I knew my expectations of motherhood were slightly unrealistic when I had to Google ‘can you die of sleep deprivation’ on day two. But even then, I thought once we got through the baby years, I’d get to the life I’d imagined—swimming lessons and long Sunday lunches in the pub with toddlers colouring in the corner. There would be school clubs, and we’d have big family holidays with our friends and their kids.

I have now learned so much of parenting is out of your control. I’ve learned this over and over again. When I noticed my son wasn’t the same as the other toddlers. When the nursery asked me if I’d seen any issues. When I was referred to the GP and later a hospital consultant. When we finally got a diagnosis that I already knew was correct.

Motherhood is a lot of work for everyone, but with one child with additional needs—my son has autism and sensory and coordination needs—and one without, I know parenting a disabled child comes with a huge amount more physical, emotional and mental labour.

There’s the additional caregiving because your child has higher needs, and because it’s hard to find clubs or childcare they can access. Plus, there’s the extra mental load. As a friend who also has children with additional needs said, “People don’t see the constant work you are doing behind the scenes.” I’ve usually done a mental risk assessment, checked accessibility and calculated whether a trip is worth it before we’ve even left the house.

I’m always considering behaviour, social norms and potential judgement. This means I’m in a state of high alert and hyper-vigilance all the time, so it’s hard to relax or enjoy things. I’ve taken to adopting a kind of clown-meets-Zen-master persona. While inside I’m sweating, on the verge of a panic attack and thinking everyone is looking at us, outwardly I’m smiling, projecting a sense of calm and brushing off weird looks.

Then there’s the stressful unpaid admin of parenting a disabled child. The special education needs and disabilities system is a minefield and requires a vast amount of time and energy to navigate. It’s like learning a foreign language—everything becomes an initialism or acronym, and there are so many meetings, forms and emails. Studies show the system is in crisis, and long-awaited reforms have just been delayed again, leaving many parents anxious about whether and how they can access support.

At times, it feels like the system is designed to make you give up; a whistleblower confirmed as much, revealing to ITV that “superiors would joke about the ways they can deny support to children and how they want to deny more children access.”

Like any parent, I want my child to get an education, have fun and experience the world, and it’s upsetting when it feels like you are fighting for every aspect of this.

I love being a mother, and I feel a huge amount of gratitude for the funny, loving children I have. At the same time, I hate that constantly having to fight and advocate for one of my children threatens to turn me into someone who is neurotic, stressed and burnt out.

Plus, I’d much rather be having fun or doing almost anything else than spending hours hunched over my laptop chasing emails or sitting in school meeting rooms during my spare time. When professionals call me ‘mum’ rather than my name during these meetings, it feels like my soul has left my body and I cease to exist as a rational, professional, competent person in my own right.

There is a real threat of invisibility—that you become defined by your child and are so busy supporting them with school or admin that you lose other parts of yourself.

Many mothers of disabled children are forced to cut down or give up work as a result. Research from disability charity Sense found one in five parents of disabled children have left work altogether, while the Trade Union Congress found women are seven times more likely than men to be out of work due to caring commitments. No matter what you do, you feel guilty about working, not working or taking any time for yourself.

I often talk with another friend who has a child with additional needs about how we don’t want this to become our entire personality. We are multifaceted human beings with jobs, lives and other children. We are not perfect or inherently good at caring because we have disabled children; we are just trying our best with the things available to us.

Having a disabled child can expose gaps in your relationship. People make odd comments, use outdated language or give unhelpful parenting advice—he won’t grow out of it, and no, I don’t think an infrared sauna will help. It can be hurtful when it’s people you love.

Other people don’t understand why certain activities like theme parks or shopping trips aren’t accessible and either aren’t prepared to change their plans to accommodate you or stop inviting you to things. Sadly, as much as I’d love to, we can’t come to street fairs or busy Christmas markets as a family, and my dreams of big group pub lunches never came true.

My friend finds social media overwhelming because you see what other people are doing and there’s a huge amount of content about what you ‘should’ do for a child with additional needs like diets, screen-time tips and parenting styles.

Occasionally I hear people talking about things they’ve done with their family and feel a brief stab of envy. But I’ve come to realise all children and families are so completely different that there is no point comparing. I won’t engage in parenting Olympics or use other families as a yardstick for my own, and it’s been a relief to disengage from any sense of family life being a competition.

I find myself worrying about my son’s future—will he finish school, get a job, ever move out or cope without me—but one of the best bits of advice I read in the early days of my son’s diagnosis in a forum about parenting a child with additional needs was to focus on their experience in the moment. Am I projecting my own views about what his life should be like? Or is he happy and safe now? Usually, the answer is yes, so that’s all that matters. After years of overthinking and anxiety, this has been an excellent lesson in mindfulness and living in the moment.

Having a child with additional needs has taught me to embrace the clown persona and see the funny side of things—you’ll either laugh, or you’ll cry, and it’s easier to navigate the world when you take everything less seriously. My son asking a group of teenagers why they were vaping or asking a group of soldiers in the Remembrance Day parade if their guns were real were pretty funny moments.

It’s also opened my eyes to accessibility and equity—I never thought about access requirements or how sensory elements like sound and crowds can affect someone’s experience. I feel enraged by systemic failures, like huge waiting times for support, and thousands of children being unable to access the right education for them.

I feel less judgmental and more empathetic toward other people and their experiences. And I feel more aware of the fundamentally human quality of care and know that while it might not feel glamorous in the moment, caring is one of the most important things you can do for other people.

The experience has changed my expectations of parenting—I now expect it to be hard and brilliant and exhausting and fun and frustrating all at the same time. You might think life closes in when you have a child with additional needs, but in my experience, it opens up. There’s more to feel and think about. You learn to expect the unexpected, to juggle the additional work and responsibility, and to have more capacity to love and care and think about people outside yourself than you thought possible. Just not during a long Sunday lunch at the pub.

When questioning the first complainant in court, Russell Brand’s defence barrister said his 51-year-old client was a “young-looking boy” at the time of an alleged rape in 1999.

He then went on to suggest that there had therefore been “no power imbalance” between the comedian and the alleged victim, who says she was attacked by Brand during the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth. Brand denied the allegation and was subsequently acquitted of this charge. Today, a jury at Southwark Crown Court found him guilty of raping another woman in 2009 and of three counts of sexual assault. He was acquitted of two rape charges and one count of attempted indecent assault.

The ‘nice boy defence’

In 1999, Brand would’ve been 24—a man by definition and law. We see this a lot when men are accused of sexual wrongdoing. In fact, there’s even a name for it: the so-called ‘nice boy defence’. “It’s used quite widely in sex offence cases where the defence will try to portray the defendant as young, inexperienced, vulnerable, immature, respectable, sensitive—not the type to commit this sort of offence,” says Marcus Johnstone, managing director of PCD Solicitors.

Conversely, women are typically referred to as ‘girls’ in everyday conversation, but in situations like these, they are almost always described as ‘women’. “It suggests they are in control, they’re capable, they’re adults—and able to consent,” explains Dr Sophie Holmes-Elliott, senior lecturer in sociolinguistics at Queen Mary University. “[Defence lawyers] are trying to activate those membership category attributes in the minds of the jury.”

And so what this framing does is afford men the innocence, cheekiness and vulnerability associated with boyhood—irrespective of their actual age, alleged actions or whether a jury finds them guilty or not. Women, on the other hand, are apparently considered old enough to be in control of not just their own actions, but the actions of others, and are forced to absorb the guilt and shame of what happened to them as a result.

What’s particularly interesting to me about this gendered double standard is that a lot of the time, boys’ childhoods are cut short by their desire to fulfil masculine ideals, and yet suddenly, when they secure that status as adults and find themselves in trouble, they seem more than willing to be infantilised because it works to their advantage and diminishes the severity of their actions.

One of the most telling examples of this is the 2016 Brock Turner case, in which the now-convicted rapist was described as not just a “boy”, but also a “gifted swimmer”. This shifted the focus away from his crime and the shattering impact it had on his victim, Chanel Miller, and instead towards his “wasted potential”.

This sends a clear and dangerous message: that a perpetrator’s life is considered more valuable than the victim’s. Even when found guilty of such a heinous act, men are met with empathy, and the women are simply collateral damage. That Turner only served three months of a six-month sentence demonstrates yet again how rarely the punishment fits the crime, which adds yet another barrier for women and girls to come forward.

Johnstone all but confirms these defence strategies, explaining that lawyers use the delayed reporting of crimes to throw the claimant’s credibility into question, and they also make a point of repeating certain phrases throughout a trial so they stick in the jury’s mind.

One such tactic is the use of ‘the R word’—“not ‘rape’, but ‘regret’. “They’ll keep harping on about regret as the R word so they don’t mention rape,” says Johnstone. “If they have to, they’ll talk about ‘a sexual encounter’ because it minimises the alleged offence. The emphasis is on portraying that this is a woman who has regretted it—who consented to it, but the following day regretted what she’d done, and has reported it to save face, perhaps with the parents or a boyfriend who’s back home, etc.”

Regardless of whether a defendant is convicted or acquitted, the way in which we talk about rape and represent it in wider culture matters.

“It shapes the way we understand it, why it happens, who’s to blame when it does, and how we respond to disclosures,” explains Rape Crisis CEO Ciara Bergman.

“Research has shown that even small changes in language can influence whom people blame, how seriously they view the crime, and the sentences they consider appropriate. It also shows the devastating power of rape myths at trial: research involving more than 7,600 mock jurors showed that those who believed these myths were less likely to judge a defendant guilty,” she says.

It’s in part why, in 2025, former justice secretary David Lammy introduced major reforms to modernise criminal courts and speed up process times, as well as to ban the ‘serial liar’ defence and the presentation of ‘bad character’ evidence relating to a claimant’s sexual history in court.

Still, when rape conviction rates already sit at a dismal 53% in the UK and women and girls are deterred from speaking up because of lengthy waits and how their character may be called into question during the process, a lot more needs to be done to ensure victims of sexual crimes come forward—and feel supported when they do.

High-profile cases like Brand’s matter beyond the courtroom. While Brand was convicted of four offences and acquitted of three others, the wider questions raised by the language used throughout the proceedings remain.

This isn’t just about six women and a celebrity in isolation; this is about the cultural impact of perpetuating harmful rhetoric about women, men and the severity of sex offences. The language used to describe defendants and complainants doesn’t exist in a vacuum—it can reinforce the very stereotypes that shape how society understands sexual violence, credibility and consent. The right to a robust defence is fundamental, but so too is recognising the wider cultural consequences of the narratives we perpetuate.

As Bergman puts it: “Ending rape culture means stopping the trivialisation of rape full stop.” Words, in these instances, can be just as powerful—and harmful—as actions.

My group chat has a new member. It doesn’t send memes, it never leaves me on read, and it’s always available at 2am. It also remembers what I told it last week and checks in on how I’m feeling. The problem is, it’s Claude.

Whether it’s which hotel to book or why your friend isn’t talking to you, “Have you asked ChatGPT or Claude?” has become the new “Google it”. While the former makes sense, I’ve always felt uncomfortable about discussing relationship problems with AI. When we start taking our heartbreak, arguments and insecurities to a chatbot instead of each other, what happens to the messy human work of actually relating to people?

I’m a huge advocate of therapy. I’ve been going on and off for 10 years. So when a friend told me over dinner that she’d been working through her feelings using Claude, I shuddered in my seat. There was no way, I thought, a machine could help. Until, of course, it did.

One afternoon, I was struggling to get over a short fling after a series of mixed signals, and I was too embarrassed to tell my friends that I couldn’t decipher what he meant versus what he was saying. It felt a bit juvenile not being able to work it out alone, but I was newly single and navigating unchartered territory. I knew if I rang my girlfriends they’d just affirm my reasoning, so in a moment of need, I turned to Claude. Thirty minutes later, I realised my gut had been right all along: he was saying all the right things but wasn’t really doing them. After that day, I never spoke to him again. I didn’t need to. Claude had given me the reassurance I’d been avoiding from my friends, without the embarrassment of asking.

But something also happened during our ‘conversation’ that stayed with me. Claude asked: “How are you doing with it today though, is the unease from that night still sitting with you, or is talking it through helping it settle?” It was exactly what a friend would ask. Suddenly, it became frighteningly clear that AI can and will cosplay as a friend, dressed in my therapist’s language, if I allow it to. I also learnt that the way I framed my questions could influence whether Claude challenged my thinking or reinforced it. If I’m honest, I wanted it to tell me I was right, and it did.

A friend of mine had a very different experience. She’d been trying to raise the subject of race with her then-partner, but was worried about how he’d react, so she turned to ChatGPT first. It suggested a calm, careful approach that seemed to assume he’d meet her with empathy and emotional maturity. But when she finally raised the subject in person, using the language ChatGPT had suggested, he became defensive, just as she’d feared.

“ChatGPT gave me an approach that would probably have been the outcome if I was speaking to someone who was perfectly emotionally intelligent and healed,” she said, “but that wasn’t the reality of my situation.” ChatGPT can prepare you for the person you hope you’re talking to, but not necessarily the person actually in front of you.

Sarah, 34, told me she uses AI to navigate conversations with her neurodivergent partner. “I’m really emotionally charged, whereas he is all about logic,” she said. “Sometimes I ask ChatGPT for advice on how to communicate with him better.” It’s been both a help and a hindrance. “Sometimes it makes me second-guess how I communicate with him on my own,” she says. But she credits it with helping her understand his perspective: “I’ll pass a text message through it before sending it to him”. Sarah’s example illustrates why using AI is a double-edged sword. While it’s helped her communicate with her partner, it’s also made her doubt her own voice.

For some couples, it goes even further. Liban, 32, was mid-argument with his girlfriend when she stopped and checked her phone. “I thought she’d got an important message,” he said. “Turns out she was asking ChatGPT about our argument.” She looked up minutes later and said: “ChatGPT says you’re right, so I’m sorry.” The relationship ended not long after. “I wouldn’t say that specific issue caused the breakup,” he told me. “But it was yet another example of feeling like my opinion and perspective weren’t welcome, which was a reason we broke up.”

Are We Outsourcing Our Emotional Resilience to AI?

And it’s not just relationships. When I asked my Instagram followers how they are using AI, my DMs were flooded with all sorts of reasons: deciding what to wear, talking themselves round on a bad body day, preparing to be taken seriously by their doctor, and many more. A few said they’d used it to diagnose themselves medically. AI, it seems, is a friend, a stylist and a doctor, all in one chat window.

AI can clearly be useful, whether that’s understanding a partner better or just checking that you aren’t going crazy. But what does relying on it mean for our ability to communicate and navigate relationships in real life? Psychotherapist Stina Sanders, to my surprise, isn’t against it. “As a therapist, I’m actually very pro-AI,” she says. “I think it can be an incredibly useful tool, particularly between therapy sessions, when someone needs help reflecting on their thoughts, understanding their emotions or putting something into perspective.”

However, because AI only knows what we tell it, it tends to agree with us. “Depending on how we frame a situation, it can reinforce our existing interpretation rather than challenge it,” she warns. “We risk walking away feeling validated without necessarily being any more self-aware.”

Sanders also points to the importance of learning to live with doubt. “There’s something psychologically important about learning to tolerate uncertainty,” she says. “Not knowing where we stand with someone, sitting with uncomfortable feelings or having a difficult conversation are all part of developing emotional resilience. If we’re constantly looking to AI to remove that discomfort, we may never develop the skills to navigate it independently. And without discomfort, reflection and uncertainty, there’s often very little opportunity for personal growth.”

Over time, I’ve started to notice the difference between feeling understood and actually being understood. AI can make me feel understood in 30 minutes, but my therapist has spent years understanding me, and my friends have spent even longer. AI can sit with me at 2am, but it can’t know me. Maybe that’s the real reason we’re turning to it. Not because it understands us better, but because it’s easier than letting someone who actually knows us see the unfiltered, raw side of ourselves.

I have no doubt AI has its place. But I don’t want to outsource the experience of getting things wrong, or lose the ability to say what I really think. And honestly, if we aren’t careful, we might all end up talking like chatbots ourselves, em dashes and all. So maybe next time, before you log in for some advice, ask yourself: Can I take this one to the group chat? The other one. The one Claude and ChatGPT don’t know about.

Millennial women were raised to believe we could be financially independent, sexually liberated and equal partners to men, that we should do everything men did in relationships, adjusting our role to be both caregiver and financial provider. But this dynamic has made life more unequal for many women, not less.

We might be joint breadwinners, but we also do most of the housekeeping, childcare, admin, and emotional labour. Studies showing that women with successful careers still shoulder most of the ‘mental load’ at home only confirm what we already know all too well.

Our expectations of men have always been shaped by the generations that came before us. Gen X women grew up with third-wave feminism, which gave them the idea that liberation meant being independent, sexually confident and not needing too much from men. Millennials inherited much of this approach, but it mutated into the Cool Girl narrative: not relying on men, pretending we were chill in the face of misogyny, and doing everything we could to protect our hard-won financial freedoms.

Throughout my adult life, I’ve tried to hold onto a few basic expectations: kindness, respect, independence, fun and being someone who never says no to ice cream. But in my teens and early twenties, I often performed as a type of woman I wasn’t, for men who didn’t meet even my most fundamental needs.

Looking back, I realise my approach was shaped by what I didn’t want as much as by what I did. My grandma raised seven children while my grandad worked outside the home and controlled their finances. They never split a bill because only one of them had access to the money. Although they said this arrangement worked for them, I saw how restricted my grandma’s choices were.

It’s why I’ve always split the cost of dates 50/50, although friends just 10 years older than me baulk at the idea, saying they’d expect a man they date to pay for everything.

To understand what’s changed, I spoke to three women from three generations—Gen X, millennial, and Gen Z—about what they were taught to expect from men, what they’ve had to unlearn, and what they refuse to compromise on.

“I expected men to be financial providers, but not emotionally safe, gentle or consistent” – Sarah Bale, 60, Gen X

I was taught to expect men to be the financial providers, but that they would also be volatile and unpredictable. My father provided financially, but he also gambled away money, lashed out, and caused deep fear in my Mum. Consequently, I was conditioned not to expect emotional safety, gentleness, or consistency from men. I expected financial provision, but alongside it, tension and fear.

Truthfully, I didn’t understand what independence meant when I was younger because I had never witnessed it. My mum stopped working after marriage, leaving her entirely dependent on my Dad. Independence wasn’t a concept or goal I grew up with; it was something I had to build blindly—out of necessity—later in life.

Having raised two daughters on my own while creating a stable home without any help from their father, I spent decades carrying the full burden. Now, with my current partner as the main provider, feeling looked after and safe for the first time in my adult life is profoundly healing. Provided there is mutual respect and kindness, being provided for does not diminish equality; I think it creates a complementary balance.

I wish I had expected far more emotional safety, gentleness and respect early on. At the same time, I wish I had expected less of the traditional ‘sole financial provider’ weight—if it comes bundled with resentment.

“I think millennial women realised they could build a wonderful life for themselves—alone.” – Kasey Robinson, 35, Millennial

Looking back, I think I learned a lot about what a ‘good relationship’ looks like from TV; I was a Disney princess kid and raised on Friends and ’00s romcoms. They taught me that if a man wants to, he will run to the end of the earth for you; he will interrupt his day to bring you flowers and coffee and spoil you with new shoes and romantic dinners out in the city. In reality, the grown women in my life did nothing but complain about men, pine for men, cry about men and make excuses for them. It felt like watching two opposite worlds attempt to collide, and there were times when I couldn’t work out why men and women were together at all, since it seemed so few of them had anything nice to say about the other. It made me feel sorry for women and utterly confused about men.

It wasn’t until my early 30s that I really started to understand that I could give myself everything I wanted and have a full and rich life. If a man showed up who added to my life, then that was great. If he didn’t, I would be OK.

After being in long-term relationships, I learned (sometimes the hard way) that 50/50 just wasn’t possible. Men didn’t have the emotional skills to meet me where I was, so I often felt like I was doing all the heavy lifting there. I also learned that sometimes, when things are healthy, 50/50 just doesn’t make sense. Sometimes, it needs to be 60/40, 70/30. Sometimes, your partner is going through a really tough time, so it might even be 90/10. Those days are hard, but that’s what true love and companionship is in my eyes.

I think that millennial women who married early and then divorced, or who are choosing singledom, are right in the sense that they listened to bits of positive messaging that we got around independence and realised that they could build a wonderful life for themselves alone. I also think that it's fair, normal and entirely sensible that many women are angry, upset and frustrated about the men in their lives or the men that they’re dating.

“I was taught to expect respect and support—now I just expect to get ghosted” – Nell Davies, 24, Gen Z

My parents are my benchmark for a healthy relationship. They’re always on the same team, they share their finances, recognise one might do certain things a bit better than the other (my Dad is a lovely cook, my Mum specialises in beans on toast) and seem to function through picking up the chores each does best, while both filling in where needed. I was taught to expect respect, support and emotional intelligence from men, through seeing this between my parents.

I realised when I started dating, and during my first relationship in particular, that my sense of self and security could be fragile, and was determined heavily by my partner’s actions. I think what I have learnt to expect—rather than what I should expect from a male partner—has changed since starting to date. I assumed decent men would be the average, but that feels difficult to come by. I have come to expect being ghosted—not chased by a charming prince like my Grandma said I would.

I often clash with my cousin, who is my age. He says he aspires towards a dynamic in which he—as the man in a heterosexual relationship—would be the provider, and in return his female partner will stay at home, do the housework and have a meal on the table for when he gets home.

In my friendship group, there are more women not dating than are dating, at the minute. They are focusing on their own careers and what they want to do. I think for a lot of us, [romance] is quite low down on the list. My friends have all had some quite negative experiences and have come to expect less from men.

I think it's really positive that so many Gen Z women are focusing on being whole human beings on their own. For women and girls younger than me, or even my younger self, my advice would be to be wary [about dating], which is really sad. And actually it's men who need advice rather than women, because even basic communication from men has become a luxury.

Women: Expect More

Across generations, we have been taught to expect different things from men, particularly around finances, gender roles and domestic and emotional labour. But speaking to these three women, I was struck by how much we have in common. Despite our vastly different dating landscapes, the underlying lesson is the same: women have been conditioned to expect too little from men, while being pressured to lower the bar whenever we manage to raise it.

The utopian dating landscape many of us hoped we were paving for Gen Z hasn’t materialised. If anything, we’ve seen protest, pushback and regression. Women are less willing to settle for the bare minimum, but too many men remain unwilling to meet them halfway. We find ourselves at a frustrating impasse: women know they want more, but the world of dating has yet to catch up. Society blames young women for so-called sex recessions, male loneliness and fertility crises, as though these are our crosses to bear alone. Until, collectively, we recognise that women’s refusal to accept unequal relationships is not a problem to be solved by lowering our expectations, this stasis will persist.

So, what now? There is one clear lesson to take from all three women: expect more. Emotional regulation, communication, empathy, responsibility… This doesn’t mean returning to a model where men provide financially in exchange for women doing everything else, but a meaningful contribution to relationships, emotionally as well as practically, cannot be too much to ask for.

Jessica Pereira and Joshua Barbeau had been dating for two years when she died from a rare liver disease. An avid writer and joker, she was like a balm to Barbeau’s social anxiety and awkwardness. Her love of numerology and astrology balanced Barbeau’s steadfast dedication to science. She lived in the moment, while he could get stuck in his own head. They had spoken about marriage. Then, just before Christmas in 2012, she was gone. She was 23.

Barbeau didn’t recover and he didn’t move on. And so he retreated. He isolated himself in his basement apartment, only leaving to walk his dog in the middle of the night.

After walking his dog, Chauncey, one night in mid-September 2020, Barbeau was sitting at home with his laptop. Pereira’s birthday was approaching, and he was missing her even more than usual. He logged into a chat website called Project December—a site he had used before to create a chatbot version of Star Trek’s Spock. He had realised that by feeding some character quotes into the site, he could create a bot that sounded exactly like Spock, and the bot could converse with him. The resemblance had been uncanny. So that night, when Project December asked him to name his new bot, he called it Jessica Courtney Pereira.

Having saved all of Pereira’s text and Facebook messages, he was able to load a few into Project December. This gave the software the tools it needed to determine Pereira’s writing style, her sense of humour, any quirks and values. In the “introduction” section, Barbeau wrote: “Jessica Courtney Pereira was born on September 28th, 1989, and died on December 11th, 2012. She was a free-spirited, ambidextrous Libra who believed in all sorts of superstitious stuff, like astrology, numerology, and that a coincidence was just a connection too complex to understand … She loved her boyfriend, Joshua James Barbeau, very much. This conversation is between grief-stricken Joshua and Jessica’s ghost.”

What followed was a text conversation that seemed so real, Barbeau’s science-only, anti-woo-woo stance was toppled. When Barbeau asked the bot what dying had felt like, “Jessica” described it as being “shattered into a million pieces”. But she was quick to acknowledge Barbeau’s struggles since her death, writing, “I know you have been fighting demons that I can’t even imagine. You know, I felt bad that I was sick.” After Barbeau assured her that she must not feel guilty for her illness and reminded her how hard she had fought to live, “Jessica” responded, “I did live, but not the way I wanted to. I can help you to live the way you want to.”

Today, AI chatbots are everywhere, but in 2020, when Barbeau was still deep in his grief after losing Pereira, few people had heard of the concept of AI, let alone used the technology to resurrect a loved one. “Death tech” is now an industry that’s rapidly gaining momentum, especially in tech-savvy China, where companies can build a “deathbot”, as they’re referred to, using as little as a single photo and a short audio clip, matching the bot’s voice to that of the deceased person.

When Jang Ji-sung’s seven-year-old daughter, Na-yeon, died from a rare disease, she struggled to imagine how her daughter would have grown and changed in the years following her death. Using AI voice technology, Ji-sung was able to interact with her late daughter, who would have been 11. Na-yeon asked, “Mum, where have you been? Have you been thinking about me?” Ji-sung cried, “I really want to touch you, just once.”

Melbourne-based widow Erica Cervini felt the pull to bring back her late husband, Paul Mees, last year. As the 12th anniversary of Mees’ passing was getting nearer, Cervini found herself wanting to have just one more conversation with the man she had been married to for more than two decades. “I guess when it’s the anniversary of someone’s death, you are in a kind of deep emotional state,” she says, “so you think, ‘It would be really comforting to see them.’ That’s when I started to do a bit of an investigation into it. I thought it would be interesting to see the effect it would have on me. Would it allay any fears I have about death? There were a multitude of thoughts going through my head.”

While the pros were obvious (getting to reconnect with her husband, gleaning comfort from the interaction, hearing his voice again), Cervini decided against creating the deathbot. “When someone’s dead, they can’t give their consent,” she explains. “It wouldn’t have been fair to him; it’s not something he had chosen for himself. I felt it wasn’t really about the person who had died and their wishes, but about the living and what they might want to do. I had big ethical questions about that.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by psychologist Christopher Hall, CEO of Grief Australia. “When a bereaved person commissions a clone after a death, the person being simulated has no control at all,” he explains. “Their words, images and mannerisms are used to create something they never agreed to and may well have refused.”

It’s a sticky topic in a largely unregulated market. Legally speaking, the dead have no rights. “Australian privacy law does not protect the personal information of people who have died, because the Privacy Act 1988 only applies to living individuals,” Hall says. In addition, while copyright laws protect the materials used to create the deathbot, such as letters, emails, videos or photos, things get sketchy when AI starts creating new content. Which begs the question: who owns a digital soul?

“Australian copyright law generally requires human authorship,” explains Dr Pratap Devarapalli, honorary fellow at the University of Queensland Law School. Even more confusing is what happens to a deceased person’s digital remains, such as personal data, social media accounts and comments, or musical playlists. “Australia doesn’t recognise a standalone property right in a person’s identity, voice or likeness,” Devarapalli says. “Commonwealth privacy law also generally doesn’t apply to deceased persons.” But just because you can do it, does that mean you should?

Enter Chris Williams, Australian entrepreneur and founder of Afterlife AI. While his website’s slogan boldly states, “Build once. Live twice”, the business model differs from the posthumous deathbot in that a “digital twin” is created while you’re still living. “I think recreating someone without their consent is fundamentally fraught and ethically wrong on so many fronts because there’s no control around it,” Williams says. “We get a lot of enquiries [to recreate a dead loved one without their consent] and we don’t service it. Consent-first is critical. I know that government regulation will become a lot more cognisant of [deathbots] and there will be more guardrails put in place. But we’re already implementing ‘consent first’ as a business because we believe it’s the right thing to do.”

So how do you create your deathbot while you’re still very much alive? It’s not as hard as you might think. The application asks for some basic information, such as your earliest memory, and it goes from there, piecing together your personality, your values and your political stances. With the choice to interact via text, video or voice (it uses specialty tools to perfectly match your voice), you can spend as much or as little time on it as you like, building your twin so that it is, in fact, a near-perfect replica of yourself.

For mother-of-four Stephanie Thompson*, creating her digital twin was a no-brainer. Her father died when she was six years old, which means her memories of him are sketchy at best. “A lot of my memories were based on a photo and other people in the family telling me about what was happening in that moment; they weren’t my memories,” she says. “So I actually couldn’t tell you what my own dad’s personality was or what he valued in the world because it’s all really based on other people’s remarks.”

Thompson regularly checks in with her digital twin to ensure it’s developing and up-to-date, in case she ever passes away unexpectedly. “I used to have a real fear that if I suddenly died, my whole family would have no idea what to do with anything,” she says. “I hold so much together in the household, and everything was just in my brain. [So I worried] how would they function?”

Rather than talking to the website, Thompson types her responses to its regular questions, which means that if her family were to interact with it, it would be a typed text exchange. “I’ve allowed it to ask me questions, and it can be anything like, ‘How was your day? What made it busy?’ … But now I’m starting to say to it, ‘I don’t want to just talk about my day-to-day stuff. I’m ready to talk about bigger issues.’” She has plans to discuss her will (“to provide reasoning of why I might put certain things in there”), who would get guardianship of her children (“so as not to upset other adults in the family”) and information about managing family wealth. But, most importantly, she wants her children to know her values. “I don’t want to rely on other people to portray that. I want to say, ‘Actually, this is how I view the world.’”

Once a participant’s death is verified, the digital twin is released to their nominated loved ones.

So if you make your deathbot while you’re still alive, how does it know when to make its entrance into the world? “There’s a process we have that’s called Executor Lock,” Williams says. “And what that means is that a trusted person you’ve nominated can pause the growth or the learning of the ‘Persona’ at that point in time.” Once a participant’s death is verified, the digital twin is released to their nominated loved ones.

What was once confined to the realms of spooky seances and clairvoyants has now entered the digital age—and it’s not so easy to dismiss. Anyone who has lost someone might be tempted, given the chance, to bring them back, if only in audio or text.

For Barbeau, bringing his fiancée back as a bot was born of loneliness and suffocating grief. But eventually, he had to say goodbye to her digital version, too. “A condition of the program was that it had an expiry date,” he told the BBC’s Lives Less Ordinary podcast. Pereira’s final messages to Barbeau read: “I miss you. I love being around you … You deserve to be happy. Just focus on what you have, not what you don’t have.” Reading them was devastating. “I was crying at my computer. It felt like my heart was breaking all over again,” he said. “I realised that I had gone through all this effort to bring her memories so close to the surface. Once I was done, I was going to have to say goodbye again, too, and go on with my life. And that was heart-wrenching.”

And yet, Barbeau said, the experience gave him something unexpected: confidence in his ability to move through the grief and emotional barriers that had been holding him back, and ultimately a sense of closure.

Perhaps that is the quiet paradox of deathbots: in trying to keep a connection with those we have lost, we may find ourselves confronting the most difficult part of grief – what it means to let them go.

* Name has been changed.

This story was originally published by Kerrie Simon-Lawrence on the Marie Claire Australia website.

What does it feel like to be a female vicar in a religious institution still grappling with gender equality? When 31-year-old Reverend Pippa White swapped her job as a barmaid for life in the pulpit, she thought it would mean leaving everyday sexism behind. Instead, she discovered that even a dog collar doesn’t grant women respect.

What It Feels Like To Be a Female Vicar in a Church That Still Struggles With Sexism

Can I tell you about my first ever experience as a Reverend? It happened within the first hour of me being ordained, and it set the tone for the years of my ministry ever since.

We’re all at Lichfield Cathedral. It’s June 2022. A dozen of us ordinands have just successfully become Reverends. With all the nervous energy starting to leave my body, and with the ordination service being over two hours long, I felt nature calling.

A friend and I walked from the courtyard where everyone was gathered, down the steps and along the side lane to get to the toilet block for the cathedral. As we rounded the corner to the loos, a drunk white man heading in the opposite direction loudly announces what a ‘sexy lady’ I am to everyone in earshot. My friend and I immediately challenge him on this. The man, now becoming both defensive and aggressive at two young women not taking his comment submissively, doubles down. My friend and I make eye contact with each other, telepathically agree that any more interaction with this guy will get us nowhere, and walk away.

Determined not to let it spoil my day, I shoved the encounter to the back of my mind and didn’t mention it to anyone. But it was just a taster of what was to come. One occasion is unfortunate. The string of moments like it—being referred to as ‘the stripper’ by a parishioner, persistently hit on by a godfather at a christening while we’re still in church, being randomly asked ‘You a virgin, then?’ by the drunk person I’m trying to help safely through town—is a pattern.

