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Angelina Jolie's double mastectomy puts genetic key to breast cancer in the spotlight

Wed, 15 May 2013 10:55:45 +0100

Video: The Foreign Secretary William Hague praises Angelina Jolie

Even celebrities are mortal. They share our genes and, like us, cannot escape their inheritance. Angelina Jolie’s graceful and dignified account of her encounter with her own mortality in The New York Times will inspire millions.

The 10 Best sponsored cycle rides

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 +0100

{1} NSPCC London to Paris

A 300-mile cycle from the centre of London to the Eifel Tower, this is a five-day ride that takes in many of the villages and market towns of northern France. Accommodation is in mid-range hotels with buffet lunches to fuel your ride.

11-15 September, registration fee; £149, sponsorship target; £1,550, nspcc.org.uk/londontoparis

Paul McKenna: I can make you better

Tue, 14 May 2013 00:00:00 +0100

My eyes are closed tight and I'm repeating the word "rage" in a rhythmic mantra. Opposite me sits a celebrity who is moving his hands up and down the tops of my arms in what I'm told is a soothing manner. Bear with me. It's not what it seems, although the strangeness of the situation I've found myself in is not lost on me.

Teen mags: Still a girl's best friend?

Tue, 14 May 2013 00:00:00 +0100

Fashion shoots featuring products from Louis Vuitton and Jimmy Choo. Articles on under-21 style icons and the joy of wearing crowns. And Pixie Geldof on English fashion designer Henry Holland. Welcome to Miss Vogue – out now with the June issue of British Vogue – a teen magazine unlike those its readers' mums will recall from yesteryear.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has been updated but should we beware this manual's diagnosis?

Wed, 08 May 2013 20:30:00 +0100

Next month, the latest edition of a book will be published in America that, according to its critics, will give you a starring role in your own private performance of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest – by turning aspects of your normal behaviour, such as checking Twitter a little too often, into a new mental disorder.

'She was the love of his life. Then he killed her': Daughters share the story of why their father murdered their mother

Tue, 07 May 2013 00:00:00 +0100

Dying daffodils were the first sign something was wrong. Graham and Marjorie Glover were at home in Swansea a month after celebrating their golden wedding anniversary on the Orient Express. Their eldest daughter, Nicky, was visiting. She remembers her parents as a warm, loving couple. They still held hands and, in summer, Marjorie liked to watch from her sun lounger as Graham tended to his flower beds.

How parents are battling sexism in toy shops

Tue, 07 May 2013 00:00:00 +0100

As a child, whenever I visited a toy shop and was confronted with row upon row of pink-lipped, glassy-eyed dolls, I couldn't have been less interested. Aside from the odd token Barbie, I very much eschewed most "girls'" toys, favouring instead model dinosaurs, Lego and building blocks.

The songs that keep my son's spirit alive

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0100

Frances Molloy couldn't help but admire her son's single-minded determination to make a living in the music industry. Like any caring parent she wanted him to be happy and fulfilled, but his choice of career also gave her some concerns. "As a typical mum, when he left college I said to him, 'what about university, what is your plan B?'" Talented musician Michael didn't have a back-up plan.

Where there's love, there's war

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0100

I have always loved a good argument. I hate bad arguments, and rarely indulge. Do people really argue about how the toothpaste is squeezed out of the tube or is that just part of our domestic mythology? In my first marriage we had arguments all the time. I found myself filled with adrenalin, purpose. We argued to win. I was always being accused of being a Platonist, an accusation I was rather proud of.

This chart could save your life: How mathematicians are fighting the war on cancer

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0100

Last year Andrew Jackson became another cancer statistic. At the age of 56 he was diagnosed with tumours in his prostate gland and given a 50-60 per cent chance of a cure by his consultant radiologist.

The age of anxiety: a medical condition or just the new normal?

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0100

This is the age of anxiety, the era of the benzodiazepine Xanax – "all jumpy and edgy and short of breath," as New York magazine puts it. Climate change, terrorism, recession – there's something for everyone to worry about, and a medication or a book to go with it. But is anxiety a medical condition or just the new – even not so new – normal?

