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With celebrity offspring being churned out on a conveyor belt of new social media supermodels (Lily-Rose Depp, Iris Law, Anaïs Gallagher, Hailey Baldwin, Kaia Gerber, Brooklyn Beckham et al), it was only a matter of time before the daughter of the original and best Brit supermodel, Kate Moss, stepped out onto the field.
In the new image, teased on The Braid Bar's Instagram account yesterday, Lila Grace poses with Stella Jones, the teen daughter of The Clash guitarist Mick Jones, both sporting colourful braids from the salon's new summer menu. The Braid Bar was set up three years ago by Kate Moss' friend Sarah Hiscox, alongside Willa Burton, and Lila Grace and Stella are certainly in good company, with Maddi Waterhouse, Iris Law and Anaïs Gallagher all previously starring in promotional images.
Until now, Kate Moss has ensured that her daughter has been kept out of the spotlight, though Lila was signed by her mother's modelling agency, the Kate Moss agency last year. Despite being just 14 years old, it seems fated that Lila begins her modelling career now, not only because she already has the same beautiful bone structure as her mother but because Kate was exactly the same age when she was first scouted at JFK airport. Though an unexpected start to her modelling career (some may have expected something like a Burberry campaign), we actually prefer the innocence and youthful playfulness of a fun hair-braiding brand and it's safe to assume that Lila is destined to be the future face of fashion.
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Earlier today a mysterious emergency meeting was called at Buckingham Palace which caused the rumour mill to go into overdrive. Predictably, the first thing everyone wondered was whether the Queen or Prince Philip had died or been taken ill.
But no, they’re both still alive and kicking and the announcement was less momentous. Prince Philip, who will be 96 this month, is retiring from his royal duties this autumn, Buckingham Palace said.
He will attend the engagements already in the diary between now and August but won’t be accepting any new invitations, the BBC reported.
The Queen’s schedule will remain as busy as ever though, and she "will continue to carry out a full programme of official engagements", the palace said.
Prince Philip was the fifth busiest member of the royal family in 2016, having partaken in 110 days of engagements, according to Court Circular listings. He is also linked to more than 780 organisations, either as a patron, president or member, but will no longer regularly attend their events.
Before the announcement was made, The Sun newspaper jumped to its own conclusions, mistakenly publishing a story suggesting the prince had died, reported The Independent.
Image: Screenshot.
“Prince Philip dead at 95, how did the Duke of Edinburgh die, etc etc.,” read the headline of the online article.
The piece continued: "Prince Philip, otherwise known as the Duke of Edinburgh, was the husband of Queen Elizabeth II."
"He was married to Queen Elizabeth II. The pair had four children together - Prince Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward."
The article was deleted just minutes after it was published but continued to show up on Google search. The Sun wasn't the only publication to get a little carried away, however, as some French media also published similarly incorrect stories about the prince.
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More girls and young women now admit to binge drinking than men, despite a drop in overall rates of alcohol consumption in the UK, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The drop in drinking levels is perhaps to be expected, considering how obsessed many of us are with health and wellness and the rise of #fitspo, but the gender disparity is pretty surprising.
Among 16-24 year-olds, girls and women are more likely to binge drink regularly than men, with 40.5% admitting to having done so in the past week, up 3% on last year. Just 34.4% of men admitted to doing the same – a 13% drop on last year.
This makes the gap between genders the biggest since current research began. The last time young women were more likely to binge drink than young men was in 2009.
“Binge drinking” is defined as eight units a day for men – about four pints of normal strength beer or three quarters of a bottle of wine; and six units for women – equivalent to three pints of beer or two large glasses of wine. The government recommends people avoid drinking more than 14 units a week, spread over three days or more.
The drinks industry has recently amped up its marketing aimed at young women as their disposable income has increased, which experts said could account for the latest figures.
“This explains the rise in recent years of fruit-based beers and ciders and drinks marketed as being low-calorie,” Sir Ian Gilmore, chairman of Alcohol Health Alliance UK, told The Times. “In addition, wine and vodka, drinks preferred by women, have come down in price in real terms in recent years.”
The figures suggest that while young people are less likely to drink than any other age group, when they do drink, they tend to drink more on their heaviest drinking day than other age groups.
Overall, the poll of nearly 8,000 Britons showed a slight fall in alcohol consumption, with just under 60% saying they had drunk alcohol in the previous week – the lowest rate since the survey began in 2005, when the rate was 64.2%.
The number of teetotallers in the UK is also on the rise. Just over a fifth (20.9%) said they didn't drink alcohol at all – a 2% rise since 2005 – which equates to about 10.6 million people. Shirley Temples all round, then.
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Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that the highly anticipated video for Ed Sheeran’s "Galway Girl" landed today. The three-minute ad for the Irish tourist board shows Sheeran’s very own Irish girl, Saoirse Ronan leading him by the hand through the streets of Galway as they embark on a pub crawl, run into locals, throw some shapes on the dance floor, knock back pints of Guinness and hit up a tattoo parlour.
The Irish-inspired anthem reached number two in the UK and number one in Ireland and hasn’t left the top 10 since it was released in March; so why does everyone I know seem – to put it mildly – to detest it so violently?
Other songs from Sheeran’s latest album Divide continue to dominate the charts and it's finally become acceptable to listen to "Shape Of You" without irony (phew). "Galway Girl" has been a huge popular success and has generated a forest’s worth of column inches, but it seems to be one of the most hated songs of our age.
It was panned by critics, described as a “ludicrous” song with a “preposterous” fusion of sounds, and a “hilariously literal take on Irish-inflected pop”. It’s been slammed on social media; even Sheeran's record label tried to keep it off the album. “They were really, really against "Galway Girl", because apparently folk music isn’t cool,” he told The Guardian. “But there’s 400m people in the world that say they’re Irish, even if they’re not Irish. You meet them in America all the time: ‘I’m a quarter Irish and I’m from Donegal.’ And those type of people are going to fucking love it.”
I’m not even one of those people – as far as I know, I’m roughly 0% Irish – but I fucking love "Galway Girl".
Considering the song’s phenomenal commercial success, I know I’m not alone but, among my friends, family and colleagues, I’ve become a pariah. I was very nearly banished from the office when I accidentally pulled out my headphones from the socket mid-song. I wish I was exaggerating.
I’ll admit the lyrics are a patchwork of Irish stereotypes and cheesy as fuck. Not only does Sheeran’s Galway girl “play the fiddle in an Irish band”, she’s also a whizz at darts and pool, and somehow manages to stay conscious after drinking Jameson, Jack Daniels, Guinness and Johnny Walker during a single evening. One minute she’s dancing to Van Morrison and the next she’s dancing a ceilidh to trad tunes.
All that's missing are four-leaf clovers, leprechauns and pots of gold at the end of a rainbow – and don't even get me started on the song's geographical inaccuracies. (There's a full list of Sheeran’s Irish references on The Daily Edge.)
Ed Sheehan writing a song: I met her *throws dice* in a caravan park, she was *spins wheel* an unhappy bartender, I don't have a degree
So, no, it’s not subtle and if I were Irish there’s a chance I would be offended by Sheeran's checklist approach to my culture. But then again, it all seems to be done in good faith and his heart is in the right place. Sheeran clearly loves the Irish and a pretty sizeable chunk of them seem to love him back – fans showed up in their droves to watch the video be filmed in Galway last month, and the song is still in the Irish top three. The album's other "full-on Irish trad song" (as Sheeran put it), "Nancy Mulligan", even reached a higher chart position in Ireland than it did in the UK.
All the hackneyed Irish references have got me craving a mini-break to the city – and the Irish tourist board has only Sheeran to thank.
Even without its questionable-but-well-intentioned lyrics, "Galway Girl" would still be catchier than herpes. Sonically, it's worlds away from what we're used to hearing in the charts right now – and that's arguably something to be thankful for in itself. It was recorded with Irish trad/folk group, Beoga, and is set to bodhrán and uileann pipes – when was the last time you heard those in a top three single?
Yes, "Shape Of You" is a banger of the highest order and will no doubt come to be thought of as the song of 2017, but its tropical house vibe sounds like 90% of the rest of the pop chart. "Castle On The Hill", released at the same time, is a heartwarming nod to Ed Sheeran's Suffolk hometown and childhood, but its sound is at least five years out of date. (Sheeran even admitted it was a "Radio 2 single", while "Shape Of You" was expertly crafted with a Radio 1 audience in mind.)
"Galway Girl", though, defies categorisation. While girls like her probably don't exist, and the haters will no doubt keep on hatin', I'll keep listening to it and singing its praises – right after I've booked my flight to Galway.
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Leave it to Elizabeth Warren, one of Donald Trump's fiercest and most relentless critics, to serve up a shade-heavy silver-lining for his presidency.
"If the next three years and 261 days are like Donald Trump’s first 100 days," the U.S. Senator from Massachusetts told attendees at an Emily's List gala Wednesday, "I wonder if America will ever be ready for a male president again."
Warren, the event's keynote speaker, blasted Trump repeatedly during her remarks, while also calling on women to rise up to support the next wave of female leaders on the ballot.
"We are going to shatter the glass ceiling into so many pieces that the Donald Trumps, and the Mitch McConnells of the world will never be able to put it together again," she said.
The fiery Democrat's own potential White House ambitions are generating a lot of buzz in light of her new book tour and increased national profile, though she's repeatedly dismissed that she's planning a 2020 run.
Some of the biggest applause of the night was reserved for Maxine Waters, the longtime California congresswoman whose sharp criticism of the president — including calls for impeachment — have won a new fanbase among young members of the #Resistance.
After entering to the tune of Beyoncé's "Formation" ( "I slay, I slay."), Waters slammed Trump as a “disgusting, poor excuse of a man who is now the president of the United States of America.” The California Democrat pledged to keep fighting, no matter the costs.
“We are not simply frightened and intimidated beauty contestants,” she said. “My role and responsibility is to oppose, reject, fight this man — and resist every step of the day.”
Emily's List, which supports and trains pro-choice Democratic women for office, is one of a number of groups that has reported a huge increase in women gearing to run for office in the wake of the 2016 election. Multiple speakers Wednesday said the group has now received inquires from 12,000 women — more than it has trained in its history.
Emily's List President Stephanie Schriock shot back against arguments that the party should focus on other "economic issues" over reproductive rights access, saying they are one of the same. "We need to understand that the most important economic decision many women will ever make is whether and when to have children," she told the crowd.
Speaking to reporters before the event, U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, said she does believe there is room to support some pro-life views and candidates in the party, but "they would have to be very nuanced in how they talk about these issues."