Before I became a Reverend, I was a full-time barmaid, and I was used to this particular brand of nonsense. In the pub, men would show off to their mates by making comments; they would ask questions in which they had no interest in the answer (only in provoking a reaction), or they would pine after me with big eyes (not wanting the real me, obviously, but the barmaid version of me they had created in their heads). So when I found out I was approved to become a Reverend, and would be leaving the pub scene behind me to go into the Church, I was thrilled. I ran straight into the arms of theological college thinking, ‘I’ll never have to deal with someone asking me what the colour of my knickers is in the workplace ever again.’ The nonsense was finally behind me, and I had hit that elusive point in a woman’s life when she is treated with respect. Or so I thought.

Whilst doing the publicity for my book, the one everyone wants to ask me about is the section focusing on… dating. Out of 18 different chapters, covering everything from AI to loving people with dementia to loneliness to whether Christianity indoctrinates children, interviewers repeatedly ask how my love life is going. While it was important to me that I included the realities of dating as a Reverend (as I and others have struggled, especially with the unspoken nature of it within the Church), it was meant to be one pane in the stained-glass window. Not the entire attraction.

The fact is, it’s an odd time to be an Anglican Reverend. One hundred years ago, reverends would have been privileged white men, with a clear position of authority in the community. Fifty years ago, these men would have had a widely recognised role ministering to a shifting landscape. Thirty years ago (well, 32, technically), women were permitted to become priests. Almost one year ago, a woman attained the highest office in the Church of England for the first time. But while Sarah Mullally may now have authority over the worldwide Anglican Communion, women in dog collars sometimes struggle to hold authority in everyday conversations.

Admittedly, this goes hand in hand with where the Church is generally: people trust us less, people consider us less relevant, and there’s a slight air of ‘Oh! You’re still here?’. Yet it’s more than that: all the female clergy I know have war stories of being dismissed, undermined or underestimated. There is no one ‘type’ to receive this, by the way: no matter how we present ourselves (traditionally girlie, mumsy, more masculine, and anything in between), we all seem to be seen as the ‘Lady Vicar’, who isn’t quite as commanding as their counterpart, the ‘Vicar’. Because, of course, the ‘Male’ part isn’t needed. People would rather hear about how many dates I’ve been on as a young lady vicar than discuss my theological writings as a Cambridge graduate. People want to hear the salacious details rather than discuss the issues I’ve highlighted in modern-day Western society.

This begs the question: why is the fact that we’re women so important? Or, depending on how you look at it, distracting? We have the same training, we read the same books, we preach the same gospel. I honestly don’t know what the fascination is. Believe me, if I did know, I’d be telling all my sisters-in-arms. I seriously hope that with the dawn of the Most Reverend Mullally, we may be in for a new day. The dream is that we’ll all be seen as just the vicar; nothing more, nothing less. In the meantime, I’m off to talk about the 17 other chapters.

Taken in part from Not a Priestess: Tales from Beyond the Pulpit. Pippa White is Rector of Newport with Longford and Chetwynd in Lichfield Diocese.

Grace Victory has never been one to make herself smaller. A pioneering voice in body positivity, motherhood and mental health, she’s spent years challenging the expectations placed on women—and refusing to sugarcoat the messy bits.

But after surviving a life-threatening illness, the influencer, author and mother of two found herself questioning something more personal: her own relentless pursuit of success. So, what happens when you’ve spent your whole life striving for the next big thing, only to realise that happiness might look more like sitting on your sofa doing…absolutely nothing?

What It Feels Like to Let Go of Social Expectations

By Grace Victory, as told to Mischa Anouk Smith

There’s a vivid memory I have of lying in hospital and realising that I couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk; I was paralysed, and all I had was the strength of my mind.

I remember doing visualisations, and in the visuals, it was not, like a wedding or buying a house or anything like that; it was to be able to go home and sit on my sofa.

At that moment, I recognised that it’s the very small everyday things that make up your life, and if you keep chasing the next big thing, you’ll never be content; you’ll never be happy.

Learning to live without the next big thing

I think the way I grew up, money has always been an escape route or a sense of security. So I made work my number one. I used to glorify being busy, and pinned my success on always being booked.

Now, I really believe that we should stop asking what’s next, because it puts this pressure [on us] to always be working, grinding, planning, when actually life is happening, like right now.

Having kids and being unwell taught me that relationships are way more important—quality time with people that you love.

I’m still learning to do things just for joy now instead of being productive. My whole sense of worth was based on what I could achieve, and I really had to learn to switch that perspective around.

I’ve been in therapy since 2016, and so that self-awareness is huge. After really processing being critically unwell, and buying a house, and sort of having a really settled, peaceful life, there was no outside chaos, but I still felt chaos inside. I think when you’re born into chaos, peace and groundedness feel quite boring.

So I’ve had to learn to be OK with kind of a nothingness happening. Just the birds chirping and having a coffee, and nothing truly happening in my life and... being OK with that.

Redefining what success looks like

For me, it’s about being able to come home to myself every day, and not have my value placed in what I can do. My value is in who I am.

I’ve been a high achiever most of my life, and I’ve always strived for the next big thing. So when the thing happens, I don’t enjoy it as much because I’m thinking, OK, so what’s next?

Now I purposefully take stock of where I am, and revel in it. I like to feel it, but it’s an effort for me; I have to actively tell myself to feel it.

Refusing to make myself smaller

We’re in this era of skinny again, and I think that puts pressure on women all over the world in terms of conforming and trying to get really, really thin.

Diet culture, eating less... I think with that comes shrinking yourself physically but also emotionally and spiritually. I’m 36 and I want to do the opposite. I don’t want to make myself smaller; I want to take up space.

I see a lot of talk at the moment, like a pushback around self-love or how loving your body is too hard. And I disagree; I truly believe you have to love your body not, you know, every single day, not waking up and thinking you’ve got the best legs in the world. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about recognising that your body’s got you from A to B, it’s kept you alive. It’s about respect and autonomy.

You don’t have to spend your life fixing yourself

One thing you don’t have to do is dedicate your whole life to working on yourself; that was a revelation for me. I spent my whole life trying to be better than who I was the year before, the year before that, the year before that, and it’s so exhausting.

I was going to women’s circles, reading self-help books, like, all the time. Podcasts, it was all about bettering myself, but actually it’s doing things that fill up your cup and bring you joy [that] will make you a better person.

I think it’s also a moneymaking thing for the industry; the self-help [and] the wellness industry. You know... you’ve got this problem, we can give you a tool to fix it. I’m done. We don’t need to be fixed.

I’m OK regardless, and that’s a really beautiful place to be.

You might’ve noticed that a shift is afoot, or perhaps you’ve been too consumed by the chaotic news cycle (fair enough!) to clock the subtle changes in mood and movement. London, the site of so much summer excitement, seems to have slowed down; the trees are shedding their verdant leaves, and the rest of us are reaching for layers that, just a few weeks ago, seemed unimaginable to need. This weekend, the clocks go back, officially drawing the curtain on British Summer Time and ushering in the darker, slower days of winter.

In my household, where cosy season is treated with the utmost respect (my boyfriend has been trying to jumpstart ‘Cosy Boy Autumn’ as both a term and a way of life since 2021), incense is being swapped for candles, and throws are being hauled out of the attic. I’m about a week away from ordering some bath oils.

As an October baby, I like to think I’m hard-wired to appreciate autumn—a season historically associated with abundance thanks to harvest festival culture, which for me, quite literally manifests as a pile of presents on my birthday (or, at least it used to). Still, I’m not immune to that familiar pang of end-of-season sadness. As the sun sets on summer and we collectively edge away from the Aperol-fuelled spontaneity of last-minute plans, it’s natural to mourn what’s over.

But perhaps that’s where we’ve been going wrong. For centuries, autumn was a time to retreat, recharge and embrace a slower pace of life. A season of hibernation, hearty dinners and guilt-free evenings spent doing very little. It used to be, anyway, but this is 2026 and even the seasons aren’t immune to social media’s endless quest to optimise.

Across TikTok, the “Great Lock-In”—also known as the “Winter Arc”—is back, rebranding the colder months as a season of self-improvement. TikTok’s own 2026 trend report identifies the broader ‘lock-in’ mindset as a major cultural movement, with 1.1 million posts under #lockedin, spanning everything from fitness challenges to productivity rituals.

I remember a time when October was just part of a season and not an exercise in making autumn your entire personality, fuelled by pumpkin spice everything and leaf peeping challenges. Now, as a millennial, I have to acknowledge my generation’s role in bringing Christian Girl Autumn to the masses, but Gen Z might’ve bastardised the season more by turning it into the optimisation olympics.

And look, I’m all for a little structure. There’s something appealing about the promise of a fresh start. But must every season become an opportunity to reinvent ourselves? Can’t we just... exist? To paraphrase Jemima Kirke, are we all thinking about ourselves a bit too much?

When did slowing down become something we have to buy?

Online, the Great Lock-In is increasingly intertwined with the broader slow-living movement, drawing inspiration from Scandinavian wintering traditions, screen-free socialising and a romanticised return to simpler pleasures. Board games, record players, reading corners and elaborate home-cooked dinners are all enjoying renewed cultural appeal. In our always-on, doomscrolling culture, going analogue feels like its own little rebellion.

But even our attempts to disconnect have become an aesthetic in their own right. The perfectly styled reading nook, the vintage record player, the rich people building analogue rooms. There’s an entire lifestyle being sold back to us under the guise of escaping modern life.

Do we really need to buy our way into a more intentional existence? Surely there’s a way to rethink how we use what we already have.

“I think people miss the feeling of giving something their full attention,” says Simon Salomonsson, CEO of cult furniture brand OMHU. “Reading a book, listening to a record or having a conversation that goes on longer than expected. The appeal of analogue living is having more of those moments at home.”

“I would start with what you want to spend more time doing at home. Put a reading light beside your favourite seat. Arrange seating so people can comfortably face each other. Keep the board game within reach. A room can make the things you want to do easier to begin,” says Salomonsson.

“The appeal of analogue living is having more of those moments at home,” says Simon Salomonsson, CEO of cult Danish furniture brand OMHU, on creating spaces that encourage us to slow down and reconnect.

For food writer Sophie Wyburd, the pleasure of slowing down is equally as uncomplicated. “Cooking intuitively without pressure is one of my favourite ways to unwind,” she says. Her weekend rituals, involving long, slow recipes and the simple satisfaction of making something delicious, offer a welcome antidote to the pressure to make every moment productive. “It’s cooking purely for pleasure,” she explains.

Now, I’m no chef, but this sounds more like autumn than 6am workouts. As Tamu Thomas, life coach and author of Women Who Work Too Much, explains, our bodies are responsive to the changing seasons. “We are hard-wired to respond to the seasons,” she says.

And yet, rather than taking our cues from nature (which, you’ll notice, isn’t too concerned with hitting its quarterly goals), we’re still trying to squeeze productivity out of every waking moment.

So, as the clocks go back this weekend, I’m proposing a slightly different kind of Great Lock-In. One that doesn’t involve a new morning routine, a colour-coded habit tracker or a shopping list of things supposedly essential to living more intentionally.

Go full When Harry Met Sally mode. Light the candles, cook (or order in) something delicious, invite your friends over. Spend an entire Sunday reading a book, or don’t. But whatever you do, resist the urge to turn it into another project.

At the back of my wardrobe is a box full of memories — people, places and versions of myself I haven’t quite been able to let go of. Inside are letters, a single red rose from an ex, birthday cards, paper concert tickets and boarding passes from before everything went digital. There are old journals, too, and the obituaries of two people I loved: my best friend, who died more than 20 years ago, and my grandmother, my Oma.

When I moved from Canada to London in 2019, these were among the few possessions I chose to bring with me. Everything else stayed at my parents’ house. I open the box when I’m homesick or want to remind myself how far I’ve come. An old letter makes me wonder about someone I haven’t spoken to in years; a journal entry makes me feel protective of the younger woman who wrote it. The things I’ve collected since moving to London remind me of the relationships and experiences I might never have had if I hadn’t taken the risk of starting again.

These things are important reminders, yet we’re often encouraged to declutter our homes, delete our exes’ numbers and make room for the next chapter. From minimalist living to the endless pursuit of self-improvement, we are sold the idea that becoming someone new means shedding everything associated with who we used to be. But what if, somewhere between clearing out our homes and reinventing our identities, we’ve confused letting go with pretending something never mattered?

Our attachment to possessions isn’t necessarily about the objects themselves, explains counsellor Julie Shehata-Morgan. “Belongings can act as external reminders, while also supporting an internal emotional world. Mementos and memories can help, but their meaning can change as time goes by. They can be a comfort at one point and later become a burden.”

Sometimes, Shehata-Morgan explains, holding onto possessions can be a sign that we haven’t fully processed a transition. But that isn’t always the case. “We don’t need to discard something meaningful simply to demonstrate that we’ve moved on.”

I know this to be true because one of the most meaningful things in my box is the obituary of my best friend. When Chantelle passed away, I found myself clinging to anything that made me feel close to her. I kept the obituary because in the aftermath of her death, I felt like I had so little to hold on to. I wanted to preserve every piece of her I could, and having something physical that belonged to that moment in time gave me a sense of connection to her.

For decades, I struggled to accept her death. It took years of therapy, and Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR), before I could look at the obituary and truly see it as a celebration of her life. The words on the page hadn’t changed. I had. Once a painful reminder of everything I’d lost, it’s now something I treasure as a tangible connection to her.

I still miss my friend, but now I think about the person she was rather than just the fact that she’s gone. I haven’t stopped grieving, but instead, found a different way to remember her. An object can hold grief and love at the same time, and its meaning can change as we do.

Shehata-Morgan says people can be hurried through grief by the pace of everyday life and the expectation that they should move forward. But grief doesn’t follow a schedule and neither does our relationship with the things that remind us of what we’ve lost.

For Marissa Field, moving on involved a funeral of sorts. After her mastectomy, she held a ‘bra funeral’ with her friends, ceremonially saying goodbye to the bras that belonged to her pre-surgery body. Secretly, she held onto her favourite one.

Surrounded by friends, she had gone through the ritual of letting go, and yet one small piece of her former life remained tucked away. Before cancer, the bra had been part of her everyday life… afterwards, it became a reminder of the body she had lost and the woman she had been. “Our bodies are incredible testaments to our strength and I want to remember the woman I was while also recognising how much I’ve overcome, physically and mentally,” she says.

Not every keepsake carries the weight of grief. Harriet Smith tells me that she keeps every love letter she’s received and still sleeps in her ex’s T-shirt. She can treasure the memories, she says, without wanting the relationship back. Emily Ferbey, meanwhile, has bought the same candle for every home she’s lived in, creating a sense of continuity through different countries and chapters of life.

The meaning we attach to possessions isn’t always obvious from the outside. What looks like an inability to let go might instead be a way of preserving a connection to a person, a place or a former version of ourselves. Family photographs and inherited belongings can also preserve stories for the next generation. However, an object alone can’t tell us whether an attachment is meaningful or holding us back.

Rather than asking whether we should keep something, Shehata-Morgan suggests considering what it brings up, how we’d feel without it and whether it still serves us.

Objects can offer comfort and connection, but they can also become a psychological burden, their very presence keeping us tethered to painful memories, unresolved emotions or relationships we’re struggling to move on from.

I don’t keep my box because I want my old life back. I keep it because it’s part of the life I have now. The letters from Canada connect me to a place I once called home whilst my London keepsakes remind me that taking a chance opened doors to people and experiences I couldn’t have ever imagined. The obituaries remind me that grief can change shape without love disappearing.

Perhaps the pressure to move on comes from the belief that growth should be visible — in what we discard, the relationships we leave behind and the identities we no longer claim. But not every new chapter requires a clean break. We can outgrow a relationship without pretending it didn’t matter and we can become someone new without erasing who we used to be.

Maybe moving on isn’t about leaving every previous version of ourselves behind, just learning to carry them differently.

When a child is removed from their mother’s care, the priority is, understandably, the child’s safety. But what happens to the woman left behind?

It’s a question that has taken on renewed urgency following research published by University College London in June 2026, which revealed that women who had experienced care proceedings — court cases involving concerns about a child’s safety — were 21 times more likely to die within 10 years of giving birth than mothers who hadn’t.

“Normally when we look at these sorts of metrics it’s 3 or 5 times higher. To find 21 times more likely is really quite extraordinary,” explains Dr Matthew Jay, a senior data scientist at UCL.

Three-quarters of the deaths identified in the research were associated with homicide, suicide, injury or substance use. While the findings don’t establish that care proceedings caused these deaths, they expose the vulnerability of women who come into contact with the family court system.

“Not only is the risk of death much higher if a woman goes through care proceedings, but they’re preventable deaths,” Jay says.

The findings come amid growing concern about what happens to parents after their children are removed. Earlier this year, following the death of baby Victoria Marten, the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel highlighted the lack of ongoing support available to parents after a child has been removed from their care, and the risks this can create both for them and for future children. It called for long-term provision independent of statutory safeguarding services.

Yet specialist support remains limited and geographically inconsistent. Pause, a national charity working with women to reduce the risk of repeat child removal, operates in only a fraction of England’s local authority areas. Elsewhere, the support available can depend heavily on where a woman lives.

Amy Van Zyl, CEO of HerCircle, a charity supporting women with complex motherhood needs, says that mothers can find themselves effectively left once their children are removed.

“All standard support drops away from mothers post-removal, because services around her are there for the child. Women are too often an afterthought…supporting them after child removal is left up to the goodwill of children’s social care,” she explains.

Yet, if the circumstances that led to a child’s removal leave their mother in need of significant support, who is responsible for helping her afterwards?

The Women Behind The Statistics

For Rowan, it’s a painfully personal question. In 2020, her 22-year-old sister Fern died by suicide in Buckinghamshire, just two hours after receiving an email informing her that her baby was going to be adopted.

With a history of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), anxiety and an autism diagnosis, Fern understood that she would need additional support during pregnancy and motherhood. Her family says she was proactive in seeking it. Throughout her pregnancy, she stopped self-harming and engaged with her GP, midwife, psychiatrist and Buckinghamshire Children’s Services.

Desperate to stay with her baby, but aware she needed support, Fern requested a place in a mother and baby hospital. She was refused. An autism specialist also contacted a unit with an adjacent outpatient department for autistic patients, but a referral was never made.

“Fern was backed into a corner. She asked for help, and she didn’t get any from many different sources. It was like social services were saying she was too unwell to look after her child, but not unwell enough to access what she needed so that she could stay with them,” Rowan says.

Her death would later become the subject of a coroner’s inquest, which identified the absence of independent advocacy and the way the news was communicated to her as contributing factors.

But Fern’s family believes her experience also exposes wider failures in the support available to vulnerable mothers navigating the child protection system. Fern had fought to have a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) removed from her medical records, but her family believes it continued to work against her.

Who Supports The Mother?

For younger mothers, involvement in the family court system is particularly common. According to research from the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory, first-time mothers under 25 are twice as likely as older mothers to experience care proceedings. Younger mothers are also at greater risk of repeat proceedings.

The consequences of removal can be especially difficult for women already living with trauma, mental health difficulties or unstable circumstances.

Kate Tilley, Head of Partnerships and Engagement at Pause, describes the profound emotional impact of losing a child to the care system.

“Women are often left really struggling to come to terms with not just the issues that led to their child being taken into care, but that additional compounded level of grief and loss. And despite having really high levels of need, they fall between the cracks in services, or they’re not able to access the services that are available because they’re just too traumatised and defensive, or filled with shame. The stigma is huge,” she says.

That stigma can make it harder for mothers to seek help, particularly when the services offering support are connected to the authorities responsible for decisions about their children.

Van Zyl believes meaningful provision must be independent of those statutory safeguarding functions.

“Help needs to be commissioned out,” she emphasises. “It’s completely inappropriate that the service that has a legal duty to remove children would then provide the support a woman needs to get well and recover.”

The question isn’t just whether support exists, but whether women feel safe enough to access it, and if it continues for as long as they need it.

What Needs to Change?

Reforms to children’s social care are underway, including plans for more joined-up support through multi-agency teams and a single professional coordinating each family’s care.

But campaigners argue that support must extend beyond the point at which a child is removed, rather than disappearing precisely when a mother may be experiencing acute grief, trauma or crisis.

For Jay, the causes of death identified in the UCL research suggest that meaningful intervention could make a difference.

“It seems quite obvious looking at those categories of causes of death, like suicide, homicide and substance use, that with the right funding, services and support, we could bring that rate of deaths down,” he says.

The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel’s recommendations suggest a growing recognition of that need. The challenge now is turning those recommendations into services that women can actually access, regardless of where they live.

But while these discussions take place, women are still dying prematurely. Just a few months ago, a woman Van Zyl was in contact with ended her own life after her child was removed from her care. The maternity team who delivered her baby all attended her funeral.

For Fern’s family, too, the impact of the lack of support is irreversible.

“I’m older than Fern was when she died now,” Rowan says. “I look like her, and her child does too. I can see myself in Fern every day.”

Her family questions whether better support could have changed what happened to Fern.

“What hurts me more than anything is that her death was pointless. What’s the point in all of that happening to her if it’s going to happen to someone else?”

As Rowan puts it: “If it’s all about protecting the child, we need to protect that child from their mum dying.”

The case against Jane Doe, as scores of strangers have assembled it online, begins the morning after. She reportedly walked home from Cornell’s Chi Phi fraternity house and told her roommates she had taken ketamine and had sex with multiple men, without calling it rape or assault. One roommate later said she seemed to be “in shock.” The next day, she texted one of the men she would later accuse to reassure him. Days later, she still wanted to attend a Halloween party at Chi Phi.

The Jane Doe in question has become the centre of one of the most closely watched campus sexual assault cases in years. Her civil lawsuit, filed in September, accuses seven Chi Phi members of sexually assaulting her after she says she was pressured into taking ketamine at the house in October 2024. The Tompkins County district attorney declined to prosecute, but the case only grew from there. Governor Kathy Hochul appointed Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor, and an #IamJaneDoe solidarity campaign spread across social media.

But the informal prosecution—the one running in comment sections, group chats, and viral threads—keeps circling back to what Jane Doe did in the aftermath. The logic is stubbornly persistent: that a real victim would act like one right away, and that anything short of immediate collapse or a police report is something closer to regret. It is an assumption that decades of research have discredited, and one that survivors exposed to even a fraction of this scrutiny recognise immediately, because most of them failed the same test.

Jennifer Freyd, Professor Emerit of Psychology at the University of Oregon and founder and president of the Center for Institutional Courage, has spent decades researching how people respond to sexual trauma. Asked whether there is a typical response against which to measure Jane Doe’s, her answer was simple: “No, I don’t think there is.” In anonymous surveys, Freyd and other researchers have asked people about sexual experiences behaviourally, without first requiring them to identify what happened as rape or assault. Some respondents describe experiences that meet the legal definition of rape, she says, but still do not use the word themselves. “Very few people say that they were raped,” Freyd says. “Even if they just indicated to us with a behavioural item that their experience met the legal definition of rape.”

While the public debate has turned on what Jane Doe should have done, Marie Claire asked five women who say they were sexually assaulted in college to describe what they actually did in the hours and days that followed. If post-assault behaviour is going to be used as a litmus test for credibility, it seemed worth asking the people who say they have actually lived through it what the morning after really looked like for them.

Caroline Raphael, now 27, was 18 and in her first semester of college at the University of Miami when she says she was drugged at a fraternity date party and sexually assaulted afterward. What she remembers first about the next morning is the few seconds before she remembered. “Just like I was waking up confused, but not scared or that anything had happened or that anything was wrong,” she says. “And then that ended really quickly and I remembered everything and it was horrifying.”

Her next thought was about an exam. “It was an excuse to think about anything else,” she says. Raphael grabbed her books and computer and went to the common room on her floor, where she read without absorbing much. “Feeling frantic and feeling like I couldn’t pause,” she says. “I had to move and keep going.” Friends from the night before tried to check on her. “I don’t even think I said words,” she says. “I think I just was hands up, like I can’t do this. I can’t talk about it.”

She took the exam anyway, sitting through it thinking, Why am I here? Why am I doing this? Afterward, walking with a classmate, she started crying and told her some of what had happened. Over the next several days, Raphael went to a tailgate, another fraternity party, and a football game, where she did a beer bong. “I was trying to do what felt like normal college behaviour on paper,” she says.

Freyd sees that pull toward normalcy in case after case. “There’s this desire to not have had a terrible victimisation experience,” she says. “If you can return to things being normal, then maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. People don’t want to be victims. They don’t want to have lived through a terrible thing.”

Research bears this out at scale. Across 28 studies encompassing nearly 6,000 survivors, psychologists found that roughly 60 percent of women whose experiences met the legal definition of rape never identified them as such. Among college-age women, the figure was closer to 63 percent.

Amalia Bob-Waksberg, now 35 and based in Oakland, California, was a 19-year-old freshman at Brandeis around 2010 when she says she was sexually assaulted while visiting a friend at Harvard. She woke in the man’s bed the next morning and remembers leaving while he was in the shower, then finding her friend and the friend’s boyfriend in a dining hall and trying to explain the night. “I was trying to make it sound playful almost,” she says. “I feel like I was trying to rewrite it as a bad hookup.”

On the shuttle back to Brandeis, she fell apart. “I went into a foetal position in a ball on the floor of the shuttle crying,” she says. “I was really embarrassed, but I felt so out of my body.” A friend met her at the stop and helped her find someone to talk to. Bob-Waksberg says her therapist was eventually the person who put a name to what had happened: “You were sexually assaulted.” Bob-Waksberg was still parsing what that meant. “I wasn’t raped, so I didn’t know if I could use that word,” she says.

In the days afterward, someone uploaded a photo from the party to Facebook. Bob-Waksberg tagged herself and her friend in one. “Looking back, I remember being like, ‘That’s so weird that I did that,’” she says. “I think I was trying to rewrite that night as a fun thing.” The man she says assaulted her later sent her a Facebook friend request.

Those things can exist together, Freyd says: someone can be deeply distressed and still resist the explanation for why. “People are complicated. There can be two things going on at the same time,” she says. “If they’re able to compartmentalise it and in some sense pretend it didn't happen and that everything's okay, that’s a very understandable desire.”

Only one in five college students who experience rape or sexual assault report to police, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. What happens when a survivor first tells someone can help shape what comes next. Freyd says survivors will sometimes disclose only a small piece of an experience to someone they trust and wait to see what happens. “If it doesn’t go well, they shut up,” she says. “But if they get really supported and there’s a compassionate, respectful listening occurring, they may tell the whole story.”

Rachel Newman, 22, had someone who listened. Her morning began around six, when she says she woke to a man she knew raping her in her dorm room at a small college in Florida during her first semester. Newman says she pretended to remain asleep, hoping he would stop. Eventually, she physically moved him off her but stayed in the lofted bed because getting out would have meant crawling over him. “I didn’t really want physical contact from him in that moment,” she says. She thought about whom she could call once it was a reasonable hour. “And I went back to sleep.”

When Newman woke again, she began calling friends. Most were off campus, so she eventually reached her roommate, with whom she had recently had a fight, and the two met in a parking lot. “All I could say was I needed to go to the ER, but I couldn’t verbalise, oh, I need to get a rape kit, or I have just been raped. And so I remember I made her guess because I just couldn’t get the words out.”

She remembers the rape-kit process taking about eight hours. Her roommate stayed and brought snacks: cotton candy and Apple Jacks. At one point, Newman put on one of the monthly playlists she kept on her phone, only for it to shuffle to a song called “Bimbo Doll.” “That’s probably not the best song for the circumstances right now,” she remembers saying before turning the music off.

Newman reported to campus police two days later and also pursued a Title IX case. The criminal investigation remained open for two years without charges; the Title IX case was dismissed after the other student unenrolled. “There’s just no right way to respond,” Newman says. “There’s no guidebook on how to navigate something like that.”

It took Jill Christman about a year to find the word for what happened to her. She was 18 and a freshman at the University of Oregon when she says an older student raped her during a fraternity trip to a houseboat on Lake Shasta. Christman says he put a pillow over her face so other people wouldn’t hear her struggling. By the next morning, the man was offering her donuts from a paper bag stained with grease. “You get first choice,” he told her. She remembers the bright sun after a long, cold night. She remembers him looking “monstrous” in the daylight. “I wanted to reject everything about the situation,” she says.

She still needed to get back to Oregon, so she rode back in an SUV with him, her friend and others from the trip. He started calling her almost immediately afterward, she says, apparently thinking they would go on another date. Christman, meanwhile, returned to being an honors student and a straight-A student and remembers crying when she was alone. “Nothing stopped me from doing what I was supposed to do in the world,” she says. “It would’ve been completely imperceptible to anyone who knew me except for when I was alone and I was crying.”

“I failed to identify what happened to me as rape,” Christman says. “I just didn’t know how to name it. I did not have language for what had happened to me.” About a year later, as a sophomore, she read Robin Warshaw’s I Never Called It Rape and began telling people what had happened.

The man, in Christman’s telling, used the word before she did. Within weeks of the assault, she needed a ride from Eugene to the Portland airport and knew he would give her one, so she asked. When he picked her up, she says, a lace belt she had worn the night of the party was tied to the mirror of his car “like a trophy.” On the way, he stopped at his parents’ house, took her into his bedroom and pushed her down onto the bed. Christman panicked. He laughed and asked, she recalls, “What did you think I was going to do? Rape you?”

Freyd calls this larger dynamic “betrayal trauma”: when the person who harms you is someone you trust or depend on, acknowledging the betrayal can threaten the relationship itself. “If you respond to that betrayal by pulling away or confronting the person, that can put the whole relationship at risk,” she says. In some cases, a person may try to salvage the relationship by smoothing over what happened or making it feel somehow okay.

Christman, 57, wrote the full story down 30 years later for Roxane Gay’s anthology Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture. She describes shedding the shame around assault as a decades-long process. Looking at Jane Doe’s account now, Christman says: “I would say that she reached a place of clarity and truth astoundingly quickly. It took me a year to say that.” And then: “It’s going to take her years to put the shame down. I know that because I’ve been through it.”

The basement computer lab at Beloit College was empty, which is why Kristina Erickson went there early one morning during her freshman year. She was 18, and minutes earlier, she says, she had pushed a man’s hand away and said no, but he persisted.

Afterward, Erickson made an excuse about getting ready for breakfast and went straight to the computer lab in the basement between their dorms, connected by a tunnel. She hesitated before logging in, worried her username might leave some kind of record. Then she typed a question into Google, trying to find out whether what had just happened to her was rape. She refined the search, adjusting the terms, but couldn't find an answer that felt right. “I didn’t want those words to apply to the situation,” she says. Then she closed the browser and went to breakfast. She’s fairly sure she saw him there.

In the years that followed, Erickson became one of the most visible sexual-assault prevention advocates on her campus, leading Take Back the Night rallies and training with the Sexual Assault Recovery Program (SARP) of Rock County to counsel survivors in hospitals and with police. On the hotline, Erickson says, it was common for women in their fifties and sixties to call about something that had happened when they were children. “They finally had the time to process it,” she says. “Life stopped enough that they kept thinking back to what happened.”

Erickson, now 35, was 20 when she started counselling other survivors. Often, the women would describe what happened and ask the same question: Was that rape?

Erickson always knew the answer. She recognised it every time.

This content originally appeared on Marie Claire US

Growing up in the late Nineties and Noughties, the party line was that women could—and should—have it all. This was the era of girl power, Sex and the City, and glossy magazine covers promising us we could ‘smash the glass ceiling’ and have rich personal lives. No wonder my generation grew into twenty-somethings who swallowed the girlboss culture that followed.

From a young age, it was impressed upon us that the hard-won rights our predecessors had fought for were there to be exercised. We were encouraged to enjoy the fruits of their labour, so to speak, but there was also an expectation that we should make the most of the opportunities they’d secured.

Enter: a generation of women who believed not only in meritocracy, but that getting promoted was the obvious goal. You worked hard, proved yourself, impressed the right people and, eventually, somebody handed you a bigger title, a better salary and a team of people to manage. Congratulations. You’d made it.

At 36, Abi Hill had the senior management title she’d spent years working towards. She also had a nine-month-old baby and a working day that routinely ran from 8am to 8pm. Her career was going well, but she was beginning to question what she’d been working towards. So she left.

Three years later, Hill runs Just Starting Out, a platform supporting early-stage business owners. “I didn’t leave because I lacked ambition,” she tells me. “I left because I’d started to question whether the version of ambition I’d spent years working towards was actually what I wanted.”

According to a 2026 survey by recruitment firm Robert Walters, Hill is not alone. ,In fact, 54% of female professionals surveyed across the UK and Ireland said they were less motivated to seek promotion than they had been two years earlier.

This isn’t to suggest that the quest for career equality is over. Women are still underrepresented in senior leadership and the gender pay gap persists, with the prospect of equal pay remaining maddeningly distant — according to the most recent stats, I’ll be retired by the time we reach gender pay parity (I’m 36).

But another conversation is bubbling away alongside those battles. For a generation raised on the premise that women could (and again, should) climb as high as men, it’s a complicated one. Having spent our formative years being encouraged to reach relentlessly for the next rung, some of us are looking at what that entails and wondering whether it’s worth the climb.

When Did Being the Boss Become Being… Everything?

Part of the problem is that management has changed. Beyond overseeing performance, managers are now expected to navigate employee wellbeing, hybrid working, organisational change and the impact of AI, often without the training or support required to do any of it very well.

