Life & Style news

• Beauty queen: how Pat McGrath revolutionised makeup

  06-08-2017 17:00
  A self-confessed cosmetics nerd, Pat McGrath creates the looks for 80 major fashion shows a year. As she launches her first line, she talks about race, Instagram, her best friend Edward Enninful (the new editor of Vogue) and the influence of her makeup-obsessed mother JeanIn 20 years of interviewing actors, musicians, designers and artists, my audience with Pat McGrath has been the most difficult. Not because she’s chilly or aloof (she’s tactile, warm, prone to outbursts of laughter
  
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• Tiger selfies – and other Tinder tropes we’d like to see gone

  06-08-2017 15:00
  The dating app has asked users to stop posing with tigers, but – from tourist pictures to mirror selfies – there are plenty of other pitfallsAnother day, another era on the wane. The dating app Tinder has been asked to stop its users from using selfies with tigers on their profiles, after animal charities argued, entirely correctly, that it is cruel.“It’s time for the tiger selfies to go,” the company wrote in a blogpost. “These photos take advantage of beauti
  
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• Mexico considers importing avocados as staple priced out of consumers' reach

  06-08-2017 13:00
  Country that produces almost half the world’s avocados contemplates the unthinkable as dietary staple becomes too costly for ordinary MexicansThe growing global appetite for avocados has been blamed for a litany of sorrows, from self-inflicted stab wounds to stopping young people from buying their own homes.But in Mexico, the world’s biggest producer, what used to be a dietary staple is now too expensive for many ordinary consumers. And, now the country where the avocado is believe t
  
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• Belly full: New York's bacon restaurant – and its nine-course tasting menu

  06-08-2017 13:00
  A new Korean-influenced restaurant in Williamsburg offers nine pork courses on an omakase basis, as well as a spot of karaokeBacon has made its way into burgers, cupcakes and even cocktails. Now there’s an all-bacon tasting menu. At Korean-influence eatery Belly, opened last month in Brooklyn, diners can feast on nine porky dishes ($45) from bacon sushi to bacon steak.Despite the focus on bacon, it’s not the relentless grease-fest you might expect Continue reading...
  
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• How Britain fell for Wetherspoon’s

  06-08-2017 09:00
  Wetherspoon’s has won a special place in our hearts, bourgeois snobbery notwithstanding. As it nears its 40th birthday, Ed Cumming visits his localHonestly, this is nicer than the X,” says my girlfriend, referencing an international luxury hotel brand whose name you would know but whose favour, as a travel writer, she is keen not to lose.The problem is that we are not staying with a rival luxury hotel chain. We’re in a Spoons. More specifically, we are in the Greenwood in Sudb
  
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• Henry vacuum is under warranty but the pipes are no longer covered

  06-08-2017 08:01
  The machine works fine – but the attachments have fallen apart after less than a year’s use and they only came with a six-month guaranteeIn August last year I purchased a new Henry vacuum cleaner from a well-regarded nearby store. The machine has been fine. However, the pipes that connect it have come apart and now have to be held together with tape and glue.Being well inside the warranty, I asked the shop what to do but was very surprised to be told that the warranty on Henry access
  
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• How to cook, and eat, like an Italian: a foodie week in Puglia

  06-08-2017 08:00
  A cookery school and some amazing restaurants transport Harriet Green and her family to foodie rapturesWe walk into the massive kitchen and Aldo, the chef, announces that he can tell at a glance who does the cooking at home. He’s not talking about me. My husband exudes calm, Aldo says. He has, it seems, the look of someone who can stand the heat. Stung by this, I’m determined to prove Aldo wrong, and outshine my husband.We’ve come to Puglia with our teenage daughter, to cook li
  
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• This week, we love to buy… | Alice Fisher

  06-08-2017 07:00
  Bright and bold Finnish clothes for kids, seaweed pasta that’s black and make-up that won’t pollute the oceans… these are some of the things we love this week Mainio is a Finnish label for children who don’t want to look like Prince George or Princess Aurora. The comfortable clothes are bright and bold with zingy graphic patterns on organic cotton. Perfect for summer adventures. Mainio. From £10, zalando.co.uk Continue reading...
  