"We have a full range of folks," the Illinois Democrat said. "But at the end of the day, it’s about respecting each individual’s rights, and that means respecting women’s rights.”
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Despite pressure from the media (and, often, from models themselves) designers and their ad campaigns continue to underwhelm as far as diversity is concerned. The Fashion Spot has released their seasonal Diversity Report for the spring 2017 ad campaigns, and the results are pretty disappointing. The report examined racial, size, and gender diversity across 444 models in 207 campaigns. Spoiler alert: There's still a lot of work to be done.
For starters, this season's report found that 75.5% of models cast in print campaigns were white and 24.5% nonwhite. In comparison to last season's lineup, that's only a 1.2% improvement in terms of non-white castings, we up from 23.3%. On the catwalk, the most recent season of shows were more diverse than any previous seasons, but not significantly so, with just a 2.5% increase from spring 2017 to fall 2017: 27.9% of fall 2017 show castings were models of colour. While the available slots for models for campaigns versus catwalks varies greatly, with far less castings comprising the latter, it's still very gradual improvement.
And where size and gender are concerned, the numbers are even more disheartening. Models over the age of 50 decreased in campaign appearances — there were only two for SS17 — and model Lauren Hutton accounted for both appearances. And transgender models had their most visible season yet, with five transgender models cast in four campaigns. Those numbers, of course, could be a lot better, since there are several agencies and boards of major agencies devoted solely to these under-casted categories, such as Trans Models, Muse Model Management, Ford, Wilhelmina, We Speak (an agency that health-screens their models), street-casting agency Lorde, and more.
The report broke it down by campaigns as well. Among the seven models that booked the most campaigns this season, only one, Mica Arganaraz, was nonwhite. Designers and retailers with the most diverse campaigns were Alexander Wang, Stella McCartney, Urban Outfitters, Zara, Gap, and Net-a-Porter. By contrast, the designers with the the least diverse ads were Alberta Ferretti, Giorgio Armani, and Céline, none of which cast women of colour. Plus-size models were only cast 10 times (out of 444 castings total), comprising a dismal 2.3%.
Kudos to the handful of designers who're pushing the needle forward in terms of diversity, but it's still concerning that a number of designers and casting directors still are still okay with such whitewashed campaigns (and catwalks). Here's to hoping that next season sees inclusivity than ever before.
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Two days ago, I yelled at my computer after reading a seriesof articlesacross the web. In them, the writers describe the exact relationship I currently find myself in: one in which we’ve passed the casual hook-up phase, but have put the brakes on the full-blown relationship for the time being. But instead of describing it as "the grey area between only texting after 11 p.m. and meeting his mother, but he also has contact solution at my place," the internet’s relationship-defining experts call what I have a "situationship."
I saw red — and not because I was forced to confront the in-between-ness of something I’m happily participating in. (In fact, he and I are quite content with a little breathing room to figure out if we want to pursue things more seriously, thank you very much.) It’s because, once again, the internet has given a cutesy name to a relationship behaviour people are unhappy with.
Think about it: There’s a litany of one-liners that we give certain relationship behaviours. It started with "ghosting" — when the person you’re seeing disappears out of the blue and you’re convinced they’ve died or have been rendered mute. Then there was "breadcrumbing " — when a person you want to date and/or get naked with sends out a series of non-committal text messages that slowly drive you insane. Breadcrumbing, by the way, is not to be confused with "benching " — when you keep a couple of partners you don’t really like on rotation to soften the blow if the one you really dig ditches you. Those terms gave way to "haunting " — when someone lurks around your social media accounts after the relationship has fizzled. Oh, and don’t forget "spinning" — which is exactly what my damn head does when I realise we’ve successfully turned the vocabulary around dating into something out of a Dr. Seuss book. (See? I can make up names, too.)
These terms — and the behaviour they’re covering up — have had their heydey thanks to online dating. "Traditionally, you’d meet someone through friends or at work, so it was harder to just disappear," says Rachel Sussman, a relationship counsellor and expert in NYC. "Now, when you meet someone online, there’s no six degrees of separation. There’s no accountability. So you can disappear and feel confident you’re never going to run into them again in your life." Essentially, our digital lives enable us to bestow dad-joke-level names upon shit behaviour. If you can LOL or send a poop emoji for a crappy day, you can surely ghost.
And there’s a reason we give names to relationship behaviours we can’t make sense of. "When you feel bad about something, it helps to hash things out, and we tend to get a little jokey," Sussamn says. "That humour is a way to diffuse our pain and our hurt, and help us feel validated." I get that, because I do it in everyday life — and not just about relationships. I stub my toe on almost every corner I come in contact with, but I make a joke of my clumsiness every time it happens in order to diffuse the embarrassment. Laughing about being blown off by the person we split nachos with last Thursday helps us feel like we’re not the reason they didn’t call back.
We’re faux-labeling to avoid meaningful labels, and to evade the possibility of rejection that comes from scary conversations.
But let’s be real — giving cutesy names to behaviour that we don’t like doesn’t just make us feel better. It normalises the behaviour. If every time you decided to breadcrumb or ghost, you had to actually think, I’m about to completely ditch this person who has shown genuine interest in me without giving them an explanation, because I don’t want to see them anymore and I’m too lazy to consider their feelings, we’d probably be less likely to do that. But instead, we can say "I totally ghosted that person," chuckle, and move on. At the end of the day, we say we "ghost" to avoid recognising that other people have emotions, and we say we’ve been "ghosted" to mask our very real emotions after their existence has been denied.
The same basic dynamic is at play with the term "situationship." A lot of people like labels when it comes to relationships. It adds clarity and helps them communicate their feelings — and there’s nothing wrong with that. But, by giving a term to that grey area between casual sex and serious relationship, we’re only helping couples avoid the scary What are we? conversation. We’re faux-labelling to avoid meaningful labels, and to evade the possibility of rejection that comes from scary conversations.
On paper, the guy I'm dating and I are in a situationship. But since I have to have boundaries in order to exist in a relationship, we’ve hammered that shit out, and drawn our lines in the sand. It was uncomfortable and vulnerable for both of us. But by having that conversation, we’ve reached a point of agreement and coziness in that grey area, and we’re comfortable checking back in should our feelings change.
So I, for one, am doing away with the cutesy names and embracing the discomfort that comes with certain dating behaviours. Ghosting is no longer acceptable — I’ll be telling the person I’m not interested in that I’m actually not interested in them, instead of leaving them hanging. And instead of labelling the in-between bits of relationships out of fear, I’ll collect my strength and force myself to have the uncomfortable conversations with my partner about where we stand. Dating is hard, but it won’t get easier by putting a Band-Aid over bad behaviour and calling it something that trivialises the actions and feelings involved. And the more we start admitting the discomfort, the more comfortable we’ll be.
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In our series Not A Trophy Wife , we ask women how they feel whenthey earn less than their significant other.
In this instalment, we chat with a woman who makes £31,000 and is dating a man who makes £57,000 — but is struggling with money problems from a previous marriage.
So tell me about your previous relationship. How did you two meet?
"We met at college and we started dating after college. We lived outside of New York — I was working in marketing for a little while and making decent money, around $42,000 (£33,500) a year, and he was working in health and research. A few years into dating, though, I realised I really wanted to get my masters degree and I really wanted to travel, and he wanted to change careers but he wasn't sure what career to try. He felt open to traveling, so we decided to move to London. Moving to London was part of the reason we got married."
So you moved to London — you for school, and he moved just to find work? How did you manage this financially?
"I decided to take a loan out for my graduate school. That amounted to $70,000 (£56,000)— and I’m still paying that off. When we moved to London I thought my husband would get a job, and he’d be able to help at least cover half the expenses so I could pay off some of the loans in advance. That very first year in London, I was going to school and we were living on the loan money and my savings for the both of us. My husband, as it turned out, didn't find a job, and that second year I ended up working two jobs because my one job wasn’t enough to support us. So I was doing my dissertation and working two jobs, making around £27,000, and I had to start paying my loans back. It was unbelievably stressful."
£27,000 isn’t a lot for two people.
"To be honest I think I was a bit naive about how much I would make after I finished school. I thought, you know, with a masters, that I would make maybe around the same as what I was making before. But the salaries in the UK are much lower. I was working at an office, and at night I would work on a book project that was remote work. I was doing a normal eight-hour day, and then I’d work another four or five on the book, so I didn’t really sleep much for a year and a half. We were living the bare minimum, never doing anything social, and somehow there just seemed to be hidden costs in our day-to-day living, and I don’t really know why."
Can you talk about what your husband was doing to support you?
"So he would help around the house, and he made sure all the bills were paid, because I didn’t have time to do laundry and cook. He was looking for a job, but he wasn't really sure what he wanted, and I think increasingly getting depressed about that. I dealt with it because I thought we were in it together and this was a temporary difficult time, and that we would be fine in the future. I looked at it like we were sharing this financial burden together, and I had a lot of faith that it was going to change.
Halfway through the second year, though, after I had tried a number of different things — I had worked on lots of different courses with him and asked all sorts of friends to pull favours and nothing was working — that’s when the resentment really started building. I think I spent around £22,000 supporting both of us...and it just felt like I had put so much effort in, and wasn’t getting it returned."
"I never expected him to pay for everything, but I had expected that he would pay for at least half."
How did your conversations about money usually go?
"I never expected him to pay for everything, but I had expected that he would pay for at least half. So usually I would be like, listen, I need you to pay half, and in order to pay half, all you need is a local job in a shop. It doesn’t have to be what you want to do for the rest of your life; it could be something part time that can hold us over. He would say yes, but then just wouldn’t do anything. So it was more of me pleading for help, and I don’t know. I don’t know why it just didn’t work out. After a while, it didn’t feel like we were in it together anymore. And he just felt more and more, I don’t know, embarrassed about his situation and hopeless, and it really affected his self-esteem."
So…how did it end?
"It was not a clean break. I thought maybe if he moved back to the states, he would be able to find a job, and then if he was able to find a job there, then maybe I would move back and join him. So at first it was a bit of a test to see if it was just the location that held him back from financially helping. But three months after he moved back, he still didn’t have a job, so that was it. He was in the states, I was in London, and I realised that he would never be able to help if I wanted a family. Like, I couldn’t continue with someone I can’t rely on to help me with at least half the bills. If anything happened to me, if I had an accident or god forbid I went to the hospital and I couldn’t work, I wouldn’t be able to rely on him to pick things up for me. And I already wasn’t making very much and I had spent all my savings and had taken some significant loans and I had to deal with that. It was just too much of a burden, too much to keep going with it."
Do you think things would be different if you were making more money?
