The fitness coach talks about tubs of ice-cream, pints of coke, cleaning the dishes and getting the workouts out of the way

Up early? Usually 7.30am – not super early. I get up and do my workouts to get them out of the way.

Advice for Sunday slobs? If you’re hectic and stressed through the week, you should see the weekend as a chance to exercise, prep meals and get an early night, because what you do on the weekend determines how you feel on Monday.

Were Sundays always healthy? No. Years ago I’d be coming out of a nightclub at 3am. I met my wife, Rosie, at a rave. I like a day on the sofa watching movies, having a cuddle, but it’s not like when we had one baby who slept all day. The kids demand attention.

What are you watching? Rosie and I just watched Baby Reindeer. But with the kids – a five-year-old, a four-year-old, a one-year-old and one on the way – we’re more likely to be watching Kung Fu Panda or princess films on Disney.

What are you eating? I might make an egg and bacon sandwich for breakfast. I love going out for a good Sunday roast with a pint of coke and a sticky toffee pudding. I’m quite greedy and could do a tub of Ben & Jerry’s in a single sitting. But not every day!

Sunday housework? I have to clean repeatedly. I’ll do breakfast, maybe a recipe, share a video, then do lunch… And I work from home. And Rosie works from home, too. I can’t keep up with all the cleaning.

Sunday arguments? I’m good at cleaning the dishes, the bowls, the cups. But I get bored and lose attention with the knives and forks. And I’ll leave clothes in a pile on the chair, because I might change my outfit three times a day…

Sunday me-time? If the sun’s shining, I’ll go out for an hour or two on the motorbike – I’ve got a Triumph cruiser.

How to achieve that natural, sunkissed finish – without baking in the sun

I’m sure bronzers have been explained to everyone – including myself – a million times. What they are, what they do, how to use them and yet… people still haven’t quite grasped exactly how to use them. Or perhaps they just haven’t found one that works for them. So let’s go back to basics. Sometimes it’s easier to start with what something is not as opposed to what it is. The purpose of a bronzer is not to make you bronze. If you are already using a bronzer that is doing this, you have the wrong product (but, of course, if your whole point is to actually look bronze, then good luck with that). A bronzer is essentially a bit of makeup that is supposed to give your skin a boost so it looks less pallid, more alive, happier and healthier. Essentially, it offers a natural, sunkissed finish without the damage that comes from the sun. Choosing the right shade is key – better to start with something subtle and work your way up – and texture also makes a difference. The bronzers on this page – liquid, cream and powder – are formulated in a way that is pliable and therefore makes applying them easier and more or less failsafe – even for the heavy handed. Crucially, the finishes are created to complement real skin tones, which minimises the likelihood of you looking like a toasted orange.

1. Isle of Paradise Sunny Serum £15.95, lookfantastic.com
2. Giorgio Armani Beauty Bronzing Powder £46, selfridges.com
3. NARS Laguna Ultimate Face Palette £60, narscosmetics.co.uk
4. Indeed Nanobronze Deep Bronzing Drops £24.99, boots.com
5. Fenty Sun Stalk’r Bronzer £29, fentybeauty.co.uk
6. Clinique Sunkissed Face Gelee £32, johnlewis.com
7. Saie Dew Liquid Bronzer £20, cultbeauty.co.uk
8. Clarins Bronzing Powder £40, clarins.co.uk
9. Chanel Les Beiges Healthy Glow Sun-Kissed Powder £75, chanel.com
10. Beauty Pie Awesome Bronze £16.50, beautypie.com

Trust your gut instinct about not having him there. The shame that is creeping in may be about pressure to conform

The question I’m a 30-year-old man who works in mental health. I’m due to get married in a few months’ time. I don’t want to invite my father. He and I have been estranged for several years. We have each other’s mobile numbers, but we don’t use them. My father has a lifelong alcohol-use disorder (AUD). He was a violent man. When I was 11, my mother managed to divorce him. Since then, we have mostly parted ways, but his side of the family still attempts to guilt-trip me into caring for him.