'They had to find a way to rebuild my womanhood'

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0100

Four years ago, Claire Taylor, then 20, was like any other young woman on the edge of her life. Good looking, outgoing, bright and full of youthful exuberance with lots of friends and a promising career unfolding as a chef on the Isle of Man, there was just one small thing that bothered her. In an age where women are expected to strive for absolute perfection in the looks department, Claire had an imperfection she badly wanted corrected – an extra flap of skin on her labia that made her feel "like a freak".

On the fast track to happiness

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0100

There was the usual diversity at the London Marathon last year: Starship Troopers, Santas, a Pope, a gingerbread man, a rhinoceros, various Duchess of Cambridge lookalikes and a 23ft-high giraffe, all in running shoes.

Learning from Andrew Marr, Lionel Shriver... exercise – is it bad for your health?

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 17:45:08 +0100

Lock up your exercise machines! Or at least continue to use them as towel racks. Because they could kill you. So suggests Andrew Marr, who partly blames newspaper articles (sorry, Andy) about the virtues of intensive exercise for the stroke he suffered after an all-out session on his rowing machine.

The 10 Best gym bags

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0100

1. Reebok

This reliable rucksack has practical pockets, durable fabric, plenty of storage space and design-conscious detail. And because it enables you to just bung your fitness gear on your back, it’s particularly good for commuters.

£38, reebok.co.uk

Rett Syndrome: 'Hannah is painfully aware of her limitations'

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0100

The most perfect days of my life were the three days after Hannah was born. My husband Vincent and I were in Sweden, where they do things a bit differently. There was a communal kitchen in the maternity ward, which had the best hot chocolate ever. Midwives were on hand, but no one came to bother us, so we were both in one double room for three days with Hannah. We just lay on the bed and looked at her, saying: "She's amazing." It was beautiful.

The power of intervention: America's most successful addiction treatment has been slow to catch on here – until now

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0100

It was a shock. Just surreal. I'd woken up with no pills and was on my way out to the pharmacy when I came downstairs to see my whole family sitting in silence, waiting for me." Among them was a man Naomi had never seen before, sitting at the edge of the group with his hands folded in his lap. Her sister introduced him. "This is Daniel. He's here to help us help you."

Lost in Cricklewood: the immigrants who wound up living on the A5

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 11:41:46 +0100

A year or so before the London Olympics was due to start and people from all over the world would arrive in London in their droves, I was thinking how great it would be to make a film about the lives of some of the people from elsewhere who were already living here in London.

'I feel brainwashed – a robot of Scientology'

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0100

Jenna Miscavige Hill lives a quiet life in San Diego with her husband, Dallas, and their two children, three-year-old Archie and 11-month-old Winnie. But the beginning of her life was anything but ordinary and only now, having written a book about how she lost her childhood to Scientology, is she coming to terms with growing up in a church filled with child labour, cruel punishments, family separation and bullying. Her revelations are all the more explosive as she is the niece of the movement's leader, David Miscavige.

Tabata Protocol: Short, sharp – and shocking

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0100

Rather than describe a four-minute exercise regime devised by a possibly sadistic Japanese professor, I will reproduce here every word spoken as Robert Scrivener, my trainer, leads me through it.

Why the game’s up for Sweden's sex trade

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I am sitting in the back of an unmarked police car on the small island of Skeppsholmen, to the east of Stockholm's picturesque old town. Above us is the city's modern art museum but it's a dark February night and we're not here to appreciate culture. "They park up there," says the detective in the front passenger seat, pointing to a car park at the top of the hill. "We wait a few minutes and then we leap out, run up the hill and pull open the doors."

'I never ask my doctor how long I've got': 23-year-old Kristin Hallenga's health crusade to warn women about risks of breast cancer

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Crushed into a Beijing subway train each morning as she commuted to her first job in the travel industry, Kristin Hallenga joked with a friend that the otherwise exclusively male inhabitants of the carriage were "copping a feel". Aged just 23, she had no way of knowing that casual joke would soon come to symbolise her own personal crusade to alert young women to the dangers of breast cancer and revolutionise attitudes in the health service.

'To whistleblow is like a death sentence': five people who risked everything to speak out

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Nevres Kemal was a social worker with Haringey Council between 2004 and 2007. After raising concerns with senior managers about child protection failings there, she wrote a letter in February 2007 to the Department of Health warning that children in the borough were at risk. Six months later, 17-month-old Peter Connelly (Baby P) died at the hands of his mother and two other men, despite receiving more than 60 visits from council health and social workers. Ms Kemal, who did not work on the Baby P case, eventually lost her job (due to an unrelated complaint). She has since set up a charity, the Raising My Voice Foundation, for whistleblowers in her local community.

