Chatting to your kids is not supposed to be habitual. Communication is an art. So if you want more than a habituated response you’re going to have to be a little more creative in your questions. “How was your day?” is never going to get more than an answer of “Fine”. I’d like to address…
The former Congolese vice-president, Jean-Pierre Bemba, has been found guilty in the first trial at the international criminal court to focus on the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. The 53-year-old warlord commanded a militia that committed mass murder, rape and pillage in the neighbouring Central African Republic, the court ruled at…
It once used to be that the word blessed, along with its derivatives, had hallowed connotations. Not entirely so these days, especially in black urban circles where “blessers” are a hot topic of conversation and all the rage. But what is a blesser? He’s a new version of the sugar daddy, except his spending power…
There was a nickname some of the boys in my primary school had for me, growing up in Laudium, Pretoria. Blackie. They weren’t white kids, but rather South African Indians; confined as we were by the stringent categorising of apartheid, even in its dying days. Tears pricked my eyes aged 11 when the worst of…
Millennials will make up half of the global workforce by 2050. Although generalisations are not helpful, broadly speaking members of this generation, born between 1980 and 1994 and also known as Generation Y, are bound together by the fact they have come of age during a severe financial crisis, have been both the pioneers and…
Managing anxiety can be a giant pain in the *ss. If you have social anxiety, for instance, then it can take a tremendous amount of effort to calm yourself enough to engage in social situations (such as a networking event). Read it at Romper. Image – freeimages.com
When women become mothers one of their biggest fears is that they will lose themselves. Rather than seeing pregnancy and birth as a learning experience or a series of opportunities, women often feel they have to prove that nothing has changed. That they’re still exactly the same person they were before having a child. For…
His alleged victims were humiliated, abused, raped and kept quiet. They were supposed to be able to trust him. Monsignor Francis McCaa spent nearly 40 years in the ministry, and for 25 of them, he was a serial abuser of young boys in his care, some as young as eight years old, according to a…
My laptop is suffering from a case of “pop-ups ads”, causing the most random things to appear on my screen. Often what appears are adverts to earn money in something that smells very much like a Ponzi scheme, but one day what came up was a cartoon of a man ripping the underwear off a…
Too little sleep may bring on a form of the marijuana “munchies”, say scientists who found that sleep-deprived people craved crisps, sweets and biscuits far more than healthier foods. The US researchers believe that skimping on sleep alters brain chemicals in much the same way as the hunger-boosting ingredient in cannabis, which has long propped…
The charge could not be more damning: we now know that one of the UK’s most admired institutions allowed a hugely prolific sexual predator to flourish in its midst for almost half a century. Dame Janet Smith’s report into the crimes committed by Jimmy Savile in connection with his work at the BBC has identified…
British doctors say more parents are requesting so-called “vaginal seeding”, when a swab from the mother’s vagina is wiped into a newborn’s mouth after caesarean-section birth, despite a lack of evidence for its medical benefits. The practice, also known as microbirthing, involves wiping the swab over the baby’s mouth, eyes, face and skin to bring…
Menswear or womenswear — who cares? Genderless fashion is the buzzword for many of today’s top designers, highlighted at London Fashion Week by a string of androgynous touches on the catwalks. From Christopher Kane’s heavy, dark, asymmetric tailoring to Burberry’s parade of male and female models in military overcoats and aviator jackets, masculine styling repeatedly…
If you craned your neck you could just catch a glimpse of mum, lying on her back looking a little ruminative but well enough, tucked cosily away in a corner of Bristol zoo’s gorilla house. Baby was upstairs, already full of character and life and trying to heave herself upright though she is only 11…
Kentucky lawmaker Mary Lou Marzian introduced a bill to ban men from accessing Viagra unless they had a signed note from their wife, two doctor visits and a sworn promise that they’d only use the drugs with their spouse. The registered nurse wanted to highlight the difference in politics between men and women’s health regulations….