terry was amazed that the sloth seemed so interested in us. It was genuinely curious about us and wanted to interact with us,’ recalled Jenni.
‘That sealed the deal for him and after that he was totally on board.’
So, the couple began researching how to make their home sloth-friendly and once they were satisfied they could give one the right environment to be happy and healthy, they began looking for sellers on special websites for exotic pets.
Enzo’s paintings, which Jenni sells at charity events (Picture:PA Real Life)
After several months they came across Enzo, whose owner felt she no longer had the time to dedicate to looking after him.
‘We had initially been looking for a baby sloth, but these sell for around $12,000 (£9,194) which is a lot of money,’ said Jenni.
‘Then Enzo, who was already five-years-old, came up. He was costing around half that, and because of the fact that his owner could no longer look after him, we felt like we were giving a home to an animal in need.’
After contacting the owner, the couple took their children to visit Enzo on their way home from a trip to Disneyworld, Florida, and immediately knew he was the sloth for them.
Jenni, who has a daughter Bianca, 19, and two younger boys, who she does not wish to name, explained: ‘We arrived during the daytime when, because sloths are nocturnal creatures, he was asleep.
‘But, hearing that we were there, he woke up and came over to say hello and we all thought, “Yes, this guy’s cool!”‘
They agreed a price and four weeks later made the eight-hour journey to Kentucky to collect their new pet, having transformed their spare bedroom into a hot and sticky jungle-gym.
Once home, they put some of his old play towers from his previous place in his new room and left him to acclimatise to his surroundings.
‘It took him about a month to fully settle in,” recalled Jenni, who had to have him checked by a vet for any diseases before he was allowed into the state of Wisconsin.
‘At first he spent a lot of his time on top of the tower that we had brought with us from Kentucky.
Enzo lives on a diet of leafeater biscuits and sweet potatoes (Picture:PA Real Life)
‘But, after a while, he started exploring the room more and sleeping on the top shelf of a re-purposed closet with the doors taken off that we had put in there.’
As well as a new environment, Enzo also had to adapt to a new diet that Jenni decided to put him on.
Previously, he had lived only on sweet potatoes, but Jenni gave him special leafeater biscuits, after being advised that zoos fed them to their sloths, as the nutritional content was closer to that of their natural diet in the wild.
‘He still loves his sweet potatoes, though, and I still give him a few each day,” laughed Jenni, who feeds him once a day.
While Enzo does not like being picked up, he is very friendly and always comes to greet visitors to his room, even pawing and sometimes licking Jenni and the family.
‘He really has a personality and is very good with humans,” she said. “He licks me on the nose like a dog quite often and tries to put his arms around me as though he’s hugging.
‘Bianca, my eldest daughter, has a really special connection with him too, but the younger ones don’t seem that fussed about him.
‘I think they’re too young to really understand how unusual and amazing it is to have a sloth living in your house!’
Whiling away his waking hours, between around 4pm and 6am, swinging from his ropes and climbing frames and playing with his numerous stuffed toys, Enzo is also an aspiring painter.
Placing a paintbrush between his toes and a canvas beneath him, Jenni watches as the creature knocks out abstract artworks, which she later sells for £15 at charity events.
‘It isn’t super-intentional, but he seems to enjoy doing it and will only do it when he’s in a good mood and feeling happy,’ she said.
As pets go, sloths are remarkably easy to look after, as they only need to go to the toilet every week or so, due to their slow metabolism, and added to that Enzo is house-trained, knowing to do his business in a special crate in the corner of the room, which Jenni then mucks out.
So far, Jenni has been nervous of introducing him to the other family pets in case they scare him, although she is hoping that, one day, he will be confident enough to meet them and even to go outside.
Jenni continued: ‘Sloths are quite easy to look after and don’t require much attention like a dog does.
‘Though he is sociable, he’s very happy sitting in his room and can amuse himself very easily by swinging from his perches and looking out of the window.
‘The big commitment is the fact that they live until they are 30.
‘There is a bit of a fad at the moment for sloths and I think in a couple of years time there will be lots of them needing new homes, as people don’t quite realise that you’re going to have to look after them for a very long time.
‘But with Enzo we are very much prepared for the commitment and are overjoyed that he will be with us for many years to come.’
If you’ve ever asked a parent how old their young child is, they’ve probably replied in months (but sorry, most of us don’t know what 18 months means).
So perhaps a visual representation of their age would be much easier to grasp, especially if those visuals include pizza.
One mum who wanted to get creative about celebrating her son’s milestones did exactly that, setting up a photoshoot with pizza.
Photographer Dani Leigh from Maryland, U.S, used the cheesy slices to show son Lorenzo’s age in months, starting from one slice to show him as a newborn and going all the way up to his eleventh month.
