Blind date: ‘When she gets excited, her Newcastle accent comes out. It’s very cute’ | Life and style

Rachael on George What were you hoping for?A lovely evening with a guy who felt comfortable and knew how to ask questions of their date. First impressions?A bit nervous, but very friendly and chatty, easy to get into a conversation with. What did you talk about?Cats. Travelling. Skiing and ski seasons. Our jobs. Running into lamp-posts. So … Read more

‘I positioned myself against a wall and waited’: Michel Kharoubi’s best phone picture | Photography

On the day he took this image, French photographer Michel Kharoubi was on his way to visit his father in a medical retirement home. This was shot in Les Olympiades, in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, but Kharoubi notes that the specific location is not important to him. “I don’t practise realistic or documentary street photography, but try to capture iconic urban images,” he says. “I positioned … Read more

Tim Dowling: it’s the last date of my band’s tour – do I risk telling my Italian sausage joke? | Life and style

The spring tour of the band I’m in is winding down: Glasgow, Edinburgh, Winchester, Brighton, and back to London. The next time we get out there, things will be different. There will be new songs, and some long neglected tunes will be resuscitated. But the chat between the music – the jokes and anecdotes and wordy … Read more

Who opened her first classroom in Rome back in 1907? The Saturday quiz | Quiz and trivia games

The questions 1 Which father and son footballers both have more than 100 international caps?2 In 1907, who opened her first classroom in Rome?3 Which mythical beast had a human face, lion’s body and scorpion’s tail?4 What becomes the Padma within Bangladesh?5 Used in the 14th century, the pot-de-fer was an early type of what?6 … Read more