Know how I’ve clocked that I have entered my Hyacinth Bucket ‘era’? First thing I did when I saw that knitwear pairing was shift my eyes straight down to their shoes. What footwear would you wear for a photoshoot for a magazine in a national newspaper? Something you wouldn’t mind being photographed, I assume. Ones you’d bought or borrowed specially? Or a pair of favourites th...

Funny old thing, love. We spend our lives looking for it, or avoiding it, or claiming to be incapable of it. It frightens us; it fascinates; it can result in fucking, or crying, or hating, or yearning. Sometimes it’s a chain binding you together, sometimes it’s a one-way mirror, sometimes it’s an energy.

One thing is certain – you’re as likely to find love in the Guard...

We’re down to the last couple of cigarettes in the noxious 85% tar pack of 2025. What shall we light them with? A Brat-green Clipper from last year that we just found behind the sofa? A £50 note (billionaires only)? Or maybe we should pop one in our mouth and wait for the flames slowly licking away at the planet to reach us and finish the lot off?

But it’s not all bad,...