business

I’m watching a woman standing in her living room in front of a table stacked with woven faux-leather fanny packs. She’s convincing me to use the next two minutes to score a deal on a bag I definitely do not need. A countdown clock ticks down in the corner screen. It’s a classic QVC scene, … Read more

Diffusers are a simple way to keep your home smelling good, whether to mask the many undesirable smells that can pop up or just to give your space a bit of a lift. While scented candles definitely have their place, diffusers can be left unattended so you can be greeted by a lovely aroma as … Read more

Name: American tourists. Age: They come in all ages – from college backpackers travelling around Europe, Asia and South America, to senior passengers on a Caribbean cruise. Appearance: Typically – make that stereotypically, and by no means universally – loud and monolingual. Now possibly less welcome. How so? You know the old thing about the … Read more

The Thursday quiz has taken a brief respite from shouting “chicken jockey” and throwing popcorn at fellow cinemagoers, giving it just long enough to cobble together today’s offering between screenings of the Minecraft movie. Silently waiting for you, like a creeper about to blow up your base, you will find 15 questions that veer from … Read more

The only people I know who speak glowingly about house shares are the ones no longer living in them. When I hear someone describe their house-sharing era as the “best time of my life”, I know they have had at least two years to forget their trauma. That is not a luxury afforded to me – … Read more

The far side of the moon — the part that always faces away from Earth — is mysteriously distinct from the near side. It is pockmarked with more craters and has a thicker crust and less maria, or plains where lava once formed. Now, scientists say that difference could be more than skin deep. Using … Read more

It was 2016, and I’d been a zookeeper for seven years. I lived with my partner and two stepchildren in a Victorian terrace house in Bristol. We’d met when her kids were four and eight, so I had not experienced the early baby stages, the sleepless nights, nappies and bottle-feeding. But that was about to … Read more

While studying in Glasgow, my daughter lived in a rented flat with a prepayment electricity meter. Shortly after she moved out in the summer of 2022 she was contacted by ScottishPower about a £1,000 debt. Given it was a pay-as-you-go meter, we questioned how this was possible. But instead of investigating, the debt was passed … Read more

‘Come forth into the light of things,” implored William Wordsworth in his 1798 poem The Tables Turned, extolling the virtues of a good old-fashioned walk in nature. Treading through his homeland of the Lake District more than two centuries later, on a radiant early spring day, sunbeams casting through the bare branches to anoint the … Read more

My wife and I, both women in our 60s, have been together for more than 20 years. We stopped having sex about 13 years ago, due to a combination of getting a dog (who sleeps with us) and her going through the menopause. I had a bit of a lull in my own libido when … Read more