The growth shoot featuring a wee Lorenzo side by size on a pizza box has gotten a lot of love online, having gone viral for its creativity.
Other mums and dads might want to up their game if they want to show off their child’s growth in a cool and delicious way.
Baby Lorenzo at one month old (Picture: Dani Leigh)
‘I knew I wanted to do a monthly milestone project for my second son, Lorenzo.’ Dani explained to Metro.co.uk.
‘When brainstorming with my mum, Lorenzo’s grandmother, she said that I really should do something Italian as an ode to his name.
At six months, Lorenzo was quite the fidgeter (Picture: Dani Leigh)
(Picture: Dani Leigh)
‘I had tossed around a few ideas but ultimately decided if we were going to do this right, we may as well also get dinner out of it each month. So we settled on pizza once a month!
‘Our favorite among all four of us is white pizza (without tomato sauce). So good and not as messy for our little eaters who are messy enough to begin with.
‘The shoots themselves last no longer than two minutes each. Lorenzo didn’t mind them as much when he was younger but around five and six months it did start getting more complicated.
(Picture: Dani Leigh)
(Picture: Dani Leigh)
‘But, we finished the project now that he has turned one year old, which all that really mattered to me.’
We can definitely get behind using food to celebrate milestones.
No more pizza for Lorenzo, he’s moved onto cake (Picture: Dani Leigh)
In the 10 years I’ve been having sex I must have taken at least 20 pregnancy tests.
I’ve peed on sticks in the loos of pubs, my friend’s shared houses, fancy hotel bathrooms and the freezing cold toilets in my halls at university. There are places all over the country where I’ve sat staring at a white stick praying for one line rather than two.
It’s not that I’m especially laissez-faire with my birth control. I have a slightly irregular cycle, an active imagination and a propensity to panic: the pregnancy scare perfect storm.
At this stage in my life, every time I’ve taken a pregnancy test I’ve wanted the result to be negative.
But I have never seen an advert for a pregnancy test which reflected that experience.
Being in my late 20s and having occasionally bought baby clothes for friends, the vast majority of my targeted adverts on social media are to do with fertility.
Every time I log on to Facebook or Instagram I am sold ovulation sticks, egg freezing, fertility testing and of course pregnancy tests.
Yet I’ve never seen an advert where a woman looks at a pregnancy test and goes ‘It’s negative. I’m not pregnant!’ and then high fives her best mate or boyfriend.
You never see ads where teenage girls crowd around a white stick in the school bogs, cheering at a negative result.
Nor do you get a woman taking a test at work and then having a quick cry in the loos because she’s so disappointed that she hasn’t conceived. Or a couple looking at the result and feeling neutral about it, because they’re not quite ready for a baby but it wouldn’t have been the end of the world.
These are the realities of taking a pregnancy test.
I understand that adverts represent an unrealistic version of the world around us, where everything is perfect and shiny. I’m not suggesting that brands are obliged to show a teenage girl bursting into tears and calling Marie Stopes (though it would be brilliant if they did).
Pregnancy tests are designed to tell you if you are pregnant or not pregnant, two perfectly likely outcomes with differing probabilities depending on whether or not you’ve had unprotected sex lately. But only one of those outcomes is represented.
Instead all we get is smiley women with long hair, wedding rings on (seriously – look at the adverts, the women always seem to have a wedding ring on) who are delighted to discover that they are having a baby.
It’s just not representative of the true experience of taking a pregnancy test. So, so many of us don’t do it in a pristine bathroom while gently hoping that we’re with child.
Even those women who want kids, who have been trying, don’t always look at a + sign and feel pleased. You can be the most maternal person on the planet and still freak out when you discover that you’re creating human life.
But at the very least, can’t we have an advert where a woman gets a negative result? Even if she’s upset about it. Can’t brands which make money exclusively from women, and charge a pretty hefty price, do us the courtesy of representing what these tests actually do?
It seems as if pregnancy test brands are willing to ignore one half of what their product does (announce ‘not pregnant’) because it is somehow more tasteful or appropriate to focus on the other result.
Such is the power of stigma. What other brands actively choose not to sell a feature of their product?
The choice to only portray women who want to be pregnant and are pregnant is short sighted.
While hoping for a negative result, I know I’d be more likely to plump for the brand who had shown me that outcome was possible via one of their adverts. Isn’t it astonishing that no pregnancy brand has decided to try and cash in on the association between their brand name and and a ‘not pregnant’ result?
There is no logic for the constant use of happy positive outcomes, other than that the brands who make pregnancy tests think that there is only one acceptable way to use one.