I have grown up, gone to college and am now enjoying my career. I have come to understand more about addiction. I don’t feel resentment towards him and tend to see this in a matter-of-fact way. I do not have any affection for this man, who happens to be my father. I have come to see him as any other person with AUD, but one who happens to have fathered me for a short period of time. (I don’t have fond memories of the time we shared in the same household.)

At Gerry’s the sandwich is elevated to a noble art, so roll up your sleeves and get stuck in

Gerry’s Hot Sub Deli, 50 Exmouth Market, London EC1R 4QE. Sandwiches £8.25-£13.50, poutine £6.75-£10.70, dessert £4.25, wine £6.95 a glass, beer £3.95 a half pint

Happiness is a handful of lunch and dressing running down your forearms. Certainly, anything that demands to be eaten alongside a roll of kitchen paper deserves to be taken seriously. By these criteria, which I’ve just invented, but now cleave to like holy scripture, the food at Gerry’s Hot Subs on London’s Exmouth Market deserves to be taken very seriously indeed. Lunch there is messy. Prepare to wipe yourself down afterwards or even nip home for a shower. But my, it’s good. The fact is, everybody can make themselves a sandwich, but you don’t want just anybody to make one for you. The frame is so very tight: some form of bread as vehicle for everything else. It demands a compulsive interest in detail combined with a profound understanding of what will make for a single, multi-textured mouthful. Followed by another and another.

Light reds, rosés and orange wines made by both romantics and pragmatists

Theopetra Estate Xinonmavro Rosé, Meteora, Greece 2022 (£21.75, corkingwines.co.uk) Wine producers tend to divide into two temperamental camps. The first, cussedly idealistic type doesn’t think very much about who’s going to buy their wine until it’s time to sell it – they make what they damn well please and only then hope to find customers who share their enthusiasm. The second group is rather more pragmatic: they research potential customers in fine detail before they so much as plant a vine, and everything they do in the vineyard and cellar is in service to what they think the market demands. When it comes to most rosé wine, it looks very much like the second camp is in charge: retailer wine ranges are increasingly filled with dozens of very pale pinks either from, or copying the wildly successful model perfected in, Provence. Maybe the rosé drinking public is getting what the rosé-drinking public wants, but my goodness it makes for some dull wines at times, a sea of indistinguishable pale ordinariness in which pink wines of personality, such as Theopetra’s outstanding mandarin-orange-tingling, rippling, ripely stone-fruited Greek rosé, stand out like beacons in a safe harbour.

Gerard Bertrand Orange Gold, IGP Pays d’Oc, France 2021 (from £19, ocado.com; hedonism.co.uk) While I reckon the majority of the most memorable wines I’ve had in my life have been made by producers operating at the “wine-first” end of the spectrum, I dare say I drink more wines made by pragmatists. And there’s something to be said for a producer who can spot a trend developed by less obviously commercially minded peers and bring it to a wider audience. The South of France is home to a number of impresarios of the palatable mass market, and it’s no surprise that big names such as Jean-Claude Mas and Gerard Bertrand have in recent years added examples of the trendy cult “orange” wine style to their multimillion-bottle vinous empires. Both Bertrand’s seriously stylish Orange Gold, with its gentle tannic bite, spice and exotic fruit, and Mas’s brightly peachy Arrogant Frog Organic Orange 2023 (coming to independent merchants in the UK this summer with an rrp of £13.50) are deliciously drinkable alternatives to me-too rosé – as, indeed, is Advini’s gently apricoty bargain Gros Manseng Vin Orange, Vin de France 2022 (£8.25, Asda).

Bounce into summer in the brightest and boldest sneakers

Summertime 90s nostalgia, plant-based trainers and new resortwear from Harry Styles’ brand, Pleasing

Roberto Meza Mont and Craig Ruddy had been together a decade when their relationship reached a crossroads. Then two brazen reptiles showed them the way forward

Craig and I locked eyes on a Sydney street a couple of days after the 2001 Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. I was 23, new to Australia from Peru, and still shaking off the cobwebs of a conservative Catholic upbringing.

To me, Craig looked like someone from another planet: a lean, strong frame, curly beach-blond hair and a smile that seemed to light up the whole city. My English was basic but our shared sense of humour cut through the language barrier.

After massive TV success in the US, the creator of Gavin & Stacey is about to appear on the London stage. But why do British audiences find him so hard to love?

