Are we there yet? Get all the family fitter

Its fans claim that it can relieve back pain, allergies, insomnia and depression. But as Simon Usborne finds, this new take on the 'bed of nails' is just as painful as you'd expect

Why is it that when you get older you have to start doing all the stupid things that you used to laugh at when you were younger? I've lost count of the things that I swore I'd never do that now form part of my daily routine. I now make weird disapproving noises to myself whenever I spot a chavvy-looking youth wandering past me on the pavement. When said youth turns back towards me and sticks a horrid little knife up to my face I find myself meekly handing over whatever gadget I've just bought. Buzzing from the adrenalin of this experience I drive home at over 30 miles an hour and decide to do some gardening to clear my head.

Controversial television yoga teacher plans to transform remote island

Prompted by a sign on the way to the beach, I decide to treat myself to a yoga lesson. There's nothing that strange about my yoga teacher having a partner who reads tarot cards – it's that kind of place. What is strange, though, is the fact that I'm sitting in front of said tarot reader 30 minutes after my first yoga lesson, despite my usual scorn for such things

The road to spiritual and physical enlightenment can be a lucrative one for the many companies involved in the phenomenal growth of yoga classes, DVDs, books, equipment, clothing. Susie Mesure reports

Jemima French, fashion designer

Tom Vallance's obituary of Anne Brown (17 April) covers the contours of her career in fine detail, writes Martin Anderson, but misses some of the spark of mischievous fun that became evident on personal acquaintance. I got to know her in her late eighties and was delighted to find she was an enthusiastic e-mailer. But in her 90th year the e-mails suddenly dried up and so, fearing the worst, I wrote to ask if she was all right. I had a note a few days later, apologising for her silence and explaining that she had been in hospital for cancer of the colon, which required the removal of 18 feet of intestine – "But don't worry: I don't need that end of it".

Rural Notebook

Alice Eve is flitting from table to table at the Electric, a private members' club in Notting Hill Gate. A social butterfly in flight, the British actress is waving at everybody in sight with a dreamlike, old-fashioned and polite air about her. She greets the waiter as if he is the kindest person on the planet, rocking her head slightly from side to side as she talks to him.

“I’ll be coming straight from the airport, so I hope you don’t mind if I have my luggage with me,” says Jacqueline Koay. I’ve arranged to meet the ebullient yoga entrepreneur and author of Live Patanjali!, who is flying back from New York on the red eye. I assume luggage means a giant wheely bag, but standing outside a Malaysian restaurant in Soho is a petite figure nonchalantly toting a rucksack. She’s dressed in painfully cool Lululemon yoga gear (“This? I was given it”) and has even been to class since touching down at 8am.

Essential skills for the modern world

Are we there yet? Yoga retreats for kids