"I do actually. Yes and no. No in that I lost a little bit of respect for him, and I think respect is critical with attraction. I think you really have to respect who you’re with, and yeah it’s an integral part of the relationship. But then, I also think, if money had never been an issue, I might have just carried on. I do think it would’ve become a problem eventually, though. There were other things. He was just unreliable, and I don’t think you can have a relationship with someone who is unreliable. For example, we had agreed that he would go back to school to help him get back on his feet, so we worked on his application for a really long time, and all he had to do was get his references in order. Weeks later, I found out that he hadn’t sent it at all. That, to be honest, was a major breaking point for me. I thought, if you won’t even do that, there’s just no hope, really. "
Where were you financially when your marriage ended?
"I was not in a good position. I had maybe £3,000 or £4,000 in credit card debt. My loans, which were undergrad plus grad school, were about £54,000, and I was earning around £27,000. So it wasn’t great. At the beginning I felt really liberated, but it was a false sense of freedom. I had so many financial obligations. I was like, I can travel when I want and use my money just for me, but really I didn’t have money to do anything. It did feel good, though, to not have to provide for anyone else and be able to do whatever I wanted."
Did you ever talk about money after the divorce?
"I was conflicted, and I went back and forth about it. When you care about someone for so long, it’s hard, and especially if they’ve been in a really bad place, you don’t want to make it worse. We didn’t own a house together, we didn’t have any children together, but you know, he had lived off my loan and my salary. But he had also taken the risk and moved to another country for me. It was difficult, and I discussed it with my parents, who thought that if I included a lawyer, the cost of including a lawyer and the cost of whatever legal battles that might happen would not be justified. So he paid me back maybe £1,500 and we left it at that. We left things on good terms, and I still talk to him. He has a job, but I’m not sure what it is."
So it’s been five years — what has changed since then?
"So the credit card debt is gone, but the loan is definitely not. I’m making the monthly payments but not any more than that, which isn’t really helpful. I’ve paid off pretty much all the undergrad, but most of the graduate loan is still there. Of course I’ve had problems with currency exchange because as soon as Brexit happened the pound fell against the dollar dramatically. But I moved to Scotland recently and I’ve been working part-time and am about to start a full-time position, making £31,000."
What sparked you to move to Scotland?
"Well I met my current partner randomly in a bar a year ago, and when he found out how much I had in loans, he came around with solutions. We had joked around that we should live together, but once he found out about this loan it became something that he was seriously pushing. We wanted to see each other more regularly, we only saw each other every two weeks, and he thought it would be best for me to live in his flat rent-free. So yeah, he just did the calculations and said, 'you know, if you’re not paying for rent and I’m saving this much and you’re saving this much from traveling, this is how much all together we would be saving.' It just made sense.
"I thought we were going to break up, to be honest, and I was really disappointed and then even more resentful of my ex."
How did the first discussion about your loans come up?
"It was awkward. He would always want to go on holiday and I would have to say, 'I can’t really pay that.' I could tell he was getting frustrated and he was like, I don’t understand. How much is your loan? He was very taken aback when he found out the amount — he was really upset at first because he had never had any serious debt for any amount. He thought that I had a spending problem or something. Eventually he kind of came around to the fact that it was education loans, but it was a really uncomfortable situation. I thought we were going to break up, to be honest, and I was really disappointed and then even more resentful of my ex. I wasn’t supposed to be in this situation. I was supposed to have been able to pay a lot more off, and I thought a future relationship had been put at risk because of this baggage that I had."
Well, what’s his financial situation like?
"My partner makes about £57,000 and he has investments and things like that, but I don’t know anything about those. He’s overpaying his mortgage, no car payment, and in Scotland they pay absolutely nothing for education, nothing for health, and his parents gave him a bit of money to have an apartment, so the idea of having this kind of massive debt is crazy to him.
"But he’s been incredibly helpful, helping me get ways to refinance my loan. It was weird for me. With my previous relationship, I was the one who always had to think of what was best for the both of us. So it’s really interesting for me to be with someone who decided to take charge of things. Even though we don’t have a shared bank account, and at the time we weren’t even living in the same city, but my current partner was really keen to help me get over this massive loan."
What is it like to be on the other side?
"It’s weird. I mean I feel lucky, obviously, that I don’t have to worry about certain things anymore. It does make me more frustrated with my previous relationship, because I dealt with it for so long, and it’s really nice to be taken care of. But then I also became a bit more sympathetic to my ex. When I first moved here, I just felt lonely and freaked that I was so reliant on my partner, and it is depressing when you feel helpless. It was really uncomfortable for me. I felt like I couldn’t have a say in the house, because it wasn’t mine, or that I couldn’t have the heater on even though I might want it on more. I actually felt very nervous at the beginning because I thought, if this doesn’t work out, I’ll be left with nothing. He’s been very, very generous, but of course that worries me. I was generous once, and I know how things end up when things don’t go well."
Have you talked to your partner about this at all?
"Yeah, I told him, 'It’s really scary that I’m relying so much on you, and I don’t feel entirely comfortable with it.' And he said, 'Well, good thing I’m reliable.' "
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The trailer, released today, is titled "Some Familiar Faces 25 Years Later," and does reintroduce us to a few key characters from the series. It's extremely cryptic and vague, but with some patience we were able to uncover six key moments, faces, or facts that hint at what's to come in the season. So, click through and re-familiarise yourself with the Twin Peaks fam.
1. Big Ed Hurley (Everett McGill) is not happy.
The preview opens with Big Ed (aw, Ed!) seated at a grand table with a very fake stuffed bear. He looks tired. Where's Norma?
2. Carl Rodd (Harry Dean Stanton) needs some help.
Things do not look good for Carl Rodd. We're getting major Forrest Gump vibes. I wonder if he still makes a mean cup of joe — he looks like he could use one.
3. Laura Palmer's mum, Sarah (Grace Zabriskie) is suffering from her awful past.
It's now been over two decades since Sarah Palmer lost her daughter, her niece, and her husband. It looks like she's been easing the pain with a bloody mary (or two, or three). Eeek. I bet she still suffers from horrible nightmares.
4. Andy Brennan (Harry Goaz) manned up.
Andy, who was always one of the goofiest guys in the show, looks hardened in his brief foliage-filled scene. He also looks pissed.
5. Deputy Tommy “Hawk” Hill (Michael Horse) is still the man.
Ah — the wise Deputy Hawk, looking badass with his all-white hair. He is the only character given a line in the trailer. And by "line" I mean he says literally one word: Really. The tone of this word is revealing in that he sounds skeptical and almost dumbfounded. Is there another murder that connects to Laura Palmer's?
6. FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) doesn't look possessed.
Our main man says nothing — nothing! — in this preview, which is disappointing. But he'll surely be saying the most once the show starts, considering his character's talkative nature. He's still in his suit, which means he's definitely still a special agent, and he doesn't look BOB-ish (a demonic entity that possess people) which is always a good thing. In fact, he looks like he's in a lot better shape than the last time we saw him.
7. Twin Peaks still looks the same.
Cue Twin Peaks theme song.
Indulge in the full trailer now.
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In Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s tender children’s tale The Little Prince, the titular young prince encounters a friendly fox who tells him, insightfully, “What is essential is invisible to the eye.” Like the rest of the book, the remark is a thematic metaphor about life, love, and the absurdity of being an adult. It is not a reference to the crucial importance of the skin’s invisible microbiome — the billions of unseeable microorganisms that live on its physical barrier — but it certainly could be, taken out of context.
If just looking at the word microbiome makes your eyes roll into the back of your head, here’s a simpler way of putting it: It's germs. “The microbiome is the natural colonisation of bacteria that's found on the skin,” explains dermatologist Rachel Nazarian, MD. It’s all the stuff that lives on your body that isn’t you, a kind of ecosystem made up of bacteria, fungi, viruses, and the occasional mite.
Until recently, clinical research into skin health has focused primarily on the skin’s moisture barrier, and how important pH balance and proper hydration are to protecting against inflammation and conditions associated with it. Turns out, though, that it’s not just the skin’s exterior moisture levels that matter; changes in pH balance also throw off the composition of the microbes living on the skin, in symbiosis with the physical barrier. Over-washing, harsh cleansers, using the wrong products for your skin type: Dr. Nazarian cites these common mistakes as surefire ways to mess with the microbiome. (And she’s particularly wary of “home remedies” or “Pinterest-type” skin-care tips, which she calls “extremely risky.”)
“When people complain that their skin is too red, too dry, too itchy, too flaky, too oily, too… anything, it’s potentially because the ideal balance of the skin is off,” Dr. Nazarian explains, “and the pH has shifted, creating a cascade of inflammatory factors and unevenness in the natural flora.” Flora: You’ll see that word again. It’s a pretty term for the mixture of microorganisms that make up the microbiome. Once an afterthought, the skin’s flora has now emerged as an equally important piece of the healthy-skin puzzle.
But the goal is not to destroy certain “bad” bacteria — like P. acnes and S. aureus(which are associated with acne and atopic eczema, respectively) — and replace them with “good” bacteria by reaching for every probiotic serum and tub of unpasteurised yogurt you can get your hands on. Rather, it's bacterial diversity, and it’s a healthy balance of all the microbes — yes, even the ones with a bad reputation.
The case for this diversity is strong: A 2016 review published in Nature found that acne patients often suffered from a reduction in microbe variations, with “overpopulation” of one or another, and that the diversity increased as the wounds healed. In another study from 2013, scientists determined that high diversity was typical of “normal” skin, whereas dermatitis and psoriasis displayed distinctly different bacterial populations. Just last month, a biotech company seeking to further its work in using the microbiome for new dermatological treatments received £2.3 million in Series A grant funding. French skin-care brand La Roche-Posay has been instrumental in conducting research into how bacterial diversity can benefit skin (and it's since developed the Toleriane line, which incorporates prebiotics as “food for bacteria,” based on the brand's findings).
There have been plenty of innovations in the past that promised to revolutionise the skin-care industry — handheld LED devices, serums laced with CBD oil, hydrogen water — but if there’s any one discovery of the past decade that will actually change the way we think about taking care of our skin in the long-term, it’s the microbiome. Because the research is relatively new, skin care engineered specifically to work in conjunction with the skin’s flora is still a fledgling category. Along with La Roche-Posay, Mother Dirt has been at the forefront of microbiome-friendly skin care: The AO+ Mist features a patented variety of live “ammonia-oxidising bacteria” that works to restore the skin’s natural balance without the aid of topical moisturisers. Cutting-edge brands like Tula, Crude, and Biossance all offer formulas that get their skin-strengthening power from bacteria — and many, many more are sure to follow.