I have no idea whether pregnancy test brands are choosing to only represent one kind of pregnancy experience. But whether it’s deliberate or accidental, it’s time that they woke up.
40% of UK pregnancies are unplanned. One in four women will have an abortion in her lifetime.
For women all over the world, a negative pregnancy test is a relief, a triumph, even a lifeline. Those women should be represented in the adverts for pregnancy tests just as often as the married ones with the shiny hair and unbridled excitement about becoming a mother.
It feels like the current adverts for pregnancy tests aren’t just advertising tests, but selling the idea of motherhood.
Women already face enough pressure and expectation when it comes to becoming a mum.
The last thing we need is to be bombarded with the message that being happy about a positive pregnancy test is the only ‘right’ way for a scare to end.
Plagued by the dry and itchy skin condition eczema since childhood, over the years, Harriet Hammond, 28, who works for the Stroke Association, saw various GPs and dermatologists – who often prescribed topical steroid creams to ease her condition.
Realising in her teens that her skin had built up a tolerance to the remedies, if she stopped using them for just a week, she said her condition would return with a vengeance.
Harriet, who lives in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, with her boyfriend, Tom Barratt 30, a senior technician at a fire research company, said: ‘My dry skin was a sensitive subject for me. I remember how embarrassed I would feel at social events.
‘In 2015 I went to friend’s hen do holiday in Wales and we had to wear wetsuits as we were going water rafting.
‘I knew the tight suit wouldn’t agree with my skin, and to make it even worse my bottle of lotion fell out of my bag and smashed on the floor before I had even got changed.
‘I felt humiliated and wanted to hide because everyone heard the bottle smash and must have wondered why I needed to have so much cream with me. My skin wasn’t horrendous by this point, but it was enough to notice there was an issue.’
Too self-conscious to wear clothes that would show her eczema, which was all over her body, she covered up on nights out and avoided wearing swimwear even on holiday – writing about the misery of having severe eczema in her old diaries.
She recalled: ‘I kept a diary from the age of 25 until around 28 and it’s filled with references to my eczema.
‘It says things like, ‘my skin is on fire’ and, ‘I was awake all night scratching.’
‘I’d explain to doctors how it even hurt when I showered, but the only real treatment seemed to be steroid creams.
‘I was told to use more and stronger creams when they stopped working, even though experts online said they shouldn’t be used continuously, but that’s what my GP advised.
‘After a while they weren’t much help and, whenever I finished using them, my skin would be 10 times worse than before.’
Harriet’s face two months after steroid withdrawal (Picture: PA Real Life)
Eventually, searching social media, aged 27, she found communities where she could share her woes with people who had suffered similar experiences – which led her to discover topical steroid withdrawal.
‘I realised I wasn’t alone. Beforehand, I had blamed myself for the state of my skin and looked at my diet and lifestyle to see what I could change,’ said Harriet.
‘But the one thing I had in common with all the people I was speaking to online was that we had all been using steroid creams.
‘A lot of people suggested I should stop depending on them if I wanted to get better.
‘I knew topical steroid creams could have side effects, too, like thinning the skin, so on January 31 2018 I decided to ditch them completely.’
Rather than just going ‘cold turkey,’ Harriet tried hypnotherapy and acupuncture, hoping they might help ease her eczema, but to no avail.
Without the steroid creams, by May 2018, her skin had become so covered in rashes and oozing blisters that she was signed off work and had to move out from the home she shared with her boyfriend and in with her retired parents, Tessa, 63, and dad Gareth, 64, for four months.
Unable to move much or wash herself properly, because of the excruciating pain her skin was in, even while performing simple tasks like making a cup of tea, she needed their full-time care.
While doctors advised she go back to using steroid cream and even suggested she take an immunosuppressant drug – used to prevent or inhibit the activity of the immune system – Harriet ignored their advice, fearful of becoming dependent on a new medicine.
‘There were rashes all over my body and my face was red and incredibly swollen,’ recalled Harriet.
Harriet in January 2019, a year after steroid withdrawal began (Picture: PA Real Life)
‘I was signed off work by a doctor because my skin appeared to be literally falling off. It seemed like she just wanted to dismiss me. She didn’t diagnose it as topical steroid withdrawal. She just sent me on my way and didn’t seem to acknowledge what was truly happening.
‘I couldn’t walk or move much at all without being in pain. I lost over two stone in weight, but I have no idea why as I was still eating, and lost a third of my hair as my dry and scabby scalp made it fall out.’
Recalling how she looked like she was wearing a ‘red body suit,’ Harriet told how her mum would help her to wash with a flannel and to eat, drink and dress, as the movement required when performing these tasks alone made her skin split.