Build your own bike with the Bamboo Bicycle Club

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 18:30:00 +0000

It's 8am on a Saturday morning and I'm standing in a freezing cold warehouse in Hackney Wick, London holding a hacksaw. In front of me is a sheet of paper covered in angles and equations. Piled around the room are stacks of bamboo. By the end of the weekend, I'm meant to have turned some of it into a bicycle frame. I think of the last time I did woodwork and my fingers go numb.

The day my silence ended

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Sometimes, I look back at the photos of myself as a young boy. Scanning the images, I recognise my mother, my father, even the distinctive features of my two elder sisters. I vaguely remember the cousins whom we have lost contact with over the years, but I do not recognise, or relate to, the photos of myself.

The 10 Best money-saving websites

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

{1} Travel Supermarket

Nothing takes the fun out of a holiday like trying to find the best deals. Travel Supermarket is a one-stop place to compare flights, hotels and car hire and the clear website makes it easy to browse their wide range of package deals.

travelsupermarket.com

The 10 Best Easter egg hunts

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

{1} Easter EGGstravaganza, Enfield, Middlesex

A day of fun organised by Noah's Ark Children's Hospice. Expect egg-and-spoon races, storytelling, face painting and, of course, an Easter egg hunt.

Sat 30 Mar, 11am-3pm, adults £5.50, concessions £4.50, children aged 4-16 £2.50, under-3s free of charge, capelmanorgardens.co.uk

'There are lots of gay families out there'

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Janis Hetherington sits with her back erect on a pink chaise, in a pink room. We are in the understated grandeur of her 17th-century longhouse in a sleepy town in Oxfordshire, which she shares with her long-term partner, Barbara. Her grey hair is wound in a tight plait and pinned to her head. With wide trousers, waistcoat, jaunty cravat and a hanky in her pocket she resembles a country gent about to go hunting.

SoulCycle: The wheel deal

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

It's 8.30am and a tiny candlelit room in midtown New York is filled with exercise bikes. On the podium, an instructor is queuing up his carefully curated playlist, and on one wall is a manifesto that wouldn't look out of place in a yoga retreat. "We aspire to inspire. We inhale intention and exhale expectation. We commit to our climbs and find reflection in our sprints."

Being Modern: Mumpreneurs

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

It's every new parent's wet dream: coming up with the next pointless can't-live-without baby gadget or money-spinning scheme. That useless piece of digital detritus – yes, Gro-egg room temperature monitor, I mean you! – or superfluous stork-printed sling could be their meal ticket to a lifetime of maternity leave. So goes the thought process in the remaining brain cells in your average sleep-deprived mother. And I should know, because I've been one. Hell, I am one.

Weight Watchers is celebrating turning 50 and now has NHS approval for its diet plan

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

There's no point denying it any more – we are a nation of fatties. Two thirds of English men are fat. Considerably more than half of English women are fat. A third of little boys and nearly a quarter of little girls in England are fat. Just under two-thirds of adult Scots and well over half of Welsh adults are – you guessed it – fat.

What it’s like to live with autism: new simulation Auti-Sim gives mother a sense of her daughter's life

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 18:06:24 +0000

I spend a lot of time wondering what life is really like for my daughter, who has Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism. Watching her navigate the day-to-day is one thing: comprehending the sources of her meltdowns and frequent distress from the inside is something else entirely.

How should we use the 'n' word?

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

"Rappers, when you use the word 'nigger', remember

The stillborn baby I'll never know

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

If someone had asked me eight months ago, "How would you cope if your baby died?" my answer would have been, "I'd never get over it." Even now I can't believe I'm still standing, that I've given birth to death and I'm still here. Arella will always be our very much wanted and loved first child.

Good morning, flu campers

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

As someone who doesn't take well to mild illness and leans heavily on quack remedies to alleviate even the slightest discomfort, the prospect of self-inflicted malaise is an incredibly unwelcome one. Medical trials, therefore, are not something on my bucket list. But when I stumbled upon an advert in a trendy magazine offering up to £3,750 to take part in something called FluCamp, the name emblazoned across the page in a preppy-style US sports-team font, my interest was piqued. Being ill can be miserable, but this sounded like a paid holiday.