The only drawback of the new research is that it’s brought back to the surface the one thing we’d actually hoped to block out from science class: the fact that tiny eight-legged creatures will always be living on our skin. Sometimes it's just better to forget, especially where arthropods are concerned.
Related Video:
I Got A Bird Poop Facial for Clearer Skin
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The new Republican health care bill could have devastating consequences for women around the country. The MacArthur-Meadows amendment to the American Health Care Act just passed in the House, and if it becomes law, people with certain "pre-existing conditions" could legally be denied or charged extra for health insurance. These conditions include sexual assault, domestic violence, postpartum depression, and other issues predominantly faced by women, Elite Daily reports. The Centre for American Progress estimates that pregnancy premiums would increase by $17,320 (£13,860).
"Nothing in this Act shall be construed as permitting health insurance issuers to discriminate in rates for health insurance coverage by gender," the amendment reads. But women and gender-nonconforming people on Twitter are challenging this claim. On Thursday, HuffPost Women tweeted, "Women & femmes: do you have a "pre-existing" condition under the AHCA? Let us know how it would affect you with #IAmAPreexistingCondition."
Many responded by sharing the conditions that would make it harder for them to get health insurance under the Affordable Care Act replacement bill. As some pointed out, it's almost as if being a woman is a pre-existing condition.
On top of this amendment, the new bill could also cost 24 million Americans their health insurance, The New York Times reports, and many who are insured could have to pay more out of pocket. Insurance companies could gain total freedom over what types of care they do and don't cover, which could mean a lack of coverage for maternity care. Only 12% of insurance companies covered maternity care before the Affordable Care Act, according to the National Women's Law Centre.
To prevent this bill from becoming law, you can call, email, or tweet at a state senator and ask them to oppose it. You can also donate to an organisation likeNARALorPlanned Parenthoodthat's fighting against the bill.
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This Sunday’s MTV Movie and TV Awards have made the headlines for a very progressive tweak to their ceremony. The often irreverent awards, this year featuring TV for the first time, have upstaged their more prestigious counterparts by making gender-neutral acting categories. Instead of Best Actor/Actress, stars will contend for awards such as Best Actor in a Movie, Best Hero and Best Comedic Performance. Many have called for the Oscars to do the same, however, given the record of those who give out the little gold statuettes, it seems that for the moment such a move would do more harm than good.
This may seem counterintuitive, at first. Of course, in an ideal world, all actors would be on an equal footing regardless of gender, race, sexuality, or any other factor. Hollywood, however, is far from an ideal world. Despite this year’s Oscars being praised for awarding a variety of talent, a lack of diversity and inclusion still remains a complex problem in the industry, and one that cannot be solved by re-categorisation. The problem is personified by the Academy, who recently needed a global outcry simply to include non-white nominees. Where are the safeguards to ensure a mixed acting category wouldn’t be entirely dominated by men?
Juno, 2007.Photo: Snap Stills/REX/Shutterstock.
If such a question sounds pessimistic, let’s take a look at some of the current categories that aren’t bound by gender. In the writing categories, you have to go back nearly a decade to find the last female winner of Best Original Screenplay – then-newcomer Diablo Cody for Juno. You have to go back even further to find the last female winner of Best Adapted Screenplay, Diana Ossana’s win (alongside Larry McMurtry) for Brokeback Mountain in 2006. It’s almost 20 years since we had a female winner for Best Original Score (Anne Dudley for The Full Monty), while no woman has ever even been nominated for Best Cinematographer.
The Full Monty, 1997.Photo: Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock.
Then there’s the thorny issue of Best Director. With just under 450 nominees spanning 89 ceremonies, four women have been nominated for the award. Four. It took 82 ceremonies for a woman to win: Kathryn Bigelow in 2010 for The Hurt Locker. Unfortunately, that breakthrough didn’t solve the issue. There have been no female nominees since – Ava DuVernay, Kelly Reichardt, Andrea Arnold, Maren Ade and Lisa Cholodenko are just some of the recent filmmakers whose work was celebrated by audiences and critics, yet ignored by Oscar voters. In a somewhat damning parallel, this year even perennial outcast Mel Gibson got a directing nomination. With this evidence, would you trust the Academy to present a fair selection of acting nominees in a genderless acting category?
Of course, this isn’t simply a matter of people ticking boxes on a voting form. The Oscars are a mirror of the world they represent. The variety and availability of lead roles for women is still frustratingly scarce in an industry famously risk-averse. That also comes with a media scrutiny and pay disparity with which their male counterparts rarely have to contend. Changing the parameters of an award would be fruitless if the number of opportunities for women to win that award continues to decline (women made up just 32% of all speaking roles in 2016, a recent study showed).
The variety of faces we see on the big screen has always been a problem, but things are slowly changing. June’s blockbuster Wonder Woman will be the first female-led superhero film since 2005 and, in Patty Jenkins, we have the first female director in the Marvel and DC universes. All genders flocked in their millions to watch both The Force Awakens and Rogue One, which followed the galactic adventures of leads Daisy Ridley and Felicity Jones, respectively. The Hunger Games, Frozen, Mad Max: Fury Road, Pitch Perfect and Brie Larson’s incoming Captain Marvel show an appetite for female heroes across all genres and, while the salary issue is not resolved, A-listers feel emboldened to shine a light on the subject.
There’s no quick solution. Traditional acting categories do not represent everyone, as non-binary Billions star Asia Kate Dillon experienced during their submission for the forthcoming Emmys. However, giving talent fewer spots to shine on one of the biggest stages in cinema could have a detrimental effect on those fighting for recognition. An Oscars that doesn’t divide by gender is something to aspire to, but only when it reflects an industry that does the same.
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As those of you who've broached the dating world over the past few years can attest, very rarely will you find yourself in for a smooth ride.
Between dating apps and ghosting, f**k boys and breadcrumbing, it's a wonder that population growth hasn't stalled thanks to how flipping hard it can be to meet anyone you'd like to do anything more with than shake hands.
Imagine, then, if you had another unexpected element to throw into the mix.
Hearing loss affects 11 million people in the UK – that's around one in six of us. And according to a report from Action On Hearing Loss, people with hearing loss are more likely to experience emotional distress and loneliness. They are also at double the risk of developing depression.
Louise, a twentysomething from Suffolk, has bilateral sensorineural hearing loss of a severe-to-profound nature. This means that she has "rubbish" (her word) hearing in both ears and, in order to converse, relies on both hearing aids and lip reading.
She currently has a boyfriend but, before that, was navigating the tricky world of dating. Here, she fills us in on the highs and lows of dating with hearing loss.
Can you explain how your hearing aids help you? The hearing aids obviously don't fix or make up for the hearing loss, they amplify all sounds. Unlike normal hearing, I'm unable to adjust and focus on something, for example, someone talking in a loud environment. Instead, everything is amplified, making it very difficult or near-impossible to hear that person.
Another barrier I find is that some people don't see past my hearing aids. They see them first before they give me a chance and this immediately puts them off talking to me and getting to know me.
Where did you meet the people you've dated? I met my current boyfriend at the leisure centre (where he works) while he was covering for reception. I'm not a fan of dating sites. I'd prefer to meet someone in person, although it's difficult for me because of my hearing, and my lack of confidence puts me off.
If you did meet someone online, would you tell them about your hearing loss before meeting IRL? I got talking to my current boyfriend first after he friended me on Facebook and I told him after a few minutes of chatting so he could see the real funny and jokey me before I told him I was deaf. He didn't care one bit, which was a bonus!
Have you ever had anyone react in a less than favourable way? I haven't had a boyfriend who has reacted badly, but I've had guys interested in me and then put off by my hearing loss, definitely. They back off all of a sudden.
How do you find meeting people in bars or chatting people up? I'm useless in those situations! Before I met my boyfriend two years ago, I used to go clubbing with my best friend and got a few guys approach me and try chatting to me. I had no idea what they were saying and my friend and me couldn't stop laughing. It was awful and awkward but I saw the funny side of it.
Do you think apps like Tinder and Bumble have made it easier or harder? It's easier as you can chat to someone without the pressure of having to hear them and you can get to know them first. I don't really use them, though, and never have.
Like everything, there are specialist dating sites for people with hearing loss – have you ever tried them? I did think about joining a dating site for deaf people when I was single. I made an account but chickened out before using it!
What’s the best date place in terms of allowing you and your date to communicate effectively? My first date with my boyfriend was a quiet pub in the mid-afternoon on a weekday. We sat in the beer garden in the sun. Luckily there was no one out there, just us, so it was perfect!
Are there any total red flags for you on dates? Awkward silences once I've told them about my hearing. But most of all, if I ask them to repeat themselves and they act strangely [or just] say "Don't worry". I don't have any horror stories that I'm aware of. I just mishear things a lot on dates. But I just laugh it off.
What’s THE thing about dating while deaf that you wish hearing people understood? The need to understand and be patient. It's harder to connect with someone and hit it off straightaway. It's harder to respond when someone is flirting and pick up on conversation cues. I had no idea my boyfriend was trying to flirt with me when I met him – I didn't hear what he said and turned to walk away when he spoke to me!
What are some classic (and probably very embarrassing) mistakes hearing people make when they communicate with deaf people? Talking VERY LOUDLY and slowly! It's quite patronising!
Ah, Sadiq Khan, how do we love thee? Let us count the ways. London’s mayor is hotfooting it into the vacant space left in our hearts by Barack Obama. (We were saving a spot for Justin Trudeau but Sadiq is just so local.)
So as we approach his first anniversary as mayor; what has he done to cement his place there?
Well, for starters, his politics are on point. Our first Muslim mayor has been a much-needed shot of diversity in the swirling political maelstrom of Trump, Brexit and Le Pen. Khan – a big Remainer and former human rights lawyer – is also a proven staunch feminist (remember banning those ‘Protein World’ ads?) who has overseen the appointment of the first ever female fire brigade and police commissioners.
He’s a hands-on dad to two daughters, is married to the brilliantly ballsy lawyer Saadiya Khan and has his own hashtag #teamkhan. In a recent interview with The Sunday Times, we also learnt the following: he plays footie with his mates on a Sunday, is currently binge-watching Peaky Blinders and Taboo with his wife (hi there, secret guy crush on Tom Hardy?) and, oh yes: “I know who… Skepta and Stormzy are.”
Khan’s not like a regular mayor, he’s a cool mayor.
Case in point is his Twitter feed. Now, we’re not totally sold on politicians on Twitter – just look at a certain US president – but Sadiq’s Twitter is one professional example of how to do it: woke, smart and subtly humorous.