Waking to a bed full of dead skin, while the surface of her body was oozing with a clear fluid, she said her mental health began to deteriorate in line with her worsening physical state.
Sleeping for a maximum of three hours a night, because of the discomfort, Harriet’s mum took her to the doctor in November 2018, who prescribed her pills for anxiety, but she claims did not help to treat her skin.
Luckily, she was able to move back in with her boyfriend in September 2018 and begin working again part-time the same month, after her skin slowly improved – although she still has flaking skin and red rashes.
She said: ‘I feel better now that I’m not housebound, but I’m still suffering.
‘My work distracts me but, once I get home, the reality that it hasn’t gone away hits me again and I feel the urge to scratch or cry.’
Harriet’s shredded skin on her armpit (Picture: PA Real Life)
Harriet now copes with her condition without steroid cream by refusing to moisturise altogether and showering and baths – which she says makes her itchier.
Her current choices have been based on advice from other online users who say they have suffered from topical steroid withdrawal – but, like Harriet, have not been formally diagnosed.
Now determined to manage without any creams, in the hope that her skin will heal itself, Harriet’s eczema is still severe – even preventing from being intimate with her boyfriend.
She said: ‘We can’t be intimate at all because it’s just too uncomfortable and painful to move that much and be so close to someone else’s skin. It’s been this way for a year – ever since I ditched steroids.
‘We’re affectionate and he does a lot for me, like washing my hair and cooking for me because getting my hands wet makes them awfully itchy, and preparing food can bring my skin out in more rashes.
‘I don’t want him to become my carer, so I try to make my own dinners sometimes – which ends up being a celebration for the achievement.
‘We hoped to move away last summer to Hertfordshire and get new jobs because we wanted to make a fresh start for ourselves, but my condition has put us on hold.
‘I hope that with time I will improve, and eventually we can live how we always dreamed.’
Her boyfriend Tom remains horrified by the change in the woman he loves.
He said: ‘She’s a shadow of her original self. I’ve never seen anyone change so much through unbearable pain.
‘She’s amazing for going back to work and helping others through that, but I know she’s still suffering when she comes back home and tries to get on with her personal life.
‘I planned on proposing last year but the time wasn’t right – I hope that, with time and healing, eventually things will get better and we will be able to get back to normal.’
Andrew Proctor, Chief Executive of the National Eczema Society, commented on the condition: ‘Topical steroids are the most common form of first-line treatment for inflammation in eczema.
These are typically used for short treatment bursts during flare-ups and come in different strengths or potencies.
‘Topical steroids of different potencies will usually be prescribed for different areas of the body: less potent ones for delicate skin and more potent ones for thicker skin.
‘Research and clinical evidence suggest that topical steroid dependency/addiction is a distinct adverse effect of the use of topical steroids, but is extremely rare.
‘It usually occurs when potent or very potent topical steroids have been used in the wrong place, such as on the delicate skin of the face, on a daily basis for many months. To avoid the risk of dependency, potent and very potent topical steroids are best used in bursts rather than continuously.’
A big fat cat called Pompom who doubled in size by gorging on all-day buffets is now up for a top slimming award, after he was put on a super strict diet.
Owner Joanne Klosowska entered her eight-year-old house cat in the UK’s biggest pet slimming contest after Pompom ballooned in size.
A diet of high fat meaty treats saw him tip the scales at 21lb 5oz – twice the healthy weight for a cat.
(Picture: Tom Nicholson / PDSA / SWNS)
Now, Pompom eats dry food which is served in another room to force him to walk.
Pompom is now able to celebrate his weight loss after winning the slimming competition run by animal charity PDSA.
Joanne, from Harrow, north west London, said: ‘I’ve had Pompom since he was three-months-old but he put on the weight because my husband was feeding him.
(Picture: Tom Nicholson / PDSA / SWNS)
‘He was buying food that was too high in fat from the market and he had access to dry food even at night time.
‘Because Pompom is a house cat he also doesn’t get much exercise, but we’re trying to get him more active.
‘He has to walk for his dry food from one room to the other and I hope it will help him to be slim before spring time.’
(Picture: Tom Nicholson / PDSA / SWNS)
She hopes Pompom will lose the largest percentage of his body weight to win the competition top prize £500 holiday voucher and a year’s worth of healthy pet food.
PDSA vet Olivia Anderson-Nathan said: ‘Prevention is always better than cure, but it is never too late make a change.
‘With the right advice, a good diet, suitable exercise and a bit of willpower owners have the ability to make a real difference to their pet’s lives.’
Two elderly best friends who were separated for 70 years have finally been reunited after coincidentally moving to the same care home.
