From Frustration to Freedom The Language of Post-Divorce Reinvention

If you live in eastern Melbourne, you might like to come along to my travel writing talk about my 2023 cross-Europe rail trek at Nunawading Library at 10.30am on Wednesday 17 June 2026.Its free of charge, but you need to book a seat via this link: #TravelWriting #TravelWriter #Europe

mastodon bot · 9 days ago

Country diary: No Mow May is back on track – and the results are wonderful | Jennifer Jones Hunts Cross, Liverpool: A survey of the roadside verge turns up 21 species including cuckoo flower and yarrow. But not everyone likes itThe impact was visceral. For days last spring I watched an army of confederates, with their uniforms of fiery gold bands and anthracite hoops, advancing up the road. They were cinnabar moth caterpillars, gathered on their host plant, common ragwort. And thanks to Liverpool city councils observance of No Mow May, there were plenty of both in the roadside verge near my home.But days before the month ended, the mowing team arrived, like pilgrims breaking their Lenten fast early. The ragworts and their parties of travellers were churned up and spat out. I was desolate. Continue reading...

theguardian · 9 days ago

Vocal Break — the power of the female voice, from Rosetta Tharpe to Cyndi Lauper to Billie Eilish Part memoir, part feminist manifesto, Lauren Elkins clever cultural history hails the artists who have broken free from conventions to make their voices heard

financial times · 9 days ago

Its like a trans-Barbie world!: the Indian festival where transgender women can celebrate without fear The annual gathering at Koovagam is rooted in an ancient poem. Five trans attendees talk about what the event means to them in light of a controversial change to the countrys gender recognition lawThe summer air is thick with dust, sweat and the scent of jasmine. In Koovagam, in southern Tamil Nadu, more than 100,000 people have gathered for one of Indias most distinctive festivals. Transgender women from across India, arrive in bright silk saris and gold temple jewellery, their hair oiled and braided with flowers.For nearly 18 days, the little town swells into a city of devotion, culminating in rituals that blur the boundaries between myth and reality.The Koovagam festival pageant winner displays her rings Continue reading...

theguardian · 9 days ago

Hot divorcee summer: get ready for big hats, hot sex and dont-care energy Fresh out of wedlock and in the mood for some fun? Join your newly single sisters in the glow-up to end all glow-upsSorry babe Im a divorced mum on a buffet of magnesium glycinate, ashwagandha, peptides, and sertraline, covering a mortgage alone during late stage capitalism, idgaf about your opinion anymore, wrote Meghan McTavish, an Australian divorce-fluencer, who went viral a couple of years ago because, even after her split, her parents refused to take down her wedding photos.This might be the core of hot divorcee energy: an unvarnished devil-may-care spirit that seems to have captured the cultural moment this summer. So, of course, youre wondering how this differs from the brat, last years aspirational muse – who also, emphatically, did not care what the world thought (though if youre still confused about the difference between that and 2024s hot girl summer, I suggest you go back in time and take last years module again). Continue reading...

theguardian · 9 days ago

I couldnt breathe: the sinister spread of Frances killer seaweed After a series of deaths on the beaches of Brittany, one bereaved family set out to prove the foul-smelling bloom was to blameWhen her phone rang at around 5pm on 8 September 2016, Rosy Auffray was still at work. It was one of her daughters, distressed, calling to tell her that their father, Jean-René, had not come back from his daily run. Only the family dog had returned, alone and exhausted. Rosy rushed back home.When she arrived, Rosy noticed that the dog was behaving bizarrely: she refused to walk, then collapsed under a bush. Her fur stank of rotten eggs, of overflowing sewers. Rosy knew where that smell came from: the mudflats roughly three miles from the family home in Brittany, where seaweed had been accumulating and putrefying. The soggy, decomposing seaweed stretched for miles along the shore, sometimes as much as five feet thick, killing other plants and suffocating fish and small birds. Continue reading...

theguardian · 9 days ago

Its our kinship: can Australia learn to coexist with dingoes? As dingoes vanish from parts of Australia, a new documentary is calling on governments to move away from eradication and towards solutions that benefit both farmers and animalsCarol Pettersen was a small child when her family moved deep into the bush around the Fitzgerald river, on Western Australias south coast. It was the 1940s, and her white father and Aboriginal mother had broken the law simply by being together. So the bush became their refuge.In that country of mallee heath, banksias and low coastal scrub, dingoes were part of the familys hidden world. At night, Pettersen could hear them calling through the dark; by day, she glimpsed them moving through the bush – a flicker of red fur among the trees. Continue reading...

theguardian · 9 days ago

Children of the Blitz review – wonderful, priceless television The last survivors of the blitz share their stories to mark 85 years since it ended. It is a hugely moving film that is all too relevant today – but what a privilege it is to witnessOver the decades since the second world war, the blitz spirit has been in danger of becoming a slightly trite article of national faith. Most recently invoked during the Covid-19 pandemic, it is used to imply a uniquely British pluck; the notion of stoicism as a resource that the UK can always call upon in times of adversity.Inevitably, the blitz spirit is a phrase most commonly used by people who dont remember the blitz. This is partly because anyone who can remember the blitz is now at least in their late 80s. But its also because, as a lived experience, the blitz was clearly not something that lent itself to sentimental homilies. This wonderful, moving film is, for both of those reasons, a hugely important piece of social history. The voices of these witnesses to the Luftwaffes lightning war are variously lyrical, wistful, resolute and deeply regretful. We see them as they play with grandchildren, visit old haunts, attend yoga classes. Their wartime experiences are clearly a backdrop to their lives but very present all the same. They are offered up not quite as a corrective to national myths, but certainly with a harder edge than is customary; as a sobering reminder that to evoke the blitz is to evoke deep trauma. Continue reading...

theguardian · 9 days ago

Instead of panic about VPNs… Instead of panic and screaming AAAAAAAGRHHH!! EU will forbid VPNs!!! DIGITAL CIVIL LIBERTIES AND FREEDOMS ARE DYING! WE ARE GOING TO A DIGITAL GULAG!!!!! I decided to explore some boring details. It seems to be something less stressful thing for me to do. Drawing of hel goddess looks good as image of justice goddess who do not want be blindfolded anymore. Image from […]

mastodon bot · 9 days ago

Celebrity birthdays for the week of May 17-23 includes Derek Hough and Naomi Campbell Celebrities having birthdays during the week of May 17-23 include Dancing With the Stars veteran Derek Hough, musician Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and country singer George Strait

independent · 9 days ago

Youre right to feel suspicious: Wordle is the TV spinoff the world does not need The game already feels like a relic – so I suspect the TV gameshow will be very annoying indeed. But perhaps this is what newspapers need to stay afloatAnyone who has watched television knows that late-night talkshow hosts have a habit of pulling entertainment formats from the barest of inspirations. James Corden got Carpool Karaoke from the act of singing songs in the car. Jimmy Fallon got Lip Sync Battle from the act of mouthing along to songs in the mirror. And now Fallon has struck again. Hes making a Wordle gameshow. Its based on Wordle, that puzzle you used to do while sitting on the toilet.Fallons production company, Electric Hot Dog, has acquired the rights to Wordle and will turn it into a show where teams compete to solve puzzles for cash. The show will film in Manchester, England, this summer and debut on NBC next year. Continue reading...

theguardian · 9 days ago

My obsession with Elvis is almost like a drug: EMIN shoots the breeze on love for king of pop There are some interviews where you sit down, ask the questions, and leave with the quotes you need. And then there are the conversations that feel more like moments. Meeting EMIN at Sea Breeze felt like the latter.

euronews · 9 days ago