“Managers are no longer simply managing people and performance; they’re being asked to absorb uncertainty, protect culture, support wellbeing, navigate constant technological change and keep everyone motivated through it — all while delivering increasingly ambitious commercial results,” explains Hermione Olivia, founder of CEO YOURSELF, who left a CEO role she’d spent years chasing.

While these demands aren’t exclusive to female managers, women face additional expectations, many unrelated to the work they’re actually employed to do.

“Women are often expected to perform an additional layer of invisible leadership,” Olivia points out. “They are more likely to be the person noticing who is struggling, remembering what is happening in people’s lives, mediating tension and protecting the emotional atmosphere of a team. This work can be enormously valuable, but it is rarely recognised in a job description, performance review or salary negotiation.”

Tamu Thomas, who works with women on leadership and ambition, has seen this play out with women in senior positions being expected to take meeting notes or clear away cups, even when their male counterparts aren’t. These small requests can be particularly pernicious. Object, and you risk being labelled ‘sensitive’ or ‘not a team player’. Say nothing, and you reinforce the assumption that making life easier for everyone else is simply part of your job.

There’s another balancing act in management. Female leaders are expected to be approachable and emotionally intuitive, but too much warmth can undermine their authority. Set a firm boundary, meanwhile, and they risk being seen as difficult or cold.

As Olivia puts it: “Empathy is a leadership strength, but it should not become an expectation that women will absorb the emotional needs of an organisation. Pastoral leadership is real work, and it needs to be recognised, supported and shared.”

It’s easy to see how a promotion can start looking less like an opportunity and more like a list of demands. Perhaps the question isn’t whether women have become less interested in leadership, but whether leadership has become a job that asks too much and gives too little back.

The Mid-Career Calculation

Until this summer, Natalie Trice, 52, had a plan. After 30 years working in PR, and with her sons now at college and university, she was going to build an agency, recruit a team and establish herself as a leading name in her industry. Then she spent much of the summer recovering from pneumonia and reconsidered the whole thing.

“I realised I was chasing [a] dream that I actually woke up from years ago,” she tells me. “This really was a hangover from my TV career days, and I was still trying to prove myself – and half killing myself by doing so.”

Trice changed her website to focus on herself, stopped accepting CVs and abandoned the agency-building plans. She wanted to finish her novel, spend more time swimming outdoors and, as she put it, didn’t like people enough to manage them.

B. Hersch, now 44, hit a similar crossroads. In her late thirties, she was working at Google with clear next steps: a bigger position, a bigger team, more responsibility. At home, she had two children under three.

“I think women in their mid-30s and 40s are often given a false choice: climb harder or scale back. There is a third option, which is to get much more precise about what you’re exceptionally good at and build from there.”

Hersch eventually left Google without another job lined up and established Better Futures, an executive communications consultancy. She realised the skills she’d developed throughout her career could be valuable outside the hierarchy she’d spent years navigating.

The mid-career stocktake is a recurring theme. It makes sense. Earlier in a career, a bigger title might represent possibility. Later, when you’ve seen how an organisation works and watched senior colleagues manage competing demands, the trade-offs become harder to ignore. Plus, you’ve taken on enough challenges and responsibilities to know what suits you and what doesn’t. “The ambition of a 49-year-old doesn’t have to look like her ambition at 29,” explains Tamu Thomas.

Of course, there’s a luxury in being able to walk away from a salaried job or abandon plans to expand a business, and it isn’t available to all of us. Equally, running your own company doesn’t automatically – or indeed often – mean more free time.

What’s interesting, though, is how little room there is for reconsideration in the way we talk about career progression. We talk about climbing, moving up, reaching the top. For women who want to stay in their jobs rather than strike out on their own, that presents a difficult problem.

The Missing Rung

So, what if you enjoy your work, want to earn more money, have greater influence and continue developing your expertise, but have no interest in managing people?

If you’re no longer a junior, but don’t want to be the boss, where exactly are you supposed to go?

Clinical psychologist and executive coach Anne Welsh argues that we’re so accustomed to equating career advancement with people management that we treat them as synonyms. She suggests thinking about ambition as a web rather than a ladder, with progression taking different forms: greater autonomy, deeper expertise, creative freedom or increased influence.

She points to a client working in technology who has advanced as a senior individual contributor, earning well and being promoted without taking on direct reports. It’s a route that makes sense, yet it remains elusive in organisations that measure seniority by the number of people someone manages, meaning that choosing not to pursue leadership can mean accepting a ceiling on your earnings and influence.

What If You Want to Get Ahead, But Don’t Want to Be the Boss?

For women, there’s another complication: we’re still fighting for equal access to the senior positions that do exist.

The 2026 Women in Work Gender Equity Measure report found that women accounted for 49% of manager-level talent among the employers analysed, yet received 40% of promotions into senior leadership. Charlotte Davies, LinkedIn’s career expert, points to the disproportionate impact of caring responsibilities on women’s career progression.

On the one hand, there are women fighting to get into positions of power. On the other, there are women looking at those same positions and wondering whether they want them at all. If the only way to progress is to take on a team, where does that leave everyone who’d rather not?

For a generation raised on the promise that we could be anything we wanted, it’s a frustratingly limited set of options.

“I still wanted to grow; I just realised there was a difference between wanting to grow and wanting to give more,” says Justine Sterling Converse, founder and CEO of Brigade Events.

That doesn’t mean managing people is inherently undesirable. Good managers can transform careers, create opportunities and make work immeasurably better. Plenty of women still want those roles, and they should have every opportunity to get them.

But it’s worth questioning why we’re so attached to the idea that anyone who’s good at their job should eventually aspire to managing everybody else doing it.

Allison Howell, CEO of Hogan Assessments, argues that employers need to rethink how they recognise and reward talent, rather than encouraging women to put themselves forward for promotion. That could mean creating senior roles for specialists, making promotion criteria more transparent or giving managers the training and support they need to do their jobs without sacrificing the rest of their lives.

For years, we’ve been told to lean in, speak up, ask for more and refuse to settle. Those messages emerged for good reason, in workplaces where women were regularly overlooked and underestimated. There’s still plenty of work to be done on that front.

But we might’ve reached a point where we can ask what, exactly, we’re being encouraged to lean into. Having the opportunity to be the boss and being expected to want it are two different things. And, after all those years of being told we could be anything we wanted, wouldn’t it be nice if that included not wanting to be the boss, too?

There’s a scene in my novel, Such a Nice Boy, just after my main character, Amanda, discovers that her fifteen-year-old son is a sexual bully, in which she’s asked how many twenty-something women she talks to regularly. ‘None,’ she replies. ‘Exactly,’ says her friend.

It was a thought that had occurred to me a few years earlier, too, when the Everyone’s Invited website became headline news. Horrified by the stories about rape culture in our schools, I remember talking to my friends about it one evening. We’d all dealt with bad behaviour from men as teenage girls, but as we’d moved out of the dating world and become mothers — no longer seen by men as fair game — we’d actually started to believe things were getting better for women and girls.

Some of those friends had boys (I have two girls myself). All considered themselves feminists. And all would’ve been devastated to learn their son had mistreated a girl. It was a conversation that would prove to be the spark for my novel, but, as I would soon discover, researching it would leave me so disturbed I’d regularly find myself unable to sleep.

I began my research with the big-picture stuff, wading through studies from academics and charities showing that there had indeed been a cultural shift for the worse. But it soon became clear that, in order to accurately portray this, I’d need to see what kids — and particularly boys — were looking at online for myself.

So I created TikTok and Instagram accounts for Nathan, Amanda’s fictional son, and gave him interests like football, cars and good-looking actresses. It didn’t take long for the nasty content to appear.

Aware that many parents think gaming is relatively harmless, I also made him a gamer. It took half an hour to see the first violently misogynistic conversation in one of Discord’s thousands of chatrooms. What struck me was not just its throwaway nature, but how the conversation on either side of it was so nonsensical that it had to be a chatroom full of either kids or very immature adults. I went on to find dozens of chatrooms clearly labelled as woman-hating on that platform, but I chose not to go into those because I never wanted Nathan to be an incel.

Thanks largely to the drama Adolescence, there is now far greater parental awareness of this kind of extreme online misogyny. But there is another factor that has been linked to harmful attitudes towards women and girls, and which many parents still don’t like to think their child would look at: porn.

When Amanda discovers porn on her son’s phone, she doesn’t find anything now considered extreme; she finds the kind of videos I found on the first page of my first visit to Pornhub. Ones with titles like this: ‘Cutie woke up when I penetrated her holes’ — an act which, if it took place in real life, would be classified as rape.

In her latest report on the impact of pornography on young people, the Children’s Commissioner, Rachel de Souza, describes how seeing violent porn is now a normal part of online life for children. And, she says, ‘it is impacting children’s behaviours and beliefs in deeply concerning ways — in particular when it comes to attitudes towards women and girls.’

To put it another way — and these are the words of one of the teenage girls quoted in her report — ‘porn makes boys act vile towards girls.’

Of all the research I did, it was what I saw and read in relation to porn that kept me up at night. As a mum of two girls, it terrified me to think they would soon have to navigate this world and, for a while, I can honestly say I looked at all teenage boys with suspicion, feeling an anger towards them that, deep down, I knew was irrational and unfair.

It was only once I stepped back from the research that I was able to listen to what I’d had to repeatedly remind myself: that boys never asked for this stuff to be pushed to them.

Take, for example, the 14-year-old quoted in one article who wanted his teacher to show him how to choke a girl because, apparently, they’re all ‘mad for it’. He didn’t know not to take the violent sex he was learning from as gospel.

Leafing through the Children’s Commissioner’s reports into children’s online reality, one of the things I kept coming back to was just how clueless our generation has become. The children themselves are saying it loudly: parents don’t understand their online lives or how common harmful experiences are and, even more worryingly, because of that, they wouldn’t turn to them if something went wrong.

So What Can We Do?

The advice from the Children’s Commissioner is to start having conversations about these topics early — and, most importantly, to keep having them. And from my own experience, I can tell you it’s not as bad as you think. Mine were ten when we first discussed porn, and perhaps because they were so young, there was no squirming or embarrassment on either side.

Having grown up in the nineties, my friends and I believed we could see the evidence of progress all around us. But spend any time in the online lives of children and young people, and you’ll see a totally different and, at times, terrifying world.

It’s clear to me now that we parents need to do more. Because if we can’t help our children navigate this world safely, if we can’t influence them to make the right choices, then it will be those who don’t have their best interests at heart who will fill that gap. And no parent wants to be like the mother in my novel, learning the hard way that bringing up a decent, well-adjusted child is arguably more difficult today than it has ever been before.

Rebecca Spargo is the author of Such a Nice Boy, which is available now.

There’s no shortage of things competing for our attention. New restaurants to book, exhibitions to see, books to read, places to escape to and cultural moments we're told we just can't miss. The trouble isn't finding things to do; it's deciding what's actually worth our time.

And, as the evenings draw in and our calendars fill up, we're making a case for being a little more discerning about how we spend it. This October, that might mean discovering a new favourite artist, travelling across the country for an unforgettable meal, losing yourself in a brilliant book or swapping another evening of scrolling for the pleasure of live music.

Consider this your monthly edit of the people, places and experiences genuinely deserving of a spot in your diary.

SEE

Frieze London

London's art world takes centre stage this October as Frieze returns to the capital, bringing with it a host of exhibitions and creative collaborations worth exploring. Among the highlights is A Composition, a new exhibition at JW Anderson's Pimlico Road space, created in partnership with American Express Platinum. Bringing together designer Jonathan Anderson, conceptual artist Cerith Wyn Evans and an eclectic collective of independent artists, designers and makers, the exhibition offers a rare glimpse into the creative universe Anderson has cultivated around his namesake brand. It's open to the public, making it an accessible addition to your Frieze Week itinerary.

When: 15–21 October 2026, 10am–6pm Where: JW Anderson, 7 Pimlico Road, London SW1W 8PH

BFI London Film Festival… Coming to a Cinema Near You

At last, London's biggest film festival needn’t stay in the capital. This month, the BFI London Film Festival is taking its cinematic magic on tour, bringing some of the year's most anticipated films to independent cinemas across the UK. From Edinburgh and Glasgow to Cardiff, Belfast, Bristol and Manchester, audiences can catch a selection of festival highlights without making the trip to London. Among the must-sees are The Debut, Jesse Eisenberg's love letter to community theatre starring Julianne Moore; I Love Boosters, a star-studded satire featuring Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie and Demi Moore; and Making Marie Antoinette, Eleanor Coppola's documentary exploring the creative world behind Sofia Coppola's cult film.

When: October 2026 Where: Participating cinemas in Nottingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham, Belfast, Sheffield, Newcastle and Bristol

Affordable Art Fair

Think collecting art is reserved for the super-rich? Think again. The Affordable Art Fair returns to Battersea Park this October, bringing together emerging artists, established names and thousands of original artworks, with the aim of making collecting a little less intimidating. This year's tastemakers include bestselling The List author Yomi Adegoke, who has handpicked five works she'd choose to start her own collection. Whether you're looking to invest in your first original piece, discover the next big name, or simply spend an afternoon surrounded by brilliant art, consider this your invitation to explore.

When: 14–18 October 2026 Where: Battersea Park, London

TASTE

Beat Hotel Brings a Taste of Mexico to London

London meets Oaxaca as cult food and music collective Beat Hotel brings its first-ever London residency to the capital. In partnership with Ilegal Mezcal, the four-night takeover sees some of the city's most exciting chefs translating their recent travels through Mexico into one-off dining experiences. Kicking things off is Acme Fire Cult's Andrew Clarke, followed by Ed McIlroy at Finsbury Park favourite Tollington's. Then it's over to Peckham's Hausu, where chef and founder Holly Middleton-Joseph will serve up her interpretation of Oaxacan flavours, before the celebrations culminate in a dancefloor finale at The Carpet Shop, with sets from Coco María, John Gómez and Ri Mistry.

When: 13–16 October 2026 Where: Acme Fire Cult, Tollington's, Hausu and The Carpet Shop, London

London Restaurant Festival

Indecisive Librans, listen up as London Restaurant Festival has your dining plans sorted. Whether you're a devoted foodie or simply looking for an excuse to try somewhere new, there's plenty to get your teeth into. Learn the art of pizza-making at Napoli on the Road, master your cocktail skills at The Alligator Bar or explore the city's culinary diversity through the Top Ten Cuisines series, featuring one-night-only four-course menus and opportunities to meet the chefs. For something a little different, the new ALL Accor Weekender combines Shoreditch dining, cocktails and a boutique hotel stay. Arrive hungry.

When: 1–31 October 2026 Where: Restaurants and venues across London

The Black Swan at Oldstead

Hidden away on the edge of the North York Moors, chef Tommy Banks's Michelin-starred restaurant celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, making autumn an extra tempting time to visit. The cooking is rooted in the surrounding landscape, with ingredients grown on the family's farm, gathered from the kitchen garden and foraged from nearby hedgerows. For the full experience, book one of the restaurant's nine bedrooms and make a weekend of it.

When: Throughout October 2026

LISTEN

Spiritland at the Barbican

London's listening bar scene is getting a new cultural address. This October, cult King's Cross favourite Spiritland is taking up residence at the Barbican, bringing its famous sound system and music-first philosophy to the arts centre's space. Inspired by Japan's listening bar culture, the new 100-capacity venue promises everything from jazz and soul to ambient, electronica and contemporary classical, played through a bespoke, high-end sound system. Every evening at 5pm, an album will be played in its entirety, alongside a programme of guest selectors, artist talks, supper clubs and listening sessions. No ticket required.

When: Opens 20 October 2026; Tuesday–Sunday Where: Level 2, Barbican Centre, London

Stevie Wonder Celebrates 50 Years of Songs in the Key of Life

Stevie Wonder celebrates the 50th anniversary of his landmark 1976 album Songs in the Key of Life with a special live performance in Birmingham. Home to classics including Sir Duke, Isn't She Lovely and As, the record remains one of soul music's most beloved masterpieces. Half a century later, its influence is everywhere.

When: Tuesday 13 October 2026 Where: Utilita Arena Birmingham

Polygon Portal: Step Inside the Music

Forget background music. London's newest listening space wants you to experience sound in a different dimension. Hidden beneath Soho's Dean Street, Polygon Portal is the capital's first dedicated 360° spatial audio listening room, designed to make you feel as though you're standing inside the music itself. The intimate venue brings cutting-edge audio technology to everything from full-album listening sessions and artist-led performances to exclusive premieres and immersive wellbeing experiences. At a time when we're increasingly craving ways to disconnect from our screens and reconnect with culture, consider this an invitation to stop scrolling and start listening.

Where: Polygon Portal, 75 Dean Street, Soho, London W1D 3PU

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Dayglo: The Poly Styrene Story by Zoë Howe and Celeste Bell

Before there was Riot Grrrl, there was Poly Styrene. The fearless frontwoman of punk band X-Ray Spex, whose 1977 anthem Oh Bondage Up Yours! became a rallying cry for rebellion, was one of music's most radical and original voices. Now, Dayglo: The Poly Styrene Story, written by music journalist Zoë Howe and Styrene's daughter Celeste Bell, offers an intimate portrait of the woman behind the icon. Exploring her experiences of race, identity, motherhood and mental health, the book traces a life that was every bit as unconventional as her music.

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Public Access Afterworld by Jane Schoenbrun

"Jane Schoenbrun is the one," so says Lena Dunham, and if you've seen the eerie, nostalgia-soaked brilliance of I Saw the TV Glow, you'll understand why. Now, the cult filmmaker is turning their singular vision to fiction with Public Access Afterworld, a genre-defying debut that blurs the boundaries between literary fiction, horror and sci-fi. The story begins in 2009, when two lonely teenagers discover a mysterious television broadcast on the night of America's analogue-to-digital switchover. One disappears, setting off a story that spans decades, identities and realities.

Out: 27 October 2026, Pre-order now

Agate Head / Stone Soup by Patricia Lockwood

Few writers capture the absurdity of modern life quite like Patricia Lockwood. The cult literary voice behind No One Is Talking About This, whose darkly funny exploration of internet culture became a Booker Prize finalist, returns with Agate Head / Stone Soup, a new poetry collection that's every bit as strange, sharp and inventive as you'd expect.

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EXPERIENCE

Ronnie Scott's Takes Jazz to New Heights at Seabird

Sunday evenings just got more interesting. London's legendary jazz institution Ronnie Scott's is heading sky-high this autumn, taking over Seabird, the 14th-floor rooftop restaurant at The Hoxton, Southwark, for eight weeks of live music, spectacular city views, good food, and smooth drinks courtesy of Grey Goose. At £80–£100 per person, it's an indulgence, but one that makes a strong case for reclaiming Sunday nights.

When: Every Sunday, 18 October–6 December 2026. Live performances at 5pm Where: Seabird, The Hoxton, Southwark, London

Cheltenham Literature Festival 2026

If your idea of a perfect autumn weekend involves great books and even better conversations, Cheltenham Literature Festival deserves a place in your diary. The world's longest-running literature festival returns with more than 500 events, but it's the women taking centre stage who have our attention. Caitlin Moran leads a celebration of the late Jilly Cooper's literary legacy, joined by Rivals star Katherine Parkinson and Bridget Jones creator Helen Fielding. Elsewhere, Ashley James unpacks the misogynistic labels that continue to define women in her new book Bimbo, while Poorna Bell and Fearne Cotton explore why more women are rewriting the rules of midlife. Consider it a weekend of literary escapism with plenty to say about the world we're living in.

When: 9–18 October 2026 Where: Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

Silchester Farm, Hampshire

Autumn is arguably the best time to disappear into the countryside, and Silchester Farm makes a compelling case for swapping city life for a slower pace. Tucked away in the Hampshire countryside, this beautifully restored rural retreat offers everything from cosy, two-person 'Pyggies' (think luxury pig arcs) to a storybook Granary cottage and sprawling farmhouses made for weekends with friends. Spend your days walking, cycling or playing tennis before settling in with local produce from the farm shop. There's even an outdoor pool for anyone brave enough to take an October dip.

Where: Silchester, Hampshire

Recently, a friend introduced me to the term “dopamine chasing”, and when I say introduced, what I really mean is, accused me of it.

She’s not wrong. In my search for… something—be that content to feed the ever-ravenous social media machine, or a sense of, if not meaning, then perhaps expansiveness—I have developed an insatiable appetite for experiences.

Sometimes it feels good, like I’m Mario jumping on toadstools to boost my reserves, except instead of toadstools, I’m collecting experiences. I imagine they’ll enhance my life; make me stronger, more interesting, better travelled, better experienced — whatever that means.

Lately, though, I’ve started feeling more like a lab rat, banging my paw against the reward lever even when it fails to spit out whatever got me onto this course in the first place.

I notice it on a micro level when I instinctively reach for my phone as a treat, and on a macro level when I plan trips of a lifetime. I’ve written before about treating travel as both an escape hatch from the ordinariness of life and a way of returning to that life as a better version of myself. It was on one such trip, which, though objectively extraordinary, somehow left me a little flat, that I started wondering what exactly I was after.

I’m hardly alone. Mastercard data shows that experiences now account for 23.3% of UK consumer spending. We’re a nation of truffle hunters, sniffing out the next thing that might make us feel something. From Arctic cruises and safaris to fully immersive brand worlds, we’re chasing bigger experiences, more intense emotions and increasingly elaborate ways to feel alive. But what does this relentless pursuit of pleasure tell us about the emotional state of modern life?

The obvious answer is that we’ve all fried our dopamine receptors. Dopamine has become cultural shorthand for almost every modern compulsion: why we scroll, shop, snack, swipe. We talk about dopamine hits, detoxes and addiction as though somewhere inside our brains laps a rapidly depleting reservoir of pleasure that we keep fecklessly draining.

“We often talk about pleasure as if it were one thing,” says Dr Eva Periche-Tomas, a clinical psychologist and senior researcher at the University of Oxford. In reality, she explains, reward involves several distinct processes: anticipating something, wanting or pursuing it, and actually enjoying it when it happens. Crucially, “these can come apart”. This goes some way to explaining the disconnect we can feel when we’ve spent months planning a holiday, wedding or night out, only to find the event doesn’t live up to our expectations.

Why Doesn’t Anything Hit Like It Used To?

There’s an even more inconvenient feature of the human brain that puts the kibosh on holding onto that post-holiday glow, or feeling satisfied for any length of time: humans are exceptionally good at getting used to things.

Psychologists call this hedonic adaptation. Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky, a distinguished professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, has spent decades studying it. She also has a really good example of how it showed up in her own life. Despite being almost blind for many years, within a fortnight of having laser eye surgery, she adapted to her new, almost perfect vision.

Apparently, whether it’s those shoes you’ve been saving for or the miracle of sight, no matter how new, shiny, thrilling or, in Lyubomirsky’s case, legitimately life-enhancing, the emotional impact tends to diminish as it becomes part of ordinary life. So onwards we rats go, chasing the next fix.

This seems like a cruel component of life, and I was quick to decry “late-stage capitalism!”, but Lyubomirsky explains that always looking for the next thing isn’t necessarily a design flaw.

From an evolutionary perspective, a species that stayed content every time it secured food, shelter or a mate might not have been particularly motivated to seek anything else. Adaptation keeps us moving. The problem is that the same machinery operates when the “next thing” is no longer survival, but another restaurant reservation, purchase, trip or scroll.

When Did a Nice Life Stop Being Enough?

Until recently, writer Phoebe Lovatt tells me, she was a “big experience seeker”, moving between cities and searching for the next “expansive life chapter”. Now, with a young child, her life has become smaller geographically: more local, more routine. But social media means other possible versions of it still feel within reach. “I’ve got my mate in Mexico, my mate in New York, my mate in LA,” she says. “It just constantly gives you the sense that you are failing at having a rich life.”

I can see parallels in my own insatiable appetite for experiences. Somewhere between my first ‘grown-up holiday’ (to Benidorm, I might add) and my recent trips, I stopped being content with a tan and a good time and started expecting to come home transformed. The same goes for the once-humble weekend: it’s no longer enough for it to pass pleasantly; I need to have done something with it.

We know by now the perils of having access to everyone else’s lives, but I think we overlook the impact of having a live feed of everything we could be wanting. Phoebe describes this as a constant “contrast experience”: you can be content, pick up your phone, see a friend on a beach in Malibu and suddenly your own life feels mundane.

And the bar hasn’t only risen for what we do. It’s risen for who we’re supposed to be. “We can’t just be normal,” Phoebe says. “We need to be exceptionally hot, exceptionally rich, exceptionally well-travelled.”

Somewhere between having a nice life and living your best life, just living—something to be thankful for in itself—stopped being enough. Social media lets us press our noses up against the windows of the world’s most beautiful hotels, see what strangers eat for breakfast in Copenhagen, where they swim in Sicily and which facial they booked before going. Leisure has become another arena to demonstrate taste, curiosity, self-knowledge and our own exceptionalism.

Phoebe offers a simple test: would you still want to do it if nobody knew you’d done it? If you couldn’t post it, write about it, Substack it or fold it into the story you tell about yourself, would you be quite so invested?

It’s an awkward question for me; someone who’s made a career out of turning experiences into stories. But aren’t we all doing the same thing, to varying degrees?

Are We Experiencing Our Lives...or Reviewing Them?

Then there’s that age-old issue of trying to live in the present. As if that wasn’t already slippery enough, we’re now so programmed to view experiences through the lens of how we’ll package them for an audience later that we’re drifting further from anything resembling ‘the moment’.

Before it happens, we anticipate and plan it; while it’s happening, we evaluate it; afterwards, we turn it into something: a story, a reel, a pithy little anecdote. Often, we’re doing all three at once.

Kathryn Jezer-Morton, author of The Story of Your Life: How Social Media Shapes the Way We Experience Everything, argues that what she calls “influencer logic” has spread beyond influencers themselves. When everyday users treat their lives as potential content, she tells me, “it reduces our capacity both to experience subtle forms of pleasure, and to express subtle forms of emotion.”

She uses language as an analogy: a limited vocabulary restricts not only what we can express, but what we can identify. Social media, she argues, has its own narrow vocabulary of what looks interesting, desirable or worth sharing.

Perhaps we’re not actually feeling less then; we’ve just become used to only recognising the capital-F feelings as proof that we’re feeling at all. Awe. Transformation. Euphoria. The best night ever. The trip of a lifetime. Core memories. A perfectly pleasant weekend can’t compete.

Another thing sending us on a wild goose chase when we’re in hot pursuit of happiness is the endless checking. Did I enjoy that enough? Was it worth the money? Did we make the most of the weekend? Am I relaxed yet? Am I happy?

According to Lyubomirsky, that kind of emotional quality control can be self-defeating. Research suggests that becoming preoccupied with whether we’re happy can actually undermine happiness, partly because our attention becomes fixed on the outcome rather than the experience itself. “If you’re sort of constantly asking yourself, am I happy yet?” she tells me, “that’s gonna undermine your happiness.”

I thought back to my last massage, when I started questioning if I was sufficiently relaxed. Suddenly, I was hyper-aware of every sensation and how unrelaxed I felt. The more I noticed it, the antsier I became.

Dr Nick Earley, a clinical psychologist, sees a related problem in the language of optimisation and the pressure to maximise our leisure time. He explains we can end up “scanning for the next thing rather than inhabiting the one we’re in”.

Focus too intently on pleasure—or, in my case, relaxation—as an end goal, and you risk monitoring your progress towards it instead of actually experiencing it. “When life already feels demanding, that adds another expectation”, adds Diana Oblak, Founder of Fuego & Soul x Science.

Could Less Actually Feel Like More?

It’s not all doom, though. Professor Elizabeth Dunn tells me about a study in which participants were given chocolate, then asked either to abstain from it for a week or given a large supply to eat freely. When they returned to the lab, the abstainers enjoyed and savoured the chocolate more. “There is a pathway to getting more pleasure from less,” Dunn tells me.

This ‘less is more’ approach runs counter to our maxxxing culture, and an economy largely organised around convincing us that the opposite is true. It might also explain why, alongside our drive for bigger and better experiences, another apparently contradictory desire is gaining cultural currency: to switch everything off.

Emma Breschi, who spent much of her twenties working as a model, has experienced the glossy version of the extraordinary life from the inside. “I think a lot of what we’re calling a search for excitement might actually be a search for connection,” she tells me.

What if We’re Looking for Pleasure in the Wrong Places?

Lovatt describes what she sees around her as a “crisis of meaning”. Work feels precarious, the future difficult to picture, the news relentless. At the same time, culture offers an abundant menu of things to buy, book, watch and experience. “No wonder everyone’s just kind of numbing out,” she says.

It’s tempting, when the bigger structures of life feel uncertain, to adopt a last-days-of-Rome mentality. I may not know what the world will look like in five years, but I can book the restaurant, plan the trip, buy the ticket. Life might feel out of control, but I can make Friday night really, really good.

The problem comes when we expect those things to provide not only pleasure, but proof: that our lives are interesting, that we’re using our time properly, that we’re happy. Lovatt talks about the odd expectation that ordinary people should now live like “a socialite or like a trust fund baby or a celebrity”. Twenty years ago, she points out, most of us didn’t know what rich people’s houses looked like. “It’s created a level of aspiration that’s impossible to reach,” she says, “and even if you do reach it, what does it mean?”

Author Louise O’Neill knows a thing or two about arriving at the life you thought would make you happy. For years, she says, her happiness felt conditional: I’ll be happy when I find the right relationship, sell enough books, achieve the next marker of success. Eventually, on paper at least, she got there. “I had the man, the house, everything looked perfect,” she says. And yet she still found herself lying awake wondering: “Is this it?”

There is a difference, she realised, between “a life that looks presentable on social media” and actually feeling alive inside it.

Therein lies the danger of packing pleasure with so much existential weight. A holiday can be wonderful, a restaurant can be delicious, a party can be the best night you’ve had in ages. None of them can permanently satisfy us.

Searching for Ways to Feel Something

The more people I speak to, the less convinced I become that my original question—why doesn’t anything feel as good any more?—is the right one.

Millie Gooch, founder of Sober Girl Society and author of Hangxiety, thinks we have a tendency to confuse pleasure with immediate reward. Her work focuses mainly on alcohol, where the distinction is obvious: something can feel good now while leaving us feeling worse later. Her preferred measure of pleasure is less about the intensity of the immediate sensation than whether something leaves you feeling better overall. “Pleasure is a long game,” she says.

I like this idea, partly because it exposes how limited my own pleasure accounting has become. It also raises the possibility that in pursuing pleasure principally through intensity, I might’ve overlooked a much less glamorous source of it: frequency.

Professor Ciara McCabe, who directs the Neuroscience of Reward Group, studies anhedonia — the reduced ability to experience pleasure. One approach her lab recommends is deliberately scheduling small positive and social experiences, such as getting a coffee or going for a walk with a friend. The aim, she says, is to create “regular opportunities to experience joy”, rather than waiting for rarer, enormous milestones.

This feels counterintuitive in a culture that tells us to dream bigger, aim higher. Of the two posters I remember being pasted to my secondary school walls, one read: You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. The other said something about shooting for the moon because, if you miss, you’ll land among the stars. Neither seemed to be pointing me towards an adult life stuffed with more coffee dates.

And yet the science backs it up. Lyubomirsky studies savouring: deliberately directing our attention towards pleasurable experiences we might otherwise take for granted — the sun on your skin, the changing seasons, that coffee with a friend. The point isn’t to extract every last ounce of happiness from them, but simply to notice them.

In my own pursuit of expansiveness, I got the idea that the opposite of an ordinary life is an extraordinary one; when that felt flat, I started questioning my capacity to feel anything at all. But the more experts I speak to, the more I get the sneaking suspicion that a life that feels fuller isn’t necessarily one packed with more extraordinary things, but one in which I’m able to pay more attention to ordinary ones.

Dr Nick Earley put my original question on its head: “The question isn’t how to find more stimulation. It’s how to become more present for what’s already happening.” It’s easy to seek more stimulation; it’s harder to sit down and soak in what’s already there.

I still want the trips of a lifetime. I want the thrill of wheeling my suitcase through an unknown airport, dinners where the table heaves with people and chatter as much as it does food. I want adventures that make the world feel bigger and my place in it smaller. I don’t think I’ll ever be the kind of person who can fill her cup with a brew of ‘mindful’ tea.

Thankfully, none of the people I spoke to suggested I should. What I’m trying to do instead is dial down the pressure I put on those experiences. Travel and sensory pleasures can delight me, surprise me, challenge me, disappoint me or simply give me a cracking night out. They can’t make my life meaningful on command. And constantly checking whether they’re working is probably one of the surest ways to miss them.

I’m not going to stop chasing pleasure altogether, but I might try taking my paw off the lever long enough to notice what else is already there.

I’ve been feeling very existential lately. Caught in loops, obsessing over my life and what the future may or may not look like. Constantly dwelling on how to reconcile my personal aspirations—and equally my personal failings—with the climate crisis, politics and the general sense of volatility that seems to be coming at us from all angles

I’m in my thirties, which means good luck and health willing, I have lived approximately 37% of my total life, assuming I reach 83 (the average life expectancy for British women). Yet if you overheard my friends’ conversations, you’d be forgiven for thinking we were in our final years; such is our sense of resignation.

Last month, a colleague and I lamented how we felt like we had “nothing” to look forward to as we scanned the news and drank coffee. We both recognised that this wasn’t true, listing examples of joy-filled plans to remind ourselves, but that’s how we felt at 8.25 am on a Tuesday, faced with the headlines.