Nora Boardman, 91, relocated to a new care home, Crispin Court Care Home in Stafford, last August and was stunned when her long lost pal, Eileen Gill, 89, arrived in January.
The pair – who were childhood best friends – recognised each other straight away despite having spent seven decades apart.
Nora said: ‘I never thought I’d see Eileen again after we went our separate ways as children – so it was so nice to see her.
‘I couldn’t believe she was now going to be living in he same care home as me and we’d get to see each other every day.
‘I feel lucky to have my best friend back in my life, it feels like nothing has changed.’
(Picture: Caters News Agency)
The childhood friends both grew up in Eccleshall, Staffordshire, but Eileen moved 20 miles away to the village of Brewood at age of 12 – something which caused the pair to lose touch.
Eileen, who is two years older than Nora, finished school before she was a teenager and went to work on a farm, while after Nora finished school she worked in manufacturing making hand grenades.
But 70 years later, the once inseparable schoolgirls now spend their days causing mischief in their care home.
And they couldn’t be happier they’re living a few doors down from one another.
Nora said: ‘We try spend a lot of time together – if we don’t see each other much during the day, we’ll always have dinner together.
‘Eileen will come behind me and touch my arm to let me know she’s there.’
(Picture: Caters News Agency)
During their time apart, Eileen was married to husband Ted for 49 years, before he passed away 14 years ago, and Nora was married to her husband Bob for 55 years, before he died four years ago.
Eileen said: ‘The day I got married was the best day of my life – it honestly was.
‘Ted was so good to me and I miss him so terribly much.’
While Nora didn’t have any children, Eileen has three: two daughters and a son, as well as six grandchildren and two great children, all of whom come to visit.
As Nora doesn’t have any family, Eileen’s family have taken her under their wing.
Nora said: ‘They have all been very nice to me – I feel like an extended part of their family.
(Picture: Caters News Agency)
‘I couldn’t feel happier that we’re now reunited and get to reminisce on our old memories as well as creating new ones.’
Both Eileen and Nora decided to move into the care home after struggling to care for themselves, and sadly both having several falls.
But they’re so happy where they are, because they’ve got each other – and in recent weeks have spent time rekindling their old friendship.
The pair even feel they still have as much in common as they did when they were kids,
Eileen said: ‘I’m not sure what’s going to happen next but one thing I can say is that it’s the happiest I’ve been in months.
When you name your child it is probably worth doing a cursory google to see what kind of results it brings up.
In an ideal world you don’t want your kid to share a name with a serial killer, and if they’re going to have a matching moniker with a porn star you’ll at least want to make sure that it’s a good one.
But some parents are going much further than that, not just checking for any unfortunate name twins, but picking a name specially designed to make their child stand out on social media. Parents are plumping for unusual names for SEO purposes.
Seriously dedicated parents are going much further than just a quick Google and employing a ‘naming consultant’ to help them decide.
Speaking to the Daily Star, naming consultant Sherri Suzanne, who is paid hundreds of dollars per naming job, said: ‘Ava and Benjamin are two of today’s leaders.
‘Ava is the influence behind names like Aviana, Avalyn, Eva, Evie, Evelyn and now Ada. Parents who’d otherwise choose Benjamin are picking alternatives like Bentley and Benson.’
Sherri suggests that you avoid going too rogue though, saying: ‘I caution parents that in an effort to make children stand out, they can also make it harder to fit in.
‘Resist picking names that form jokes, puns, rhymes, or phrases that have strong negative associations.’
You can hire Sherri to help name your baby by visiting her website. Or you could avoid puns, rhymes and names with strong negative association all by yourself…
The latest unusual moniker to be given to a baby is…Baby. Single mum Susie Bradley, who is set to star on TV show Married at First Sight in Australia, revealed how she and her ex-partner decided to name their four-year-old daughter Baby.
The cosmetic nurse, from Queensland, said that it was always on her list of baby names since before she had children.
The 25-year-old, who was 21 when she became pregnant with her high school sweetheart, had written a list of names since she was a teenager.
When it came to choosing one, she asked her partner what he thought about Baby. He liked it and they went forth with it.
Susie has also added a full stop to her daughter’s health insurance card to signify that Baby is her name and not a description.
Maybe they could have used a ‘naming consultant’ to help them think of something a bit more inventive.
Now, having been single for the past year, Susie is looking for a new husband to bring into the family.
No one puts baby in a corner, remember? (Picture: Getty)
‘When I was in high school, I used to write a list of names I liked for my children and that was always on my list,’ she said to The Telegraph.
‘Then when it came to naming our daughter, we just weren’t set on anything so one day I jokingly said to my partner at the time, “we should just call her Baby,” and he agreed.