James Corden is back in the UK and characteristically busy. Last year, the 45-year-old left his job as Los Angeles-based chat show host of The Late Late Show on CBS. A Christmas special is planned for Gavin & Stacey, the acclaimed BBC sitcom he created with co-star Ruth Jones. There’s talk of reviving One Man, Two Guvnors, the National Theatre’s critically lauded hit ­comedy that transferred to Broadway, winning Corden a Tony award in 2012.

And later this month, Corden will appear at London’s Old Vic in a short run of Joe Penhall’s new play, The Constituent, helmed by the ­theatre’s artistic director, Matthew Warchus. Corden’s first stage role since One Man, Two Guvnors, it’s seen as ­something of a departure (a gamble) for Corden – a serious work about the escalating risks of public service in politics.

After discovering an album of Victorian cartes de visite in an antiques market, Paul Frecker gave up his day job to become a dealer in vintage photographs. Now collected in a new book, these cards were “a photographic craze that seized the imagination of the British public at the beginning of the 1860s,” says the Scotland-based author. “Queen Victoria was one of the format’s biggest fans.” Initially a way of distributing family portraits to friends, the phenomenon soon extended to images of royals, celebrities and larger-than-life characters. “It really was a fervour: crowds often formed to ogle displays in stockists’ windows, to the extent that pavements were blocked and traffic was impeded.”

The writer and broadcaster, 57, on tracking down stories, holding grudges, feeling happiest when he’s at work – and looking for the connections that bring us together

I found childhood quite uncomfortable. The itchy fabric of the school uniform, the bright overhead lights of the classroom, the being in a room with 30 boisterous young Welsh people – all of these things that were intolerable.

There was solace in going home to watch The Tube or to the arts centre that showed Scorsese films – portals into a different world. They gave me glimmers of hope that life could be good.

There is an intense emotional strain involved with parenting a neurodivergent child with mental health issues. But we will do whatever it takes to understand her brain

“There’s something wrong with me!” my seven-year-old daughter sobbed, back in 2018. “Honestly, there isn’t,” I said, giving her a hug. “You’re just a bit sensitive, a bit anxious.” I wanted to be the reassuring parent, the mum who makes everything all right. But I was having the opposite effect on her: I was underplaying her distress, and it scared her, and shook her faith in me. How could she get any help if I didn’t accept there was a problem?

At the time her dad and I didn’t know our daughter was autistic. She was certainly not the easiest to manage, but she was also funny, bright, imaginative and popular at school. And although we were aware that she had intrusive thoughts, separation and sensory issues, a nasty phobia and difficulty controlling her emotions, her teachers, our GP, relatives and friends told us not to worry too much. “She’s a character! She’ll be fine.”

Can one record-breaking megastar make a difference for struggling musicians and new artists?

Taylor Swift’s new album, The Tortured Poets Department, is not one of her best. Critics have complained about its exhausting length (31 songs, two hours), subdued tone and lyrical wound-rubbing. Her decision to announce it at the Grammy awards, months before its release on 19 April, was widely seen as tacky, snatching the media spotlight from other winners.

For any other artist, this might be a perilous moment of bubble-bursting hubris, but 34-year-old Taylor Alison Swift is not any other artist. The album set a streaming record on Spotify – 300m in one day and 1bn in five – and made her the first artist in history to secure the top 14 spots on the Billboard Hot 100. In the US, it sold 2.6m copies in the first week, second only to Adele’s 3.4m nine years ago, with 859,000 on vinyl alone.

Jess’s fling six years ago has led to her and husband, Rob, sleeping in separate rooms – and they are struggling to reconnect

• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

He decided to stay with me, but he has effectively withdrawn his affection. Our sex life is stagnant, boring and occasional

The Most Haunted presenter on how Biddy Baxter, the tough children’s show producer, made her look after Bonnie the dog – but in doing so gave her a backbone

Born in Stockport in 1968, Yvette Fielding is a TV presenter and actor. Her career began on children’s comedy drama Seaview, before she was headhunted for Blue Peter, becoming the show’s youngest ever presenter at 18. With husband Karl Beattie, she founded Antix Productions, and created Most Haunted, a paranormal investigations show sold to more than 90 territories globally. An author of YA books and novels, her memoir, Scream Queen, is out now.

