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Don’t worry — drink and be merry
The government acts as if booze is the root cause of all our social problems, says Leah McLaren, but it’s not. Drinking is an important part of British culture, the pub is the hub of the community,...
View ArticleThere’s nothing cute about a Canuck
Next week, when the Winter Olympics come to Vancouver, the eyes of the world will be on Canada, the sprawling, frigid nation of my birth. It doesn’t happen often, so when the international spotlight...
View ArticleKnow your onions
James Wong may not yet be a household name but he does have trouble getting through the checkout line at Sainsbury’s. As the presenter of BBC2’s Grow Your Own Drugs, the 28-year-old’s fame is fast on...
View ArticleBrush up your Shakespeare
‘William Shakespeare was the most influential person who ever lived,’ is the audacious opening line of Canadian writer Stephen Marche’s recently published book, How Shakespeare Changed Everything. It’s...
View ArticleResetting the clock?
A Canadian doctor may have found a natural way to extend women’s fertility Dr Robert Casper, gynaecologist, reproductive endocrinologist and Toronto-based fertility guru, is telling me a bunch of stuff...
View ArticleEnglishmen rule
I discovered I was pregnant the same day I met the Queen. It was one of those lightless December afternoons when the sky clamps down on London like the lid on a cast iron pot. I went straight from my...
View ArticleNatural born cheaters
Daisy was my first midwife at the London hospital where, upon finding out I was pregnant, I’d planned to have a straightforward, perfectly average birth with lots of euphoria-inducing drugs and expert...
View ArticleNewborn Notebook
Looking back, it’s baffling that someone like me — a lover of pleasure and loather of pain, a woman who pops Nurofen like breath mints and cannot sit on the sofa without six cushions wedged in at...
View ArticleFortress Britain
When I first came to this country nearly a decade ago, Britain wanted immigrants like me. Back then you could get a visa just for being creative. It was called the ‘Artist, Writer, Composer Visa’ — a...
View ArticleMayor on the rocks
The first thing you see after leaving the baggage carousel at Toronto’s Pearson airport is an enormous photograph of Mayor Rob Ford. In it, the former high school football coach grins in his blingy...
View ArticleThe quiet Nobel winner
Canadians, like the English, are known for our tendency to apologise. The difference is, we actually mean it. Our modesty is not false. Our inferiority complex is not a polite, self-deprecating joke....
View ArticleThe Aussie who saved our flag
A cowboy name. Heavy on the consonants and crudely clipped, the first three letters doubling as an instrument of discipline, it is as solid and unpretty as the man it refers to. Given recent...
View ArticleWhy do we long to be Nazis and tarts?
As the fancy-dress party season begins again, Leah McLaren wonders why the British are never more themselves than when they’re pretending to be someone else There is a popular urban legend about a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Don’t worry — drink and be merry
The government acts as if booze is the root cause of all our social problems, says Leah McLaren, but it’s not. Drinking is an important part of British culture, the pub is the hub of the community,...
View ArticleKnow your onions
James Wong may not yet be a household name but he does have trouble getting through the checkout line at…
View ArticleBrush up your Shakespeare
‘William Shakespeare was the most influential person who ever lived,’ is the audacious opening line of Canadian writer Stephen Marche’s…
View ArticleResetting the clock?
A Canadian doctor may have found a natural way to extend women’s fertility Dr Robert Casper, gynaecologist, reproductive endocrinologist and…
View ArticleEnglishmen rule
I discovered I was pregnant the same day I met the Queen. It was one of those lightless December afternoons…
View ArticleNatural born cheaters
Daisy was my first midwife at the London hospital where, upon finding out I was pregnant, I’d planned to have…
View ArticleNewborn Notebook
Looking back, it’s baffling that someone like me — a lover of pleasure and loather of pain, a woman who…
View Article