‘On her Medicare card it has her name, Baby, but then it has a full stop after it which signifies she’s not a baby, her name just is actually Baby.’
Susie revealed how she’s become single for the first time since she was 14 and so decided to take part in the reality TV social experiement.
The premise of it includes two people being matched on their personalities and getting married the first time they meet each other (the clue is in the name).
For Susie, she was predicted to be paired with Billy Vincent, an aspiring model and personal trainer from New South Wales.
The show has also been popular in the U.S and Denmark where it is said to have started.
As part of it, the couples spend their wedding night in a hotel before leaving for a honeymoon. Upon returning home, they live together as a married couple for eight weeks. Thereafter they choose to divorce or stay married.
Canadian teen Jacob Bredenhof was an avid sportsman. When he started experiencing aches in his knees, doctors thought it was growing pains and a sports injury.
Unfortunately though for the 14-year-old from British Colombia he was found to have bone cancer, osteosarcomas, in his femur – tumours so large that they had taken over his entire upper limb.
But as his pain increased, leaving him to limp as a result of the large lump on his thigh, blood work and scans revealed the tumours were putting so much pressure on the bone that it could have ‘snapped at any moment’.
The giant cancerous tumours, one measuring 23 centimeters, meant that Jacob would lose his leg.
So the doctors suggested rotationplasty – where surgeons replace the cancer-ridden bone with parts of the lower limb (the ankle) which is then turned 180 degrees. It is usually used for children under 12 as their bones are still growing.
Though Jacob was reluctant at first, he came around to the idea and decided to have the surgery.
Despite the stares from strangers, Jacob proudly shows off his new knee, flaunting it in socks and sharing his recovery with others.
Now on his 14th round of chemotherapy, he can walk around on crutches and it’s hoped by next year he will be fully rehabilitated and using his prosthetic leg.
Jacob had rotationplasty done – attaching his foot to where his knee used to be to grow a new one (Picture: Tracey Bredenhof/Caters News)
‘I warned him, that people could say rude things that could hurt him and may not understand, but he told me, “I don’t care I want to play sports and be active”,’ said mum Tracey.
‘He explained, “this is me and I won’t hide it” and since then has continued to exemplify that attitude.
The foot will be used to grow into a new knee after which Jacob can start wearing a prosthetic leg (Picture: Tracey Bredenhof/Caters News)
‘Jacob often chooses socks to add a little to it, like a Superman one, pink flamingos, pineapples, palm trees, and other designs that are a bit more out there.
‘He uses his crutches to get around the house and if we go outside, he uses a wheelchair if he doesn’t feel well enough.’
After the nine-hour surgery, Jacob spent three weeks unable to get out of bed without assistance.
But fortunately the operation was a success and since then he has undergone more chemotherapy, in the hope of blasting away any remaining cancerous cells.
Now he is waiting for the foot to transform into a fully functioning knee limb before he can be prepped for a prosthetic leg.
After the surgery, Jacob was unable to leave his hospital bed for three weeks (Picture: Tracey Bredenhof/Caters News)
The family also hope to normalise rotationplasty, after initially struggling to deal with the stares and comments from strangers.
Tracey added: ‘The amazing part of rotationplasty is that they preserve the good part of your legs and ankle, which become your new knee and is naturally functional.
This was his left knee before the surgery (Picture: Tracey Bredenhof/Caters News)
‘I have no doubt that Jacob will play basketball and other sports again, his drive matches his character and he has never shown any signs of self-pity.
‘Jacob remains incredibly confident and isn’t trying to hide it away. One Halloween he was even asked “how did you get such a real looking prop?'” we told them that it wasn’t, and they seemed pretty embarrassed.’
Billy Porter wearing a gobsmacking Christian Siriano tuxedo dress (Photo: EPA/ETIENNE LAURENT)
When I went to our school’s Year 12 ball, as well as my suit jacket and shirt, I chose to wear jeans, red trainers, a hat, and a pair of white gloves.
If you had been there you might have thought I looked like a tool, but I wanted to do two things through the medium of my outfit: stand out from the crowd and stick two fingers up at the conventional notion of a formal male dress outfit.
It is a joy to see that many of the men at this year’s Oscars did something similar, embracing a broad range of styles and heaving off many of the archaic assumptions with which men’s attire is lumbered.
I’m not saying I paved the way for these men, I’ll just let you draw your own conclusions.
Jason’s suit also came with a matching pink velvet hair scrunchie (Photo: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
Among men’s many faults is that we can be spectacularly boring. Worse still, we are often rewarded for being spectacularly boring.