This was taken by the wardrobe lady on Seaview. My character, Sandy Shelton, was involved in a demonstration to save the seals on Blackpool beach, which explains the badges and sash. It was a very sunny day and I was having a little breather, looking at the donkeys in the distance. I would have been 13 at the time. With a perm.

My life is split in two: half as a stateless Somali refugee and half a British citizen. But Kakuma is crucial to everything that came after it. It is the foundation of who I am

The earliest memories of my life are from the Kakuma refugee camp. I remember walking through a marketplace, staying close to my mother’s side. It is hot, the Kenyan sun’s rays so fierce I can’t stop squinting. At one point I turn to my left and see an incredibly thin man sitting on the floor. I stop and stare at him until my mum tells me off. I’m too scared to look back at him as we walk farther ahead, but I feel both drawn to him and terrified by his suffering.

I have another memory of asking my mum if we could get a drink, either a Fanta or a juice shake, during a warm evening. The heat doesn’t feel unpleasant. There are others in the living room of our shanty accommodation. My mum is in a deep conversation, but it goes over my head. She agrees, but I am not sure if she takes me herself or someone else does.

The photographer got as close as he could when cadets’ endurance, strength and teamwork were tested at Canada’s Royal Military College

Every year, as spring blooms, first-year officer cadets of Canada’s Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario, take part in a series of competitions. The challenges and obstacle course aim to test their strength, endurance and teamwork.

“As long as you don’t mind getting a little wet and don’t step on any of the smoke canisters, you can get really close to the action,” says Elliot Ferguson, who had captured the event before in his capacity as a news and sports photographer.

The All Saints singer on needing the fire brigade, wanting to be an ambulance driver, and an embarrassing accident in Gucci

Born in London, Shaznay Lewis, 48, founded All Saints with Melanie Blatt in 1993; Nicole and Natalie Appleton joined three years later. The band’s two multiplatinum albums – All Saints and Saints & Sinners – were released in 1997 and 2000, and their five UK No 1 singles include Never Ever and Pure Shores. Their awards include two Brits, a Mobo and an Ivor Novello. In 2004, Lewis made her first solo album, Open; she has just released another, Pages. She is married with two children and lives in Hertfordshire.

When were you happiest?
When my children were small and used to play together, be creative, and were just in that innocent bubble.

Once motherhood spelled the end of a sporting career. But more mums than ever are taking part in this year’s Olympics and Paralympics (the village even has a nursery for the first time). How do they do it?

Nekoda Smythe-Davis is a Commonwealth gold medal-winning judoka (judo expert) who has won silver and bronze at the World Championships and represented Great Britain at the 2016 Olympics.

Thousands of Germans were held in camps in Britain after the war – and local women who ‘fraternised’ with them scandalised the nation. Could one of these illicit relationships explain the puzzle at the heart of my family tree?

In the summer of 1947, it would have taken Gwen Chandler just 15 minutes to cycle home from the textile factory in Bletchley where she worked as a machinist. Her route went east out of town, straight past the county cinema and up the hill into the Buckinghamshire village of Little Brickhill, where she lived at 9 Watling Street with her mum, Lottie, her aunt, uncle and grandparents.

It’s easy to imagine Gwen pausing in the heart of the village and glancing apprehensively to her right down the tree-lined drive to the large manor house there. Requisitioned during the second world war, it was home to 105 German prisoners. Held captive since Hitler’s defeat, these men – along with hundreds of thousands of their compatriots scattered across Britain in dozens of prison camps – were put to work in the fields, brick factories, construction sites and gasworks.