The modern mayor’s feed is his first port of call to promote his campaigns, from his clean air initiative to his Skills for Londoners body. The man also loves a good retweet, from local papers to the Evening Standard and, recently, Pink News, when they commended him for his special task force – the first in the country – to combat online hate crimes. He even retweets articles that criticise him, like the reports after he pulled support for the Garden Bridge.
There’s a reason he resonates so well with millennials. Not only is he speaking their language by utilising social media (his Facebook game is also strong), he’s working hard on some of their most pressing issues – his efforts to create more jobs: "I want all Londoners to have the same opportunities I had growing up"; his £3.15bn investment to create affordable housing; and his drive to make renting fair: "Having seen first-hand the shocking conditions Londoners face as a result of rogue landlords – I'm taking action."
Sadiq keeps his Twitter a snappy almost-livestream of London events, from the Tate’s Hockney exhibition ("Well worth a visit #LondonIsOpen") to photos of himself with Anthony Joshua following the weekend’s big fight: "Top class talent, world class venues & the best fight fans. Record breaking 90K crowd at #JoshuaKlitchsko shows #LondonIsOpen for sport." He even tweeted as he jumped on the very first Night Tube in August last year – but he was sans doner kebab and appeared to still have his shoes on, so we think he did it wrong.
He’s also known, in Labour circles, for his stand-up comedy skills. Recently admitting to The Sunday Times that he was "told to be serious”, his Twitter is fairly low – on a scale of one to James Blunt – on the lolz. But he’s been a lightning rod. Almost immediately after becoming mayor, William Shatner tweeted his congratulations and quoted one of his most famous Star Trek lines: “Khaaaaaaaaaaan!” Khan responded by following Shatner, prompting the original Captain Kirk to tweet: “Go to red alert! Khan followed!”
@SadiqKhan Khaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnn!!! 👍🏻 Congratulations Mr. Mayor! Bill
Then there was the Bus Driver Moment, with both Baroness Sayeeda Warsi and Business Secretary Sajid Javid tweeting Sadiq to point out that they, too, are the offspring of Pakistani bus drivers. This prompted writer Tim Montgomerie to quip "Bus drivers are the new Etonians".
This past year, Khan has used his Twitter to respond to security threats, arrests and attacks in London, and has made boosting the emergency services a high priority. He’s so hot on Twitter, in fact, that many criticised him for not responding sooner to March's Westminster attack. Yet wouldn’t we all prefer a mayor who’s quick to act as opposed to quick to tweet?
For, arguably, his best Twitter response was not on Twitter at all. Following that devastating attack on London, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted Sadiq, criticising his comment in an Independent article last year that the threat of terror attacks was part of living in a big city. Sadiq’s response, live on CNN? "I'm not going to respond to a tweet from Donald Trump Jr., I've been doing more important things over the past 24 hours."
Long may that continue. Happy one-year anniversary Sadiq. Keep on hashtagging.
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It's May, another bank holiday is just around the corner and, dare we say, the weather is improving... Spring has officially sprung and our wardrobes are looking to follow suit.
Denim is a sartorial staple for most of us. Whether it's cutting-edge fabrication from directional designers or that pair of trusty jeans that looks great with anything, we rely on the wonder fabric as an everyday essential.
But while deep indigos, midnight blues and charcoal denim look fitting for autumn, we'd quite like to brighten up come spring. From peach to bubblegum via tangerine and brick, this season's offering of colourful denim is leaning towards the red side of the colour chart – not that we're complaining.
Red is the colour of SS17 and – with an honourable exception for lilac – we've found every shade in the spectrum for your new season denim refresh. Click through to see our colourful denim picks from the high street and designers alike.
MM6 By Maison Margiela Knotted Racer-Back Denim Top, £200, available at Matches Fashion
All white can be risky but the payoff is worth it – just stay away from the ketchup. We love the shape of this Mango skirt.
Mango Frayed Edges Denim Skirt, £25.99, available at Mango
Ripped denim isn't exiting your wardrobe anytime soon, and this peachy pair from Zara is a steal. Match with the oversized jacket or pair with fuchsia accessories for pink on pink.
Zara Ripped Mid-Rise Jeans, £29.99, available at Zara
Orange is the punchiest colour to try this season – if you want to avoid the extra-long-sleeved tees everyone's been wearing, this denim mini is a good place to start.
ASOS Denim Original High Waisted Skirt in Orange, £25, available at ASOS
Marques' Almeida is at the forefront of exciting new denim, particularly waterfall hems, frayed edges, and ruffles. This cream skirt is a quintessential showstopper from the brand.
Marques' Almeida Ruffle-Panelled Asymmetric Denim Midi Skirt, £490, available at Matches Fashion
The exposed stitching on these red jeans makes them fresh for spring.
We all know Londoners get a raw deal when renting and buying property (just look how little you get for your money compared with the rest of the UK). And when we’re travelling to and from the job that pays for our cupboard-sized accommodation, we’re paying through the nose for the privilege.
In fact, Londoners are paying more to travel around the capital than any other city-dwellers in the world, according to a new study by Deutsche Bank, which compared 47 cities. We all knew our travel cards were expensive – especially considering the overcrowding, strikes, delays and cancelled trains – but this really puts the dire situation into perspective.
A monthly travel card in London costs £135 on average – almost a third more expensive (30%) than Dublin, the second most expensive city, and nearly 50% pricier than New York, reported The Times.
If it weren’t for the fall of the pound since the vote to leave the EU, the gap between London and the rest of the cities would have been even starker. In 2014, a monthly travel card in the capital cost nearly double its New York equivalent.
Drivers don’t have it much better, with London being the third most expensive place to hire a car and the 10th most costly city for petrol, the study found.
Mumbai is the city with the cheapest transport system in the world, where an equivalent travel card costs just £11 – that's 12 times less than in London.
Cost of a monthly travel card
Most expensive 1. London £135 2. Dublin £102 3. Auckland £95
The study also compared the cities on other metrics and found London to be the fourth most expensive for rent. It was also in the top 10 priciest cities for gym memberships, cigarettes and hotel rooms.
Not only that, but Londoners aren't even earning very much to make up for this high cost of living. The capital is no longer in the top 10 for average salaries. Average monthly pay is £2,150 – a third lower than in New York and less than Sydney, Oslo, Copenhagen, Singapore and Tokyo.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given all this, London only came 33rd in the rankings for quality of life. Great. "London [and other big cities] rank very low mostly due to high living costs, crime, pollution and commuting time," said the report. "This is highly subjective and one person's long commute may be another person's chance to catch up on Netflix," it added.
The cost of travel is an ongoing gripe for most Londoners. Despite the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, having frozen fares on buses and trams until 2020, travel card prices may well rise again as they're set by train operating companies and not controlled solely by Transport for London (TfL). In February, TfL said it had taken £90 million less in fares income over the last year.
How long until Londoners are forced to shell out even more of their cash on an already overpriced transport system?
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Fact: The wage gap is real, and it’s a worldwide phenomenon. If you’re a working woman, there’s a good chance you’re underpaid. Despite awareness campaigns and progress achieved by women human rights activists, the global average of annual earning proves that men still far out-earn women: They make £16,000 in comparison to our £9,000. In 2016, the World Economic Forum reported that it could take 170 years to close the wage and employment-opportunity gaps.
Gender pay gap statistics differ greatly from country to country. The good news is that most countries are progressing for the better, and we’ve gotten better at highlighting the gender pay gap through various awareness initiatives (Equal Pay Day) and legal frameworks (CEDAW General Recommendation No.13: Equal remuneration for work of equal value). We're also now defining "work" to take into account the value of women’s non-monetised contributions through unpaid care work: domestic housework, childcare, and elderly support.
It would be ideal for women and men to be paid equally by the worth of their work, and not just because it would benefit their individual lives. If men and women were paid equally, the worldwide GDP would grow by £9.6 trillion. While the wage gap is complicated and closing it is far from simple, there are things that individuals can do to help fix this problem. If you are a woman, the first step is to personally find out how much you should be paid for the job you’re doing — and if you’re being underpaid. Not sure where to start? Ahead, seven ways to find out.
Start by checking out Glassdoor’s Know Your Worth app. It takes your title, company, location, and experience into consideration and provides you with a personalized salary estimate. It will also continue to track your worth so you know if your raise is consistent with the industry average.
If you’re lucky enough to have colleagues or friends who work in the same industry and who are willing to openly talk about money, it’s also worth asking them to share their salary information for company-specific comparison. However, many companies have rules that discourage employees from sharing information. Make sure you’re talking with trusted colleagues — and that you know your rights.
Online job searches aren't just helpful when you're looking for a new gig. A few hours of browsing can give you an overview of expected salaries and benefits for someone of your position and experience. Seek out niche job boards that are location and industry-specific for some of the most relevant information.
While job boards are great for certain salary-benchmarking purposes, don’t substitute them for a better method of research: networking.
Get in touch with recruiters and headhunters who specialise in your line of work. These folks are extremely knowledgeable about salary and compensation packages and may be willing to divulge information about the current market rate. To use this strategy, make the time to attend networking events. Don’t forget to update your CV and clean up your LinkedIn profile.
Bonus: Recruiters may be looking for someone exactly like you! Switching jobs is an effective method to get an immediate pay bump.
If you have been with your company for a few years and have not received consistent pay raises according to industry standard, you are definitely underpaid. Salary increments, especially early in your career, make a big difference. If you continue to miss out on raises, your future self may lose out tens of thousands of dollars over the course of your career.
When you get promoted, make sure to ask for a salary package that is consistent with the market rate instead of accepting a meagre 2-5% raise. Remember that it is more expensive for the company to hire and train new talent than to give you the salary you deserve.
Is it fair to perform tasks outside of your job description that are integral to the company’s success, but without a salary bump? This happens more often than you think. Take note of your skill sets and compare your current tasks to what you were originally hired to perform. You might find out your company is making use of some of your skills free of charge.
If you have been over-performing, you might feel the pressure to continue. It might make you a good team player, but sooner or later, it will be at your expense — literally. There are different strategies to continue from here, depending on your company culture. Ask for fair compensation; if that is not possible, negotiate to delegate the extra work to other colleagues.
You might worry about appearing unhelpful, and you’re right. Unfortunately, women who are deemed "unhelpful" in the workplace face backlash (men do not). Here are some strategies you can use to navigate this tricky situation.
Do your colleagues seem to have a lot more disposable income than you? It might be a sign that you are being underpaid. This is a tricky one, and should be done sparingly — it’s easy to start feeling resentful, which can lead to a hostile working environment.
Just because your colleagues have more in disposable income does not mean they earn more. They might be lucky enough to receive an inheritance, maybe they don’t have dependents, or maybe they have a partner who earns more. Maybe they’ve scaled back other expenses, or maybe they have debt. They might even have side businesses, solid investment strategies, or secretly won the lottery (it’s plausible!).