The 10 Best Mother's Day gifts

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

{1} Marks & Spencer Mother's Day Spring Posy

It might not be the most original of gifts, but you'll be hard-pushed to find a mum who doesn't love flowers. This pretty posy, which comprises long-lasting blue hyacinth, purple tulips and white roses, won't break the bank and is available in alternative colours too.

£10, marksandspencer.com

As NHS boss David Nicholson prepares to face MPs over the Mid Staffs scandal, the question is: should he stay or should he go?

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 21:30:00 +0000

The campaign has been harsh, even virulent. Almost every day for the past month, Sir David Nicholson, the head of the NHS, has woken up to new and lurid accusations against him in the media. He has been charged with gagging whistle-blowers who wanted to expose failings in NHS care under his watch, disregarding patients to save money and, most damming of all, being directly accountable, and by implication responsible, for the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of patients at Stafford Hospital.

New app for testing your urine launches (and it doesn't involve dropping your smartphone down the loo)

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 14:31:23 +0000

Hypochondriacs rejoice. A new app that can analyse urine and check for medical conditions will be available to download from March.

How my gran changed my life

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Of all the things you expect to be doing as a 23-year-old graduate with a great job (and even better prospects), giving it all up to move in with your grandmother to care for her full-time isn't one of them. Especially if your gran has severe dementia. But that's what happened to me and what an eye-opener it has been, changing my personality, my career path and my whole attitude to life profoundly.

Learn how to bend it like Beyoncé

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I'm not much of a dancer. At parties I can be found perched safely on a comfortable seat with a drink in hand (or chatting in the smoking area). Struttin' my stuff on the dancefloor? Not so much. Sometimes I might sway my hips if I've hit the whisky too hard but generally I see the dancefloor as an area invented purely for public humiliation. The modern-day stocks, if you will.

A daughter's tribute to the NHS: 'By now I am convinced it is the nearest we get to a benevolent deity. It's free care for American immigrants, for absent parents, for the only father I will ever have’

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 21:30:02 +0000

The intensive care unit of a hospital in south-west London, 9.30pm. A vast spaceship dashboard of drug delivery systems is silent, monitors displaying the word ‘Privacy’. I gradually become aware that my father has died.

Online dating: Seeking love on the side

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Mary describes herself as a happily married woman in her forties. She has a child under 10 and met her husband when she was in her first year at university. She is 5ft 4in and calls herself "average-looking". Last year during a Friday night bout of insomnia, she logged on to the website AshleyMadison.com. "By the Saturday night I was in someone else's bed having sex," she tells me in a forthright way.

Dear madam, I think I'm your son... The crucial work of adoption intermediaries

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

It's gone midnight and the phone wakes me with a jolt, although I think I know who it will be. "Was it you that sent the letter?" asks a female voice, tentatively. I sit up and take a deep breath. Every few weeks I post a letter that will change somebody's life. I don't know them and they don't know me, but once they've digested my words, they'll probably smile, cry or gasp and quite possibly, all three.

Extremely premature babies: 'We wondered if it was right to let him live'

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Charlie was born after 24 weeks and two days inside his mother's womb. That is barely half the normal 40 weeks, and at the outer limit of viability for human life. His lungs were not working, his skin was translucent and his brain was half-formed. He spent the first six months of his life in hospital – four of them on a ventilator – while he suffered repeated crises, contracted meningitis, had a shunt inserted to drain fluid from his brain and struggled to live.

Teens and divorce: The kids are not all right

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Ten years ago, if anyone had told me they were postponing divorce "till the children are older" I'd have thought their words made perfect sense. Back then, my children were one, five, eight and 10. I wouldn't have been able to imagine the effect on them of hearing that their father and I were splitting up. Whose house would they live in? How would they cope without bedtime cuddles from both of us? What would weekends and holidays be like for them without the two of us around? So much better to postpone it, I'd have mused: by the time they were older and living their own lives, they'd hardly even notice the break-up.

The 10 Best pushchairs

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

1. Maclaren Volo

£85, boots.com

This is basic, with only one seat position but provided you don’t expect all the bells and whistles, it’s hard to fault for children aged six months and over. It is easy to fold, simple to use and is especially handy where space is tight. No wonder it’s such a hit with public transport users.