From Barbie and Captain Marvel to bestiarius and murmillo, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz

1 An administrative error caused which town to lose its city status in 1998?
2 Which cetacean has the largest mouth of any animal?
3 In France, where would you find trèfles, carreaux, coeurs and piques?
4 The Scottish Militia Bill, in 1708, was the last to suffer what fate?
5 Whose official residence is Bishopthorpe Palace?
6 Jon Harvey regularly contests elections under what name?
7 The Squarial was used to receive whose TV programmes?
8 Which eye condition is named from the Greek for blue-green?
What links:
9 Wilhelm Steinitz and Ding Liren?
10 Asterix; Charles Dickens; Lenin; Dolly Parton; Harry Potter?
11 Bestiarius; hoplomachus; murmillo; secutor; thraex?
12 Steven Bartlett; Nikolai Gogol; Grossmith brothers; Jeff Kinney?
13 Appalachian; Border; Cotswold; Molly; Rapper Sword; Stave?
14 Adamant; beef; cathartic; endogamy; whelk?
15 Barbie; Frozen II; Captain Marvel; Wonder Woman; Frozen?

Myrna, 52, a management consultant, meets Manos, 55, a marketing manager and author

What were you hoping for?
Avoiding having my heart sink when I approach my date and am committed to a full dinner.

Once again, I perform the collapsing deckchair trick in the garden. The dog also appears to have lost its legs

There is a mystery package leaning against the front door, addressed to my wife. I take it inside and present it to her. She stares at it for a long time, as if trying to see through the packaging.

“It might be your new hammock,” she says finally. “Happy birthday.”

Rishi Sunak is so convinced he can’t win he’s promising any old mad thing, while the Lib Dems are deliberately falling off paddleboards – Marina Hyde on the election. The couple on a mission to make it easier for everyone to have multiple children – Elon Musk (father of 11) is a supporter. Few of us have the money to take a long pause from work – but, as Anita Chaudhuri discovers, even a day can make a difference

The luxury label that created a Vogue dress of the decade may have collapsed, but its frocks will live on in wardrobes and art history

The sudden demise of the fashion label The Vampire’s Wife this month drove a stake through the heart of a cultural fairytale. The label’s combination of witchy creative flair, celebrity and retail luxury had caught the imagination of a miserable decade. It was founded in 2014 by the model turned designer Susie Cave and named after a novel abandoned by her husband, the musician Nick Cave.

Its ruffled frocks took only four years to become the stuff of royalty, on the Hollywood red carpet or at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (where three guests wore them). In 2020, they were accessorised for the Covid era with bespoke face masks; they also hit the high street in recycled silver nylon in a deal with H&M, selling out in 24 hours. Vogue made one design, the Falconetti, its “dress of the decade”, and a shimmering emerald green Falconetti was immortalised in paint in the first official portrait of the then Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

At weddings, anything can go wrong – and does – but our readers turned the tables on misfortune and forged on

“Like rain on your wedding day … ” Alanis Morissette sang in her 1996 hit Ironic. This – and the song’s other unfortunate events – have been ruled decidedly not ironic, but it is certainly bad luck. Still, it’s got nothing on the dramas and mishaps that have befallen some people on their big day.

Lisa, 53, was all set before her wedding in 2003, when she realised she couldn’t find the rings anywhere.

Taking a step into the unknown can be scary, but there are ways to feel part of something outside the world of work

• Every week Annalisa Barbieri addresses a problem sent in by a reader

I have worked in higher education for more than 25 years. My plan was to retire at 60, but shortly before that I was offered a prestigious teaching position abroad. I now travel between there and the UK where my husband (recently retired) lives. We have been together for more than 20 years and he has always been very supportive.

There are so many things I love about what I do, but at 63 I am getting weary. The pressure to constantly be on top of my game is exhausting. I often feel as if I am not making the most of the opportunities I have because I am so tired.

The England coach has ditched the waistcoat for a more understated look. But if it’s nippy enough for a jumper, it’s cold enough for sleeves

“Whenever you put something on, you’re making some sort of a statement, aren’t you?” So says the England coach and fashion icon Gareth Southgate, and I agree. Standing on a touchline in an M&S merino wool polo knit – short sleeves, half zip – I feel every inch the smart-casual centrist dad. Even the colour is neutral.

During the 2018 World Cup, Southgate’s personal dress code heralded a new style of leadership for the England team: solid, understated, a little paternal. As the team progressed to the semi-finals, his Marks & Spencer waistcoats came to be regarded as a lucky talisman, and M&S was quick to capitalise – sales of its waistcoats doubled.