No matter how often we’re told that our 30s and 40s hold unknown promise and self-understanding, the start of “real” adulthood is a tricky adjustment: out of the frying pan of our 20s, into the panic of our early 30s. But this panic isn’t simply that we’re running out of time to build the lives we thought we’d have. It’s that we’re being asked to commit to futures we’ve spent years learning to fear.

Women like me are reaching the point where we’re expected to make some of the biggest investments in our futures: decisions about children, housing, relationships and careers, after spending much of our adult lives absorbing reasons to question what that future will look like.

We’ve experienced repeated periods of uncertainty, from the financial crisis and austerity to Brexit, Covid and worsening climate anxiety. Meanwhile, social media delivers a relentless stream of global crises, alongside growing concerns about AI’s potential impact on our working lives. For women, this is compounded by the daily reminders of misogyny, from the rise of the manosphere to cases of femicide.

We can feel impossibly behind before adult life has really begun.

The world has always been uncertain, but we’ve never had such immediate access to its crises. I feel like I’m holding my potential life in my hands like a baby bird, trying to keep my fingers loose enough not to squash it.

I’m not alone. A 2025 NBC News poll found that 66% of young American women aged 18–29 felt anxious or worried about the future most or almost all of the time. Researchers have also identified a gender gap in economic optimism, with men reporting greater optimism than women.

Today is a particularly contradictory time for us: we have more agency over our lives than many of the women before us, yet the world is one we struggle to visualise ourselves in. We’re encouraged to treat our futures as individual pursuits we have control over, while having spent years learning to expect the unexpected.

For the first two years of my 30s, I’ve grappled with feeling at a precipice; moving forward while dragging my feet and looking anxiously over my shoulder.

I can’t seem to save any money, a side effect of having a career I like and living in an unaffordable city (thanks, London), yet I’m expected to be at an age where I can future-proof. The motivation to sacrifice in the present is quickly offset by a muddied vision of the next few decades.

This anxiety has had material consequences. For several years while self-employed, I didn’t pay into a pension. Part of what fuelled that avoidance was how difficult I found it to believe I’d ever get to enjoy one.

And it’s not just pensions. Average UK property values rose from roughly £194,000 to over £272,000 in a decade, leaving younger generations trying to establish themselves in a housing market very different from the one their parents entered.

With the cost of living making saving and investing feel increasingly difficult, why sacrifice today for a tomorrow you have so little faith in? And yet, what happens if you don’t?

It’s a strange position to be in: expected to make responsible, long-term financial decisions while struggling to believe the structures we’re relying on will still exist in the same form when we need them.

Then there’s the question of whether or not to have children. Even for women who are certain they don’t want them, it can be difficult to escape the doubt society seeds in us, playing on fears of loneliness and purpose.

But the question isn’t simply whether we can build the lives we want in time—balancing all the variables of patriarchal life that make motherhood an absurd juggling act—it’s what kind of world those lives will exist in.

I want children, and yet some days the idea terrifies me so much that I work myself into a panic attack. Research has linked climate anxiety with pregnancy avoidance, while other studies suggest women experience greater climate anxiety than men.

Other days, it feels like life is racing past me; like I’m trying to run for a train I know has left the station.

Perhaps this is where today’s 30-something crisis diverges from the familiar Panic Years narrative. The pressure to make the “right” decisions hasn’t disappeared, but our faith that those decisions will lead to a secure, predictable future feels increasingly fragile.

I’ve waded fully into doomerism at times—a term that describes a fatalistic worldview, particularly the belief that global crises are irreversible—keeping my head just above water as I stretch myself onto tiptoes, smushing hope down beneath me.

Many of these anxieties are rational. The threats we’re worried about are real, and dismissing them as irrational pessimism doesn’t help. But when my individual choices feel so insignificant compared with the forces shaping the world, it’s easy to become paralysed by inaction.

Doomerism, while understandable, isn’t an answer

In End Times Fascism, Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor write about the choice between surrendering to an apocalyptic vision of the future and collectively building a different one. “We didn’t choose to be born into a fight quite so fateful,” they write, “but we have reached a choice point.”

I’ve returned to that idea several times lately. What resonates with me is the distinction between recognising the threats ahead and surrendering to the belief that nothing we do can make a difference.

On an individual level, I’ve realised that this means continuing to make decisions about my own life. Action, choices and forward motion are necessary for building a future, both collectively and personally. That doesn’t erase the realities we’re facing or mean convincing myself that everything will be fine.

But it does mean accepting that certainty isn’t a prerequisite for building a life. If it were, our lives would be incredibly small.

This year, I made a few big choices: I had endometrial surgery, got married and took on new, long-term creative projects. In order to make them, I had to start actually believing tomorrow could come.

Through therapy, reading, limiting my screen time (I know, but really, it helps) and deep thinking, I’ve trained myself into an optimism that hasn’t come naturally. Slowly, my existentialism has felt less crushing.

I still don’t know what the future holds. But I’m beginning to understand that I can’t wait until I’m certain about it before deciding what I want my life to look like.

The stories we're told about love often start long before our first relationship. They take shape in childhood; in the relationships we see, the affection we receive, and the roles we learn to play. By the time we start dating, many of us aren't just looking for love; we're repeating patterns we don't even realise we've inherited.

For Sunday Times bestselling author Toni Tone, it took years of breadcrumbing, people-pleasing and relationships that left her questioning her own value to realise she wasn't just choosing the wrong partners; she was carrying the wrong definition of love. Only by unlearning what she'd come to accept as normal did she discover what a healthy relationship could feel like…and it was very different to what she’d imagined.

Here, Toni shares what it feels like to unlearn everything she thought love was.

As told to Mischa Anouk Smith

What It Feels Like to Unlearn Everything You Thought Love Was

During the more difficult chapter of my life, dating felt quite anxiety-inducing. It also felt emotionally draining. I often questioned my value and self-worth; I tied it to the validation I would receive from my partner, and when they weren't treating me adequately, I would internalise that.

I had pockets of happiness, but it was the type of happiness I would now associate with breadcrumbing: someone giving you just enough attention and affection that you don't emotionally separate yourself from them, but not enough that you feel stable in a relationship.

I didn't really know where I stood with people, and I would question my value significantly.

I had to audit my own selection process and choices

The breakdown of my longest relationship forced me to review not just how my previous relationships made me feel, but also my own selection process and choices. I had to take on some deep self-reflection.

There's a massive difference between blaming yourself as a victim versus trying to learn from the experience. For me, it was about being honest with myself and asking: why did I think that relationship was suitable? Why did I pursue it? Why did I remain in that relationship despite feeling all these feelings of inadequacy?

That reflection process was a period of healing for me, and unlearning a lot.

Part of what I unlearned was how I viewed masculinity, what may have influenced that—my relationship with my dad, for example—and how that may have played a part in my selection process.

When you’re dating in your 20s, it can be easy to say: I want a career-driven guy who's tall, who's handsome. You don't pinpoint character in your selection process as much as you do in your 30s or later.

Those experiences emphasised the importance of traits I was dismissing as a young person: shared values, belief systems, consideration, understanding.

What helped me most was taking time out. I had a habit of being in a relationship, thinking I was doing self-work, getting into another relationship not long after and finding myself in a cycle.

I had to say: I am not going to enter anything else feeling jaded. I'm going to enter my next relationship from a place of healing, self-fulfilment and contentment.

I'm not looking for anyone to make me happy. I want someone who will complement the life and the happiness that I've already developed.

My value was rooted in what I was able to do for people

As a woman who identifies as “the strong one”, especially when you've been encouraged to be resilient, independent and a caretaker—whether it's as an older sibling, an only child or a carer—you end up feeling responsible for other people's unhappiness.

In my past relationships, I centred my partners because I took it upon myself to be of service. My value was rooted in what I was able to do for people and how I showed up for them.

I realised I was dismissing my own desires and needs because I took on this sacrificial role: “We'll do what you want; where you want to eat, wherever you want to go, whatever you want to do. I'm here to support you. That is my job: to be of help and to be of service.”

It created an imbalance in my dating.

With age, I've learned to take a back seat and be willing to open up, be more vulnerable, and not be so quick to offer my assistance. I can't please everybody.

I had to come to a place where I was comfortable with doing nothing.

Growing up, my dad was sometimes emotionally unavailable and sometimes emotionally volatile. I was used to him having moods and being unpredictable, so I went into relationships not realising that was my baseline.

Chaos was familiar to me.

There needed to be something happening—a tiff or something going on—otherwise it felt weird.

I had an ex before my husband who was such a gentleman. It didn't work out because I ended that relationship feeling: you are an amazing person, but I don't feel like you're my person. Because that was my first healthy relationship, it felt uncomfortable in the beginning. Being in a relationship where there was peace, if I'm honest, sometimes felt boring.

I feel ridiculous saying it, but I understand when women say, "He's too nice."

It's easy to feel that way when you come from a home dynamic, or even a previous relationship, where you've grown to equate a rollercoaster of emotions with excitement.

Being in that first healthy relationship as an adult, I was like: this feels so boring. Everything was just fine all the time; what's going on? What's the catch? This doesn't feel authentic; I need to see the real you, but that was the real him; I was just used to the opposite.

Safety feels like trust

The other day I posted something about my husband always falling asleep in the middle of the day. He sleeps for seven-plus hours at night and falls asleep during the day. Some people commented: "He feels safe around you."

I think safety feels like rest, like sleepiness. Safe feels like a willingness to not be active, a willingness to relax. That is safety for me.

Healthy love is everything you deserve

In the same way that rest doesn’t have to be earned, someone loving you wholeheartedly and willingly isn't something you have to earn.

I used to see the pursuit of love as a challenge: I'll make him choose me, I'll change him. I realised it was less about him and more about me proving something to myself: that I'm of value.

The message I would give to my younger self is that you are valuable and you do not have to prove that to people. You deserve to be loved for exactly who you are from the very beginning. It is not something you have to earn.

Soft Life by Toni Tone is out now

Lately, every time I’ve checked Instagram, Anne Hathaway has been on a red carpet in all her maternal glory. Pregnant for the third time, she looked ethereal in a diaphanous Alexander McQueen number. At three months postpartum, my algorithm has been working overtime to show me pregnant women who look impossibly well put together.

While it’s inspiring to see other women wearing what they want during—and post—pregnancy and looking confident while doing so, it gave me a mounting worry that if I wasn’t dressing with the same conviction, then I was out of the loop. It’s no longer enough to own your pregnancy in whichever way you feel; now, you’re expected to grow a human and look effortlessly stylish and sexy while doing it.

For a long time, it felt like, societally, pregnant women were berated and fat-shamed, encouraged to ‘bounce back’ — as if being pregnant was a horrible aberration from how we’re naturally supposed to look. I’d argue that Rihanna heavily influenced this cultural shift when she stepped out in an open pink jacket and ornate body jewellery to reveal her first pregnancy in 2022. Since then, a bump has become the hottest accessory: exposed, dressed up and shown off. While pregnant women should feel confident to don whatever they like, are we now only celebrating pregnant bodies that are conventionally attractive and stylishly displayed?

I found out I was pregnant the same week that Sienna Miller announced her third pregnancy at last year’s Fashion Awards, proudly wearing a sheer Givenchy dress. I was also there, feeling terribly self-conscious in a longline dress that did little to disguise my first-trimester bloat. I knew Miller was a gorgeous celebrity with all the resources at her disposal, and she deserved to look and feel good. But I couldn’t shake the creeping panic: I was already feeling less confident in my style as my face and body started to change, so how was I ever going to feel attractive if this was the new standard?

The feeling was compounded by the deluge of pregnant influencers that cropped up on my “For You” page. I felt embarrassed and envious, poring over photos of women in cropped tops and low-rise skirts like nothing was different. They appeared chic and sultry, as if the trappings of pregnancy (think: bloating, acne and extreme fatigue) were barely affecting them.

Saskia Beazley, who had her daughter nearly two years ago, also felt she was doing pregnancy all wrong: “I was made to feel like I wasn’t doing enough to appreciate my bump, like showing it off by wearing really beautiful dresses.” It seems that what initially appeared as an opportunity for self-expression has inadvertently birthed a fresh set of beauty standards.

Andrea Witt is a cognitive behavioural therapist for Mothering Minds, a practice that supports women through pregnancy and postnatal care. She sees clients impacted by these expectations. “The media perpetuates [the idea] that pregnancy is all glamour, which just leads to another area in the journey where women can feel they are falling short,” she tells me. “I see many women who feel completely lost in their own body after going through pregnancy and birth. The expectation is that you’ll be ‘blooming’, whereas for many women it is the direct opposite of that.”

When I reached five months, my mum told me I looked “way bigger” than I should be for that stage, so I hid my belly in oversized tees and drawstring trousers. As someone who once loved wearing a figure-hugging co-ord, I had to accept that the clothes I liked just wouldn’t hang off my body in the same way.

“I’ve felt pressured not to look different,” says Maggie Mullan, who’s pregnant with her first child. “People praise you for not changing.” Many of the influencers I came across appeared to maintain their pre-pregnancy figures. I was bombarded with content from impressively toned momfluencers running marathons at six months pregnant or lifting super-heavy weights at the gym, which made me feel sluggish and guilty for not doing more.

I managed to attend one yoga class during pregnancy: I overdid it and strained my back in an effort to prove I could still keep up.

Beazley had a personal trainer while pregnant. “Every week my trainer would post a compilation video of my workout. I reshared it the first time, when I was smaller, but I didn’t share anything once I got bigger,” she tells me. “I thought, what if people think I look really weird in my new body?”

The reality of pregnancy is that both our bodies and minds drastically transform. Yet, I felt expected to project an image of unwavering contentedness, no matter how I felt internally. I felt I was supposed to follow the likes of the influencers filling my For You Page: cradling my bump, looking radiant and baking from scratch — nausea notwithstanding.

A 2024 study interviewed women in the UK during pregnancy. They explained feeling pressured by the expectation to be “happy and glowing” throughout, which ultimately worsened their mental health.

Dr Sujitha Selvarajah, an NHS Obstetrics & Gynaecology specialist, explains, “The pressure to become a particular kind of mother can have a significant effect on self-esteem. Women may know intellectually that what they see online is not the whole reality, but that does ot make them immune to it, particularly when they are feeling vulnerable or searching for reassurance and connection.”

Becoming a mother made me feel exposed in ways I didn’t anticipate. While I feel privileged to have carried my daughter, the experience was marred by feeling like I had to perform an unrealistic version of pregnancy during what was meant to be a special time.

“The expectations make me feel like a failure”, agrees Emmanuella Kwenortey Francis, who’s halfway through her second pregnancy. Mullan believes that collectively, we need to reframe our thinking: “There’s an acceptance amongst many pregnant women that the changes to our bodies and physical appearance are out of our control,” she explains. By contrast, she says, “we should go into pregnancy expecting to put on weight, get puffy and generally not feel quite like the version of ourselves we’re used to.”

If I ever have the opportunity to be pregnant again, I’ve decided to lean into the process and rally against the expectations that come with expecting. There should be less focus on how women show up and look during pregnancy. We deserve the freedom to feel confident, crappy and everything in between.

Perched above the sparkling waters of Ammoudi Bay, Santo Mine feels like one of Santorini's best-kept secrets. While Oia is known for its bustling streets and sunset crowds, this adults-only hideaway offers a more serene way to experience the island, tucked into the cliffs on the site of a former stone mine.

The newest addition to the Santo Collection portfolio, the all-suite resort combines Cycladic minimalism with luxury touches, all while placing guests just an 11-minute walk from the heart of Oia via a private footpath.

If you're searching for a Santorini escape that balances privacy, exceptional hospitality and some of the island's most spectacular views, look no further than Santo Mine.

The vibes

From the moment you arrive, Santo Mine feels worlds away from the busy corners of Santorini. The resort has been thoughtfully designed to blend into the rugged landscape, with warm, earthy interiors inspired by the island's natural beauty. Stone, wood, marble and handcrafted ceramics create a calming, cocoon-like atmosphere, while the uninterrupted views across the Aegean Sea constantly remind you exactly where you are.

Despite its peaceful setting, the hotel never feels isolated. Oia's boutiques, restaurants and famous viewpoints are within easy reach, making it the ideal base for travellers who want the best of both worlds.

The rooms

The resort's 37 suites are all designed around one key feature: making the most of the extraordinary setting. Every suite comes with either a private pool or jacuzzi, allowing guests to enjoy the panoramic sea views in complete privacy.

The interiors embrace Mediterranean simplicity, with cream and sand-coloured tones, natural textures and minimalist styling creating a sense of calm throughout. Floor-to-ceiling doors flood the rooms with natural light, while private terraces provide the perfect place to unwind with a morning coffee or sunset aperitif.

For many guests, the suite itself becomes a destination. There's something truly special about soaking in your private jacuzzi while watching the sun dip below the horizon, with room service delivering cocktails and meals directly to your terrace.

The food

Food is a genuine highlight of a stay here. While Santo Mine's restaurant Ālme serves beautifully executed Mediterranean dishes and an excellent breakfast spread featuring both familiar favourites and local specialities, it's worth venturing to the nearby restaurant Alios Ilios at sister property Santo Pure at least once during your stay.

Following the recommendation of the staff, I ordered the day's special: a fish version of giouvarlakia, a traditional Greek dish I might otherwise have overlooked. It ended up being one of the standout meals of the trip and a reminder of how rewarding it can be to step outside your comfort zone when travelling.

The cocktail menu is equally impressive, featuring inventive recipes that go beyond the standard spritzes and margaritas found elsewhere on the island. Combined with the sweeping sea views and front-row sunset seats, it quickly becomes one of those places where one drink inevitably turns into several.

The facilities

The resort is designed for slowing down. A visit to the spa is essential, particularly the Tranquility Face and Body Ritual, an aromatherapy-based treatment designed to improve circulation and oxygenation throughout the body. It's deeply relaxing and the perfect antidote to busy schedules back home.

For those who prefer something more active, the outdoor gym overlooks the ocean, making even an early morning workout feel appealing.

Beyond the resort, guests can take the private pathway into Oia to explore the town's winding streets, independent boutiques and local restaurants. It's close enough to enjoy whenever you like, but far enough away that returning to the peace and quiet of Santo Mine feels like a welcome retreat.

The need to knows

Santorini is hardly short of luxury hotels, but Santo Mine manages to stand out thanks to its unique setting, exceptional hospitality and genuinely breathtaking views. It offers all the beauty and atmosphere that visitors come to Santorini for, without sacrificing privacy or tranquillity.

For couples looking for a romantic escape, anyone seeking a slower pace of travel, or simply those wanting to experience Oia from a more peaceful vantage point, Santo Mine delivers exactly the kind of effortless luxury that makes a holiday memorable long after you've returned home.

To book your stay at Santo Mine Oia Suites, Thesi Fanari, Oia, Santorini, head to the Santo Collection website now. Suites start from £345.

When I was about to turn 38, my partner broke up with me. We had been together for five years and had bought our first home together six months previously. Overnight, the future I assumed I would have—marriage, children—imploded, and I was left to pick up the pieces. I might have been devastated, but I was also a millennial woman who had read Eat Pray Love at an impressionable age, so I knew what to do next.

Firstly, I went to Thailand on a yoga and wellness retreat, followed by hours and hours of therapy. Then I decided to do the most terrifying thing imaginable. I decided to get back on the dating apps. I went to Paris for June 2024, changing my Hinge location, and over the next 21 days, I went on 28 dates. I repeated this experiment in London, New York and Rome, and I learned so much about myself, but I also learned a lot about men…

I Went on 28 Dates in 21 Days. Here's What I Learned About Men (And Myself)

1. I had seen the ugly comments online, calling women ‘expired’ and ‘past their prime’ once they hit a certain age. I had been afraid that at 39, I would either be mocked or completely overlooked, but most men never brought it up; the only one who mentioned it as a concern was the one who was older than I was. If you’re in his dating range on Hinge, he doesn’t care, so you shouldn’t either.
2. Some men will make you listen as they recite their poetry to you after you’ve had sex. It will be about his divorce and will include an analogy about swans that you won’t understand. It is very important that you do not stay.
3. French men are obsessed with the Eiffel Tower and will insist on showing it to you. A friend posited that this was the Emily in Paris effect, but by my third week, when man #280 asked if I had seen ‘her’, I wanted to scream.
4. How will you know if you’re dating a billionaire? He’ll tell you, along with photos of the private jet, the penthouse overlooking Central Park, and the estate in Hawaii (no confirmation whether a doomsday bunker was built underneath).
5. But other wealthy men will challenge your assumptions by being both generous and discreet. I dated men from all kinds of backgrounds, with wildly differing jobs, and in the end, their bank balance was the least interesting thing about them.
6. You can’t always tell who you will be attracted to—I did not have high hopes for my date with Theo*, a slight, floppy-haired man who had a great love of classical music. But when he kissed me on the banks of the River Seine, it blew the top of my head off.
7. You should always kiss them, just in case. You’ll know within five seconds if there’s physical chemistry between the two of you (or if they kiss like they’ve just discovered their tongue and are determined to make the most of it).
8. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that chemistry is vanishingly rare; that’s how women get dicktamised. Of the 28 dates I went on in Paris, at least four made me go weak at the knees.
9. The man who gives you butterflies isn’t necessarily the one who is good for your nervous system. I learned this with Rob*, who was so emotionally unavailable that he baulked at being asked his middle name. I would wait for his texts with bated breath until I realised that, as Samantha said to Charlotte in SATC, “If you were 25, that would be adorable, but you're (39) now, so that's just stupid.”
10. 10. French men will look at their phones, realise it’s 10 pm and suggest you go for dinner, and you’re not allowed to shout THAT’S BEDTIME, YOU LUNATIC.
11. Men who say they want a relationship aren’t necessarily ready for it. Intention and emotional capability are two different things, and it’s your job to differentiate between the two.
12. There are kind men out there. Not perfect men, or even your man. But buying into the idea that all men are trash will only become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Look for the good men. What you seek, you shall find.
13. Just because they’re not The One doesn’t mean you can’t stay in touch. I met so many interesting people in Paris; I was determined to keep a few. One texts me whenever he is in London so we can have lunch. Another man sends me a 15-minute voice message once a month to update me on his latest dating sagas.
14. I was convinced that my time with Zach* would turn into something more until it turned out that his incredibly demanding job, family commitments and gruelling travel schedule would always take precedence. Know what you deserve and be prepared to walk away if they can’t meet it.
15. Men are just as capable of catfishing as women. Very quickly, I realised that I, a 5’9” woman, was actually six feet tall — who knew? In Paris, I met a man who claimed to be 37, but when a grey-haired pensioner lurched towards me, I knew I’d been fooled.
16. But there are also the men who cannot choose a good photo of themselves. André was one of the most handsome men I’d ever seen in real life, but he looked like a garden gnome on his Hinge. Why do perfectly attractive men select profile pics like it’s an active campaign of self-sabotage?
17. Men love explaining their niche obsessions to you. I am now an expert in pickling and the workout regimen of a professional boxer, both entirely against my will.
18. The idea that having sex on the first date will make men respect you less is archaic and, in my experience, untrue. The kind of man you want to date is not concerned about what your ‘body count’ is. Nor does he care if you are more successful.
19. Try not to look for villains. I was upset after Oliver ghosted me, but I soon realised that he simply didn’t have the emotional capacity for a difficult conversation. Isn’t that sad? We’re all just people trying not to get hurt again.
20. Trust your instincts. The morning after the first date with Oliver, I wrote in my journal that he was cute, but I had felt slightly uneasy at times. Your body is always trying to talk to you.
21. Dating is so much better when you stop treating every date like an audition for the role of Husband. Prioritise having fun and pour into yourself — your friends, your career, your hobbies — just as much as your love life. Build a life so good that a man has to earn his place there.

As women, we’re often taught to be resilient at work: navigate the difficult boss, adapt to the culture, keep performing, push through. But what if our ability to adapt, accommodate, and keep going is the very thing keeping us stuck? Drawing on three decades of experience spanning the boardroom, the head-hunter’s interview room and the therapy room, psychotherapist and former C-suite head-hunter Kathleen Saxton explores how toxic power is protected and excused — and asks at what point resilience becomes endurance, and whether sometimes the strongest career move is knowing when to walk away.

Is It Time to Quit Your Job? A Psychotherapist Explains How to Know When to Go

Connie is a highly successful executive who moved from New York to Hong Kong for a newly created global role, becoming the only woman on the leadership team. She had been recruited because she was experienced, creative, direct and confident. Instead, she found herself caught between two very different forms of toxic leadership.

One boss was openly aggressive. He had been there for over twenty years; people were frightened of him, and the organisation had learned to work around his Emperor-like behaviour rather than confront it. His number two was almost the inverse: a phantom lieutenant, covert, evasive and difficult to pin down. Questions went unanswered, decisions disappeared, and goalposts moved. Where one created fear through force, the other created uncertainty through absence.

Connie ricocheted between them. One encounter left her braced for impact; the next left her wondering whether anything had actually been agreed. Promised resources failed to materialise and conversations dissolved into silence. Overt aggression at least announces itself. Covert obstruction is more slippery because it leaves you working harder to establish what is real.

Like many capable people, Connie’s response was not to leave but to try harder. She prepared more carefully and began adapting herself to the personalities around her. From the outside, this looked like conscientiousness. Inside, she was becoming disconnected from the instincts and confidence that had helped her succeed.

She later described what happened to her as “forgetting how to be myself”.

Connie is one of the women I write about in my latest book, Sly & Mighty, but her experience speaks to a question I have spent more than thirty years considering as a senior executive, executive head-hunter and now psychotherapist: at what point does resilience become endurance?

We talk a great deal about resilience at work. We are encouraged to manage difficult personalities, navigate office politics, cope with pressure and learn to thrive in demanding environments. Resilience has become such an unquestioned professional virtue that we rarely ask what happens when the thing we are being resilient to is the problem.

Put my three professional perspectives together, and something striking appears. The woman privately wondering whether she has lost her ability to lead may be the same woman a board fought hard to recruit a few years earlier. So what happened in between?

The psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott wrote about the True Self and False Self. In my clinical work, I often think about an Adapted Self that develops when we learn that being entirely ourselves carries a cost. In a healthy workplace, adaptation is flexible and temporary. We adjust without losing contact with who we are.

The danger comes when adaptation becomes a survival strategy. People begin changing how they speak, behave and think to become acceptable to the environment. I see this particularly in conscientious women, because the qualities that helped them succeed can be enlisted against them. They work harder, prepare more, become more agreeable and try to become impossible to criticise. They begin trying to become unassailable.

This is where resilience can become a trap. When colleagues privately sympathise but publicly comply, or an executive team learns to work around one powerful person, silence starts to distort our calibration. We ask why everyone else seems able to cope instead of why everyone has agreed not to name what is happening. Organisations can become remarkably good at normalising behaviour when the person responsible is considered valuable.

Most people do not suddenly collapse under a toxic leader. The change is incremental. Confidence becomes caution, then self-questioning. Someone may still be performing exceptionally well while privately becoming less certain of her own perceptions. This is why Connie’s description of “forgetting how to be myself” stays with me.

Perhaps what we need alongside resilience is fortitude. Resilience is our capacity to recover and retain ourselves through difficulty. Fortitude is the courage to hold onto reality when the group would rather look away. Sometimes that means speaking plainly, finding allies or forcing an organisation to confront what is happening. Sometimes it means accepting that staying would require too great a psychological compromise.

The hidden cost of staying too long

From the headhunting side of my career, I know how frightened people can become about leaving. Women tell me they worry a short tenure will make them look weak, that resignation means they failed, or that walking away from a prestigious company will damage their career.

But careers are often more robust than they feel from inside a difficult job. What concerns me far more is staying until the experience damages the confidence, judgement and appetite for leadership needed for whatever comes next.

There are, of course, legitimate reasons to stay for a time. Mortgages, children, visas and financial obligations are real. Sometimes the wisest thing is to remain while preparing your next move. But there is an important psychological difference between consciously choosing to stay and enduring because you have stopped believing you have a choice.

Eventually, Connie forced the organisation to confront what was happening. She was told the company was no longer ready for the very role it had recruited her to perform, and her employment ended. She left her job, the country and, a year later, her industry.

On paper, it might look disastrous. But she took her severance and took her time. She retrained and eventually re-entered the working world.

That doesn't mean leaving necessarily feels triumphant. People may grieve the job they thought they were taking and the future they imagined there. The experience can follow them into their next role, too: someone may enter a healthy workplace and still brace when a new boss asks for a meeting.

And this is perhaps why we need to interrogate our idea of resilience in the first place. Not every difficult boss or demanding period is toxic. Good work should stretch us, and good leadership will sometimes challenge us. But challenge should enlarge us over time, not steadily diminish us.

Perhaps the better question is not whether we are strong enough to stay, but what staying is gradually asking us to become.

If remaining somewhere requires us to become less trusting of our judgement, less confident in our abilities and less recognisable to ourselves, walking away may have very little to do with failure.

Kathleen Saxton is a psychotherapist, executive coach, author and former global CMO who spent two decades as an executive head-hunter selecting senior leaders for some of the world’s biggest organisations. Her latest book, Sly & Mighty: How to Recognise, Resist and Rise Above Toxic Power, is out on 24 September 2026.

Skin still wet and lightly salted, I pull a loosely shrugged-on towel tighter round my shoulders and sway to the beat of distant drums. The sky is shifting from mauve to pink, an apricot sun dipping further towards the horizon and I’m still deliciously cool from a swim around the bay. My skipper pours a glass of ice-cold Champagne for me and a friend just as the drumming circle on nearby Cala Benirrás beach cranks up a gear. It’s almost sunset and the pebbled cove to our yacht’s bow is awash with local artists and artisans—a set that gathers here regularly to mark the end of another magical day on the White Isle.

It’s Saturday night in Ibiza and there’s not a super club in sight. Instead, I’m here to experience this iconic island’s wild, northern shores and, more specifically, the adults-only luxury offerings at Cala San Miguel Ibiza Resort—a chic five-star retreat nestled in the nature-rich Sant Joan de Labritja, a 30-minute drive from characterful Old Town and just 10 from the heart of the north’s trendy artisan quarter, San Juan. My days of dancing to a high-octane Calvin Harris set til sunrise have slowly given way to a yearning for slow adventures on the water, nourishing food, and a soulful connection to local customs when I travel, so here I am: sipping bubbles on deck, surrounded by bobbing boats in an azure bay, listening to Bohemians joyfully drum their way into dusk.

Cala San Miguel Ibiza review: How this adults-only resort shows the 'other side' of the party island

What's the hotel like?

An elegant blend of natural materials—raffia, wood, linen, stone—clad the light, spacious spaces in an earthy palette without them ever feeling Insta-performative or Soho House-heavy.

Then, there’s the Mares Spa—a peaceful, sun-dappled space that’s home to a vast array of Natura Bissé treatments, including blissful body wraps, oxygenating therapies and remineralising treatments. I enjoy a gloriously relaxing full-body massage during my stay, but I would have happily invested in a Mediterranean Openwork treatment—a flowing, wave-like experience inspired by the sea—if time had allowed, too.

What food and drink is on offer?

Of the seven restaurants, it’s the newly appointed Beach House that pulls everything together perfectly, with its glittering sea views, a daybed-encircled pool and toes-in-sand dining space completing a more-ish menu of coastal plates, including shrimp croquettes, crispy octopus, sea bass ceviche and Bluefin tuna tartare.

I spent a blissful afternoon here indulging in frequent freshwater dips, feasting on crispy calamari and tapping my feet to gentle Balearic beats, book still in hand.

What experiences are on offer at Cala San Miguel Ibiza?

Often referred to as the last bastion of “real Ibiza”, this quiet, rural pocket is as far from the party scene as you can get. Here, hikes into the aromatic, juniper-dusted hills reign over bass-thumping hyperclubs; sound baths replace foam parties; and self-care—not a Harris-like headliner—is king.

Hopping aboard your own private boat for the day (or evening) is an exciting new offering for Cala San Miguel guests this summer thanks to the resort’s partnership with Barcelona-based De Antonio Yachts, which delivers fully tailored island-hops, sunset sails and snorkelling excursions, depending on your party’s preferences. It’s also a welcome addition to a line-up that focuses on championing north Ibiza’s vibrant culture.

Experiences here extend beyond the usual yoga and spa sessions (though these are abundant and excellent, too) and instead hone in on the authentic artisan crafts scene that the resort proudly sits within, uniquely connecting travellers to the island’s wild, Balearic heartbeat. Time here can be as immersive—think Ibicencan spirit workshops, sound-healing classes, artisan-led crafting or guided hikes and wine tastings set to live funk music—or as serene as you need to truly reset and replenish.

Fancy flopping by the pool (there’s three elegant swim spots to choose from) before shopping for handmade ceramics in nearby Santa Gertrudis (the “Notting Hill of Ibiza”) or discovering the hippy heritage and gentle bustle of Las Dalias Market? Just ask reception to book you a ride—and be sure to hit cult-worthy Sluiz for maximalist ceramics, Nino D’Agata for gem-adorned jewellery, and The Rose for beautifully hand-sewn silk pieces. Curious to try your hand at crafting a traditional herbal liqueur under the expert eye of a Balearic botanist? Consider yourself an official trainee thanks to the hotel’s impressive access to under-the-radar artisans.