Last, but not least, let’s look at an internal factor. External factors such as company decisions and state of the economy pale in comparison to your biggest asset: your role in self-determination. So many of us face discriminatory hiring practices in our lives, but we also have the power to fight for the pay we deserve. Opportunities exist in all types of market conditions.
Being content is also synonymous with another word: inaction. This is a choice in itself, and it is a very dangerous state to fall into. Inaction in one area of your life might affect other areas, and it can prevent you from seeking better opportunities or help. It may encourage you to stay in an unhappy relationship or prevent you from finding ways to self-improve. Take time to reflect on your own state of mind, and remember the importance of investing in yourself.
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Picture the scene: it’s a Friday night sofa date, about 8pm. Your only obligations between now and Saturday’s breakfast are occasionally peeing, and putting the Merlot bottle into the recycling after you finish it. Nothing is grabbing you as you flick between tabs (you’re millennial, no one owns a TV anymore) – what DO you want to watch?
Turning this sorry situation into a moment of discovery is #FridayFilmClub, our weekly movie recommendation series on Instagram @Refinery29UK. Sit back, scroll our feed and let each storyline teaser video (created by collage artist Pia Hakko) inspire your night’s entertainment – we’re even telling you what kind of person each movie is suited to, for faff-free decision making.
Scroll below and click to play for a look at #FridayFilmClub so far, and follow @refinery29uk for this week’s recommendation.
#FRIDAYFILMCLUB ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, Danny Boyle, 2008
*For Fans Of* Danny Boyle’s smash hits: 28 Days Later, 127 Hours, The Beach, Trainspotting
*The Plot* Jamal Malik is one question away from winning the jackpot on India’s version of ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?’, when he is accused of cheating. To prove his innocence, he tells his life story – each chapter revealing how he came to know the answers.
*Starring* Dev Patel as 18-year-old Jamal, Freida Pinto as his childhood love Latika, Irrfan Khan and Anil kapoor.
*You Should Also Know* that Danny Boyle secured the fee paid to the three lead child actors (Jamal, his brother Salim, and Latika) in a trust. They will receive it when they complete school at 16.
#FRIDAYFILMCLUB ‘The King’s Speech’, Tom Hooper, 2011
*For Fans Of* discovering anecdotes about the royal family, feel-good tears, and Helena Bonham-Carter.
*The Plot* Prince Albert, the second son of King George V, suffers with a stammer. His wife (Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother) finds him a speech therapist, Lionel, and the pair develop a fraught but ultimately close friendship – particularly after King George dies, his eldest son abdicates, and Albert reluctantly becomes King George VI.
*Starring* #ColinFirth as Albert/King George VI, #HelenaBonhamCarter as Queen Elizabeth I, and #GeoffreyRush as Lionel Logue.
*You Should Also Know* that The King’s Speech was written by David Seidler, who had a stammer as a child. As an adult, he wrote to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, asking for permission to use the story. She asked him not to during her lifetime, as the memories were too painful.
#FRIDAYFILMCLUB ‘Billy Elliot’, Stephen Daldry, 2000
*For Fans Of* British films with a stiff upper lip – but a big heart.
*The Plot* It’s 1984 in County Durham, and 11-year-old Billy Elliot has been sent to boxing classes by his father – a coal miner on strike with his eldest son Tony. After happening upon a ballet class, Billy pursues dancing instead, against the will of his family.
*Starring* Jamie Bell as Billy and Julie Walters as his ballet teacher Mrs Wilkinson.
*You Should Also Know* that the original title was ‘Dancer’, but was too similar ‘Dancer in the Dark’ which had won the Palmes D’Or (Universal Studios even mistakenly called the team behind Dancer/Billy Elliot to congratulate them).
#FRIDAYFILMCLUB The Man Who Fell To Earth, Nicolas Roeg, 1976
*For Fans Of* the late David Bowie, and his otherworldliness.
*The Plot* A humanoid alien crash lands on Earth, while looking for water to take back to his home planet. Adopting the name Thomas Jerome Newton, the alien uses technology from his planet to patent new inventions on Earth, with the aim of building a fortune big enough to ship water home. His plans go awry however, when he meets a woman and falls for earthly vices like alcohol and TV.
*Starring* Bowie, in his first starring film role.
*You Should Also Know* that Bowie said of making the movie: “I just learned the lines for that day, and did them the way I was feeling. It wasn’t that far off. I actually was feeling as alienated as that character was”
#FRIDAYFILMCLUB The Skin I Live In, Pedro Almodóvar, 2011
*For Fans Of* …or rather for those who *aren’t* fans of horror. Director Pedro Almodóvar describes the film as “a horror story without screams or frights.”
*The Plot* Plastic surgeon Dr. Robert Ledgard is suspended when he lets slip that he has been testing an artificial skin on humans. He keeps his experiment ‘Vera’ captive on his secluded estate, with the help of a servant, Marilia. Flashbacks reveal more of Robert’s past, his dead wife and daughter, and the true identity of ‘Vera’.
*Starring* Antonia Banderas as Robert Ledgard, and Elena Anaya as Vera.
*You Should Also Know* it’s probably best to watch this twice. The first time with your full attention on the plot, the second to relish the use of colour and texture – starting with that otherworldly, rich, creamy skin.
*For Fans Of* badass girls, 90s style and training montages.
*The Plot* After her family are murdered by corrupt drug enforcement agents, 12-year-old Mathilda seeks safety with Léon – an Italian hitman. Mathilda begs Léon to train her up, so she can exact revenge on the man who killed her 4-year-old brother. And so, New York’s most unlikely killer duo is born.
*Starring* An 11-year-old Natalie Portman as Mathilda, in a now iconic blunt black bob and 90s choker. Gary Oldman plays the psychotic agent, while Jean Reno stars as Léon.
*You Should Also Know* that the script was written in 30 days, and the film shot in 90 days. In the original scrip, Mathilda (aged 13/14) and Léon become lovers.
#FRIDAYFILMCLUBLars and the Real Girl, Craig Gillespie, 2007
*For Fans Of* kooky mid-00s comedies, with a side of feel-good. Think, ‘The Squid And The Wale’, ‘Juno’ and ‘Sunshine Cleaning’.
*The Plot* One day, the sweet but shy Lars Lindstrom brings home a new girlfriend to meet his brother and sister-in-law. But Bianca isn’t real – she’s a sex doll he ordered off the Internet. Lars’ family and friends go along with the relationship, as a therapist works towards the root of his behaviour.
*Starring* Oscar nominee, Ryan Gosling. Find a list of all the films on N etflix starring Oscar-nominated actors at refinery29.uk
*You Should Also Know* that Bianca was treated like an actual person through filming, with her own trailer.
#FRIDAYFILMCLUBFour Weddings and a Funeral, Mike Newell, 1994
*For Fans Of* crying at weddings, Hugh Grant’s floppy hair and mushy Richard Curtis movies (he wrote this.)
*The Plot* Charles and his friends are single, living in London, and plagued by the suspicion that they will never find true love and marry (basically us and everyone we know.) Bumbling British hilarity ensues over four weddings and one funeral, as Charles realises he *is* in love – with an American called Carrie.
*Starring* ol’ Hugh as Charles, and A ndie Macdowell as Carrie (voted one of the most annoying characters of all time. Bit harsh.)
*You Should Also Know* that the budget was so small, the Scottish wedding wasn’t filmed in Scotland, and the extras had to bring their own suits. It went onto become one of the highest-grossing British films in cinema history, so all was well in the end.
#FRIDAYFILMCLUBLittle Miss Sunshine, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, 2006
*For Fans Of* not risking it on Friday The 13th: 100% safe sofa time with a feel-good road trip comedy, and an ending to make you grin through any superstitious tension.
*The Plot* Sweet but plain seven-year-old Olive qualifies for the ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ beauty pageant in California, and her dysfunctional family – overworked mum, failing dad, heroin addict grandfather, silent teenage brother and depressed uncle – pile into their VW van to drive the 800 miles from Albuquerque in order to realise her dream.
*Starring* Steve Carell as suicidal Frank Ginsberg, the excellent Toni Collette as mum Sheryl and Paul Dano as the Nietzsche-obsessed and silent Dwayne.
*You Should Also Know* that all of the young girls at the beauty pageant were real pageant veterans. They each recreated the look and performance from their real-life competition – all blow-dried hair, grown-woman swimwear and megawatt smiles.
*For Fans Of* Christmas – it’s a classic! But there’s enough gleeful booby trap pain for Bah Humbug Scrooges to find joy too.
*The Plot* You mean, you don’t know? Big Chicago family go to Paris for Christmas, somehow leaving a son, Kevin, behind. Unsupervised, 8-year-old fun (ice cream, movies, jumping on beds) screeches to a halt when Kevin discovers a pair of hapless house burglars making their way down the suburban street towards his home.
*Starring* #MacaulayCulkin as the sweet Kevin, mouth permanently half open in surprise.
*You Should Also Know* that doctors have diagnosed the (pretty horrific) injuries inflicted on burglars Joe Pesci and@realdanielstern. That iron to the face? A serious facial fracture. The doorknob so hot it’s glowing? Burns so severe the hand would heal to be useless. …But who wants#HomeAlone to be plausible? It’s Christmas!
*For Fans Of* gilded, elegant and soaring films like The King’s Speech and Les Misérables (same director), but with a difficult subject matter that cannot easily be glossed over for Hollywood.
*The Plot* “I believe I am a woman” “I believe it too” When Einar Wegener stands in to model as a lady for his wife, artist Gerda, it stirs within him dormant feelings of femininity – and his female self, Lili Elbe is born. As the couple come to terms with Einar’s true identity, they decide he will undergo male-to-female sex reassignment surgery – the world’s first attempt.
*Starring* Eddie Redmayne as Einar/Lili, and Alicia Vikander as Gerda – who won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
*You Should Also Know* that the film is based on a fictional novel of the same name, which is in turn loosely inspired by the lives of real life Danish painters Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener. Although far more high-profile, Lili was not the first to undergo this type of surgery. Dora Richter (born Rudolph Richter) underwent castration in 1922, penectomy in 1931, and then vaginoplasty – a highly experimental procedure, and a success.
#FRIDAYFILMCLUBThe Talented Mr Ripley, Anthony Minghella, 1999
*For Fans Of* jaw-dropping feats of deception, sociopaths with charm, and the dreamy, sumptuous backdrop of 1950s Italy.
*The Plot* Is it better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody? Sent to Italy to retrieve the millionaire playboy he pretends to know, Tom Ripley lies his way into privileged life. As his deceptions spiral ever further out of control, tangled in unrequited love, the only solution is to eliminate those who uncover the truth.