From milk frothers to fizz stoppers, bicycle pumps to melon ballers, gizmos that make life that little bit easier – as chosen by readers

A window vac to beat condensation
Every morning I console myself about the lack of double glazing as my window-cleaning vacuum sucks up the condensation. It’s a gift that keeps on giving!
Jim Clay, Lewes

Pastry blender … your hummus
Comprising a curved set of four blunt blades with a straight handle, a pastry blender is great for quickly rubbing fat into flour for making crumble and pastry. But it’s also good for mashing tinned chickpeas to make hummus, or for any similar task. It’s cheap, takes up little space in a drawer and is easy to wash.
Rebecca Maddox, Shropshire

As well as a steady supply of eggs, the birds create fantastic compost, and pick away at weed seeds and aphids

The first spring after we moved out of London to East Sussex coincided with the first lockdown, and like so many people with access to a garden, I spent it growing crops. As the first tranche of seedlings were ready to be planted out into our new vegetable beds, I received an email from a nearby farm saying our chickens were ready to pick up. We drove them home slowly, listening to them quietly chattering to each other in their cardboard box.

By chance, we’d moved into a house that already had a fox-proof coop in the garden, but we little thought that we’d be spending more time with these four birds than with any other living things as those strange locked-down weeks turned into months.

The youngest was 21 and the oldest 80. The effort people made blew me away

At 5.45am on 14 February this year, I was in my kitchen making spaghetti bolognese and questioning my life choices. As a performance artist, I’m used to putting myself in unusual scenarios, but nothing quite like this. I was getting ready to go on 100 dates over the next 17 hours. I’m normally nervous to go on just one.

I’ve lived in London for 10 years, and had somehow managed to spend all previous Valentine’s Days here involved in some romantic escapade. But this year would be the first in a while that I would be alone on the day. To avoid being alone with my own thoughts, I came up with the idea of having 100 dates in a day. Selfish in its initial conception, the project ended up providing a space to explore genuine online connection.

Wearing shorts to work might seem like a tricky look to pull off. Here’s how to nail it

Can you wear shorts to work? If your office dress code is the laid-back modern sort, the short answer is probably yes. If you can wear a T-shirt rather than a shirt, or a dress without tights, if jackets are optional, then yes, you can wear shorts to work.

But that doesn’t answer the question. Take me, for instance. The Guardian offices are pretty much dress-code-free. There is absolutely nothing stopping me from wearing shorts to work. But can I? Would I? That’s a whole different question.

Danny would be sad to turf out the fox from their garden, but Cara is worried for their children. You decide whose tail is worth listening to
Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

I am glad we are able to offer the fox a home – and he runs away whenever we go near

It poses a danger to our kids when they play outside – plus we live close to a common

Our tipsters’ horticultural finds from Hanover’s formal terraces to the world’s oldest university botanical garden in Padua

Varenna is the perfect Italian village, from its hilltop castle to the shore of Lake Como. Easily accessible by train or ferry, it is host to a spectacular botanic garden. The meandering Passeggiata degli Innamorati – the Lovers’ Footpath – brings you in 20 minutes from the ferry to Villa Monastero (entry €10, open March-November). With pillars and pergolas, palm trees and pines framing views of the deep blue lake and mountains beyond, scented by citrus and herbs, the garden is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever visited. And there’s a bar. Perfect happiness.
Maartje Scheltens

Conceding to her request doesn’t do your relationship any favours, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. Take this as an opportunity to develop the relationship as two adults

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I’m moving away to another country for university next year and my mum wants to put a tracker on my phone so she can know where I am and make sure I’m OK. I don’t want her to do this, not because I have anything to hide, but because I’d like to have some independence and privacy.

She’s never been a particularly strict parent but she’s insistent on this one thing. But if I tell her, she might think I’m hiding something, or it might upset her as it may be one of the only ways she feels she could be a part of my life when I go – which isn’t true, because I plan to keep in good contact.

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In this week’s newsletter: A generation terrified of wrinkles is embracing creases in their clothes, as the purposefully rumpled look is turning up everywhere from the Cannes red carpet to the high street

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The red carpet at the Cannes film festival is the pinnacle of glamour. Every inch of that floor-sweeping gown and each falling hair tendril has been picked over by stylists and “glam squads”. So when film director and Cannes jury president Greta Gerwig appeared on the red carpet last week in a dress that was wrinkled, you would be forgiven for thinking that someone was about to be fired.