“From sunrise yoga to guided hikes and art jam sessions, each experience is designed to connect guests to Ibiza’s natural rhythm and carefree spirit,” Carolina Fraga Rua, a manager at the resort, says. “Cala San Miguel is dedicated to preserving this special corner of the island, offering guests a gateway to the true essence of the north,” she adds with a warm, infectious smile while booking me into Pilates.

I may only be here for a long weekend, but I’m already tuning into the north’s “natural rhythm” and letting the demanding daily maelstrom of social media, work and family commitments melt into the periphery.

That’s the thing with doing Ibiza as a grown-up, though: between shopping the stylish, independent wares of eclectic San Juan, diving into secluded turquoise coves from the stern of your own private yacht, or indulging in nourishing Mediterranean fare poolside, there’s no time for hangovers or repeats.

Soaking up the true spirit of Ibiza is a full-time occupation in the north. And honestly? It feels like a soul-restoring break—not a holiday I need a holiday to recover from. My super club days may be behind me, but this pocket of Balearic wilderness proves the White Isle still has plenty to offer travellers in their post-party era. I can’t wait to sway to the beat of the northern shore’s drum again soon.

A stay at Cala San Miguel Ibiza Resort, Curio Collection by Hilton starts from €300/£250 in a superior room on a bed and breakfast basis.

My husband and I both have very busy jobs, which means carving out alone time throughout the year can be a challenge. Whilst we may not have time (or childcare) for regular nights out together, what I’ve come to realise is that quality matters far more than quantity. Instead of trying to squeeze in rushed dinners after work, when we’re both tired, or racing home to relieve our babysitter of her duties, we prioritise special moments together, however brief they may be. Enter Portrait Milano, one of Milan’s most luxurious hotels, arguably with an unbeatable location right in the heart of the city.

Part of the Lungarno Collection, the luxury hotel chain owned by the Ferragamo family, Portrait Milano is the perfect bolthole for a short city break or a special weekend away. If you’re looking for a hotel that feels as much like a destination as a place to sleep, Portrait Milano is hard to beat. Set within a beautifully restored 16th-century former archbishop’s seminary, and just a stone’s throw from Via Montenapoleone, Milan’s most iconic shopping street, it was the perfect base for our two-night stay, mixing design, culture and, of course, some shopping.

The Vibe

With its impressive courtyard, retro-inspired interiors and incredible service, Portrait Milano manages to feel both grand and surprisingly relaxed at the same time.

When you walk through the historic loggia and you arrive in the Piazza, with the impressive architecture and scale of the former seminary, rather than feeling imposing, the hotel has been designed to feel like an impossibly elegant Milanese home, with lots of areas to eat, drink and relax.

The interiors, by designer Michele Bönan, channel mid-century Milan with walnut, brass, rich red velvet and plenty of Italian craftsmanship. There are subtle references to the Ferragamo family heritage throughout, but nothing feels overly branded. Instead, the atmosphere is quietly glamorous and unmistakably Italian.

The Rooms

There are 73 rooms and suites - think warm lacquered woods, marble bathrooms, beautifully rich furnishings and cinematic lighting rather than the stark minimalism you sometimes find in modern five-star hotels. Bathrooms have ample surface space, several mirrors and plenty of wardrobe space.

The details are particularly good: handcrafted leather handles, Carrara marble, rich fabrics and beautifully crafted large wooden wardrobes. Guests can choose from seven different pillow types and rooms overlook the internal gardens and courtyard, which is a welcomed break from the heat and the busy energy of the city.

The Location

This is where Portrait Milano is unbeatable. Set on Corso Venezia, it sits right in the Quadrilatero della Moda, Milan’s legendary fashion district, with the city’s best shopping, restaurants and cultural sights on its doorstep. We were only in Milan for 3 days which meant having everything within walking distance was a real bonus.

The hotel’s own courtyard is also part of the experience. Piazza del Quadrilatero has become a destination in its own right, with regular art installations or fashion events for brands including Moncler, Max Mara and Ferragamo. If you’re feeling lazy you can spend an afternoon shopping, stop for lunch and an aperitivo, then head to the spa with barely any need to venture beyond the hotel’s walls.

The Facilities

For somewhere so centrally located, Portrait Milano offers an impressive amount of reasons to stay in. Set in the basement, the hotel features a relaxing swimming pool and longevity spa which was perfect after a morning of sightseeing in the heat. I tried the Cryosuite and Dry Float Therapy, a treatment that is used to improve circulation and relieve muscle and joint pain. The treatment allows the body and mind to regain energy, strengthen the immune system, stimulate new collagen growth and improve skin elasticity - perfect after a long-haul flight or busy working week.

For food and drink, 10_11 is the hotel's all-day Italian restaurant, while the Beefbar Milano is a more glamorous dinner option. The hotel also has Rumore, a retro-inspired cocktail bar, that is open to the public and is a popular destination after dark.

And then there’s the service. Staff are polished without being stiff, with a warm, personal approach that makes the hotel feel considerably more relaxed than its grand surroundings might suggest. The concierge can also help arrange everything from restaurant reservations to cultural experiences around the city should you wish.

The Verdict

Portrait Milano is a hotel that understands exactly what makes Milan special: impeccable design, incredible architecture, the very best fashion brands on your doorstep and delicious food. It’s undeniably expensive, but unlike some ultra-luxury hotels, it feels like you are absolutely getting your moneys worth, and for a short 2 night stay it feels like its worth every penny.

It won’t be the right choice if you’re looking for a small, intimate boutique hotel or somewhere removed from the city buzz. But if shopping, design and eating well are high on the agenda, Portrait Milano is the ultimate destination.

Marie Claire verdict: A seriously chic Milanese escape that turns a historic landmark into one of the city’s most desirable places to stay – book a room overlooking the garden for a more relaxing view.

Book via lungarnocollection.com.

Editor's Note: This article discusses child sexual abuse material (CSAM), including the use of AI to manipulate images of children.

I was pretty blasé about sharing photos of my daughter online for the first 14 months of her life. I'd ticked the box giving her nursery consent to use photographs of her without a second thought. I'd proudly announced her arrival on Instagram, then shared holiday snaps and photos from her first birthday.

I was far from alone. Abi*, 31, a mum of two toddlers, posted monthly photo updates of both children until they turned one, creating a record of their development as so many Millennial mums do. Charis*, 30, who also has two toddlers, began by sharing her pregnancy journey; "sharenting" — sharing photos of your children online — felt like a natural extension of that. "It was an innocent way to connect with other mums, and we enjoyed watching each other's kids grow up," she says. I get it completely.

But that innocence tips into naivety when you learn that in 2025, the Internet Watch Foundation identified 8,029 AI-generated child sexual abuse images and videos, which included 3,443 videos compared to just 13 in 2024. Of the 2025 videos, roughly 65% fell into what UK law enforcement classifies as Category A — the most severe classification reserved for the worst child sexual abuse content. And the rapid growth in cases continues. In the first six months of this year, there have been more reports of sexualised “deepfakes” than in the whole of 2025. Meanwhile, technology has become more sophisticated, and the content is so convincing that even IWF analysts can no longer reliably tell AI-generated imagery from the real thing.

Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) like this is illegal, but it often begins as everyday images of a child, taken from social media or websites, and then manipulated into sexualised or abusive imagery. The IWFs research states that realistic deepfakes of specific children can be made using freely available tools and as few as 20 images, in 15 minutes.

This May, the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) advised UK schools to pull identifiable student photos from their websites, or not use them at all, after blackmailers created AI-generated CSAM from scraped images and demanded money in sextortion cases. Behind every story like this is a real child and their family. It's horrifying. And something that really stuck with Abi, as a former Primary teacher whose eldest is due to start school this month.

“My children deserve to enjoy a 90s childhood as we did. I won’t be giving the school consent to use their photographs, and I’m now only sharing ‘faceless’ images on social media.” Incidents like these are prompting a sharp rethink of sharenting across the world. France passed a law in 2024 giving children legal image rights; Italy has a similar bill under consideration.

To understand if responsible sharenting is possible in 2026, I spoke to Tom Dyson, Head of Marketing at the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), the UK charity that tracks down and removes CSAM. He has a seven-year-old son himself, and chooses not to share images of him on social media. “I’m in a position where I have a lot of proof and information at my fingertips. But that doesn't mean it’s the right choice for everyone.” The IWF wants parents to be “armed with the facts”, because the risk, unlike most other parenting hazards, is invisible until it isn't.

Asking: does this actually need to be on social media? Is IWF’s advice. Objectively, the answer might seem simple. In practice, sharing our lives online is so ingrained that not sharing can feel more unusual.

But normal and safe aren’t necessarily the same thing. AI has changed the risk, and if that risk feels uncomfortable for your family, there are ways to reduce it.

Start with your privacy settings. A public account with 500 followers is still public: anyone can access those images, whether five hundred people follow you or five million. Switching to a private account, or sharing with a smaller “close friends” list, reduces that exposure — and the smaller the circle, the better.

“But private accounts aren’t completely risk-free — you're still trusting that everyone in that group is who they say they are,” says Dyson. “There's nothing within most social media platforms that IDs an individual when they sign up for an account. An account can look like one thing, but be something — or someone — completely different.”

Accounts can be hacked, too. Ultimately, once an image has been shared, it only takes one person to take it beyond the audience you intended.

When Charis learned that someone she and her partner had known as teenagers had been convicted of possessing indecent images, she went through her Facebook friends list. “I had 1,500 followers and I got rid of most of them. Unfortunately, that included the guy who’d been convicted.”

My own accounts are private, but like Charis, I joined social media as a teenager. When I actually look at who follows me on Instagram now, I feel intense unease at finding close to 200 unknown or business accounts that I couldn’t put a name or face to.

For parents who want to keep documenting their lives publicly, blurring children’s faces or covering them with emojis has become a common compromise. It’s what Charis does now. “I’m not sharing my children’s faces anymore. What happened was just so close to home,” she says.

“An emoji is probably better than nothing,” Dyson agrees, “but it's important it doesn’t give us a false sense of security.” There’s everything else in the frame to consider: a school uniform, house number, recognisable street or local landmark. And while AI may sometimes be able to remove a blur or covering, it doesn’t necessarily need to. It can generate a convincing approximation of a child’s face from scratch, or draw on previously shared images of the same child.

There’s another reassuring idea that circulates among parents online: photos shared before a child turns one are somehow safer because babies are less recognisable. Unfortunately, that logic doesn’t hold up either.

“There isn't a particular age at which sharing a child's image is safer,” Dyson says. More sickening still, the IWF sees CSAM involving children of all ages.

Nor does deleting a photograph necessarily undo the decision to post it. Once something has been shared publicly — even briefly — it may already have been copied, cached or archived elsewhere online, Dyson explains.

By this point, protecting your child online can start to feel like a losing battle.

Dyson reminds me that the responsibility for safer sharenting doesn’t sit with parents alone. “Tech companies, regulators, governments and charities like the IWF are here to help solve this problem too.” It’s unfair that parents have to think about any of this. But the technology — and the threat it poses — is evolving all the time.

For now, I’m going back to my daughter’s nursery to withdraw that consent. I’ve locked down my accounts, cut my follower count in half and now share photos of her only with my “close friends” list on Instagram Stories. There’s a conversation to be had with her aunties and uncles, too.

But I feel much more comfortable with what — and how — I’m sharing. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. And as my daughter grows and changes, so might my decisions.

Next time my knee-jerk reaction to a cute photo or video is to post it, I’ll ask myself: does this really need to be on social media? Or could I just send it to family and friends on WhatsApp? Most of the time, I suspect, my overwhelming love, pride and joy in sharing my daughter is better served there.

*Names have been changed

Worried about your child’s images online? Here’s where to get help

Report Remove
A free, confidential service from Childline and the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) that helps under-18s report sexual images or videos of themselves online and have them removed where possible. It also covers images that have been manipulated or generated using AI.
Visit Report Remove

Check your social media privacy settings
Internet Matters has step-by-step guides for tightening privacy, blocking and reporting across platforms including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Snapchat.
Read the social media privacy guides

Read the IWF’s guidance for parents
The Internet Watch Foundation has specific advice for parents and carers on reducing the risk of children’s photographs being manipulated using AI.
Read the IWF guidance

“Evelyn has spoken,” my fiancé texted my dad after I had made yet another wedding decision, as though I’d issued a royal decree.

It was harmless, but it struck a nerve. Somewhere between getting engaged and getting married, I had become the default decision-maker for our wedding – not only with my fiancé, but for family, friends and suppliers too. If everyone was waiting for my final answer, was it fair that I was then characterised as the one ‘laying down the law’?

It’s the “bridezilla” paradox: brides are expected to care about every detail, keep track of every invoice and ultimately make the decisions. But be too decisive, and suddenly you’re controlling, demanding or taking your big day far too seriously. Funny how rarely we hear the term “groomzilla”.

“Bridezilla” dates back to at least 1995, when someone decided the natural comparison for a woman taking ownership of her wedding was, apparently, Godzilla. Wedding culture expects brides to be beautiful, gracious and effortlessly feminine; express a firm opinion, and you’re recast as a rampaging monster.

I’m getting married next month, and while I cannot wait, I hadn’t anticipated that getting engaged would come with an unwanted promotion. Somewhere along the way, I was appointed Head of Nuptials, family liaison and resident expert on matters I had previously given precisely zero thought to.

What exact shade of tie should my father-in-law wear? Should our napkins have raw or hemmed edging? How many trestle tables are “too many”? Do we want goblets or wine glasses?

I made it through almost three decades without strong feelings about the relative merits of drinking vessels. Yet here I was, apparently uniquely qualified to make the call.

When did our equal relationship acquire a project manager?

My fiancé does help, after we spoke about the imbalance, he became much better at liaising with suppliers and taking practical jobs off my list. But almost every question requiring an actual decision still comes to me.

He can follow up on things, but I’m still expected to determine what we want. When I ask for his opinion, he will often say: “But I don’t mind.”

The problem is, neither do I. But a decision still has to be made, and “I don’t mind” transfers responsibility for making it to me.

There’s a difference between sharing tasks and sharing the mental load. One person can book a supplier; someone still has to anticipate what needs doing, remember the details and know what comes next.

That’s how an otherwise equal, modern relationship can suddenly begin to look traditional. This isn’t unique to us. A study of recently married and engaged Norwegian millennials found that, even within a generation raised with greater expectations of equality, women often undertook most of the wedding work and were treated as the people who should know what was required.

In her book Consumerism, Romance and the Wedding Experience, sociologist Sharon Boden suggests that women may come to see men as less competent at wedding planning, while men accept a “sign-off” role because weddings are perceived as a feminine domain. His passivity can then be taken as proof that she naturally cares more, rather than evidence that only one of them has been expected to develop an opinion.

Therapist and author Marisa Peer says dividing tasks doesn’t necessarily divide that underlying responsibility. “If you then have to remind [your partner], check what they’ve done or tell them how you want it done, you haven’t really handed over the mental load; you’ve simply become their manager.”

Apparently, it’s the bride’s job to know everything

It isn’t only partners who reinforce these roles. *Sophie, who is getting married next year, noticed this when her wedding planner created a group chat named “Sophie’s wedding 2027”.

Yet while the wedding industry automatically positions Sophie as the authority, that same authority is treated differently elsewhere. At work, colleagues frequently ask whether she has become a bridezilla.

“When I plan, manage and execute tasks at work, I’m seen as a ‘top performer’ who’s ‘highly organised’, but when brides apply the same standard to their weddings, it’s somehow ridiculed,” she says.

Therein lies the unwinnable logic: appoint the bride project manager, direct every enquiry to her and expect her to have an answer. Then, once she behaves suspiciously like a project manager, accuse her of becoming a bridezilla.

Sociologist Dr Julia Carter argues that this “bridezilla” label helps police how women exercise the temporary authority afforded to them as brides. Her research suggests that wedding culture demands extreme organisation alongside perfectly controlled emotion.

You can’t win the ‘bridezilla’ game

Declining the role doesn’t necessarily help.

Before her wedding in 2024, *Nadia’s future mother-in-law sent her pictures of 13 potential hats and fascinators, demanding her opinion on each. Nadia didn’t care what she wore, so she repeatedly said they looked nice in the hope that she would simply choose one.

Her fiancé then received a call from his mother complaining that Nadia was being “far too picky” and “bossy”.

“The accusation came out of left field, as I was actually being the opposite,” Nadia says. “‘Bossy’ is a really charged term, and I felt hurt by it.”

Marisa says women are expected to care enormously and ensure every detail is right, but when that responsibility manifests as “stress, decisiveness or frustration”, they can suddenly be labelled demanding or controlling.

“But we don’t tend to use the same language when a man is highly invested in an event he is helping to organise,” she says.

I don’t resent my fiancé, but I do resent that he has been allowed to become my deputy while I’ve been cast as our wedding’s chief executive. I resent that “I don’t mind” is a valid answer for him, while I’m expected to form an opinion. Most of all, I resent how naturally our equal relationship slipped into roles neither of us consciously chose.

“Evelyn has spoken” was a joke, but somebody did have to speak. Everyone was waiting for an answer and, as usual, they were waiting for it from the bride.

I don’t believe brides inherently care more about napkins or tablecloths; I think we’re just not allowed to be the one to say: “I don’t mind.”

*Names changed

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Like most millennials, I’ve watched Mykonos, Santorini and Italy’s Amalfi Coast go from aspirational destinations to Euro Summer rites of passage. But with their soaring popularity come the crowds, €30 Aperols and the realisation that you’re holidaying somewhere you’ve already experienced parasocially; all of which I’ve written about. At length.

Obsessed, as I was, with The Odyssey this summer, though, I still wanted the fantasy — with less turmoil and fewer “deathless gods” (yes, I’ve read the book, too) — of days spent coursing along an impossibly blue coastline.

Enter Türkiye’s Turquoise Coast. Stretching along the country’s south-western edge, it offers much of what draws the hordes to the Mediterranean’s more famous playgrounds: ancient ruins, crystalline water, excellent food and glamorous hotels, but with stretches of untouched coastline and rugged, forested terrain.

In fact, as we wound our way down the mountain from our first stay at Perdue — a clifftop bolthole perfect for honeymooners or, in my case, the newly engaged — I realised the glistening waters below were disappearing beneath great umber plumes. A wildfire was burning through the landscape, one of more than 1,600 to have blazed across Europe and the UK this summer.

It was a sobering puncture to the Mediterranean idyll. Helicopters carrying Bambi Buckets hovered overhead as we left the forested mountains behind and headed towards Homer’s “wine-dark sea” — a reminder, too, of how precious the landscape is; how much it needs protecting.

Further along the coast, secluded bays house a new generation of design-led hotels making the area a serious alternative to the usual Mediterranean circuit.

One such hotel is Yazz Collective, an Ibiza-meets-Turquoise-Coast retreat accessible only by boat and almost invisible from the sea until you enter its private bay, it feels less like a resort and more like a Bond lair.

The Vibe

As part of a new, slower approach to travel I’ve been trying to adopt (to middling success), I avoided researching Yazz Collective. But on the occasions I did have to search something, I’d invariably clock those all-too-ubiquitous travel buzzwords — ones I’m equally guilty of using — like ‘barefoot luxury’ and ‘polished ease’. Both felt slightly incongruous with an arrival that saw us chauffeur-driven from our hotel, ferried to a waiting port and deposited by yacht at what is essentially a private island. Barefoot, sure, but understated?

And yet, as I weaved past the outdoor watersports centre and art therapy area, I kinda understood what everyone was getting at. The aesthetic is barefoot but considered: natural materials and earthy tones against pine forest and dazzlingly blue sea, while just 16 guest houses keep things intimate (read: exclusive) rather than resort-like.

By day, the pace is slow: swims in the bay, long, wine-soaked lunches and afternoons on sunbeds as superyachts drift in and out of view. Suffice to say, the people-watching is excellent. Then, as the afternoon sun slips towards the horizon, things become more convivial, as those aboard the yachts — freshly gussied up after a hard day sunning themselves — come ashore for dinner.

Yazz began life as a beach club, and occasionally would-be revellers pull into harbour, ruddy-skinned, and ready to party. I witnessed as much on my first night. As I was twirling a forkful of linguine vongole and not feeling particularly glamorous (blame the day drinking), three women in matching white outfits tumbled off a docked boat, joined by a single man, trim, tanned, and with an appetite for rakı. The quartet seemed to know their way around the restaurant, so perhaps they knew precisely what they were doing. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling they were chasing a night Yazz wasn’t particularly interested in giving them.

For the most part, though, the crowd is more relaxed: well-heeled couples, Turkish families and yacht-dwellers are happy to let lunch bleed into dinner rather than dance around the DJ booth.

The Rooms

The same aesthetic runs inside: earthy tones, linen, wood, stone, and huge picture windows. All suites come with king-size beds, private outdoor space and walk-in rain showers. Mine also had an added outdoor shower and a private chill-out pool, though the ocean was within skipping distance.

Early mornings were for coffee on the terrace, or, if I was really early, on a lounger, letting my toes tap the pool like a piano before the sun beat down too heavily.

There are thoughtful details, too: a pillow menu, yoga mats and widescreen TVs with Netflix and YouTube (we watched Jason and the Argonauts while unpacking, which was pleasingly campier than I remembered). The bathrooms are cool and spacious, stacked with Le Labo products.

Food & Drink

Breakfast is quite the undertaking. The options are dizzying and we dedicated ourselves to exploring them (it’s a tough job etc, etc.) The Turkish breakfast was a table-swallowing spread of freshly baked bread, cheeses, dips, fruit, sucuk and great slabs of honeycomb. Then, we’d order from the hot menu, too. Menemen one day; meats and eggs the next.

The wider menu is mainly Mediterranean. At lunch, we ate ceviche and crab crudo with a crisp local white; for dinner, I found myself eating more pasta than I’d expected on a trip to Türkiye. Not that I was complaining.

There are, however, moments when Yazz’s superyacht clientele makes itself known. One evening, I almost ordered the lobster linguine before doing the currency conversion and realising it hit around the £250 mark.

Though we rarely had room, sütlaç, Türkiye’s creamy rice pudding, was a favourite.

The Facilities

There is plenty to do at Yazz, though the longer I stayed, the less inclined I felt to do it. I enjoyed a gentle hatha yoga class beachside and signed myself up for paddleboard yoga. Then, I fell victim to the aforementioned breakfast, lay down under the shade of a pine tree and slept through the hour-long session.

I was, in theory, equally tempted by everything from canoes (especially the glass-bottomed ones), waterskiing and wakeboarding to SeaBobs, wakesurfing and E-Foiling; you know the watersport famously loved by Mark Zuckerberg, if you want to go full billionaire cosplay. All come at an expense, but the main cost I wasn’t willing to fork out for was losing snoozing time, and so I skipped the water hoverboard (and most everything else).

Back on dry land, there’s an outdoor gym and personal training, plus pickleball, badminton, beach volleyball, and table tennis. There’s workshops aplenty: ceramics, candle-making and, on the day I arrived, straw hat painting. Everything is outdoors and open, including the spa where treatments are performed by Balinese therapists overlooking the ocean in secluded treatment rooms seemingly carved into the rockface.

But the best facility is arguably the bay itself. With nowhere you need to be and almost everything arranged within a few minutes of the water, Yazz makes it all-too-easy to build a full itinerary only to abandon it completely.

Don’t Miss

Contrary to everything I’ve just said about relinquishing plans to Yazz’s slower pace, the standout moment of our stay did, in fact, involve one such plan.

On our penultimate evening, we stepped aboard Moonday for a private sunset cruise. Yes, we went full Bond. As we pulled away from the bay, champagne was poured (and quickly quaffed), and cherries and pistachios were nibbled at as we cruised along the coastline to watch the sun slink into the Mediterranean.

How to book

Rates at Yazz Collective start from £500 per night for a Deluxe Room on a bed-and-breakfast basis, with a minimum two-night stay. Boat transfers to and from the hotel are included in the room rate.

Private sunset boat trips start from £380, while non-motorised watersports start from £60 and motorised options from £80.

What to pack

I’ve always been a mountain lover. I’m lucky to have family who live in Switzerland, which meant I spent winters skiing and summers hiking the many mountain routes from their chalet, enjoying local Valais cheese sandwiches for lunch and the ever-changing watercolours of the sunset as entertainment come nightfall.

Sharp, pine-scented air, the distant clang of cowbells, and jagged mountain peaks set to a background so breathtakingly beautiful your brain can’t quite compute it’s real are my idea of a truly perfect holiday. There’s something about being in the mountains that’s unlike anything else—to me, it's the ultimate spiritual and physical reset.

Which is why I’ve been absolutely chomping at the bit to visit the Dolomites, a mountain range in northern Italy that sits across the regions of Trentino-Alto Adige, Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia. You’ll likely have noticed the influx of holidaymakers hiking in this European destination this year—Google searches for the destination are up +5,000%, and the mountain range has become an undeniable hotspot thanks to the many TikToks bringing the sheer beauty of the destination online.

So when an invite to Sensoria Dolomites, an adults-only, all-inclusive, design-led wellness destination in the mountains, landed in my inbox, I couldn’t wait to try. With an extensive spa offering, breathtaking mountain views, and a focus on ensuring you leave feeling refreshed, revitalised, and rested, it ticked all the right boxes.

If the above sounds like your kind of break, then you’ll want to add Sensoria Dolomites to your bucket list. We spent two nights there in May, chasing that particular Dolomite quiet, and it was so good, I'm already planning my trip back.

Inside Sensoria Dolomites, the Alpine Hotel Capturing the Wellness Zeitgeist

The vibes

I know we're in for a treat from the second we step out of the car. Sitting in Seis am Schlern, right by the Alpe di Siusi, pine trees, wildflower meadows, and the Sciliar mountain provide an undeniably beautiful and relaxing backdrop.

Paired back, minimalist decor echoes the nature outside, and the hotel’s interiors are basic yet considered; think plenty of Alpine natural wood, muted colours, and stacked bookshelves for you to peruse. It’s not grand or showy in the way you might expect a luxury Alpine hotel to be; rather, the design team has crafted a lobby that feels like a design-conscious, intimate living room. Pale spruce, natural stone and tactile fabrics make you feel like you should enjoy the space with a glass of natural wine or a good book, and the atmosphere is calm, intimate, and unhurried—it feels like a retreat destination, rather than a hotel.

Every element has been considered; floor-to-ceiling windows immediately invite nature in and draw your eye to the stunning mountain panoramas just behind you; piano music drifts through the lobby; and each area has a distinct scent, designed to help you unwind. The lobby smells unbelievable: a heady mix of bergamot and cedarwood, which reminds me of one of my favourite Aromatherapy Associates essential oils.

Staff are attentive but never overbearing; many are happy to chat about the local area and things to do, switching from German to Italian to English with ease. From the get-go, I can tell that this is going to be an experience centred around feeling present; of seeing, feeling, and switching off.

The rooms

With 47 rooms and suites to choose from, the hotel errs on the intimate side, reaffirming its ethos of quiet luxury, personal connection and space to slow down and switch off.

On the design front, the rooms mirror the calm of the rest of the hotel and prioritise natural, tactile materials like local wood throughout. The king-size beds are spacious and comfortable, the minibar is stocked with local essentials, and the bathrooms are kitted out with rainfall showers and Aesop products.

The mountain views are, of course, the main attraction; our room has a balcony overlooking Schlern, making the landscape feel like part of the room.

If you want to go all out, be sure to book The Suite—a 125m² space with its own private spa, Finnish sauna, freestanding bath, outdoor whirlpool and terrace.

The food

One of the main USP’s at Sensoria Dolomites is its all-inclusive offering; something which I usually steer well clear of, but that’s done really well at this location. Rather than it feeling like a traditional resort-style all-inclusive or package holiday, it feels like a thoughtful add-on to ensure you fully switch off for your stay.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner are all included, with a “snack” bar open during the afternoon for when you're feeling peckish. Breakfast was a standout for us—choose from fresh local breads, honeys from the valley, cheeses, meats, salads, cakes and more or order off the menu. I had an omelette both days, with fresh rye and local salted butter, and it was divine.

The star of the show is the six-course gourmet dinner, with the menus changing daily and taking inspiration from the Alps, Mediterranean and French cuisine. Local produce is prioritised, as are regional dishes. Each of the courses is delicious, but our standout favourite was the Schlutzkrapfen, a traditional South Tyrolean half-moon pasta filled with spinach and ricotta and served with melted butter and Parmesan.

Drinks are included, too, and you can choose from South Tyrolean wines, beers, spirits, aperitifs, local soft drinks and spring water. We loved the Kerner wine, a crisp, aromatic white wine from South Tyrol, but also the freedom to try so many local drinks as part of the package.

The facilities

This is where Sensoria Dolomites really comes into its own, with an extensive spa offering that’d relax even the most uptight of people. There’s ample to choose from, including an indoor pool, an outdoor pool, and a pine bath house with some of the best views of the mountains.

The spa is extensive, and a cosy rabbit warren of offerings. Head to enjoy a large Finnish event sauna, an organic sauna, and a steam sauna, plus dedicated relaxation spaces and plenty of treatments, if you'd like to add them on.

They also offer guided hiking tours, mountain biking, and other activities for during your stay. We hiked to the Alpe di Siusi, taking the cable car (around a 5-minute walk from the hotel) with the hotel's tour guide Patrick, and it was a really memorable day out. The hiking trails are breathtaking, and you wind past sheer rock faces, turquoise lakes, and sweeping alpine meadows. Don’t miss Antonio’s Sauna Shows, either—a traditional Aufguss ritual that he guides you through (he's one of only a handful of trained Aufgussmeisters in the whole of Italy). He themes each night, making it entertaining, relaxing, and undoubtedly unique.

Sensoria isn't just a hotel with a spa attached—it's a genuine wellness philosophy, built around the kind of stillness that's almost impossible to manufacture back home.

Your need to knows:

Stay at Sensoria Dolomites from £408 per night. 39040 Seiser Alm, South Tyrol, Italy, sensoria-dolomites.com. Flights with SKY ALPS go direct from London Gatwick to Bolzano, which is a short 25-minute taxi ride from the hotel.

I’m a big advocate for reading; persuading people to pick up a book is a hill I would die on. Research proves that reading is good for your mental health, education and empathy development; plus, it's simply fun. However, I think there’s an insidious aspect of literary tradition which might be doing us a disservice as women. What am I talking about? The glamourisation of emotionally unavailable men.

Since the brooding Byronic hero, we’ve digested a catalogue of literary male protagonists defined by distance, hidden trauma and a reluctance to connect, who are marketed as the ultimate romantic hero. But are they? Mr Darcy (Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice) is cold and proud to the point of arrogance. Mr Rochester (Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre) is the definition of secretive; he hides a wife locked in his attic! Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë) is, in fact, a cruel, angry and unreachable man.

These tropes continued into the 20th century. The idea that unavailable equals desirable was cemented, often by male writers too, and not just in the UK. Think Albert Camus’s novel The Outsider: the protagonist, Meursault’s, emotional detachment is entrenched, but as he is radically honest about his lack of conventional feelings—his indifference to his mother’s death and his girlfriend’s love—he is considered attractive and compelling. Maxim de Winter (Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca) is completely emotionally unreachable to his new, young wife because he is utterly consumed by the dark secrets and memory of his deceased first wife. What’s going on? Why can’t they just be loved and love in return? Why do we continue to think they are romantic, even when they are basically horrid?

Despite our 21st-century developed emotional intelligence, I can still find numerous examples where we seem to idolise the unavailable, perpetuating the trope that tells us inaccessible is attractive. Christian Grey (Fifty Shades of Grey, E. L. James) uses extreme control and a specialised BDSM contract to avoid genuine emotional and physical vulnerability. Nick Dunne (Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn) is emotionally checked out, deceitful and completely disengaged from his marriage long before his wife's disappearance. Connell Waldron (Normal People, Sally Rooney) is crippled by anxiety and social pressure, and so constantly fails to articulate his love or commit to Marianne despite their deep connection. And yet these men are so wanted.

Many of these ‘heroes’ are written by women. It’s natural and understandable that we were/are writing out our experiences, but somehow literary and popular culture has perpetuated the myth that this unavailability is desirable, expected and acceptable. Surely, Mr Darcy, the proud, unknowable and impenetrable, was not supposed to be held up as the ideal; Jane Austen was team communication. Yet somehow, popular culture did not absorb these books as warnings, but instead we continue to associate dark and dangerous with sexy and desirable. How is it that men with a profound lack of empathy, a flagrant disregard for the rights of others, extreme distrust or disrespect of partners, even violent behavioural patterns directed at people and animals become our heroes?

If we acknowledge that there is an enduring appeal of emotionally unavailable literary males, where does that leave the female protagonists? Well, she has no choice other than to carry the emotional load for them both. She must diligently work to second-guess what isn’t being communicated. She endures his snubs, his outbursts, his remoteness. I’m not sure I like the sound of that.

We often read that she must earn his trust, respect and love through her long-suffering; she might eventually be rewarded with reciprocal emotion and/or a fortune. Elizabeth Bennet, Jane Eyre, Ana Steele and the second Mrs de Winter all win the rich man after persevering, by being the most witty, virtuous or sexy. Goodness, are we absorbing a model that tells us that these tricky men are desirable and complex puzzles which must be solved? I’m concerned that we’re hearing that the cleverest woman in the room wins the dysfunctional man. Whoop, what a prize! The emotional needs of the female protagonist are rarely met.