*Starring* #MattDamon as the sinister Tom Ripley, #JudeLaw as the spoilt yet irresistible Dickie Greenleaf, and@GwynethPaltrow as Dickie’s girlfriend – in a summer wardrobe of 50s swimwear, knotted white shirts and Alice bands.
*You Should Also Know* that Jude Law broke a rib while filming his (AHEM SPOILER) murder sequence. Ouch.
*For Fans Of* kaftan coats, boys with long hair, peace, love and Led Zeppelin.
*The Plot* It’s 1973. A 15-year-old aspiring music journalist with an over-protective mother blags a commission for Rolling Stone magazine, going on tour with rock band Stillwater and their enigmatic groupies, the Band Aids.
*Starring* @katehudson as the beautiful Penny Lane, in lace crop tops, flares and a fur coat worn like armour over her ultimately vulnerable soul. The late Philip Seymour Hoffman plays teen William Miller’s journalist mentor.
*You Should Also Know* that Penny Lane’s character is based on the real-life Pennie Lane Trumbull who, with her all-female team the Flying Garter Girls Group, toured the US promoting rock bands. Almost Famous is loosely based on director Crowe’s experiences of rock hedonism while a writer himself for @rollingstone.
*For Fans Of* pulling apart layers of meaning, finding beauty in the unexpected, and criticism of the ‘American Dream’ – like 2008’s Revolutionary Road, another by Sam Mendes.
*The Plot* Our narrator Lester is deep in midlife crisis: unhappily married, with a daughter who despises him. Infatuated by his daughter’s best friend, Angela, Lester embarks on a vanity quest for youth, breaking the chains of middle class conformity and sexual repression. Though his journey meets a fatal end, he reaches a peaceful conclusion on the true meaning of life.
*Starring* Kevin Spacey as Lester, and Annette Bening as his highly-strung, materialistic wife Carolyn. Thora Birch plays daughter Jane, and Mena Suvari the vain Angela.
*You Should Also Know* that critics and film academics are divided over the meanings behind American Beauty – originally penned as a play by Alan Ball. Even director Mendes cannot pinpoint a single interpretation: “a mystery story, a kaleidoscopic journey through American suburbia, a series of love stories…imprisonment, loneliness, beauty, funny, angry, sad.”
#FRIDAYFILMCLUBEternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, directed by Michel Gondry, 2004
*For Fans Of* sci-fi with an eccentric and delicately romantic veil.
*The Plot* Shy and anxious cartoonist Joel falls for the enigmatic Clementine. After the relationship takes a downward spiral, Clementine decides to erase her memories of him through a brain laser company called Lacuna, Inc. When Joel discovers this, he chooses to erase their relationship too – but it is only in loss that they are reminded of their true love for each other. Like ghosting, with more brain damage.
*You Should Also Know* that Clementine’s every-changing hair colour helps us keep track, as the film flips from past memory to present, to future. With names straight out of the @BleachLondon catalogue, Blue Ruin denotes the present, Agent Orange, we are in Joel’s Mind, and Green Revolution is the first time they met. The multiple changes are all thanks to wigs.
#FRIDAYFILMCLUBJackie Brown, directed by #QuentinTarantino, 1997
*For Fans Of* Tarantino, obviously. Jackie Brown pays homage to 1970s ‘blaxploitation’ films – a subgenre of ‘exploitation’ films, where sensational violence, gore and sex is used to draw in audiences for low-budget B movies.
*The Plot* Air Stewardess Jackie Brown smuggles money across the Mexico border into LA for arms dealer Ordell Robbie. When caught by detectives, she hatches a complex game of confidence and deception between Ordell and the law, with the ultimate aim of pocketing half a million dollars herself.
*Starring* #PamGrier as Jackie Brown, in a role crafted for her. The film is an adaptation of the novel ‘Rum Punch’ by Elmore Leonard, in which Jackie Brown is white and called Jackie Burke. Tarantino changed her race in order to give the part to Grier, and chose the last name Brown in a nod to ‘Foxy Brown’ played by Grier in 1974.
*You Should Also Know* that for #BlackHistoryMonth, we’re running a series of articles on black women in cinema – read an interview with ‘A United Kingdom’ filmmaker @iammaasante at refinery29.uk. We also encourage you to check out the fantastic work of the @britishfilminstitute and their ‘Black Star season’, @reelgoodfilmclub, and The New Black Film Collective @tnbfc
*For Fans Of* sad movies. Powerfully sad movies which hold a mirror up to the dark corners of our world and reflect the unbearably difficult lives some lead.
*The Plot* Claireece ‘Precious Jones’ is 16-years-old, and pregnant with her second child – the result of being repeatedly raped by her father since she was a child. Physically and emotionally tormented by her unemployed mother at their home in Harlem, Precious escapes her painful life through glamorous daydreams. A glimmer of hope is offered when Precious is sent to a new school, and is guided by her teacher Blu Rain.
*Starring* Gabourey Sidibe @gabby3shabby as Precious, who auditioned with no prior acting experience. Mo’Nique @therealmoworldwide won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Mary, Precious’ mother. Spot makeup-free @mariahcarey as social worker Ms. Weiss.
*You Should Also Know* that for #BlackHistoryMonth, we’re running a series of articles on black women in cinema – read ‘Where Are Our Black Female Leads In Cinema?’ through the link in our bio. We also encourage you to check out the fantastic work of the @britishfilminstitute and their ‘Black Star season’, @reelgoodfilmclub, and The New Black Film Collective @tnbfc.
#FRIDAYFILMCLUBPretty In Pink, written by John Hughes and directed by Howard Deutch, 1986.
*For Fans Of* 80s American high school movies, like #SixteenCandles and #Heathers. The movies you watched at girly sleepovers, and still shed a tear over when the good guy gets the girl...
*The Plot* Andie is a working-class girl from ‘the wrong side of the tracks’. Her best friend is Teddy Boy-styled Duckie, and the pair are bullied at school by the rich kids. Andie falls for the rich kid with a heart, Blane, oblivious to the fact that Duckie has loved her all along.
*Starring* @mollyringwald as Andie. Molly is a ‘member’ of the ‘Brat Pack’, the nickname for a group of young actors who often appeared together in 80s coming-of-age films. Demi Moore is another core Brat Pack member...
*You Should Also Know* that, just like in the movie, Andie’s pink prom dress was created from two dresses cut and reassembled together. Costume designer @marilynvance wanted to steer clear of the typical strapless, full-skirted look, because it was unrealistic for cash-strapped Andie. The shoulder-baring, lace insert creation wouldn’t look out of place on a teen today.
*For Fans Of* runaway road movies and#QuentinTarantino – the director penned the screenplay for #TrueRomance, and describes it as his most autobiographical effort.
*The Plot* Elvis-obsessed loner Clarence and call girl Alabama fall in love. An Elvis apparition convinces Clarence to kill Alabama’s pimp, a drug dealer called Drexl. The lovers escape the murder scene, accidentally taking a suitcase of cocaine belonging to the Sicilian Mafia with them. They decide to sell the drugs, but the Mafia are already hunting them down…
*Starring* @reachristianslater as Clarence, and @patriciaarquette as Alabama – in cow print skirts, pink leopard print leggings, and a turquoise bra. (Plus matching turquoise sunglasses, presumably because the rest of her outfit is so *blinding*). A slew of star cameos pepper the plot: #GaryOldman as sociopath Drexl, and #BradPitt as stoner Floyd.
*You Should Also Know* that Clarence and Alabama drive a pink Cadillac – which director Tony Scott gifted to Arquette after filming wrapped.
*For Fans Of* blood. Lots of it. Over 450 gallons of fake blood were used in the filming of Kill Bill: Volume 1 and Kill Bill: Volume 2.
*The Plot* ‘The Bride’ attempts to escape her life as an assassin in the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, after falling pregnant by their leader, Bill. She flees to Texas and meets a young man, but on the day of their wedding dress rehearsal is gunned down by a jealous Bill and the Squad. Her groom and unborn child are murdered. Four years later The Bride wakes from a coma, and flings herself samurai-sword first into exacting revenge.
*You Should Also Know* that Thurman and Tarantino came up with the idea for Kill Bill almost a decade earlier while filming Pulp Fiction. Tarantino offered the script and her role as The Bride to Thurman for her 30th birthday.
*For Fans Of* the soft lighting, pastel colour palettes and dreamlike atmosphere of Sofia Coppola’s films, like her debut The Virgin Suicides, and Marie Antoinette. .
*The Plot* Past-it movie star Bob Harris and college graduate Charlotte meet in a hotel in Tokyo, both ‘lost’ in an unfamiliar city, and ‘lost’ at that moment in their lives. With no complex plot, the film instead captures a brief encounter and chance connection between two people.
*Starring* Bill Murray as Bob, and Scarlett Johansson as Charlotte. Coppola wasn’t sure Murray would actually show up for filming until the first day, going by a verbal confirmation. Johansson was only 17.
*You Should Also Know* that Coppola wrote a lot of the film based on her own life. Charlotte’s husband John, who has left her alone in Tokyo while he completes an assignment, is loosely based on Coppola’s then husband, fellow director Spike Jonze. Coppola and Jonze filed for divorce at the end of 2003 after the film’s release, citing irreconcilable differences.
*For Fans Of* #MarilynMonroe and smart, harmless, vintage comedy. Some Like It Hot is considered to be one of the greatest film comedies of all time.
*The Plot* Jazz musicians Joe and Jerry witness a mob murder, and dress in drag disguise while in hiding. They join an all-female band headed to Miami, meeting and falling in love with lead singer Sugar Kane. Further disguises and deceptions are needed as the pair compete for Sugar’s affections. Cross dressing and suggestions of homosexuality meant the film was produced without approval from Hollywood’s outdated moral codes.
*Starring* Marilyn Monroe as Sugar Kane, searching for a sweet millionaire to marry. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon play Joe and Jerry.
*You Should Also Know* that director Billy Wilder said of making another movie with Monroe: “I have discussed this with my doctor and psychiatrist and they tell me I’m too old and too rich to go through this again.” Monroe struggled to memorise her lines and needed many takes for each scene. She was suffering an addiction to pills, and lacked concentration. However, Wilder still insisted Monroe played Sugar “wonderfully”. Film artwork by @piahakko#R29Collabs
*For Fans Of* confronting the dark shadow that love casts over our lives: it hurts, it doesn’t last, it doesn’t fix us. Sorry. Fortunately, 112 minutes of Ryan Gosling’s face will blind you into blissful ignorance. What heartache? .