But Gerwig’s hot-pink Balenciaga couture gown wasn’t accidentally creased, a pesky side-effect of a car ride from hotel to Croissette. It was intentional – from asymmetric shoulder right down to the hemline, it was corrugated like a hot tin roof.

Ancient philosophers became an ‘object of ridicule’ if their lifestyle differed from their outlook. Today, content creators don’t always practice what they preach

In January, Andrew Huberman, the podcaster and Stanford neuroscientist, wrote on X: “I think it’s fair to ask if the MD or scientist or public health official saying to do X or not do Y looks and sounds healthy and vital. I avoid going to a dentist with bad teeth. What do you think? I sense diverging opinions on this.”

Around three months later, New York magazine published a lengthy profile of Huberman that revealed details about his personal life, including how he was allegedly being dishonest with multiple romantic partners. While Huberman’s show presents a way of living guided by science and optimization, “the deeply reported piece suggests he’s running around being a hot mess”, Arwa Mahdawi wrote for the Guardian.

The industry is not changing as quickly as it needs to, but at the Global Fashion Summit last week, there were innovative ideas as well as a few good news stories

May is a big month in fashion. The Met gala, often described as the Super Bowl of fashion, sees celebrities arrive at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York wearing outfits so elaborate that ascending the stairs often requires assistance. The Global Fashion Summit, which takes place later in May, sees sustainable fashion experts and designers descend on Copenhagen for what could be called the Super Bowl of sustainable fashion. At the three-day conference, delegates’ outfits are scrutinised far less than ideas, innovations and new technologies aimed at reducing fashion’s ever-growing carbon, waste and water footprints.

This year, on its 15th anniversary, the lack of progress towards industry-wide change dampened spirits. But, from fast fashion brands committing to circular business models, to advice on how to decouple carbon emissions from revenue growth, there was much to discuss. Here are 10 key takeaways:

Did a committed omnivore and a committed vegan chew things over in a friendly manner? And what happened when they moved on to bullying on social media?

Darcey, 50, Inverness

Occupation Freelance careers consultant

Platja d’Aro announces fines up to €1,500 for appearing in public ‘with clothing representing human genitals’

A popular resort town on Spain’s Costa Brava has banned inflatable penis costumes and sex dolls from stag and hen night celebrations, with fines of up to €1,500 (£1,276).

Platja d’Aro, whose population of 12,500 can host as many as 300,000 visitors on a summer weekend, is a favourite destination for bachelor and bachelorette nights. Numerous websites offer packages that include accommodation, cruises and male or female strippers.

Rasika, 29, and Varad, 27, met while working in rural India. When Rasika found out she had cancer, Varad gave her the motivation she needed to survive
• Tell us your story of how you met someone special

After studying medicine in New Delhi, Varad, who grew up in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, knew he wanted to make a difference in the world. In 2021, he travelled to the remote forest reserve of Gadchiroli to work for a local NGO while he submitted applications for the next steps of his education. “I was doing community Covid management, supporting the vaccination programme,” he says.

A month after arriving he met Rasika, a physiotherapist from Nagpur, Maharashtra, who’d also come to work for the NGO. “I had been studying in Mumbai but wanted to better understand rehabilitation in rural areas of India,” she says. “While I was being shown around, we went to see the badminton court – which was some mud ground with a net – and that’s where I saw Varad for the first time.”

Questions on general knowledge and topical trivia, plus a few jokes, every Thursday. How will you fare?

This week the Thursday quiz is steadfastly ignoring the general election in the UK, though not ignoring elections elsewhere. You face 15 questions on topical news, general knowledge, and some other stuff that caught the eye this week. There are no prizes, but you can let us know how you got on in the comments, where you can pick up bonus points for being funny, but lose points for tediously quibbling with the questions like that one boring bloke does at your local pub quiz every week. Enjoy!