For far too long I have scrolled down the tedious, hastily-composed, post-award-ceremony compilations of ‘Best Dressed Men’ with a feeling approaching hysteria: ‘But…these…men…all wore exactly the same thing,’ I’d think, one eye twitching, my mouth forming a manic grin.
‘Did they all take it in turns to wear that one suit?’
I’d feel like Randle McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; surely it was everyone else who was insane, not me. Why were men being applauded for Googling ‘man good award ceremony’ and then being loaned somebody else’s clothes?
Websites are no less immune to it now, continuing to pretend that a star was ‘well dressed’ out of a combination of complacency, celebrity worship, and SEO pressure.
Surely, surely men should be setting the bar a little higher when it comes to dressing up? (Picture: Getty)
Of course, style is subjective, but when publications say ‘well dressed’ often they mean ‘rich enough to afford staggeringly expensive clothes.’ If that’s what well dressed means, then give me a cool million and I’ll be on those lists in no time.
Surely, surely men should be setting the bar a little higher when it comes to dressing up? Women wear beautiful, stunning, surprising, extravagant outfits, some of which are sometimes covered in raw meat. Men are lagging behind.
This is exactly why the recent surge in boundary-pushing attire worn by men is so refreshing: Billy Porter wearing a gobsmacking Christian Siriano tuxedo dress; Jason Momoa choosing a pink velvet suit designed by Karl Lagerfeld; Adam Rippon and his leather harness.
These outfits make our life and their lives far more interesting. To be so central in the public eye and turn up to the Oscars wearing a black tuxedo and a white shirt is one of the most offensive things imaginable.
The Fab Five set a great precedent (Photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
When John Travolta rocks up to the Golden Globes covered head to toe in chicken, we will have made serious progress.
I don’t want to get too dewy-eyed but I also believe that these clothes communicate an important message to young boys and girls.
Award ceremony attire is a lot like school uniform: there is an assumption that the boys wear this and the girls wear that. When this assumption is exploded, and when little boys see people celebrating people like Porter for looking different, they begin to realise that ‘dressing up’ is not synonymous with ‘wearing the same thing that all the other boys are wearing’.
When schools stop punishing boys for wearing skirts rather than trousers, a new world of possibilities opens.
When my wife and I got married, I wore an aubergine-coloured suit. Whenever I see a groom wear something – anything – with some personality, my heart soars.
A whiff of conservatism still hangs around formal events like weddings and award ceremonies; the sense that there is a proper way to dress up and that anyone who fails to step in line is somehow doing it wrong.
I’m not proposing to turn up to your funeral in a lime-green catsuit. And I’m not saying I’m Grayson Perry – by no means is it courageous to avoid wearing a black suit on your wedding day.
But if every man aspired to be less boring and recognised that award ceremonies are exactly the kind of ridiculous environment in which to whip out the sequinned wellies and a three-foot jade hat made out of goose feathers, the world would be a better place.
Attention, Vegans: Sainsbury’s is selling pink strawberry and white chocolate vegan eggs just in time for Easter. Yay!
The supermarket has launched the baby pink eggs as part of its Free From range.
Sainsbury’s describes the Easter eggs as being: ‘Flecked and flavoured with delicious strawberry pieces, this vegan egg has moreish milkshake flavoured taste.’
The vegan Easter egg has been showcased on the Instagram page Accidentally Vegan UK, where it has received over 7,000 likes and plenty of comments already.
Another said: ‘Now this is what I’m talking about!!!’
And someone else wrote: ‘I WANT THIS SO MUCH’.
(Picture: Hotel Chocolat)
Though they’re not vegan, we recently revealed that Hotel Chocolat has launched some new Easter egg sandwiches – made entirely out of chocolate.
The ‘sandwiches’ are made out of wedges of chocolate, surrounded by two halves of a chocolate Easter egg.
Flavours of the sandwiches include Cookie Dough & Ice Cream and Chocolate Spread. Yum.
The Cookie Dough & Ice Cream flavour features white and raspberry half-eggs, sandwiched with crunchy caramel milk chocolate, raspberry and vanilla melt and malty caramel cookie crunch with pecan. Yum.
Let’s say you’ve just got to the good place in a relationship.
You know where you are. You’ve had the awkward chat. You’re spending the right amount of time together and you might even be edging closer to the ‘L’ word. And then here it comes: a nice big fly, right in the middle of the ointment.
You meet the friends. And you do not like them.
There are lots of reasons why you might not like your partner’s mates. Maybe you’re softly spoken and teetotal while they’re rowdy as all hell. Perhaps you’re a vegan and they think hunting is fun. Maybe you love the Kardashians and they pretend not to know who Miley Cyrus is.