*The Plot* Man and woman fall in love. Woman finds out she is pregnant by ex. Man marries woman and raises child to prove his love. This is essentially a marriage built on sand, in a desert resting on tectonic plates. We discover this fact as the film lurches between past and present, unravelling the passionate but ultimately doomed pairing
*Starring* Gosling and Michelle Williams as the married couple, Dean and Cindy. The pair also served as co-executive producers, while Gosling wrote and performed some of the soundtrack
*You Should Also Know* that the film was initially given an ‘NC-17’ rating (equivalent to a UK ‘18’ rating) in the US, because of a scene where Dean performs oral sex on Cindy. Gosling accused the ratings authority of sexism and misogyny, arguing that if it was a girl on guy blowjob, it would be A-OK. They appealed, and the rating was reduced to an ‘R’. Feminist Ryan Gosling isn’t a meme for nothing, y’know.
*For Fans Of* staring at Joaquin Phoenix’s face and losing all sense of time in his deep-sea eyes…. where were we? If you were equal parts awed and disturbed by Charlie Brooker’s ‘Black Mirror’, you’re going to like this.
*The Plot* Theodore Twombly exists in a future LA. Lonely and going through a divorce, he buys a talking operating system with artificial intelligence, designed to learn and evolve around its human owner. The OS names herself Samantha. As man and voice spend more and more time together the vulnerable Theodore falls in love, smitten by her curiosity, emotional support and constant availability.
*Starring* the aforementioned Phoenix, and Scarlett Johansson as the voice of Samantha. I mean, who wouldn’t fall in love with that voice?! Rooney Mara, Olivia Wilde and Amy Adams also star. As humans.
*You Should Also Know* that Samantha Morton was originally cast as the voice of Samantha. She was present for every scene filmed, and recorded all the dialogue…until Jonze decided during editing that something was amiss. Gutted for Sam.
*For Fans Of* the Rio Olympics. Witness a true, if brutal, glimpse of life inside Rio de Janeiro’s favelas during some of their most violent decades. A shot of reality between the heats and medal ceremonies.
*The Plot* Loosely based on real events, the film depicts the dark descent into drugs, gang warfare and senseless murder which gripped Rio’s real life City Of God favela ‘Cidade de Deus’, between the 1960s and the 1980s. An image of one boy forced to choose and shoot another boy by drug lord Li’l Ze sears the mind early on in the movie. If this isn’t for you, you might want to switch back to the athletics.
*Starring* All of the amateur actors were cast from the favelas themselves, with some even from Cidade de Deus. Almost one hundred children attended workshops, where they simulated street war scenes through improvisation – lending a terrifying naturalness to the film’s violence.
*You Should Also Know* that City Of God director Fernando Meirelles masterminded @Rio2016 ’s light and colour filled opening ceremony, with a budget of £5million. (In comparison, London cost £25million, and Beijing £50million). Brazil’s first gold medallist of the games, judo champion Rafaela Silva, grew up in the Cidade de Deus favela.
*For Fans Of* Emotional rollercoasters which lurch from dramatic outpourings of love and secret affairs to death, set to the heart-swelling crescendo and face-splitting grins of a brash musical soundtrack. (You’ve got to like that sort of thing.)
*The Plot* ‘ This story is about love’, our poet protagonist taps out on a typewriter. It’s 1900; Christian (the poet) has moved to Paris, and writes a cabaret to sell to the Moulin Rouge. He falls for the star dancer Satine, who is also being pursued by the cabaret investor, a wealthy evil Duke. Satine is caught in a deadly tug-of-war between true love and the stage. The show must go on, after all.
*Starring* Nicole Kidman and @mcgregor_ewan as Satine and Christian. Kidman was nominated for an Oscar, but really all awards should go to McGregor and his puppy eyes during the duets. They seared through our teen souls. Brilliantly, @kylieminogue plays the role of The Green Fairy (they had fairies in the 1900s who knew), with @ozzyosbourne voicing her laugh. LOL.
*You Should Also Know* that the soundtrack will have you wistfully starring out of the bus window and singing under your breath FOR DAYS. Luhrmann wanted to recreate the thrill of a 1900s cabaret, but for a present-day audience. Which means… pop music �� @xti na, @lilkimthequeenb ee, @kissm ya and @pi nk covered Lady Marmalade especially, for which we are eternally grateful.
*For Fans Of* Rookie Mag, feverishly spilling secrets into diaries, and daydreaming. Sofia Coppola’s directorial debut puts teen girl angst and awkwardness through a hazy lens, with dark results.
*The Plot* It’s 1974 in suburban Detroit. The five Lisbon sisters find their impending womanhood stifled by their devout Catholic mother and overbearing father. Imprisoned by strict house rules and dowdy clothing, they become an irresistible mystery to four neighbourhood boys. They watch in horror as the unbearable weight of being a teenage girl, the tension of sexuality, and their upbringing drives the doomed girls to a tragic end. “Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a thirteen-year-old girl”, declares 13-year-old Cecilia after her first suicide attempt.
*Starring* Kirsten Dunst as 14-year-old sister Lux Lisbon, and Josh Hartnett as her heartthrob in flares, Trip Fontaine. Did we mention the character names are divine?
*You Should Also Know* that the film is a feast of screengrab-able scenes. Hit cmd-shift-3 when the camera x-rays through Lux’s sack-like prom dress to reveal Trip’s name scrawled onto her underwear, or when Lux is left lying in the mist after sex on a football field. Your Tumblr will thank you.
*For Fans Of* British style subcultures, a killer ska soundtrack and makeover movies with a tad more bite than everything Anne Hathaway has been in. If you’ve seen the TV series (’86 ’88 and ’90) and haven’t watched the film, cancel your Friday plans right now and beg/borrow/but not steal a copy of the original movie.
*The Plot* It’s 1983 in the Midlands. A boy called Shaun befriends a gang of older skinheads, who take him under their stick’n’poke tattooed wings and make him one of their own with the help of a buzzcut, a Ben Sherman shirt and some child-size burgundy Dr Martens. Things go awry when an older skinhead called Combo violently tears apart the group with his far right politics and racist views.
*Starring* #ThomasTurgoose, plucked from a youth club in Grimsby to play Shaun, with no acting experience. #StephenGraham is terrifying as Combo, and @vicky.mcclure might just tempt you into shaving your head like her character Lol, the leader of the girls in the gang. Oh, and don’t miss #JackOConnell (the bad boy everyone fancied in Skins) as Pukey.
*You Should Also Know* that director Shane Meadows has hinted at a final film, taking our beloved mates-on-screen to the cinema for one last farewell. F**kin’ ‘ell, Lol we’re coming back!
*For Fans Of* quirky, Tumblr-ready movies with dysfunctional yet lovable families. Think Little Miss Sunshine, with the dusty, multi-layered tweeness of your Nan’s living room.
*The Plot* A family of former child prodigies are reunited when their father announces he has stomach cancer. Semi-incestuous romance, attempted suicide, unearthed checkered pasts and psychiatric turmoil ensues (trust us, it’s not nearly as depressing as it sounds.)
*Starring* Wes Anderson favourites Anjelica Huston, Bill Murray, Luke and Owen Wilson. And Gwyneth Paltrow as Margot, with a wooden finger.
*You Should Also Know* that the fashion is A-class. From Margot’s vintage furs and @Lacoste dress, to Chas’s @adidas tracksuits – you’ll recognise these characters from every Halloween party you’ve been to.
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We’re always on the hunt for tips to make our workouts more effective. Whether we're exercising more efficiently using techniques like high intensity interval training (HIIT) or ensuring our post-gym snacks are as nutritious as possible, we want to ensure we’re getting optimum results.
So, whether you’re a dedicated gym bunny or a casual exerciser, chances are you’ll be fascinated by the results of a new study, which suggests improving your workout could be as simple as uttering a few four-letter words.
The study, by researchers from the University of Keele, found that swearing out loud before exercising could make you stronger, reported MailOnline.
In the first experiment, 29 volunteers were asked to pedal as hard as they could on an exercise bike for 30 seconds, once after swearing and once after saying a “neutral” word. Participants were asked to use the swearwords they’d use if, for instance, they banged their head. “Fuck” and “shit” were some common favourites.
The second test measured hand strength. In it, 52 volunteers were told to squeeze a hand grip as hard as they could, after both swearing and saying a neutral word. The order in which they swore or didn’t swear was randomised in both tests.
Far from just expressing our anger or annoyance, the findings suggested the benefits of having a foul mouth extend to our physical performance. The participants on the exercise bikes produced 4.8% more pedal power when they swore (24 watts), and the other group’s hand grip strength increased by 8.2% after swearing, which would have enabled them to lift an extra 2.1kg on average.
However, the researchers don't yet have a clear explanation of the findings, which were presented in Brighton at the British Psychological Society’s annual conference.
Dr Richard Stephens, from the University of Keele, who led the study, said that while the results showed swearing was consistently helpful to participants, the team wasn't yet sure exactly why. "We know from our earlier research that swearing makes people more able to tolerate pain," he said. "A possible reason for this is that it stimulates the body's sympathetic nervous system – that's the system that makes your heart pound when you are in danger," reported EurekAlert.
However, when the team measured heart rate and other metrics that they'd expect to be affected if the sympathetic nervous system was responsible, they didn't find significant changes.
"So quite why it is that swearing has these effects on strength and pain tolerance remains to be discovered," Stephens added. "We have yet to understand the power of swearing fully." Whatever the conclusion turns out to be, the findings are fucking fascinating.
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Looking for new kick flares, a fluted top or jumpsuit? Read on – this is the competition for you! We've partnered with our friends at French Connection to celebrate their summer collection by offering one lucky reader the chance to win £1,000 to spend in-store! Enter the competition here to be in with a chance. Entry closes 18th May.
In addition to the prize draw, from 9-14th May we're offering everyone an INCREDIBLE exclusive 20% off French Connection online with the code REF29 and by presenting this page in stores and concessions.* We're already eyeing up this red oversized jumpsuit.
Open to legal residents of the United Kingdom, 18 years or older. Ends 18/05/17 at 11:59pm GMT. Official rules here.
*Use code REF29 at the checkout to receive 20% off your purchase on full-priced merchandise atfrenchconnection.com. Offer available online athttp://www.frenchconnection.combetween 09.00 Tues 9th May 2017 until 23:59 Sun 14th May 2017 and in French Connection stores and House of Fraser concessions. Discount is only valid on full-priced merchandise. Excludes items from sale, homeware and gift cards. Offer is not valid in conjunction with any other offer or promotion. French Connection reserves the right to alter, amend or withdraw this offer without prior notice in the event that unforeseen circumstances make this unavoidable.
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