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• The summer afternoon Frank Sinatra tried to beat me up

  06-08-2017 07:00
  It’s 1952, a blisteringly hot day on the Hudson River, and a 24-year-old US army film-maker has the misfortune to get on the wrong side of Ol’ Blue EyesI was 24 in the summer of 1952, and had recently completed the US Army’s Signal Corps Officer Candidate School. I was assigned to the Pictorial Center, formerly Paramount Studios, in Long Island, as a screenwriter. I had never written a film; I knew absolutely nothing about film-making.He was swearing loudly at me: 'I'm going to
  
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• The eco guide to microplastics

  06-08-2017 07:00
  Seafood eaters consume up to 11,000 tiny pieces of plastic a year. Scary, isn’t it?I’m officially declaring this the Summer of Plastic. With the rising tide of plastic waste – 38.5 million plastic bottles a day in the UK alone and production set to quadruple by 2050 – the plastic pollution crisis in our oceans has become the breakout issue.Activists are stepping it up from quiet beach cleans to strident zero-tolerance campaigns. In terms of severity, Surfers Against Sewag
  
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• Nigel Slater’s tomatoes recipes

  06-08-2017 07:00
  Tomatoes are particularly perky at the moment. Bring out the best in yours with olives, anchovies and harissa
  This summer’s scorching sun has been just what the tomatoes needed. Pity, then, that I couldn’t grow any this year, spending far too much of the season working away from home. All but the largest Marmande do rather well in pots on the back steps. At the shops I pick up the most oddly shaped tomatoes I can find, the smaller the better. The large, deeply ridged yellow fruit, th
  
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• My son wants a sibling, but I don’t want a baby | Mariella Frostrup

  06-08-2017 07:00
  A woman who is happy to have had one baby after accidentally getting pregnant, faces a dilemma over whether to have a secondThe dilemma Some years ago my husband and I made the hard decision not to have children. He wanted them but he accepted that I didn’t and was sad for a bit. I was conflicted and guilty but eventually we came to terms with our decision. Then I found out I was pregnant. It was a huge shock but I couldn’t bring myself to have an abortion. I had an awful pregnancy a
  
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• Get high-quality seed tailored to your plot for free

  06-08-2017 07:00
  Save seed from your own plants. Now’s the time to do it, and these three tips make it even easier…I am such a sucker for a bargain. I can’t resist rummaging through the “reduced to clear” bins of seeds that pop up in garden centres at this time of year. For the vast majority of species, these will still remain perfectly viable until next spring, giving you comparable results despite being up to half the price.Given how simple it is to do, I am always surprised how
  
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• Costume drama: the story of a colourful Margate home

  06-08-2017 07:00
  When a seaside bolthole became a home, its costume designer owner let loose on the interior“Moving to Margate was a no-brainer really,” says Clare Roberts. She and her partner Michael McClatchey bought their four-storey Georgian townhouse on a leafy square as a holiday home three years ago. “We fell in love with the town; the more we visited, the more we wanted to stay,” she says. Which, after a year of shuttling back and forth from a flat in north London, is exactly what
  
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• Bang Bang Oriental Foodhall London restaurant review

  06-08-2017 07:00
  A new foodhall brings the gastronomic thrills of regional China – and beyond – to the outskirts of the metropolis
  Bang Bang Oriental Foodhall, 399 Edgware Road, LondonNW9 0FH. Meal for two: £25 to £45Ah, Colindale, the Croydon of north London, only with less charisma. Oh, stop wincing. This is my home turf, the suburban sprawl famous for its research institute for infectious disease and its police training college. For John Betjeman, chronicler of these cherry-blossomed s
  
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• Aussie rules: great wines from Down Under | David Williams

  06-08-2017 06:59
  Three Australian wines that give you more bang for your buckParker Favourite Son Coonawarra, Australia 2014 (£7.49, Waitrose) Part of the reason the British first fell in love with Australian wine was its price. It wasn’t always the cheapest on the shelf, but you frequently got more fruit and easy, soft charm for your money than in, say, France or Italy. That hasn’t really been the case more recently. Generally speaking, Australian wine has got much better – more diverse,
  
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• 15 of the best T-shirts for men – in pictures

  06-08-2017 00:55
  Whether it’s a holiday special or year-round faithful, the T-shirt is a wardrobe essential. Here’s are this season’s best – to wear simply with jeans or shorts, or layer under a shirt Continue reading...
  
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• Five ways to wear... yellow boots – in pictures

  06-08-2017 00:50
  Bright yellow has been the surprise hit of the summer, both for accessories and wardrobe staples. Try these boots. They’ll give you a Balenciaga vibe, but at a fraction of the price Continue reading...
  
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