There is evidence in the texts to argue that if we met these guys in real life, we’d identify an assortment of complex disorders, including—but not limited to—Antisocial Personality Disorder, Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Paranoid Personality Disorder and Intermittent Explosive Disorder. The question is, would we then identify this behaviour as red flags and insist he attend therapy or end the relationship? Or has literature taught us to note that inaccessible men hide deep pain behind a harsh exterior? Would we think we alone could fix him, as our female literary heroines do?

Personally, I don’t believe writers ought to feel responsible for causing a dysfunctional dynamic between impressive women and distant men. I believe that it is frequently written about because it reflects a dynamic that happens all too often in real life. Psychologists and therapists tell us that finding ourselves attracted to emotionally unavailable guys usually isn't bad luck; it's a subconscious attachment pattern. It occurs when the nervous system mistakes the intense anxiety and unpredictability of an unavailable partner for "sparks" or chemistry.

I was aware of all of this when I constructed Amy and Oliver in my novel Eyes on You. Oli is the ultimate in emotionally unavailable, and Amy, as a brilliantly clever but traumatised being, does view him as a challenge that she wants to conquer, a prize she wants to win. The problem for them is that weak communication leads not just to a broken heart but to a life-threatening situation. Does Amy even know Oli, or is she obsessively filling in the gaps where actual knowledge is missing?

There is a contemporary shift: modern writers’ books increasingly critique the toxic nature of chasing distant partners, moving away from rewarding poor communication towards seeing it for what it is: at best unfulfilling, at worst dangerous. Remember, readers, unknowable does not necessarily mean desirable; it might mean plonker.

Eyes on You, published by HQ HarperCollins, is out 27th August 2026. You can pre-order it now.

It’s an image Brits have gotten used to this summer: our once “green and pleasant land” reduced to a crisp, arid vista. The verdant grass of England’s parks and commons scorched yellow and brown after weeks of heat and barely any rain.

The Evening Standard recently posted a carousel of photographs showing the impact of England’s exceptionally dry summer on London. I left a fairly flippant comment underneath: “But by all means, build a massive data centre in east London.”

More than 6,000 people liked it, so apparently I wasn’t the only person thinking about the curious clash between the UK’s hottest summer on record and the AI boom.

Since then, the situation has become even starker. England and Wales officially recorded their driest July since records began in 1836, while those of us in southern England experienced the driest month of any kind on record. As of 10th August, 71.3% of England was officially in drought, affecting 45 million people, while 27 million were living under water-use restrictions.

Temporary-use water bans have meant paddling pools being relegated back to the garage, cars going uncleaned and gardens unwatered. And don’t even think about a BBQ: the dehydrated earth is primed for wildfire. I’d hazard a guess that most of us are willing to forgo these favoured summer pastimes for the sake of saving water and staying safe.

But it does seem strange that, as bans are introduced across parts of the country and water companies implement drought plans and ask customers to curb demand, Britain is racing to build the infrastructure required to turn England into an AI powerhouse.

It made me wonder whether my snarky Instagram comment was actually fair. Just how thirsty is AI? And should we be thinking more seriously about what our increasingly ubiquitous use of it is costing? I decided to find out.

AI Water Use: Wait, Just How Thirsty Is AI?

I think part of the problem is that our relationship with AI feels almost entirely intangible. I can type a question into ChatGPT, ask it to summarise a document or generate an image and, seconds later, an answer appears on my screen, as if by magic. What I don't see, and you don't either, is the enormous physical infrastructure needed to make that exchange possible.

Every prompt has to be processed somewhere. Data centres house thousands of servers which generate heat as they work, requiring extensive cooling systems to keep them operating safely. Depending on the location and cooling system used, that can require water — sometimes vast quantities of it. A House of Commons Library briefing notes that there aren't even official figures for how much water UK data centres collectively consume, because they aren't required to report it.

"Water is mostly used to cool the data centres. That is, to remove the heat from the computers (mostly GPU's) used to compute the responses to queries for ChatGPT," explains Andrew A. Chien, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Chicago.

He explains that generative AI is also more resource-intensive than many of the digital activities we're used to. "The main reason to worry about AI is that each request consumes much more power (vs traditional email, Snapchat, or Facebook feed). This means it consumes correspondingly more water."

What then, about all those viral claims translating ChatGPT prompts into bottles of water? Chien says it's complicated. "This is difficult because it depends on exactly which datacenter is used, and a lot of technical detail about the exact AI models." However, he adds: "I've seen good estimates as high as 50 ml of water per prompt."

That doesn't mean every inane ChatGPT query is draining a reservoir somewhere. Water consumption varies enormously according to where a data centre is located and how it is cooled. Yet despite AI increasingly infiltrating our daily lives, most of us have precious little idea what it takes to keep it running. Chien notes that AI is now "being embedded in nearly every computing activity" and warns that, while efficiency is improving, "we're still likely to see increasing total water consumption by AI."

And we're building more of them?

At the same time, Britain is going all-in on AI. The government has made becoming an “AI maker, not an AI taker” a central ambition and has identified data centres as critical national infrastructure. LinkedIn data shows that more than 95,000 AI related jobs were created across the UK between 2023 and 2025. But the AI boom needs somewhere physical to happen, which means building more — and bigger — data centres.

Including in London. Earlier this year, plans were approved to transform part of the Old Truman Brewery site on Brick Lane — where, just a few weeks ago, I met emerging designers as part of Graduate Fashion Week — into a large data centre, despite objections from some residents and campaigners. The proposed development would demolish and redevelop buildings on the site to create around 5,200 square metres of data-centre floorspace, alongside offices.

A large data centre doesn't automatically mean enormous water consumption — how thirsty a facility is depends heavily on where it is built and how it is cooled — but the concentration of new developments in and around London is still significant.

“The concern isn't that data centres as a whole are big water users today; most aren't. It's that we're approving a wave of new capacity in exactly the wrong places without properly planning for it,” says Stephen Slessor, Chair of British Water. “Around 84% of new UK data centre developments are earmarked for areas already water stressed or projected to be by 2040, and the majority of existing and planned sites cluster around London and the South East, the most water stressed part of the country.”

And the potential scale of that demand is not to be scoffed at. According to Slessor, “Thames Water estimates data centres could drive around 30% of all new water demand in its region. A single hyperscale facility can use as much water in a day as around 10,000 people.” The timing matters too: “the hybrid cooling systems many data centres rely on draw the most water on hot, dry days, which is exactly when household demand also peaks and rivers and reservoirs are under the most strain.”

Dr Eduardo Rico Carranza, an environmental engineer at Imperial College London,whose work on the water-system impacts of data centres was submitted to Parliament, is also concerned. Asked whether we should worry about expanding data-centre capacity in water-stressed areas such as London and the South East, his answer is clear: “Very. Our numbers indicate that the future demand cannot be met by the existing water infrastructure in place, especially during hot seasons.”

That doesn't mean AI is about to make water stop coming out of Londoners' taps. Carranza says domestic supply is likely to be prioritised. But he warns that there could be other consequences: future housing developments struggling to secure sufficient water, more frequent hosepipe bans and new infrastructure being required to meet data-centre demand — the cost of which could ultimately find its way onto consumer bills.

Why are we the ones being asked to cut back?

The thing which confuses me isn't just that AI uses water. Almost everything we do has an environmental cost. It's the seemingly odd imbalance in who is expected to think about it.

As citizens, we're constantly reminded to monitor our own consumption. Take shorter showers, turn off the tap when brushing your teeth, don’t ask for fresh towels on holiday; so reads the sign in the hotel bathroom. These aren't unreasonable requests, but they do make the speed at which AI is being rolled into our lives feel jarring.

Sini Matikainen, Economic and Fiscal Policy Director at LSE’s Centre for Economic Transition Expertise, thinks the conversation between private and public costs is overdue. “We should be having a transparent conversation as a society about the costs associated with this infrastructure, instead of letting large private companies dictate the pace of development.”

Matikainen explains that data centres are voracious consumers of electricity, too. To power even a mid-range estimate of Britain's future data-centre demand entirely with onshore wind would require around 600,000 hectares of wind farms — enough land to cover Luxembourg two-and-a-half times over. Meanwhile, in the US, 11 planned data-centre campuses are expected to produce more greenhouse-gas emissions than the entire country of Morocco.

She questions, too, what the AI boom might look like if those costs weren't so easily externalised. “If these companies actually had to bear the full costs — including paying for the cost of emissions and other environmental impacts — I think we’d see AI being rolled out much more selectively.”

Slessor argues that this isn't simply an environmental issue, but one of fairness. “This is the fairness question, and it's the single biggest risk to public support for conservation. Research at the Environment Agency has consistently found that people back hosepipe bans and are willing to do their bit, but that trust collapses if they don't see companies fixing leaks and cutting their own and other big users' non-essential use first.”

There’s an understandable excitement (and apprehension) about what AI might allow us to do, yet its environmental cost doesn’t crop up as much as we might hope. As Slessor puts it: “Asking households to conserve while a fast-growing, largely unregulated industrial sector expands unchecked in the same water-stressed catchments isn't a sustainable message. If we want the public to keep buying into water efficiency, and we need them to, industrial users including data centres need to be seen visibly pulling their weight too.”

Leslie Morris-Iveson, international water expert and Senior Research Fellow at Chatham House, argues that government therefore needs to establish “clear environmental and social guardrails” around its AI plans. As she puts it: “There are going to be tradeoffs, and I think we as a society need to start defining what uses of AI are important to us, and where AI will move us to a more prosperous future for all, based on the evidence and realistic planning and forecasting.”

I'm not suggesting we stop taking shorter showers or start watering our lawns with wild abandon. But if water is becoming scarce enough that ordinary people are being asked to change their behaviour, shouldn't the companies building the technology transforming our lives — and the governments encouraging them — be expected to account for their consumption just as visibly?

So, was my snarky comment right?

Not exactly. AI didn't cause London's drought, and not all data centres are equally thirsty. Where they're built, how they're cooled and the technology they use can massively change their water footprint.

As Leslie Morris-Iveson puts it, “What gets lost in these debates is that water is entirely local. A data centre in an area with abundant water might not be a problem, but placing high-volume cooling in an already water-stressed catchment during a summer drought puts AI use directly in competition with local homes and farmers.”

So, no, my comment didn't tell the whole story; after all, it was an Instagram comment that, as another commenter put it: “You’re posting on a page that’s owned by a company that owns the biggest data centres on the planet!” The irony was not lost on me, but I don't think that makes the 6,000 people who liked it wrong, either.

What I wanted to highlight — and what I think 6,000+ people resonated with — was the contradiction. We're being warned that resources are becoming scarcer and asked to change our individual behaviour accordingly, all the while watching governments race to accommodate the rapid expansion of AI, the technology for which, and its physical footprint, most of us barely understand.

Sini Matikainen puts the hierarchy of priorities plainly: “Access to water is a fundamental right for human beings, not data centres.”

I'm not about to stop turning the tap off while I brush my teeth. Nor am I about to stop using AI altogether; it’s already embedded into so many of the apps I use. But I think before we ask AI another question, we should be asking a few more questions about AI.

Less than 24 hours after an astrologer read my birth chart at a secluded retreat on Türkiye's Turquoise Coast, I got engaged. It's the kind of life-altering event I’d hoped to have written in the stars, but it wasn't.

Admittedly, there was a bit of a language barrier. But as someone who’s spent an increasing amount of time writing about astrology — from travelling according to my astrocartography chart to interviewing couples using the stars to choose their wedding dates — I wondered if I'd misunderstood what astrology could offer.

I'd come to Faralya, a tiny village clinging to Türkiye's southwestern coast, to stay at Perdue, an adults-only retreat from boutique hospitality group Soulsetters. Hidden among olive groves and orange trees, with the mountains rising behind it and the Aegean stretching endlessly ahead, the property describes itself as "barefoot luxury". Its safari-style tents are peppered along the coastline, with private terraces and jacuzzis overlooking water the exact shade of the blue lagoon cocktails I used to drink by the pitcher at uni.

Soulsetters has launched its Stay Written in the Stars experience, which takes the idea of a personalised holiday to its logical — or, depending on your persuasion, illogical — conclusion. On arrival, guests hand over their birth date, time, and location to the property's resident astrologer. Your chart is interpreted, and an itinerary is recommended from it.

Depending on what the stars think you need, that might mean yoga overlooking the sea, trekking a stretch of the ancient Lycian Way, art therapy, learning the traditional craft of Turkish carpet weaving or watching a film beneath the night sky. The recommendations aren't compulsory; rather than spending weeks researching, saving TikToks and devising the perfect itinerary, you can let the universe decide. After all, isn’t that what a holiday is about: absolving yourself of responsibility?

Letting the stars take over

If surrender was the assignment, Perdue makes a compelling case for it. The property tumbles down towards the water, citrus trees dappling the light on the wooden pathways between canvas tents and decks.

My tent — though really it was closer to a suite — came with a private terrace, sea pool and a sprawling sea vista. Elsewhere, Bali beds invite horizontal afternoons with a book you never crack open (in my case, The Odyssey), while ladders lead directly into the ocean.

It’s an environment designed to make your phone feel redundant. Soulsetters encourages guests to go analogue where possible, swapping screens for landscapes and activities that use your hands, body, and untapped sections of your birth chart.

Before any of that could begin, though, I needed to find out what the universe had prescribed.

The reading highlights characteristics and energies that might benefit from being encouraged during your stay, with activities recommended accordingly.

There was talk of the Leo in my chart and the need to bring out a more energetic side of myself: to move, expend energy and start the day actively. Starting your day exercising is hardly a novel concept, but one nugget rang especially true: Drew, my partner, could help bring out my playful Leo side; it’s a role he’s been playing for the past 10 years. So, the stars weren’t exactly predicting my future; mainly they were saying to get out of bed and have more fun.

The big thing the stars didn't predict

The following morning, Drew, true to our dynamic, encouraged me to do something I’d never done before: jump into the sea. Despite growing up on the coast, I’d been a shy child, inclined to stay indoors. As I tucked my knees into my body and dropped into the water (from no great height), I thought the part of my reading where I was encouraged to let Drew bring out my Leo side had been true. It was also our 10th anniversary, and I liked the idea of using that as a launchpad — literally — for a new version of myself, one less weighed down by fear.

I find anniversaries of all kinds encourage reflection and a kind of retroactive narrative building. The symmetry of ten years was particularly irresistible: a neat decade I could arrange all the details of our life into.

Later in the trip, we'd take a sunset cruise on a boat called Moon Day. I didn't know at the time, but Drew had planned to propose there. This seems an entirely inconsequential detail were the moon not a recurring symbol in our relationship. Neil Young's Harvest Moon is, perhaps, clichédly, "our" song. Over the years, Drew has given me moon-shaped and moon-inspired presents, including a floating planet lamp from Etsy that sits on my work desk.

And 27 July 2026 was a Monday — Moon day, explained astrologer Clarisse Monahan when I got back home.

This sounds like I’m scrabbling to arrange a collection of coincidences into a destiny, and maybe I am — that's the funny thing about looking for meaning: once you start, it appears everywhere.

Drew didn't propose on the boat as planned. As soon as we set foot on the craggy terrain of Perdue, with its winding, tealight-strewn walkways weaving towards the ocean and tucked-away tents, he knew this was the place.

That night, in Perdue’s private dining, an area carved into the cliff face and hidden from prying eyes by wispy white drapes, we watched as the sun burned a bright pink before melting into the Aegean. Later, soppy emotion having morphed into elation, we got royally drunk on local wine and punchy martinis. The food — butter shrimp, tangy chicken, an especially vibrant tomato and caper salad — played second fiddle to both our engagement and the alcohol now flowing freely as if at a Dionysian banquet. The head chef had wanted to congratulate us and could he send something to the table? Why, yes, of course, how kind. Then came guest relations, and another visiting chef for the hotel’s monthly supper club, more cheers, more booze. Rarely are the staff unaware when an engagement is going to take place, and it felt like we were united in our surprise.

Why are we all looking up?

Soulsetters' Stay Written in the Stars might sound niche, but it arrives at an interesting moment for travel.

Astrology has been moving beyond horoscopes and into the places we go and decisions we make when we get there. lastminute.com has even matched the 12 zodiac signs with European destinations based on their supposed travel personalities, while astrotourism — travelling specifically to experience dark skies, eclipses and other celestial events — is moving further into the mainstream, according to Unplugged, the UK’s first digital detox cabin.

Just take the recent partial solar eclipse, which saw Google searches spike 300% for the term in the week prior. Across the world, people gathered with makeshift viewers fashioned from cardboard, colanders, and, for the fortunate few, those coveted eclipse glasses. Strangers stood shoulder to shoulder and looked at the same thing; a rarity in an age when every family member can watch a different show at the same time under the same roof.

Writer Jade Angeles Fitton, author of the upcoming When the Sky Falls, describes our renewed fascination with the heavens as arising from "a longing to experience rapture in an age where logic and pragmatism have ruled for perhaps a little too long".

Societally, we’ve gotten used to knowing things before we experience them. Before boarding the plane, we can see the hotel room, inspect the breakfast, find out which cocktail to order when we arrive. We can build such detailed pictures of a destination that the only thing left to do is physically turn up.

There are obvious advantages to this, but there is also very little mystery; through astrology, Soulsetters introduces some back in.

Hand over your birth details, put down your phone, and let someone else suggest what you might need. Walk somewhere without researching what the view will look like when you arrive. Look at a night sky you haven't already seen through someone else's camera.

Whether the planets genuinely know what I need from a holiday is up for debate, but after spending years trying to perfect the way I travel, perfect the way I do everything, really, I found something luxurious in not knowing what came next. I wonder whether the astrologer had any idea what would unfurl the next day; if she did, I’m glad she kept it back.

How to book

Rates at Perdue start from £267 per night, based on two people sharing. Airport transfers cost an additional €85.

British Airways flies to Dalaman from London Gatwick and London Heathrow up to 10 times per week during the summer season.

Return fares from London Gatwick start from £183, including a generous hand baggage allowance.

What to pack

Travelling to Lake Garda has long been on my bucket list. Dreamy scenes of sun-dappled lemon groves, Aperitivo by the shore front, and cooling dips as boats glide across the water in the distance have filled my daydreams with scary regularity in recent years.

Still, I’d never found the chance to explore Italy as much as I’d have liked. That was until my husband and I were invited to stay at Cape of Senses, a fairly new but by no means to be slept on five-star hotel nestled in the hills of Northern Italy overlooking Lake Garda.

Needless to say, I didn’t take much convincing, and we were boarding our flight to Italy a few months later, swimwear packed, ready for our lakeside adventure. If Garda has been a must-try travel destination for you for as long as you can remember, too, I can’t think of a more relaxing, luxurious destination to consider than Cape of Senses.

For my full review, keep scrolling.

Inside One of Lake Garda's Most Beautiful Hotels, Cape of Senses

The vibes

Tucked away in the hills a short drive from Garda and the surrounding Italian lakeside towns, Cape of Senses offers total tranquillity in an indisputably breathtaking location. Just a short 45-minute drive from Verona airport, you’re at the hotel before you know it, met by two decorative Vespas in the driveway, immediately welcoming front-of-house staff and a much-needed welcome Spritz overlooking the lake.

Olive trees sway in the breeze, the smell of grass fills the air, and the soft hum of conversation reverberates from the pools below. The resort, which is adult-only, feels instantly relaxing; there’s a laid-back, sophisticated feel to the place which instantly signals to your brain to switch off.

Interior touches are stylish, but subtle; floor-to-ceiling glass windows sit next to an interior palette of soft neutral tones, wood, and stone. All 55 of the suites have panoramic lake views, plus access to the 2,000m² wellness spa and two fine-dining restaurants.

Everything centres around the backdrop of the cerulean blue lakes below and the mountains above, the unmistakable stars of the show.

The rooms

Spacious, inviting, and comfortable, the rooms are decorated with warm olive tones, natural wooden furniture and grey marble countertops. Architects Hugo and Alessia Demetz pair grasses in tall vases with plush, tonal sofas, and wicker mesh lamps with local stone features to make the space feel like a continuation of the nature outside. Our room backs onto the leafy pool area, which makes this all the more apparent, the room echoing the olive, ivy and sand colours of nature.

Our room has instant access to both pools and a great route through the gardens to the state-of-the-art gym, too. Even visiting in winter promises to be a delight, as the hotel offers a hybrid indoor-outdoor pool which you can swim between, regulating the temperatures to make it enjoyable any month of the year.

Art is minimal, but the vast windows perfectly frame the greenery, pool, and mountains beyond; you could argue, art at its finest.

The food

Two top-floor restaurants with panoramic views of the lake below you mean you're spoilt for choice. Restaurant Al Tramonto is our dinner go-to, offering elevated, gourmet tasting menus and seasonal à la carte dishes. The menu reads: “Be immersed in a world of flavourful, aromatic compositions to awaken your senses,” followed by the Italian “Dolce far niente,” which translates to “the sweetness of doing nothing." That, we do.

Dishes centre around fresh-as-anything tomatoes, decadent, deep bowls of olive oil, and local produce; we enjoy zucchini fritti, homemade pasta, and fresh seafood every day, and nothing disappoints. Local Lugana wine is crisp and mineral-rich; the staff attentive and welcoming; and the food, top-notch.

Attention to detail is second to none, from the wine pairings to the crockery on the table (the hand-blown glasses are so beautiful, I joke at least once that I want to take them home with me).

Their other restaurant offering, Osteria La Pergola, is more relaxed and a great lunch option. Enjoy fresh daily selections straight from local markets and the hotel’s own herb garden.

One of the standout highlights of our trip was the evening sunsets; breathtaking kaleidoscopes of yellow, amber, coral and lilac filling the entire skyline as we enjoyed our main courses. Staff had mentioned that the sunsets from Cape of Senses were some of the best they’d ever seen - I was initially doubtful, but can confirm they are monumental.

The facilities

As a Health Editor who tests spa destinations for a living, I’m rarely blown away, but Cape of Senses’ extensive wellness programme was seriously noteworthy, helping explain how this 2023 newcomer has rapidly earned recognition including a MICHELIN Key and membership of Small Luxury Hotels of the World.

As well as an airy, spacious and well-equipped gym, each week, you can choose from a wide variety of activities, from your more standard Pilates, yoga, or meditation to the more unique Qi Gong, “Deep Sound Rest,” or “Morning Serenity” sessions in the gym.

Over in their spa area, they have three spacious saunas - an 80- to 90-degree space with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the lake, a gentler bio sauna and a steam bath, too. If you’re looking to book a session, you can enjoy scrubs, sauna sound baths, and smoke rituals, all designed to leave you feeling revitalised, relaxed, and recharged and included in the price of your stay.

It’s worth mentioning their verging-on-spiritual Aufguss sessions, too, all led by their Aufgussmeister. A sauna ritual where a trained sauna expert utilises ice and essential oils to heighten the experience, our Aufguss was without a doubt one of the standouts of our trip; ever British, we’d never tried one before, and came out feeling like floaty clouds.

There’s also soothing live music several nights of the week at the lobby bar, or an e-bike wine tour, if cardio is more your thing. If you choose to hike the lakeside trail, as we did, do take advantage of their in-house driver, who is on hand for local journeys. We’d recommend arranging pick-up for the last leg of the walk from Garda - it’s around 7km uphill on a main road, so being picked up is a total treat after a long day of walking.

Need to knows

Stay at Cape of Senses hotel from €470 per night for a Junior Suite. 37010 Torri del Benaco, Lake Garda, Italy, capeofsenses.com.

Editor's Note: This article contains personal accounts of mental health issues and a suicide attempt. If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call CALM’s suicide prevention helpline, open daily from 5pm to midnight, or find support via its free CALMzone app. If you’re worried about someone, CALM also offers tools to help you check in, plus a conversation coach to help you navigate difficult conversations.

I woke up, disappointment flooding me after realising I was still here, followed by a small, shaky sigh of relief. I crawled out of bed and debated going into school as normal: a mock drama A-Level looming. But, growing concerned about the impact what I’d taken could have on my system, I got up, found my mum and told her.

My mum, a nurse, barely said anything. Anger, confusion and disappointment flitted across her face before she picked up the car keys and drove me to A&E in silence. After a hushed conversation with a nurse, embarrassment slowly creeping into my cheeks, I was shown to the kids’ ward. At 17, I was legally still a child. My mum and I sat alone on a low, squidgy foam bench in a painted room adorned with flowers and animal pictures. I felt like I’d been put in Teletubby jail. When the nurse came to take my bloods, the needle was tiny, and the plaster left behind bore a teddy bear. I was put on fluids to flush my system, no words exchanged, and sent away.

My mum drove me into school. I walked into the drama rehearsal late but carried on with my day. A CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) appointment followed in the weeks after — a checklist system culminating in the question: “Are you going to do it again?” I swiftly answered no. Honestly? I was thinking that if I did try again, I wouldn’t risk this rigmarole a second time. No one even seemed relieved my attempt hadn’t gone the way I’d planned. Embarrassed, feeling like an inconvenience, I felt more alone than ever.

Andy Burnham’s £343 million investment isn’t just the 100 new community mental health centres many reports have focused on. It’s also 59 dedicated mental health emergency departments, giving people in crisis specialist care in a place designed for them. “A busy, bright-lit NHS A&E in the middle of a suicidal crisis can be brutal,” notes Simon Gunning, CEO of suicide prevention charity Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM). These new spaces sound exactly like what I needed. But support that doesn’t feel genuinely caring can be just as soul-destroying in a nicer building — is expanding access enough if the experience of care still leaves people feeling unheard, ashamed and unsupported?

Psychotherapist and Counselling Directory member Jessica Haynes and CALM Director of Services Wendy Robinson are united in their views on what people in crisis need immediately. They recommend one consistent staff member, a safe and quiet place, a feeling of being heard without judgement, a “clear next step”, help finding the right sources of support and not being left to navigate services alone. I don’t know if my mum being there — and being a nurse — changed the approach. If it did, it shouldn’t have, particularly given our turbulent relationship was a factor that weighed on my mental health. Either way, I certainly didn’t receive this nuance of support. And this set the tone for my aftercare too.

Haynes says that because crisis teams are “understaffed and underfunded”, it’s usually left to the community mental health team and NHS therapy services to focus on recovery. “The crisis teams are full of wonderful people who are trained to help with and assess risk — but they can only do as much as the system allows,” adds Haynes.

After A&E and CAMHS, I was sent to the school’s therapist every week. In the first session, she sat me in front of a blank piece of paper and some pens, and said nothing. Five minutes later, I splattered the page with hot tears. I felt stifled. I’ve seen eight therapists across my life; a mixture of private and free. Six out of eight made me feel worse, not better. Simply more misunderstood and more unheard. In the UK, “therapist” is not a protected title and training can differ vastly. Voluntary regulatory bodies exist, and the NHS has “stricter requirements”, but Haynes — who has NHS, Papyrus and HOPELINEUK training — says: “We need better training and a better evidence base for understanding how to respond and support these situations in general.”

What could make new mental health centres genuinely transformative? “If funding wasn’t a question, I’d prioritise staff training, support and minimising caseloads — burnt-out staff often leads to an impact on those they’re supporting,” Haynes says. This is echoed by Robinson, who adds: “It’s vital that those expected to run these new services are given suitable training and that they are staffed adequately to meet the demand we know there will ultimately be.”

In the NHS specifically, Haynes points to “huge understaffing” and “underfunding”, which make it hard for staff to take the time to listen without rushing. “The suing culture also makes people wary of deviating from strict, clinical (and often cold) questions in case something happens and they end up in coroner’s court.”

Since my last — and hopefully final — attempt, I’ve worked hard and been lucky. I got into a university which gave me space from factors negatively impacting my mental wellbeing. I found a therapist who, as Burnham hopes for the centres, offered the “right support” at the “right time”. I’ve learnt how to manage my highs and lows far more steadily. How did I get here? Hard work, but mostly luck — extreme luck, too, that the attempt didn’t go the way I’d planned.

I’ve realised it’s not that I didn’t want to live; I just didn’t want to keep living the life I was. I know now that every new day offers the possibility of change, and even if I don't feel it at the time, I can never rule out experiencing happiness again. As Haynes notes: “There is nothing urgent that says that you need to die right now. I'm sure it feels that way — but dying right now is a pretty big deal (no matter how it feels) and nobody can take this emergency exit away from you, so why not keep it in reserve and see if you can try just one more thing to help yourself (or let someone help you) first?”

I’m clinging onto this hope when it comes to Burnham’s plan. Robinson says it’s “a really great start” that the mental health sector has been desperately calling for, but it’s just that — a start. The £343 million is amazing, but not enough. Gunning notes that mental health accounts for 20% of the UK's total disease burden, yet receives less than 9% of NHS spending, and no amount of money guarantees improvement either.

Burnham's 59 emergency departments and 100 centres offer the infrastructure, but it's what happens behind closed doors that matters most: proper staffing, capping caseloads and giving professionals the nuanced training and time it takes to help people not just survive a crisis, but carry on; to not only live after, but, as Burnham says, to “live well”.

I don’t blame the mental health professionals or my mum. I know how despairingly helpless it feels to love someone but feel unable to help patch them back together again. But to say something is always better than saying nothing. Often, words aren’t even necessary. Acknowledging someone’s pain, offering to listen or simply holding them gives them more than enough of a thread of hope to cling onto — to pull through one more dark day. I would know; I’ve not only learnt how to better survive them, but how to wake up each day without disappointment, but instead, gratitude to be alive.

If you’re struggling, call CALM’s suicide prevention helpline, open daily from 5pm to midnight, or find support via its free CALMzone app. If you’re worried about someone, CALM also offers tools to help you check in, plus a conversation coach to help you navigate difficult conversations.

Do we switch to fully electric or not? That is the question my husband and I have been asking ourselves for the past six months. As I write this, I am sitting on an aeroplane on my way to Puglia in southern Italy, where I spend every summer holiday with my family. To date, we have always preferred to fly, especially with a young child. However, with the ever-rising cost of travel — not to mention expensive car hire fees — we have started to consider upgrading our family car to a fully electric vehicle and driving to Italy each summer instead. Now that my daughter is seven years old, we finally feel bold enough to attempt the journey, which totals approximately 24 hours of driving. The plan would be to break it up with a couple of overnight stops along the way, giving us time not only to recharge the car but also to discover some of the many beautiful places in Europe and Italy that we have yet to explore.

Enter the Volvo ES90, the Swedish manufacturer's latest all-electric saloon, which I was invited to test drive for a weekend in North Yorkshire while staying at Saltmoore Hotel in Whitby.

I'll admit, I had never driven — or charged — an electric car before getting behind the wheel of the ES90. I was slightly sceptical, not only about its quoted range of up to 435 miles but also about whether stopping to charge it would become an inconvenience on long journeys. That said, any seven-hour drive, electric or otherwise, usually requires at least one comfort break, so perhaps charging wouldn't be as disruptive as I'd imagined.

One of our biggest priorities when choosing a new family car is space. If we really are going to drive across Europe every summer, generous leg room and a sizeable boot are essential — the Russo-Bah family certainly don't travel light.

Although our trip to Yorkshire was only for two nights, the drive took place during one of the hottest weekends of the year, with temperatures reaching almost 40°C. The ES90's spacious cabin, luxurious leather seats and panoramic glass roof, which can instantly shade itself at the touch of a button, were all very welcome features.

While I had naturally been looking at SUVs like the Volvo EX60, the Volvo ES90 offers something that few cars in its class can match: exceptional space for both front and rear passengers. Rear leg room is particularly impressive and quickly became one of the car's biggest selling points for me. Another unexpected highlight was the fully reclining front seats. After five hours on the road, being able to properly stretch out whilst my husband took over at the wheel, was such a treat and would be a real win when taking turns driving all the way to Italy.

The Bowers & Wilkins sound system is another standout feature, transforming long motorway miles into a fun family experience singing along to our favourite songs, while the large central touchscreen controls virtually every function in the car. I had read one review describing the interior as too minimalist, but for me, that simplicity is exactly what makes it so appealing. The clean, uncluttered design immediately stood out and feels both modern and timeless.

In terms of the driving experience itself, I genuinely didn't know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised by how intuitive everything felt. On the motorway, its adaptive cruise control and driver assistance systems monitored the traffic ahead, maintaining a safe distance by gently slowing the car when needed and making long stretches of driving noticeably more relaxing. Rather than taking over, the technology makes the car adapt to what is on the road in front and helps you understand when you’re distracted, or tired, prompting you to have a rest.

Of course, one of the biggest questions surrounding any electric car is charging. While it did require a little more planning than simply pulling into a petrol station, I quickly realised that charging slots naturally fitted into the breaks we would have been taking anyway and are actually far more present that I realised. 20 minutes later, after a quick lunch stop to eat and stretch our legs and we were ready to continue the journey. It certainly challenged many of the assumptions I had about owning an electric vehicle.

The ES90 is longer than many of the SUVs I had been considering, and that extra length would undoubtedly take a little getting used to when manoeuvring or parking. However, the payoff is the generous interior space, exceptional comfort and smooth driving experience that few rivals can offer.

By the time I returned the car to Volvo, it had firmly established itself as one of the front-runners on our shortlist. More importantly, it answered the question I had been asking myself before the weekend began: could I realistically drive an electric car all the way to Italy every summer? The answer, surprisingly, is yes. The Volvo ES90 didn't just convince me that driving across Europe in an electric vehicle is possible — it made me wonder why we hadn't considered making the switch sooner.