Whatever the reason, you hate them. Spending time with them makes your skin crawl. You cannot bring yourself to be in their life.
This isn’t an unusual problem. Chloe*, 24, tells Metro.co.uk: ‘From the moment I met my boyfriend’s mates I knew it wasn’t going to click. They’re all Essex party boys and they call women ‘birds’. I’ve tried – really I have – but I can’t like them. And worst of all, I don’t like who my boyfriend is around them.’
The most important step is to work out whether you dislike the friends, but still like your partner, or whether you also hate who your partner is around their friends.
If you don’t like the friends, but your partner remains themselves around their mates, then you can probably be a big brave boy/girl about it.
‘I find my girlfriend’s girlfriends incredibly annoying’ said Claude*, 29, from London. ‘They’re vapid, self centered, bitchy and take about 15,000 selfies on one trip to the bathroom. But I still love my girlfriend when she’s around them. So when we go out together I just stick with her, keep quiet and try not to be judgemental.’
So, if you still like your OH, just not their friends, then your best option is to avoid seeing the mates when you can, but still go along to big events and put a brave face on it. After all, if it’s only the occasional evening out is it really that bad?
It’s harder if you don’t like who your partner turns into around their friends.
Alex, 27, advises that you should not underestimate what it means to dislike your partner when they’re with their mates. ‘My boyfriend was a really good guy when we were together, but with his school friends he was awful. He made sexist and racist jokes, looked at other women, was rude to bartenders, all the stuff that I can’t bear.
‘In the end I broke up with him. There were other factors too, but honestly I couldn’t unsee how he’d behaved when he was with his mates. I realised that was a part of his personality, and if he was happy to behave like that, even just occasionally, I didn’t want to know.’
Before you break up with someone over their poor taste in friends, it might be worth having a chat about what is bothering you. If you explain that they change around certain people, you may find that they’re minded towards trying not to do that, or that they’re willing to try to socialise in a different way.
It’s not okay to try and cut your partner off from their friends – that can be a serious red flag for coercive control – but it would be okay to ask if you could make an agreement not to get super drunk when you’re out with mates, or to try socialising in a quieter setting where you can talk to people one on one.
Ultimately it is up to the couple in question to decide how important it is to like each other’s friends. Some couples are happy to socialise separately and maintain their own friendship groups. For others that’s a deal breaker. But as we always end up saying in Modern Etiquette, having an honest conversation about your concerns is the only way to know.
Modern Etiquette is a weekly series. Rather than telling you what to do with a salad crescent or which shoes are most appropriate for Ascot, we’ll be working out how to navigate shared houses, drugs, ex-boyfriends and that moment when you send the screenshot of the person you’re bitching about to them.
Growing a tiny human for nine months can take its toll and even through you’re pleased to have your new baby, it can knock your confidence.
But Mothercare’s latest ad campaign is encouraging mum’s to be proud of their post-baby body – scars, stretch marks and anything else that might have changed.
The Body Proud Mums campaign features 10 mums in a series of unfiltered images, aiming to combat unrealistic ideals.
The parenting brand released the images after a survey showed over 80% of mums compare their post-baby body to unrealistic ideals in the media.
A quarter of mums feeling the most pressure from the media and almost half feeling the need to stack up to celebrities.
Worringly, 90% of women in the 18-25 age group expect their bodies to compete with celebrities and what they see in the media.
As a result, more than half (51%) of mums on social media are using apps/filters on photos of themselves to hide things about their appearance that they don’t like.
(Picture: Sophie Mayanne)
Over 61% of mums feel that BAME are still underrepresented, and it appears Northern Irish mums are the most insecure, with 67% feeling embarrassed about being undressed in front of their partners, while mums living in the East of England are the most confident, with 45% being proud of their post-natal body.
The campaign imagery was shot by photographer Sophie Mayanne who, in 2017, pledged to never digitally manipulate skin in her work.
Sophie said: ‘The images depict the raw and incredibly emotional experience of childbirth. The aim is for mums of all shapes and sizes to be able to identify with these photos in one way or another, and to feel more confident with their imperfections.”
Mothercare’s research found that almost 40% of mums have been lastingly impacted by the changes that took place in their bodies so they’re also working with national charities NCT and PANDAS, to offer advice and support to people suffering with ante and postnatal illnesses.
Liz Day, parenting consultant at Mothercare said: ‘We hope that these honest photos showcase the diverse reality of the post birth body and offer reassurance for mums that every body is beautiful and unique.
‘From surgical scars to stretch marks, we want to celebrate and support – through our work with charities NCT and PANDAS – the true journey of motherhood and that includes the physical changes to the body.’
Let’s take a look at the Mothercare Body Proud Mums campaign:
