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Early on the morning of 3 August 1944, a unit of heavily armed German soldiers arrived at the Villa Il Focardo outside Florence. They didn’t knock. They didn’t ring the bell. They simply smashed through the front door, marched in and started shouting for the villa’s owner, Robert Einstein, cousin of the world-famous scientist Albert … Read more

Born in California, Gregory Porter, 53, released his Grammy-nominated debut album, Water, in 2010. He went on to receive best jazz vocal album Grammys for Liquid Spirit in 2014 and Take Me to the Alley in 2017. He sang for Queen Elizabeth II’s platinum jubilee and was the first celebrity to sing a lullaby on CBeebies Bedtime … Read more

In a narrow lane in Kolkata, West Bengal, Ankit Ghosh paused for a moment to take this photo. Ghosh was among crowds attending Vijaya Dashami, the last day of the Durga Puja, a festival he describes as “cultural potpourri”. He says, “It’s celebrated all across India, but there is no other place to experience it better than West Bengal. As this … Read more

While feta is often synonymous with Greek salad, you’ll find a range of uses for this brined, tangy white cheese, and a real range in finishes, too. On the whole, though, the longer the feta has been aged, the punchier its finish will be. Young cheese needs only about two to three months to mature, … Read more

Kat on Matt What were you hoping for?Great food, a fun story and hopefully someone to explore London with. First impressions?Very friendly and warm. He’d also kindly saved the booth seat for me, which I appreciated. What did you talk about?Carbs. Copenhagen v London prices (I’m from Copenhagen). Beach holidays. Films we haven’t seen. Our … Read more

It’s all in the mind True (up to a point)The way stress manifests is very much bodily, centred around hormones such as cortisol and their effect on us. But this process is triggered by the brain (notably the amygdala and the hypothalamus) and the way our brains react to stress is often set in early … Read more

I’m a 40-year-old man and worried about my family. Since my sister (in her late 30s) became pregnant with her first child four years ago, there hasn’t been a period longer than a week without her and my mother getting into toxic fights. A couple of days ago, after my sister had resorted (yet again) … Read more

It is mid-afternoon – post-lunch but safely before the schools let out – and I am walking the dog in the direction of what my wife and I now call the Triangle parks. The Triangle parks are the result of a long road cutting diagonally across the regular grid of suburban streets, leaving two small, … Read more

‘I want to tell you something. I have a stage 4 brain tumour, and I don’t know how long I have left.” When fellow walker Peter utters these words to me at the Minack theatre in Porthcurno on Cornwall’s south coast, I half think he might be reading lines for a new play. Behind him, the … Read more

The prosecution: Bill I know Rita struggles with anxiety, but she only gave us an hour’s notice that she wasn’t coming My youngest daughter, Rita, is late for everything and known as the unreliable one in our family. Recently, she was inconsiderate, and I feel she needs to learn that actions have consequences. I had booked dinner for … Read more