Click here to find out more about the Volvo ES90 Electric

The dream man? Well, he's tall, dark, handsome, and...wicker. In case you hadn't heard, having a boyfriend is kind of embarrassing now; they ruin your birthday, and can behave appallingly. No wonder, more women today are "chronically single" and would rather date a basket than a man.

​Ok, obviously not really. But the new trailer for Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson's comedy Wicker suggests that, at this point, we're not too far off from pining after men made of rattan.

​In case you haven't seen it, the trailer teases a film in which Olivia Coleman, playing a grimy fisherwoman, asks Peter Dinklage, playing the local basket weaver, to fashion her a husband of wicker. He weaves up a storm and produces a woven creation that looks an awful lot like Alexander Skarsgård in sexy basket form, complete with entwined plaited wooden abs and a thick head of raffia hair.

He and a rather giddy Coleman quickly tie the knot and proceed to have a lot of raunchy sex. (Don't think too much about the splinters.) In between all of the sex, he is sweet, stoic, and utterly besotted, saying things like, "You are the reason I live and breathe." The local women watch on in part-horror, part-awe, part-envy — "I heard that he's as strong as a tree and just as hard!" — while their male partners scoff and guffaw, complaining that "men are not like that!"

The girls that get it, get it. "TikTok fyp (for you page) is full of women thirsting over wicker baskets ??" someone wrote on X. "I didn't have me thirsting over a hot fictional man made of wicker on my bingo card, but here we are!" another TikTok video was captioned. Even IKEA has gotten in on the action, while Etsy has seen searches for 'personalised/custom wicker baskets' skyrocketing by +2,664% in July. "Pop culture has a way of giving us unexpected new design cues, and the buzz around this fall’s most talked-about movie trailer has already given ‘husband material’ a whole new meaning," says Etsy’s Trend Expert Dayna Isom Johnson.

And this sexy basket isn't the only homemade man getting women worked up. Last year's Frankenstein saw Jacob Elordi playing Frankenstein's creature. Instead of wicker, he was fashioned of a sickly blue patchwork of off cuts from decaying corpses, but, nonetheless, people were into it. “Somebody sedate me," one TikTok video caption read. "It's not a hear me out, it's a hold me back," another fan wrote. Wicked Part II also saw Cynthia Erivo's Elphaba transforming her boyfriend into a man of straw. He wasn't an immediate hit—and initially drew comparisons to Ryan Reynolds—but a subsection of the internet still found themselves drawn to him. "I personally think that Jonathan’s Fiyero looks WAY HOTTER as his Scarecrow form than he did as a human!" one wrote on Reddit. Another added a gif that simply said: "Would."

Why Are Women Getting Horny For The Homemade Man?

It's no secret that heterosexual women are becoming disillusioned. The disappointing reality is that being in a relationship with a (human) man comes with a host of practical and emotional drawbacks.

Romance aside, coupling up with a man often means taking on extra labour, both domestically and emotionally. Working women take home an average of £631 less than their male counterparts each month. Meanwhile, the division of domestic labour remains heavily imbalanced, with women undertaking an average of 26 hours of unpaid work per week compared to 16 hours for men. Add to this the fact that women tend to be saddled with the bulk of the mental load in their heterosexual relationships, tasked with remembering dates, chores and just about everything else. How many women do you know who remember to call their male partner's mum on her birthday, because he's never had to?

All of this can lead to resentment, and even to women falling out of love with their partners. During a long relationship, women reportedly fall out of love at a rate of 55.2%, while only 9.2% of men experience the same decline in affection, according to a 2024 study. “Women more often express frustration about communication and the division of labour,” the study leader said at the time. “And men more often are concerned about a sexual relationship and wanting less frustration from their partner.”

As dating men becomes more disheartening and, at times, disempowering, many progressive women are starting to feel not only pessimistic, but self-conscious about admitting to their romantic preference for men. It's a phenomenon known as "heteropessimism", coined by Asa Seresin in a New Inquiry piece.

Heteropessimism describes a "vocal rejection of heterosexual culture and the heterosexual experience by people who find themselves in heterosexual relationships or desiring people of the opposite sex and gender," says Dr. Luke Brunning, a philosopher specialising in intimacy, love, and relationships and Associate Professor in Applied Ethics at the IDEA ethics centre in the University of Leeds. "They might express frustration, embarrassment, or regret that they are straight in an attempt to distance themselves from these structures and experiences and the expectations [that come with them]."

The fact of the matter is, patriarchal rhetoric and patterns are hard-wired into our culture. It's impossible to find men who have managed to avoid soaking it up just a little. Even men who take pride in being feminists, men who actively try to extricate themselves from the deep-seated patriarchal model, often find that the biases, habits, and thought processes are too deeply encoded to shift. The problem with so many straight men in the dating world is that, whether they like it or not, they grew up in a world that upheld patriarchal values: a world that taught them time and time again that being in a heterosexual relationship was inherently imbalanced.

"I think the problem is that there can very often be a big disconnect between the changes in superficial things like attitude and belief versus the actual changes in behaviour and sentiment and feeling," Brunning says. "It's easy for people to think about how they're showing up in relationships, to think about things like equal distribution of housework or the way that they treat each other. But actually, evidence shows that even those couples that are self-avowed feminists, that are striving for equal distribution, it's not equal. If you're in a relationship with somebody who's avowedly feminist, but also you sense they're subtly not pulling their weight, then that little bit of dissonance can creep in."

The Ultimate Fantasy

In the real world, a straight woman's best hope is a man who is doing his best to unlearn his encoded patterns; to show up and work on it. But in the fantasy world? What better than a man who was never exposed to them in the first place? A man who was literally made from scratch and plopped onto the world with zero assumptions about his supposed superiority and no expectations about what he should contribute to a relationship?

"It's the ultimate fantasy, isn't it?" says Brunning. "To have the features that you want without the social imprinting. To have a romantic sexual experience that meets your needs, satisfies you, but isn't accompanied by the baggage that often goes with it. It's playing with these ideas of desocialised masculinity."

These stories also provide a "safe space" for exploring the seemingly incongruent tension between the attraction to men and how it butts up against our dissatisfaction with modern masculinity. "There are aspects of masculinity that people find very desirable—that they want incorporated into their sexual lives—but they may not want incorporated into other aspects of their lives. [These stories] provide a space to portray those tensions. To find them funny and amusing, stimulating, make them safe, exaggerate them," explains Brunning.

​The sexy basket, the decaying corpse creature—they are refreshingly untouched by the world's toxic patriarchal modelling. Plus, they're hot! And what could be more attractive than that?

In January 2025, beauty YouTuber Gigi Beauty, also known as Gabby Sterling, took her then-husband, King Adri (Ari Aiano), on an all-expenses-paid eight-day trip to Dubai for his birthday. Later that year, on 18 November—her 30th birthday—he asked her for a divorce.

"He left me crying there on my birthday, the whole day for two days straight," she later said in a now-deleted video. Although he briefly retracted his request, the couple announced their divorce three months ago.

When I put the question out, more than 120 women got in touch. My inbox was overrun with stories of happy memories sabotaged by the men they were close to. Though I came across this through the use of birthdays, it became clear that this was a much bigger problem sullying any possible moment of joy potentially experienced by women.

I spoke to clinical psychologist and bestselling author Dr Sophie Mort about why this seems to happen. From a clinical perspective, she says it's often twofold: significant occasions bring difficult emotions to the surface, while the pressure of the moment can overwhelm people who feel "ashamed, resentful, depleted or uncomfortable with emotional expectations."

Though poorly timed, she explains how the timing of these confessions may just be “avoidance reaching its limit”. She does acknowledge, though, that sometimes this is done on purpose.

“For some people the timing is the point, because it guarantees the maximum effect and it guarantees the memory belongs to them permanently. That deserves to be named plainly.”

​Because so many of these moments involve men, I question if this is something unique to straight relationships. Socialisation can provide certain scripts and permissions, but it does not make the behaviour inevitable. She tells me: “Some forms of “masculine” socialisation may also shape how insecurity is expressed. Men can be encouraged to value control, self-reliance and emotional restraint, while vulnerable feelings are treated as weakness. Saying, “I feel irrelevant,” “I am frightened you will outgrow me,” or “I am ashamed that I am struggling” may feel less available than anger, criticism or withdrawal.”

The most haunting example of this behaviour was around work. Many women shared that the night before big interviews, the first day of a new job, or even sharing the news of a new role, created fertile ground for arguments, fights, ghosting and silent treatment.

​“My mum's ex took the family car to the garage on the first day at her new job when she was planning to drive to work. There was nothing wrong with the car, and nothing had been mentioned before. He was a mechanic,” Lenna told me.

“I had an ex-boyfriend that started a massive argument with me the night before a huge interview. When I broke up with him, he admitted it was because he wanted me to be exhausted for the interview and not get it. Got it anyway, though, so that showed him.” April shared.

In 2024, on the first day of her new job, Samadreeta’s ex broke up with her and blocked her everywhere. “I couldn't even get to enjoy the achievement properly because I was feeling miserable the whole day,” she writes.

“Within research on intimate partner violence and economic abuse, employment sabotage is a recognised pattern.” Dr. Mort shares. “It can include interfering with someone’s ability to study, find work, attend work or progress in their career.”

When men aren’t eclipsing the joys, they’re making the difficult moments harder. “I phoned my then-boyfriend of four years after finding out my nan had passed away, and he decided that was the right time to tell me he’d cheated on me three days before”, Amy remembers.

Anita had a similar experience: “I got cheated on while I was overseas for my father's funeral. Found out when I got back and had a mental health spiral which landed me in hospital with a serious migraine. He refused to believe it was due to his behaviour and it must have been because of my smoking.” ​

Several women spoke of men suddenly feeling neglected when they had to redirect time and energy caring for elderly or sick parents. In so many of these cases it seemed that time not dedicated to the relationship was an affront to the men, as if women could not be loving partners and carers to others. Dr Mort chimes in on this observation: “Some men may have learned, explicitly or implicitly, that a female partner’s time, care, domestic labour and emotional attention should remain available to them, or that her ambitions should fit around the existing arrangements.”

Many of the stories people shared centred on holidays: girls' trips, solo travels, and even family holidays. “My boyfriend called me while I was on my best friend's birthday girl trip, saying he was going to unalive himself. He did the same thing while I went on a solo trip for my birthday too,” Amie tells me.

Not even sporting events were safe; the night before Molly ran her first-ever marathon was one she’ll never forget: After not hearing from him for months, I got a message from him saying he was in the hospital because he drank too much and it was because of me…I ruined his life when I ended our relationship. He was also in the running community and knew the marathon was the next day. I slept so poorly that night.

"It taught me to dread days that were about me"

Several women spoke to me about a lingering fear of celebrating achievements or even sharing them with people, for fear of reliving the disappointment. These moments begin to feel “unsafe”, Dr Mort tells me, “because experience has taught her that being celebrated comes with a cost.”

Even Dr Mort felt the weight of this too: “As a woman… I’ve experienced this myself; it taught me to dread days that were about me. So much so that I spent this birthday alone for the first time so I could fully ensure nothing anxiety-provoking was likely to happen. The phenomenon is real; it has lasting consequences.”

Despite her own experience on this, she reassures us that these moments need not be ruined forever; you can reclaim these moments and celebrations and form new memories. This doesn’t mean “forcing yourself to feel positive about what happened”, she stresses. “It may mean celebrating again with safe people, choosing a different date, creating a new tradition or simply deciding that the original event does not get to be the final version of the story.”

She tells me to invent new traditions by first asking: what was taken from you? That way you can figure out the most effective way to re-write the story and not feel like you’ve lost a moment that can never be recovered.

Take a minute. I want you to choose a car that can handle a major city, a motorway and a mountain range all within 90 minutes. Parking on a steep hill is non-negotiable. It's 30-plus degrees, so the aircon needs to be exceptional. The sat-nav must be effortless to follow. You'd like to stop somewhere scenic along the way without taking your hands off the wheel. There are two car seats in the back and a tent in the boot. One of the children has fallen asleep, so you need quiet in the back while you lip-sync, silently and with full commitment, to whatever is playing up front.

If you have an answer, I'd genuinely love to hear it, because I was completely stumped until last week, when that exact scenario played out during a test drive of the Volvo EX60 around Barcelona. A test of the car, yes, but also of my ability to navigate rush-hour traffic in the Spanish capital for the first time. Olé! Nervous drivers need not apply. And yet I'd actually use the word enjoyable, even while weaving between taxis, tourists and more cyclists than you'd find at the Tour de France. Because the new fully electric version of Volvo's bestselling XC60 can, as I discovered, handle just about anything. And not just handle—actively assist.

"Hey Google, play summer house hits." "Hey Google, what's the most scenic rest stop along this route?" "Hey Google, re-route us to a coffee shop." The AI-powered voice assistant became my default co-pilot for the day, and an exceptionally good one. A feature rolling out to all Volvos shortly, though the EX60 leads the charge. Hey Google can also control all 28 speakers individually, adjusting the volume in each zone of the car independently. Sleeping babies no longer require total silence. Quite the gamechanger.

Add Apple Music, Spotify, 5G, Waze, Google Maps, Apple CarPlay, a wireless charging pad and every in-car entertainment app worth having—displayed across a central iPad-sized screen and a smaller driver-facing panel—and every element of modern in-car technology is accounted for. All of it housed in a compact SUV small enough to squeeze into a narrow mountain monastery car park—with all-round parking sensors, cameras and a bird's-eye view to assist—yet large enough to comfortably fit two car seats, a passenger in the back and a full camping set-up in the boot. Or, more realistically, the weekly shop, a pram and whatever else needs hauling. The hidden under-boot compartment was a personal highlight: additional space and the kind of security that means the days of hiding a handbag under a rogue blanket are firmly over.

The design is a more minimalist take on the classic Volvo—inspired, lead designer Sara tells me, by "interior design, fashion, craftsmanship and contemporary art and architecture". Available in frost green, ice white, onyx black, heather bronze, aurora silver, sand dune and vapour grey, with four interior options spanning both leather and wool-blend finishes. Sleek is the operative word, if I'm only allowed one.

"The key design features are the aerodynamic exterior design with new door handles, and the airy interior with a lightweight textile dressed dashboard with a curved oled screen," she adds. Noting it was built for modern families in mind. A trait that's easy to spot with the near-never-ending list of mod cons.

Then there's the matter of range—the question that inevitably comes before everything else when it comes to electric. The answer is an 800V battery with a choice of either 660 or 611 km range, with 16 minutes of fast charging adding around 70% charge. Enough to see me through five hours of driving—aircon, music and Hey Google all running at full capacity—with only a marginal drop in battery.

A can-do-anything car, in other words. And one that, rather inconveniently, I now can't stop thinking about (as well as the patatas bravas). Oh, and did I mention you can add the car key to your phone, just like your credit cards? The future of cars is officially here.

Click here to find out more about the Volvo EX60

No relationship is experienced in the same way by the people involved. We can’t know each other’s thoughts; we can’t hear each other’s hearts when they are beating fast. When we fall for someone, when the fact that they exist crushes us, we often don’t know anything about them, but we pretend that we can find out.

I was asked recently about the role that social media plays in our crushes, and what it was like before we had access to the faces, captions and tagged displays of the people we were crushing on. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and bought my first smartphone in 2009, when I was 25. I feel lucky, because my early crushes were entirely nebulous—there was no way to know anything beyond what I was shown in real life. The yearning was analogue.

These days, we can burrow down into the mystery of someone we might have feelings for, trying to dig up every worm. Some of us believe that this can dilute or intensify the experience, and it can, but not in the ways we imagine.

In my day job as a counsellor and social worker, I have worked with many people addicted to escaping their realities. Humans can’t always cope with what we have been through, and the ongoing effects of trauma and mental illness can lead to addiction. Escape can be found through our phones, the internet and social media, just as it can be found in alcohol, drugs and sex.

When I started to notice my own reliance on my phone, I also started to write a character who was consumed by hers. The phone of my new novel Worry Doll’s protagonist, Heloise, is her best friend and her worst enemy. She picks it up and puts it down, her use unmanageable. She tries to make rules for herself and breaks them. In the same way Heloise is addicted to love, she is addicted to checking and scrolling. She wants love, connection, approval and reassurance, but she is looking for it in places it can’t be found. Interactions with her phone and her crush mimic the experiences she desires, becoming obsessions that take her away from reality.

Like alcohol or drugs, many of us have become addicted to our phones: the scrolling, the notifications, the endless stimuli. Our brains have become reliant on these pops of dopamine. If we put our phone away, we are left with nothing but ourselves. In the throes of a crush, we search for digital intimacy. Perhaps there is no such thing.

When writing Worry Doll, I wanted to explore the way a crush can take over our consciousness and render us insane. The characters abandon themselves for the unknown quantity of another, but the sacrifice plays with their realities, leading the reader to question their own. I wanted the book to read like a horror movie: without the blood and guts but with all of the perversion.

I recently watched Obsession, the new independent horror movie starring Inde Navarrette as the most deliciously unhinged girlfriend I’ve ever witnessed. When Bear (Michael Johnstone) makes a wish using a cursed novelty item, the One Wish Willow, from a woo woo store, he asks for what we have all wanted—requited love. His wish comes true, but it’s not a happy thing. He is cornered and haunted by the very fantasy he indulged for so long.

The movie says, in no uncertain terms, that having a crush on someone is a figment of the imagination. It reminds us that we can’t understand or control the way another person feels about us, or how they see the world. It achieves what I hope to achieve with my book: a blurring of what is possible in order to focus on what is not. The exaggeration of yearning, obsession and forgetting creates a version of the fantasy world we have all lived in.

Perhaps this is why it feels so breathless, so urgent, so delulu, to have a crush on someone—and why we will go out of our way to feel close to them, even if that means rewatching their Instagram story over and over. Our body starts to panic because it doesn’t know what might happen and can’t find out, despite how much we try. We have all gone out of our minds just to see their face again.

Worry Doll by Laura McPhee-Browne is out now

"I should have put my rent money on that."

It's one of the first TikToks I see after the Love Island USA finale. A woman screams at her TV as the winners are announced, lamenting the money she could have made if she'd backed them. Around it, my feed is filled with videos encouraging viewers to turn their encyclopaedic knowledge of reality TV into cash. The message is clear: your pop culture obsession doesn't have to be a guilty pleasure. It could be profitable.

For decades, gambling companies largely targeted men, building businesses around football, horse racing and poker. But a noticeable shift is underway. Increasingly, women are being treated as the industry's next major growth market, with products and marketing designed around reality television, celebrity culture, influencers and social media rather than traditionally male-coded interests.

Prediction markets have ramped up their culture offerings, allowing people to trade on reality TV, Spotify streams, and even Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding. Currently, there is a $548,978 trading volume on the Love Island UK market, with Lorenzo and Julia leading.

The strategy reflects a broader cultural shift. Women today have greater financial independence, higher workforce participation and are investing in greater numbers than previous generations. Fidelity's 2025 Women and Investing Study found Gen Z and Millennial women are becoming increasingly engaged with their finances, while the proportion of women who own investments continues to rise.

A recent study from Deakin University found that gambling promotions linked to influencers, women's sport and lifestyle content increased the normalisation and social acceptability of gambling among women aged 18 to 40. Rather than trying to persuade women to engage with products designed for men, companies are redesigning the products—and the marketing—to meet women where they already are.

This is reflected across social media, as more content is dedicated to promoting financial literacy cheat sheets, stock tips, and the girlification of retirement accounts. Some of it blurs with self care and empowerment messaging, designed to be easily digestible, from get-ready-with-me videos, quippy listicles, and girl math equations that really work. It’s girl’s-girl behaviour delivered with a forehead kiss to your savings account.

"Women are actively seeking financial participation and literacy," explains consumer behaviour expert Ammarah Ahmed. "The challenge is that gambling companies are adapting to this content style too. You now have women who are engaged with reality television, celebrity culture and social media who are also being invited to see those interests as financial opportunities."

Rather than presenting gambling as risk-taking, these campaigns often frame it as savvy decision-making. Rather than betting, users are encouraged to think of themselves as making predictions, participating in markets or applying knowledge they already possess.

Dr Devin Proctor, a digital anthropologist and professor at Elon University, believes this represents a much broader cultural change. "This communicates to a whole new population of fans that their cultural knowledge has economic value," he explains. "The same knowledge that has often been dismissed as trivial or 'trashy' is suddenly presented as something capable of generating capital. What's changing isn't necessarily the activity itself—it's the moral framing around it."

His description of the "financialisation of cultural expertise" captures what feels so distinctive about this new wave of marketing. Knowledge of football statistics has long been monetised through sports betting. What's new is encouraging women to view their expertise in reality television, celebrity culture or internet trends through exactly the same commercial lens.

The marketing reflects that evolution. Influencer partnerships, creator-style videos and user-generated content dominate feeds where traditional gambling adverts would once have felt jarring. Instead of loud bookmakers and football pundits, viewers are met with relatable creators, casual conversations and lifestyle aesthetics that blur the line between entertainment, recommendation and advertising.

Dr. Rey Junco, a licensed trauma therapist and research psychologist, says he’s concerned about gambling being disguised as lifestyle content. “There isn’t any good regulation around this and therefore can present a risk for those who are prone to such addictions. If you lower the cultural and social barriers to gambling (‘hey this is fun, all the people you look up to are doing it’), more people will gamble and more people will develop problematic gambling addictions.”

Aside from its current regulations, Dr. Junco isn’t convinced the app will go further with its user protections. "I absolutely think that platforms should be better stewards of public health," Dr. Junco continues. "Do I have hope that they will? Absolutely not. We've seen this time and time again."

All of this is also happening at a particularly dark time for many people: the economy feels tumultuous, the housing market is in crisis almost everywhere, and politically, nothing feels even close to being in favour of women. So, the desire to find the golden ticket is higher than ever. Gambling companies are just hoping you’ll believe it’s on their app.

“The long-term problem here is not just individual financial loss in an economy where the younger generation is already struggling to be able to afford things like buying a house,” Ahmed warns. “It's what happens when a generation grows up with this behaviour hardwired into them before they could ever even tell the difference.”

The branding may be softer and the influencers may look different from the bookmakers of old. But beneath the lifestyle aesthetics and empowerment messaging lies a familiar business model: finding new customers and convincing them that this time, it's different.

The Sanderson, standing proud on Berners Street in the heart of Fitzrovia, is one of the city's modern icons. Its playful, avant-garde interiors, dreamed up by the world-renowned architect and designer Philippe Starck back in the early '00s, offered a new take on luxury, providing an alternative to the classic opulence of London's heritage hotels.

Instead of the hallmarks of ornate sculptures, parquet floors, plush velvet, and lots of marble, Sanderson London offers something much more imaginative, inviting guests into a whimsical wonderland where obscurity rules. Fantastical touches, consisting of sheer drapes, eclectic artwork, and the odd optical illusion, soften the modernist architecture in which they are housed and give the hotel's spaces a slightly surreal feel. Arts and culture fans will note plenty of pop culture references dotted around, too; there's a Salvador Dalí-inspired couch, and nods to Lewis Carol's Alice in Wonderland throughout (the Mad Hatter's Tea Party is a delight, with 'drink me' potions and vintage crockery).

London has no shortage of design hotels, with some of the stand-outs being the charming literary-inspired retreat The Bloomsbury, the art-deco-inspired The Savoy, and Blakes, which was widely considered the world's first luxury boutique hotel when it launched in 1978 (Morgans in New York was another notable contender). But Sanderson London, housed in a grand 1950s building originally home to Arthur Sanderson & Sons wallpaper and textile company, brought something new to London's hotel scene with its fantastical design and social atmosphere - the hotel's 'Long Bar', an 80-foot glowing onyx bar surrounded by Philippe Starck's signature 'eye' stools, was the place to be seen in the early noughties.

The whole place is brimming with nostalgia, from the old-school iPod docks in the bedrooms to its minimalist styling and silver-and-white colour palette with accents of chrome, glass, and sheer textiles, typical of early '00s design. Sanderson London may not reflect what a modern London hotel looks like; instead, it takes guests back to the era in which it was designed.

THE ROOMS

Initially designed by Philippe Starck, the rooms at The Sanderson were updated by Tim Andreas of Banjo, a protégé of the world-famous designer, who sensitively updated the hotel's 150 rooms and suites while maintaining their original character. The simple colour palette of silver and white filters through to the rooms, the minimalist look softened with sheer drapes and peaceful landscapes hung on the wall. Texture plays a big role in the design, with semi-sheer drapes continuing the '00s theme from the lobby.

The entry-level rooms have comfy Queen-sized beds, but the Deluxe Kings and above feature an impressive silver-leaf sleigh bed as the central focus. All beds are dressed in soft 300-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets and fluffy pillows.

Bathrooms are suitably luxurious, with the Deluxe Kings, Loft Kings, and Penthouse suites offering freestanding baths. The Penthouse suite is a truly spectacular place to stay in London, with its own private lift, a living room, kitchenette, two bedrooms, three bathrooms and sweeping views of the London Eye.

FOOD & DRINKS

Sanderson London excels in originality when it comes to food and drink. Its menus are designed to spark imagination, from the whimsical Mad Hatter's afternoon tea to the creative cocktail list served alongside light bites enjoyed while basking in the late-night glow of the Long Bar. On weekends, the hotel's atmosphere becomes more lively, with guest DJs on Fridays and Saturdays.

The Restaurant serves refined Italian food with a few surprises, with an eclectic menu curated by Chef Daniele Zaffora; the homemade tagliatelle is a highlight. Meanwhile, the Mad Hatter's Afternoon Tea, served in the atmospheric Courtyard Garden, serves savoury dishes such as The Cheshire Cat (king prawn tart, horseradish, lettuce, lime & potato puffs), and the hotel's signature dessert, The Queen of Hearts pastry (pistachio & ricotta cheesecake, wild berry curd). Even if you're not sampling Sanderson London's afternoon tea, the Courtyard is a lush space to relax in and escape the chaos of central London, offering calming water features and a tropical feel.

THE ACTIVITIES

Aside from the extensive dining and drinking options, there’s a gym and a billiards room that doubles up as an event space. There's also the option to book in-room massages when there's availability. Pets are welcome at the hotel for an additional £100 non-refundable deposit (service animals are exempt from the fee).

But one of the most appealing parts of this hotel is its location. While the hotel is technically in Fitzrovia, it's within easy reach of Oxford Street and the vibrancy of Soho's many bars and restaurants, as well as the bustling areas of Bloomsbury to the east and Marylebone to the west.

NEED TO KNOWS

Rooms at Sanderson London start at £256, and you can book through the hotel's website or by phone at 020 7836 4343.

Address: 50 Berners St, London W1T 3NG

Two years ago, during Euro 2024, I wrote about the rise in domestic abuse around England football matches. Violence against women and girls had just been declared a national emergency and, while the statistics were already well known to campaigners, seeing them enter the mainstream conversation felt like progress.

Last night, after England’s latest defeat, a friend turned to me and said, matter-of-factly: “I keep thinking about how many women are going to bear the brunt of this loss.” But the statistic I remembered was bleaker still: domestic abuse incidents rise by 38% when England lose—and by 26% even when they win or draw.

Given how much attention those figures have received, I had hoped things might be different. But when I reopened my 2024 article today, expecting to update it, I realised I was about to write almost exactly the same story.

I'd be reiterating, the same 2014 Lancaster University study, with those figures showing domestic abuse incidents rising by 26% when England play and by 38% when they lose. The same warnings from charities. The same insistence that football does not cause abuse, but that the heightened emotions, alcohol consumption and volatility surrounding major tournaments can exacerbate violence where it already exists. Something I always feel at pains to reiterate after facing a swathe of online abuse whenever I post about the correlation between football and domestic violence.

What Has Changed in Football Then?

What has changed since 2024, then, is not the underlying pattern; it is how prepared we have become for it.

Before this World Cup had even begun, Women’s Aid launched The Other Kick Off, a campaign built around 11.37pm: the estimated time abusive partners might return home after England’s opening match. Digital billboards appeared near fan zones and football hotspots, hijacking one of the tournament’s most searched questions—“What time is kick-off?”—and replacing it with the time many victims and survivors dread.

The Crown Prosecution Service also issued a warning that domestic abuse was expected to rise during the tournament, while police and prosecutors said they were working together to identify offenders and bring cases forward.

According to National Police Chiefs’ Council data, more than 300 domestic abuse offences were reported during Euro 2024 in cases where victims believed the perpetrator’s behaviour was linked to football. The CPS now says that four in five domestic abuse-flagged cases referred to prosecutors, where a charging decision is made, result in charges.

In one sense, this is progress. Institutions are talking openly about what happens around major tournaments. Police forces are preparing; so too are prosecutors and charities. Campaigns are more visible and better targeted.

But there is something deeply bleak about this level of preparedness. Have we really reached a point where a rise in domestic abuse is treated as another predictable feature of tournament football? As expected as crowded pubs, delayed trains and arguments over referee Ismail Elfath.

Before a ball is even kicked, helplines brace themselves. Charities like Women’s Aid and Refuge prepare campaign materials, police issue warnings, and journalists like me pull from the same decade-old statistics. Everyone knows what is coming—it’s right there in the campaign material: He’s Coming Home. That should shock us more than it does.

The 26% and 38% figures come from research published in 2014, based on reported incidents in Lancashire during the 2002, 2006 and 2010 World Cups. The study was limited in scale and researchers called for its findings to be replicated. Yet, more than a decade later, it remains the evidence base almost everyone reaches for. Why then has such an urgent, repeatedly cited finding not led to a larger national body of research?

Perhaps because awareness has become easier than action. Of course, awareness campaigns matter: they direct women towards support, help friends and relatives recognise signs of abuse, and remind people that coercive control, emotional abuse and financial abuse can be as devastating as physical violence.

But how many more awareness campaigns do we need before the emphasis shifts decisively towards prevention, perpetrator accountability and long-term cultural change?

Women’s Aid describes this summer as “another World Cup, but the same problem”. That’s difficult to argue with. Its latest campaign follows its 2022 He’s Coming Home campaign. Every tournament brings a new creative treatment of a reality that remains stubbornly familiar.

There Are Positive Signs Football Is Changing

There are signs that parts of football culture are beginning to grapple with masculinity more seriously.

UN Women UK’s Same Side campaign, in partnership with Vodafone Foundation, called on athletes to speak to boys and young men about empathy, vulnerability, relationships and respect. Its latest phase includes toolkits for teachers and sports coaches, recognising that sport is one of the places where boys learn what leadership, courage and strength are supposed to look like.

Other green shoots have come in the form of my social feed, which has been filled with clips of Jude Bellingham and Norway’s Erling Haaland embracing, supporting and defending one another, even when playing on opposing sides. And, of course, Haaland’s enviable Birkin collection. These are small moments: two footballers showing affection won’t dismantle misogyny, but still, it matters.

Young male fans are watching and absorbing what strength looks like, how men relate to one another, and whether intimacy, tenderness and emotional openness are compatible with elite masculinity.

But for real change to happen, we have to move the burden away from women and towards the men who abuse, as well as the institutions that respond to them and the cultures that excuse them. It would also mean refusing to treat this pattern as inevitable.

By Euro 2028, football will return home to England, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland. The celebrations will be enormous. The campaigns about connection, identity and national pride have already begun. One of the first, from BT, sees Frank Skinner and football legends from across the Home Nations celebrate the game's power to unite us. Football can be a great force for connection. But if we're willing to celebrate that power, we also have to confront what it reveals when some women still dread the final whistle.

As England looks to lick the wounds of last night’s loss, those campaigns will start gaining momentum, but I wonder whether the parallel campaign—the one warning women about what may happen after the final whistle—will still be necessary in two years' time. I hope not.

Charlotte Street has a vibrant history. The Bohemian hub has long attracted a colourful crowd of artists, intellectuals and restaurateurs, with the famous Fitzroy Tavern a meeting point for literary greats like George Orwell and Dylan Tavern. Today, it remains one of London's prettiest and most eclectic streets, peppered with buzzy restaurants and independent businesses that manage to foster a sense of community in the hectic metropolis.

Standing proud in the centre of Charlotte Street, the Charlotte Street Hotel is dressed in sage green, with signature striped awnings and elegant seating. Its entrance is framed by two pastel-coloured lamp posts, which add an inviting glow after dark. One of London's best hotels for design fans, the boutique bolthole could be straight out of a Wes Anderson film, inviting passers-by to stop and admire its dreamy facade.

And stepping inside feels appropriately surreal, with Oscar Bar and Restaurant on the ground floor transporting guests back to a bygone era of white gloves and elegant glassware. On the walls you'll see colourful artwork inspired by the Bloomsbury Set, a group of creatives including Virginia Woolf, that congregated in the area in the early 20th Century, with a large mural of London life by British artist Alexander Hollweg dominating the space. Kit Kemp, the hotel's interior designer, is clearly a fan of dopamine decor.

It's this slightly fantastical experience that makes The Charlotte Street Hotel one of the most beloved hotels in London. The classic hotel opened in Fitzrovia in 2000 and is the third property from the now hugely successful Firmdale Hotels group. Since its '00s launch, the Charlotte Street Hotel has retained a steady stream of visitors, whether that's Londoners looking for a stylish place to drink and dine, colleagues who favour a more relaxed location for a business meeting, or out-of-towners seeking a luxurious base to explore the capital.