The Thursday quiz, No 162

After 55 years, the vibrator continues to inspire devotion, as well as a new podcast: ‘It takes on larger-than-life symbolism’

In a Goop-ified world where one can purchase sleek, luxury vibrators for up to three figures, how has one sex toy that’s existed for 55 years garnered such devotion? It’s a question the sex writer Kate Sloan explores in Making Magic, a new podcast about the clunky, white-and-blue, straight-from-a-70s-porn-set Magic Wand Original Massager.

Sloan first became interested in the Magic Wand when she was a 19-year-old spending her gap year writing a sex toy review blog called Girly Juice. Later, while working at a sex store, Sloan noticed how customers would come back to buy the Magic Wand over and over again, eager to replace their old ones with the same model.

The anti-sickness medicine domperidone is increasingly being prescribed or bought illegally to aid lactation. Yet, as I discovered too late, side-effects can include anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts

It is 11 days since I gave birth to my first baby. My breast milk still hasn’t “come in” properly and no one can tell me why. Midwives come and go, looking at me sympathetically and telling me to feed on demand, pump whenever I can and top up with formula milk. Still, I have no idea how I am going to exclusively breastfeed my child, which is what all the advice recommends.

Sleepless, anxious and desperate, I do what many others with the privilege of disposable income do in this situation and pay for a private consultant. I find a local International Board certified lactation consultant (IBCLC) online and we meet. She diagnoses my son with tongue-tie, which she treats by snipping the skin connecting his tongue to the bottom of his mouth. She also suggests that I start taking a drug I have never heard of, domperidone, to help me produce more milk.

Blame the gig economy or just sheer laziness, but fewer of us stopping for lunch in the working day can surely only be a bad thing

A long time ago, when I worked in an office, we used to take lunch quite seriously. This meant getting up from our desks, walking on our legs, and eating with another human being for the purposes of chat. Sometimes this even happened outside, or at a restaurant. It seems absurd now. Who has the time to hang out in the middle of the day or drop $20 on a sandwich when you could be sitting at your desk, staring at the internet, grazing leftovers from a plastic container from home? (Or, if you’re already at home, let’s be honest, taking a nap.)

If this killjoy reflex is a side-effect of age – for most people, time becomes less their own as they get older – it is also, it seems, a sign of the times. Two recent pieces of research in the US indicate that, over the past four or five years, Americans have been spending less money at lunchtime – 3.3% less, according to a payments app, Square – and also moving around less in the middle of the day.

When we have sex I get aroused at first, but my mood can change abruptly. I worry about how my lack of desire will affect our relationship

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I am a 41-year-old woman who has been married for two years. I love my husband and still find him physically attractive, but I do not feel in the mood for sex very often, and never initiate. I even worry about him initiating, as I may not be able to respond in the same way and will make him feel rejected. In my 20s I had a lot of one-night stands after nights out, or with guys I knew and liked, but even then it was about the excitement and seduction rather than the physical sensation. I have only ever managed to have an orgasm by myself. In the past year, when we have sex I get aroused but then lose interest at the moment of penetration. This can be quite abrupt and leave my husband puzzled. I am worried that my lack of sexual desire may become detrimental to our intimacy and relationship.

Your central pleasure centre is your clitoris, and your sexual arousal is dependent on it. For many women, connection with clitoral stimulation is lost once penetration starts, and it is replaced by different feelings which are not always pleasant. If you can teach your partner to continue stimulating your clitoris during penetration, you will have far more pleasurable sensations. Some women take matters into their own hands and pleasure themselves during penetration, while others learn by trial and error which coital positions are most likely to stimulate their clitoris. It is understandable that your confusion and disappointment over your sexual response once intercourse starts should cause you to want to withdraw from sex altogether. But you simply have to take more responsibility for your own pleasure and ask for what you need.

Pamela Stephenson Connolly is a US-based psychotherapist who specialises in treating sexual disorders.

If you would like advice from Pamela on sexual matters, send us a brief description of your concerns to private.lives@theguardian.com (please don’t send attachments). Each week, Pamela chooses one problem to answer, which will be published online. She regrets that she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions.

It’s not just pommes frites. Beef bourguignon, avocado and foie gras will also be unavailable

Name: french fries.

Age: invented about 300 years ago, ironically in Belgium.