Valentine's Day: just don't say it with padlocks

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 17:42:49 +0000

This Valentine’s Day you might find yourself strolling with your loved one along a footbridge. City lights twinkle; it’s a romantic scene any day of the week but this being 14 February things go up a notch. Next minute said loved one produces a padlock with both of your initials scrawled on its brassy body.

The Alkaline diet vs the 5:2 diet

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

The Alkaline diet

What is it?

Although she hardly looks like someone in need of losing weight, Victoria Beckham is the latest star to try the most recent version of this diet, the Honestly Healthy Alkaline Programme, which involves eating mainly alkaline foods in order to keep the body's pH between 7.35 and 7.45. Other celebrity fans include Gwnyth Paltrow (her again) and Kirsten Dunst. The Alkaline diet doesn't just claim to help you lose weight – many websites advocating it claim it can heal a wide range of ailments including arthritis, diabetes and cancer, as well as slowing the ageing process. Authors of Honestly Healthy, nutritional therapist Vicki Edgson and organic chef Natasha Corrett, say that the diet can improve energy levels and memory and help prevent headaches, bloating, heart disease, muscle pain and insomnia.

'A sting nearly killed me'

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Four months ago Callum Hall was enjoying the holiday of a lifetime. He had set off with his girlfriend Ailish's family to Greece. They hired a yacht and spent their days sailing off the white shores of the island of Skiathos. Their days were filled with sun and swimming, their nights with good food and starry skies. 20-year-old Callum had no idea that his life was about to change for ever.

The 10 Best Valentine gifts

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

1. Pierre Hermé Praliné Noisette

£15, pierreherme.com

A chocolate and hazelnut spread of almost obscene creaminess. Terrific on croissants – or anywhere else you'd care to spread it on the 14th.

Motor neurone disease: 'I try to live from week to week'

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

There are two things in particular that I remember from lessons with Ms Jones – as I still instinctively want to call her nine years after our A-level English class left that room on the top floor of the sixth-form block at Edmonton County for the last time. The first was the drive of her dramatic energy: her ability as a teacher to use her emotions and ours to pull us moany, tracksuited teenagers through what seemed like endless reams of bloody Carol Ann Duffy.

Should we cuddle babies or leave them to cry?

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Rachel Waddilove knows a thing or two about bringing up baby. The grandmother, maternity nurse and all-round parenting expert has spent 40 years assisting end-of-their-tether mothers and fathers – among them Gwyneth Paltrow and Lord and Lady Mountbatten – on matters ranging from breastfeeding ("great if you can do it") to baby-led weaning ("absolutely not"), and stands somewhere on the parenting spectrum between Gina Ford and Mary Poppins.

The key to Murray's success: Hot Yoga!

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Whatever the outcome in Melbourne this morning, Andy Murray can rest assured that he is one of the world's hottest players. And thanks to the remarkable new training programme that helped to turn him into a Grand Slam champion, this is as true off the court as on it.

Do the après-ski stretch

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I don't associate skiing with healthiness. If you do it like most people – for a week, once a year, using knee joints and leg muscles that do little else for the other 51 weeks – a sudden ski trip can be a first-class ticket to a World of Pain. And that's before you factor in long nights, high altitude, sun exposure, and filling your body with as much glühwein as possible. Despite what some people want to believe, skiing doesn't make you fit.

What happened to the Chinese children brought to Britain for adoption in the 1960s?

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Back in the 1960s, more than 100 children – mostly abandoned, mostly babies and mostly girls – were brought over from Hong Kong to be adopted by British families. The British colony simply couldn't cope with the number of refugees fleeing communist China, the upshot of which was struggling families and overcrowded orphanages. But only one of them is known to have traced her birth family.

Life is grand as a granny

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

When I was young and gloomy, everyone would say, "Don't worry – soon Mr Right will come along on a white charger and carry you off and everything will be all right!" They didn't say, as they should have done: "Don't worry! If you play your cards right, your heart will one day be captured by a small red sausage with a wrinkly face, wearing nappies, a tiny chap who will, one day, call you 'Granny'." The Welsh say that the "perfect love does not come along until the first grandchild", and they're right.