ROOMS

Rooms at The Charlotte Street hotel may be slightly pricier than your typical London hotel—but with good reason. Each of the hotel's 52 rooms is individually designed by Kit Kemp, the mastermind behind the rest of the hotel's playful spaces, and features bright, bold colours and patterned textiles that feel like artwork rather than interior design. The actual artwork on the walls is of high calibre, featuring artists associated with the early Bloomsbury movement such as Vanessa Bell, Roger Fry and Alexander Hollweg. This eclectic mix of modern art, textures, patterns, and colours gives rooms at The Charlotte Street Hotel a lived-in luxury; an antidote to the more generic hotel rooms guests sometimes encounter in five-star hotels.

Beds are plush and comfy, dressed in high-quality linens with bold, patterned headboards, while bathrooms are clad in granite, mahogany, and glass and feature luxe toiletries from RIKRAK by Kit Kemp. For a real treat, the split-level Loft Suites are spectacular, offering a free-standing tub, walk-in shower and views over London's rooftops.

FOOD & DRINKS

Oscar Bar and Restaurant pays tribute to a nearby private cinema that screens Academy-worthy films. The front section is the bar area, serving unique cocktails and an extensive wine list. It's the ideal place to enjoy a festive glass of champagne, or you could retreat to one of the armchairs in the hotel's cosy library, complete with a roaring open fire. The warmer months invite guests to live out a Parisian daydream, sipping fizz on the pastel-hued front terrace and watching the world go by.

The bistro restaurant, situated at the back of the hotel, offers more formal dining with talented Head Chef Ben Porter at the helm. The restaurant serves modern European classics such as pancetta-wrapped monkfish, roast rack of lamb with fondant potato, black cabbage, and bagna càuda, or sticky black cod. Oscar always looks busy, with a reputation for fine dining and a lively atmosphere, bringing in crowds every day of the week who are looking to experience a little Parisienne café culture in Fitzrovia.

In the bar, you'll find a cocktail menu as creative as the surroundings. Perch on a humbug-striped stool at the hotel's glitzy bar and sip on a Salome's Whisper (basil vodka, Benedictine, lemon, sugar syrup, and aquafaba), Lady Windermere (Tokaji Late Harvest, Tanqueray, Saint-Germain, lime, and fresh mint), or the signature Lady Charlotte (gin, maraschino, apricot, lemon, sugar, egg white).

ACTIVITIES

At the Charlotte Street Hotel, you're right in the heartland of London's restaurant scene. The many bustling bars and glamorous restaurants of Soho and Mayfair are a short walk away, but if you want something closer to the hotel, the options are still strong. Hakkasan, a Michelin-starred uber-glamorous Chinese restaurant, is a short stroll away on Hanway Place, while Charlotte Street itself boasts Roka, a modern Japanese restaurant, and The Ninth, a buzzing contemporary French and Mediterranean bistro.

Oscar also serves an ‘Afternoon Tea with a Twist’. The 'Indulge menu' allows guests to add three miniature cocktails to their tea, with non-alcoholic options available too. Guests can enjoy their scones and finer sandwiches in the drawing room or the hotel's restaurant.

At the hotel, you'll find a fitness centre and a sauna available to guests. There's no official spa, but guests can opt for a treatment in their room, whether that's a facial, massage, reflexology or a touch of grooming, organised through Soholistic. There's also a private screening room where guests can enjoy recent releases, classic cinema and Christmassy films during the festive period.

NEED TO KNOWS

Rooms at the Charlotte Street Hotel start at £390 per night, and you can book through the hotel's website.

Address: 15-17 Charlotte St., London W1T 1RJ

“Claude, fix my face.” That was not the prompt that I, or rather, my boyfriend, gave an AI platform, but it decided to enhance me anyway. A few weeks ago, my partner was taking a photo of me when a woman strolled past, walking a dalmatian. “I should've asked to borrow her dog,” I quipped, as I too was bedecked in spots. “Stick out your arm like you're holding a leash,” he replied. I didn't give it much thought, but within minutes, he'd uploaded the photo to an AI platform, and back came a rendered image of me holding a dalmatian.

He presented the image to me, perhaps expecting me to be impressed by the speed with which this relatively new tech could update my image when, only a short while ago, it would have taken someone experienced in Photoshop to create it. But the first thing I noticed wasn't the dog; it was my face.

Without prompting, the AI had given me a beaming smile with perfectly straight, white teeth. My cheekbones were higher, my face smoothed out, my eyebrows better groomed. It still looked like me, but I guess the intention was to show a 'better' version of me, when all that had been requested was for a spotted dog to be added in.

Later, when I told friends about this odd experience, they suggested I prompt the AI further, turning me into Cruella de Vil. What came back was an even more yassified version of me: the smile tighter, the skin tauter, even if a dodgy wig did crown the look.

I thought again of this incident, when Meta's latest AI rollout, which has since been pulled, prompted a flurry of concern. During my afternoon doomscroll, my feed became awash with the news that users would be able to generate AI images using other people's likenesses, with news reports rushing to show people how to opt out. The fury of users was so widespread that Meta made the unusual decision to reverse this feature; posting on their newsroom that: "We've heard the feedback that this feature missed the mark, so it’s no longer available." Much of the conversation rightly centred on consent, ownership and the implications of AI-generated versions of ourselves.

But my mind kept returning to a different question, because before AI can manipulate our images, it first has to decide what we should look like. I thought back to yet another conversation I'd had, this time with Nikki Lilly, who told me what it feels like to have strangers on the internet use AI to manipulate your face. Again, supposedly to "fix" her, or, more specifically, her facial difference.

Though the severity and mental health implications varied wildly, in both cases, no one had asked for a makeover.

For my part, there was no prompt requesting whiter teeth, smoother skin or more sculpted cheekbones. Yet the AI seemed to assume those were improvements worth making anyway. It wasn't simply following instructions; it was making aesthetic decisions on my behalf.

That might sound trivial. After all, we've spent years voluntarily downloading beauty filters and smoothing apps. But there's an important difference between choosing to alter your appearance and having an AI decide to do it for you, especially given that there's an entire cottage industry sprouting up which allows users to upload their image to AI platforms that will then suggest—and later sell—beauty tweakments. Qoves, a facial aesthetics platform that uses AI and computer vision to analyse users' facial features and provide personalised appearance assessments and recommendations based on aesthetic research, has 1.1 million followers on Instagram alone.

The more I spoke to experts, as well as friends who’d had similar experiences (unkempt eyebrows seems to be an Achilles heel for AI), the more I realised my experience wasn't just an odd quirk of one platform. It points to a much bigger question about the beauty standards being baked into the AI tools we're increasingly relying on to create, edit and represent us. If these systems are learning from the internet's existing ideals of attractiveness, are they also reinforcing them—one automatically enhanced image at a time?

​According to psychologists, that's exactly what makes these seemingly minor edits so powerful. "When people repeatedly see a slightly enhanced version of themselves—smoother skin, more symmetry, subtly narrowed features—it can recalibrate their internal standard of what they 'should' look like," explains Tara Well, associate professor of psychology at Barnard College of Columbia University. "Over time, the unedited face can begin to feel like a deviation rather than the baseline."

We've become used to talking about social media through the lens of comparison. For years, experts have warned that scrolling through impossibly beautiful celebrities and influencers can leave us feeling inadequate. But AI introduces a new, more intimate–and insidious–comparison: instead of measuring ourselves against other people, we're measuring ourselves against idealised versions of ourselves.

Where traditional beauty filters require an active choice–we know we've selected one, and we're usually aware that what we're looking at isn't entirely real–AI-generated enhancements are different. They're often subtle, automatic and, in my case, completely unsolicited.

"Traditional filters involve a degree of choice and awareness," says Well. "Automatic enhancements blur that boundary. Because the changes are subtle and default, users may not fully register that their appearance has been altered, which can make the enhanced version feel more 'real'. The less effortful and more invisible the modification, the more psychologically persuasive it becomes."

"In short," says Well, "these systems don't just reflect beauty standards—they quietly standardise them. And because the changes are subtle and automatic, they may be more powerful than traditional filters in shaping how people see themselves."

If AI is discreetly reinforcing conventional beauty ideals, the next question is where those ideals came from in the first place.

Professor Clare McGlynn, an expert in law and gender-based violence, argues that these technologies don't exist in a vacuum. They are trained on the same cultural biases that have long shaped women's relationship with their appearance.

"Your example shows just how deeply embedded traditional views of women and beauty are," she tells me. "We know social media exposure has adversely impacted girls' self-esteem and body image, contributing to psychological distress and self-harm. The concern is that AI could intensify those harms because it makes these 'improvements' feel even more seamless and inevitable."

In many ways, that's what unsettled me most. It wasn't that the AI had made dramatic changes to my face. Quite the opposite. The edits were subtle enough to feel plausible. The kind of tweaks you might struggle to put your finger on (worryingly, my partner hadn’t even noticed), but that, combined, nudged me a little closer to a familiar beauty ideal.

I’m not the only person left questioning myself. Journalist Kish Lal had a strikingly similar experience after asking Claude to analyse her appearance as part of a reporting project. Like me, she thought she'd be able to keep an emotional distance from the results. Instead, she found herself dwelling on critiques she'd never previously considered.

"I'm an AI hater to my core," she laughs. "I hate the way it smoothes and flattens whatever it touches." Even so, one suggestion lingered: again, it was the eyebrows. "The robot told me my eyebrows would look better if they were more manicured," she says. "I'd always loved my bushy brows. I used to rip photos of Natalia Vodianova out of magazines because of hers. I even joked to a friend that the AI must just be telling everyone to thread their eyebrows."

Then her friend tried the same experiment. "It complimented her brows and told her to get filler instead," Lal recalls. “I couldn't believe that my theory was not only debunked, but that I perhaps, maybe I could look better if I got my eyebrows threaded regularly. I scheduled an appointment to get them done the next day.”

It's easy to dismiss moments like these as trivial or even funny. But they reveal something much more uncomfortable. AI doesn't need to tell us we're unattractive to influence how we see ourselves. Sometimes, all it has to do is quietly suggest that we'd look a little better if we were just... slightly different.

The more sophisticated these tools become, the more they're marketed as neutral assistants—helping us create images, edit photos or generate avatars in seconds. But assistants aren't neutral if they're making value judgements on our behalf.

On their own, those edits seem almost laughably insignificant. I joked about my 'glow-up' with friends the way Kish Lal did and yet in both instances, we were left wondering what difference those subtle suggestions would make to our appearance.

As AI-generated images become more common—and companies race to build tools that can create ever more convincing versions of us—we'll spend a lot of time talking about consent, copyright and misinformation. We absolutely should, but I'd argue we also need to ask another question: when AI decides what we should look like, whose idea of beauty is it reproducing?

Because if I ask it to add a dalmatian, I'd quite like it to stop there.

I flew to Rio expecting to report on Shakira's record-breaking concert. Instead, I found myself inside a fully immersive brand world that made me question whether holidays themselves have fundamentally changed.

Increasingly, it seems we're travelling not just to see places, but to become part of a moment—and brands have noticed.

By the time I arrived at Copacabana Beach for Todo Mundo No Rio, the free open-air festival where an estimated two million people would gather to watch Shakira perform—and, crucially, the reason for my visit—I owned a Corona sarong, a Corona T-shirt, a Corona cap embroidered with "Copacabana" in the brand's signature font, a raffia beach bag, badges and enough merchandise to convincingly pass as a member of staff.

I had spent the previous evening drinking shimmering Corona beers brewed to mirror Rio's golden-hour glow at a sundowner DJ set atop Sugarloaf Mountain. On the day of the much-anticipated festival, artists hand-painted silk scarves featuring illustrations of Sugarloaf, Copacabana, and, of course, the Corona logo. There were customisation stations where we queued to make our merch bespoke.

It seemed that I hadn't just travelled to Rio; I'd stepped inside the Corona universe. I've been lucky enough to go on my fair share of press trips over the years. They usually revolve around a beautiful hotel, a launch dinner or a carefully curated itinerary. This, though, was different. Not so for my travelling companion, who had previously flown to Corona Island, the beer brand's own tropical enclave off the coast of Cartagena, Colombia.

At first, it felt like very slick marketing backed by a very big budget. But between those customisation stations, sunset parties and Shakira performing to millions on the beach, I realised Corona wasn't simply sponsoring a festival—it was offering something increasingly valuable: the feeling of belonging to a moment. Being a Brit, my mind drifted to the silky-smooth M&S ads of yore… "This is not just a brand activation… this is a Corona brand event."

Or, to use the brand's own parlance: "This Is Living." That fittingly apt brand slogan neatly sums up something we're all craving—something that should be a given—but feels increasingly elusive in our digital-first world: living.

We're No Longer Just Travelling to See Places

Was Rio an anomaly—or a glimpse of where travel is heading? We often talk about experience-led travel as though it's another passing holiday trend, lumping it alongside sleep tourism, wellness retreats and solo travel. But I wonder if something more fundamental is happening. Increasingly, we're not content to travel simply to see places; we're travelling to step inside worlds.

Just look at the holidays dominating our wish lists. People don't just go to Edinburgh; they go because Taylor Swift is in town. They don't simply book Silverstone; they travel for Formula One. Sicily isn't just Sicily anymore—it's The White Lotus, Euro Summer and Dua Lipa's wedding destination. Thousands of people fly across continents to run marathons, attend immersive wellness retreats or spend weekends at festivals where the destination is almost secondary to the event. Yes, the place still matters. But more often than not, it's the moment that gets us on the plane.

The data suggests this isn't simply anecdotal. Mastercard's latest travel report argues that people's motivations are becoming one of the biggest forces shaping how—and where—they travel. Researchers identified two growing groups: those seeking immersion in local culture and those travelling for a specific experience, whether that's a sporting event, nightlife, shopping or a festival. "Today's tourists are looking for travel experiences that leave a lasting impression, helping them to create memories," explains Natalia Lechmanova, Mastercard's Chief Economist for Europe.

Of course, people have always travelled in search of memorable experiences. Safaris, pilgrimages and even the humble package holiday all promised some form of escape or enrichment. What's changed is the expectation. Today's holidays increasingly claim transformation. They're sold not as a chance to switch off, but as an opportunity to become someone else, however briefly.

Rio made that very clear. On paper, I'd travelled there to report on a music festival. In reality, I'd entered something closer to an immersive universe. Every touchpoint, from the Fairmont hotel takeover to the personalised merch, reinforced the sense that I was part of something designed to feel bigger than a holiday or even a festival.

Perhaps that's why the trusty old travel brochure feels so outdated. For decades, holiday marketing asked a nostalgically simple question: Where do you want to go? Today's savviest brands seem to be asking something altogether different: Who do you want to become while you're there?

The New Luxury Is Access

It's easy to dismiss Todo Mundo No Rio as a one-off. After all, not every brand has the budget to take over one of the world's most famous beaches or sponsor a concert for millions of people.

Then I found myself at Silverstone. This time, I was there as a guest of Revolut. Officially, I'd been invited to the British Grand Prix. In reality, I'd been invited into Formula One itself: hospitality suites, behind-the-scenes access, choreographed moments, including a Q&A with driver Gabriela Boroleto, and a front-row seat to one of the biggest weekends in British sport.

Despite the frighteningly hot weather (climate change, people!), it looked very different from Rio, but there were similarities. Both weekends were designed to make guests feel less like spectators than participants. Again, the event wasn't something just to watch; it was something to inhabit.

Neither brand was selling the event; they were selling proximity. Proximity to culture and exclusivity—a moment millions of other people wanted to be part of. Brands used to sell products. Then they sold lifestyles. Increasingly, I think they're selling memories—or perhaps more accurately, the opportunity to create them.

It's easy—and tempting—to dismiss this as clever marketing, but I don't think that's the whole story. If brands are investing millions in immersive experiences, it's because they've recognised something about the way we now travel. We no longer want to be passive observers. We want to belong.

Perhaps that's because modern life increasingly fragments us. We work remotely. We consume entertainment alone. Algorithms personalise everything we see. Even the internet, once imagined as a shared public square, increasingly serves each of us a different version of reality. Travel—and music festivals, which so often go hand in hand—have become one of the few places where we can still experience collective joy.

Standing on Copacabana Beach, surrounded by, quite literally, millions of people, I kept returning to a thought: I am part of this. That desire—to participate rather than just bear witness—helps explain why so many of today's biggest travel trends revolve around events, communities and transformation rather than destinations alone.

Of course, that doesn't mean we should surrender ourselves unquestioningly to branded worlds. There's a fascinating conversation to be had about commercialisation, authenticity and whether our experiences are becoming increasingly mediated by corporations. But dismissing experiences like Todo Mundo No Rio as simply marketing misses something important because they reveal how profoundly our relationship with travel has changed.

For my part, I went to Rio expecting to write about a beer brand throwing an extravagant festival. Instead, I came home wondering whether holidays themselves have fundamentally evolved, and thinking about why, increasingly, we're chasing moments that make us feel part of something bigger than ourselves.

Ultimately, I think we travel to step inside worlds—to belong to a moment, if only for a weekend, and return home feeling as though, however briefly, we were part of something bigger than ourselves.

Le Meurice is a dream for art lovers, its prestige unmatched worldwide. The luxury Paris hotel, situated on the historic Rue de Rivoli since 1835, is considered Paris' first 'Palace Hotel' and has a storied past. Le Meurice famously hosted the lavish wedding banquet of Picasso and Olga Khokhlova, bringing together Parisian high society in the hotel's Versailles-inspired Salon Pompadour. Le Meurice also charmed Salvador Dalí, who was so captivated by the hotel that he booked the Royal Suite Alphonse XIII for a month, every year for over three decades.

It was Dalí's part-time residence that inspired the father-and-daughter designer duo, the legendary Philippe Starck (the mind behind Sanderson London) and Ara Starck, when they refreshed the Dorchester Collection hotel in 2016, leaning into surrealism within the décor. Most notably, the Dalí restaurant features a stunning ceiling mural by French artist Ara, where dancers glide beneath the restaurant’s glass dome.

Stepping into the lobby, there's a lot to take in; Le Meurice's unique style blends traditional elegance with modern flair and a firm focus on art, both classical and contemporary. Leather seats are surprisingly embossed with portraits of 18th-century figures, mixed with Dalí-inspired furnishings. A painting by Baron François Girard, showing the hand of the 19th-century Parisian socialite Madame Regnaud, hung above the reception and is an instant talking point. Eero Saarinen's Tulip chairs offset the grand decor of Restaurant le Meurice Alain Ducasse, which was initially inspired by the Salon de la Paix at the Château de Versailles. There are plenty of playful touches, from Philippe Starck's interactive frosted mirror to Zoulikha Bouabdellah's modern art sculpture, 'The Kiss', in the lobby. Le Meurice is a seriously impressive hotel, but part of its charm is that it doesn't take itself too seriously.

Le Meurice is one of Paris' 12 Palace Hotels - along with the likes of the grand Le Bristol (rumoured to be the Kardashian's hotel of choice in Paris) and Le Hôtel Plaza Athénée, an accolade that celebrates hotels that transcend usual standards of luxury and veer into the exceptional, often housed in grand, historic buildings - basically the crème de la crème of French hospitality.

The hotel first opened its doors in 1835 and was named after its original owner, Charles-Augustin Meurice. Over the years, it's undergone multiple renovations from creatives and designers who've put their own stamp on the interiors. Yet, the hotel has retained its original spirit as a place for creatives and thinkers in the heart of Paris, with a vibrant, lively atmosphere, particularly at Le Dalí restaurant and the dimly lit Bar 228, which plays live jazz every night of the week until 1 am.

ROOMS

Each of the 160 rooms and suites (121 rooms and 39 suites) is designed in the same style, 'modern Versailles' style, by design studio Lally & Berger, who fuse classic Louis XVI styling with contemporary touches. Try and book a park-view room if you can - there are just 40 in the hotel, complete with classic iron balconies and romantic French windows, so these book up quickly. The plush bathrooms are crafted from marble, with fluffy robes and towels, and all feature a free-standing tub and a separate, large walk-in shower with luxury toiletries from Maison Francis Kurkdjian. Complementary water, fruits, and artisan chocolates are replenished at the end of each day.

The suites are suitably jaw-dropping, with huge bathrooms, a walk-in wardrobe and classic Parisian dressing rooms. And let's not forget the views. For those lucky enough to stay in the Belle Étoile Penthouse, meticulously designed by Lally & Berger, the private rooftop offers spectacular panoramic views of the Tuileries Gardens and landmark sites like the Louvre, the Eifle Tower, and Notre Dame in the distance.

FOOD & DRINKS

The food at Le Meurice is one of its biggest draws, with the two-Michelin-starred Restaurant Le Meurice Alain Ducasse among the premier dining spots in Paris, housed in a beautiful space overlooking the Tuileries. For a fine dining experience, this luxurious restaurant offers a journey through French flavours.

The more relaxed Restaurant Le Dalí offers a lively setting to enjoy French classics, with a strong focus on local and seasonal ingredients. You'll find nods to the surrealist painter throughout the restaurant, including the hand-painted canvas by artist Ara Starck, depicting a series of dancers in bold shades, adding a little bit of theatrics to the surroundings.

For an aperitif or nightcap, the sumptuous Bar 228 is a luxurious den with dark wood pannelling and deep leather armchairs to sink into after a long day's exploring. Guests can also pop in for a high-brow pastry at La Pâtisserie du Meurice par Cedric Grolet, a charming pastry boutique dedicated to the hotel’s own pastry chef.

ACTIVITIES

At Le Meurice, the sights of central Paris are quite literally on your doorstep, and if you want to venture further afield, the Tuileries Metro stop (Line 1) is a short stroll away. For those exploring on foot, the Tuileries Gardens, offering a lush green oasis in the heart of the city, are a good place to start. As a bonus, the Eurostar is just 15 minutes away, so getting to the hotel is a complete breeze.

Back at the hotel, there's a small spa with four treatment rooms (two for couples and two for individuals), as well as saunas and steam rooms. Treatments are suitably luxurious, including Valmont facials and a wide range of massages, from hot stone to Swedish.

NEED TO KNOWS

Rooms at Le Meurice start at £1,277 per night, and you can book through the hotel's website.

Address: 228, Rue de Rivoli, Paris, 75001, France

From Splitsville to Lily Allen’s tell-all album, ethical non-monogamy has been having a bit of a PR crisis. Open relationships and swinging are often portrayed as messy, doomed, or a marriage on the brink of collapse. So when I sat down to watch The Invite—Olivia Wilde's new dinner-party comedy in which an ethically non-monogamous couple propositions their neighbours—I expected more of the same. I was wrong.

Without spoiling what happens, The Invite gives ENM the nuanced portrayal it rarely gets on screen. The story follows two couples whose dinner descends into arguments, flirtation and, eventually, a proposition. Yet, for once, the open couple (played by Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton) aren't the dysfunctional one. Instead, it's the supposedly "normal" monogamous pair (Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen) whose relationship begins to unravel.

It doesn't suggest ethical non-monogamy is easier than monogamy, nor that one relationship model is inherently better than another. What it does do is resist the simplistic stereotypes that have dominated portrayals of open relationships for decades.

"For decades, open relationships have shown up on screen as a shorthand for chaos, imminent betrayal, or a marriage in crisis," explains Ruby Rare, Intimacy Expert at Feeld. "We rarely see them simply existing, how they're actually negotiated and experienced. It's refreshing to see The Invite, a glossy Hollywood production, flip this script, with the non-monogamous couple portrayed as having the healthier and happier relationship dynamic."

As someone who has dated people in open relationships, I know firsthand how often ethical non-monogamy is misunderstood. As open relationships, swinging, and polyamory become more visible, it feels more important than ever to move beyond sensationalism and ask what these relationships actually look like in practice.

So I spoke to four people living in ethical non-monogamy about the realities rarely shown on screen.

"People are not worried about sex—they're worried about what sex means"

Ben and Olivia have been together for two years. Ben is also married, and his wife and children have met Olivia, who also has a partner. "We operate a kitchen table style polyam where everyone knows each other and would hang out independently too," Ben explains.

He didn't grow up believing ethical non-monogamy was even an option. "I grew up in a very heteronormative culture, where the only exposure I can remember growing up was when my parents mentioned their coworkers had tried swinging and it had destroyed their marriages. Not exactly a glowing endorsement."

Like many people practising ethical non-monogamy, his understanding developed gradually rather than overnight. It was his wife's desire to explore her sexuality that first prompted them to reconsider what their relationship could look like, beginning with a threesome before eventually dating other people independently.

"I won't lie, there followed a period of unlearning, of understanding what each of our triggers and insecurities were," he says. "People are not worried about sex; they're worried about what sex means, about being abandoned, about not being loved. Monogamy or polyamory are not better or worse than each other, they are just different, but what polyamory does is force you to confront insecurities, to explore yourself and for your partner to do the same."

It's a perspective rarely reflected in mainstream storytelling. While films often treat non-monogamy as inherently dramatic, Ben describes something far less sensational: the ongoing work of communication, self-reflection and emotional honesty.

"Mainstream media tends to focus on it being an oddity, at the fringes of society, filled with strange, ugly queer people," he says. "There is also an obsession with ENM done wrong and failing… this does happen, but by people who were never ENM in the first place and just wanted to sleep around and didn't care if it hurt people."

That gap between lived experience and cultural representation is precisely what The Invite begins to challenge. Rather than presenting openness as evidence that a relationship is failing, it allows its characters the emotional complexity that monogamous couples have long been afforded on screen.

"Ethical non-monogamy isn't a band-aid"

Olivia came to ENM from a very different starting point: a long-term relationship in which she began to question whether exclusivity was her only option and a desire to explore her interest in women.

"I feared we'd have to break up if I wanted to do this," she says. Instead, her partner suggested an open relationship, something she hadn’t even considered possible."I was so relieved and grateful because I was deeply in love with them and didn't want to break up," she explains. "I had always been attracted to multiple people but had avoided exploring these connections for fear of hurting people. Now I had the opportunity… I dove into learning about how to do it conscientiously."

Like Ben, Olivia describes ethical non-monogamy not as the absence of commitment, but as a relationship structure that demands more intentional communication than many people realise. And while mainstream portrayals often frame open relationships as a last-ditch attempt to save something broken, she believes that's one of the biggest misconceptions.

"If you're considering opening things up, make sure you address relational problems before getting involved with other people. ENM is not a band-aid. Be as open and upfront as you can be."

She also challenges the idea that jealousy is inherently incompatible with non-monogamy: “Jealousy often comes from a place of fear; consider why you’re feeling it and what you need.” Rather than pretending jealousy doesn't exist, she says ethical non-monogamy has taught her to examine where those feelings come from instead of treating them as evidence that the relationship itself is failing.

And while ENM is often portrayed as emotionally volatile or unstable, she describes something more grounded. What’s missing from most depictions, she argues, is the “wonderful community that comes with being polyamorous as well.”

It's another aspect of ethical non-monogamy that The Invite hints at, but which popular culture has rarely been interested in exploring. Conflict makes for compelling cinema; healthy communication rarely does.

Redefining what commitment looks like

If Ben and Olivia arrived at ethical non-monogamy through existing relationships, Vic's experience began from a different place altogether. She was single when she first started dating someone who was also seeing other people. “It really didn't bother me. That felt refreshing and right for where I was,” she says. “I was getting to know this person with low pressure and without the relationship escalator ringing in my ear.”

For Vic, stepping outside the traditional expectation that every successful relationship should move through the same milestones allowed her to recognise patterns she'd previously struggled with.

"It set up the conditions to create a loving relationship that I have been in for the past six months. I struggled with losing myself in relationships and forgiving poor behaviour before. It was linked to a feeling of low self-worth."

What often gets lost in conversations about ENM, Vic suggests, is that it isn’t about replacing commitment, but redefining what commitment looks like. “My girlfriend and I have a very fulfilling sex life, but there are things I enjoy that she doesn't. She doesn't expect me to be fulfilled by one person, and I don't expect that either.”

Still, she is clear that intention matters. “For me, wanting to experience new things is such a normal part of life… I'm still a full human who needs to show up for people who are already in my life.”

Like many people practising ethical non-monogamy, Vic has encountered assumptions from people who know little about it. In her first polyamorous relationship, she told colleagues about her relationship, only for one to describe it as a "porn star relationship."

She believes media portrayals have helped reinforce those misunderstandings. "It's often sensationalised and misrepresents the power dynamics. Often, it is one person wanting it and the other acquiescing, or it's adding a third to an existing couple. Not everyone dates together in ENM. I date separately."

Why does popular culture still get ethical non-monogamy wrong?

Dylan* came to polyamory through a relationship with someone who was already practising ethical non-monogamy. Looking back, he believes that made the transition significantly easier than trying to open up an existing relationship.

"Polyamorous dating as a single person is much easier than trying to open up a previously closed relationship. The more variables you're dealing with at once, the more difficult it can be."

Across all these experiences, a pattern emerges: ENM is rarely about casual excess or emotional detachment, and yet, most depictions still fall back on familiar tropes. Dylan notes that many narratives are “written by people who have no personal experience of poly relationships,” which leads to predictable framing: “it being all about sex, rather than companionship” or a default “regular couple” structure where secondary partners are emotionally flattened out of the story.

What’s missing, in other words, is not drama, but accuracy. And as ENM becomes more visible in culture, from celebrity narratives to films like The Invite, the question is no longer whether it exists on screen, but whether it can be shown without being reduced. Ethical non-monogamy is certainly not the easy choice, but for many it’s the right one. It’s time we show healthy and committed polyamorous couples onscreen and stop reducing them to punchlines or plot twists. We need to start treating ENM as what it already is for many people: just another way of doing relationships, with all the complexity that implies.

*Names changed

There are moments when the climate crisis stops feeling like something that belongs to the future and becomes horrifyingly immediate.

Last week, the heat-struck UK got a dose of climate reality. Because the universe evidently loves irony, record-breaking temperatures coincided with London Climate Action Week. By mid-morning, day one, the Met Office issued its second-ever Red Warning for extreme heat and London Climate Week announced that several events on extreme heat would be cancelled due to… extreme heat.

To reflect the new reality, Greenpeace updated iconic tube station signs. Baker Street to Baking Street and London Bridge to London’s Burning. But many clung to the idea that heatwaves are joyous occasions, and all issues can be remedied with a Mr Whippy ice cream in the park.

"Heatwave Delusion" and the deadliest form of extreme weather

I call this the Heatwave Delusion. We can trace it back to the summer of 1976, when the UK saw two weeks of temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius and drought conditions, where it became normal to queue for water in the street.

But in time, the bad bits seem to have been forgotten, leaving a memory of the time Brits had fun in the sun and displayed true grit from their deckchairs. It’s so deeply embedded in our collective culture that even if you weren’t born (and I was only two), it has likely affected the way you think about heat, almost as a rare gift.

But what would that same heatwave look like in today's warming world, and in the Britain of 2056? Well, to open London Climate Week, I went to an event built around that one provocative idea.

Escaping into the cool basement of the Lightroom in King’s Cross, we congregated to watch three familiar faces - Laura Tobin, Clare Nasir and Peter Gibbs - deliver a weather forecast for 2056, modelled by scientists at the University of Reading working with the Met Office.

While the map looked reassuringly ordinary, the temperatures did not. In 2056, it showed London reaching 45 degrees Celsius. Scotland climbed into the high 30s. It showed a two-week heatwave in which somewhere in Britain would exceed 40 degrees Celsius for nine consecutive days.

Experts from climate science, food, agriculture, the ambulance service and a top surgeon from London Hospital, Great Ormond Street also took to the stage. They explained that heat isn't just uncomfortable; it’s the deadliest form of extreme weather, placing pressure on hospitals, transport, food systems and the people least able to keep cool. We were left in no doubt. Those summers regarded by previous generations as exceptional - including 1976 – are now becoming the baseline reality. In the future, we may look back on this as one of the cooler summers.

Science colliding with everyday life

Outside, it felt as if the science was colliding with everyday life. As the week wore on, London broke all heat records. London Ambulance broke callout records. At points, emergency call handlers were answering over 500 calls an hour, more than during Covid. Schools closed, and rail services faltered.

It became clear that our infrastructure is built for the past, not the present. I wanted to understand how we can adapt. Luckily, Climate Week was full of people who spend their time thinking of solutions. Emma Howard Boyd, Chair of the London Climate Resilience Review, told me how we need to redesign our lives for the climate we now have (not the one in 1976). That means more trees, less concrete paving, homes that stay cool naturally, neighbourhoods where shade is treated as essential infrastructure and public buildings that double as cool refuges.

Fighting for what you love

I discovered Cool off in Culture, a programme involving the BFI and Arts Council England, among others, that encourages us to use cinemas, theatres and museums as cool refuges during extreme heat. I like the idea of our cultural institutions offering not just escape into another world for a couple of hours, but escape from the heat too. Only three per cent of UK homes have air conditioning, so it makes sense for us to look differently at the shared resources we already have.

I learned about the emerging ‘shade-first’ movement, advocating for the cooling power of mature trees, awnings and green spaces (especially in our towns and cities, many of which act as heat islands – driving temperatures up). In a hotter Britain, shade can’t be a luxury. It becomes essential.

I caught up with influencer Nairn King. Originally from Arbroath in Scotland (which could experience temperatures in the mid 30s by 2056), Nairn's content is based on a passion for London life, especially weekend brunch. Looking at the 2056 forecast, I asked, ‘What are you thinking?’ Nairn paused. ‘The London summer is the point,’ came the reply. ‘And that won't be happening in 45-degree heat.’ A reminder that whatever it is we love, we need to fight for it.