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1 day ago | 
theguardian.com | Emma Beddington
Whatever the weather, June marks the start of what we consider summer in the northern hemisphere, and many of us are seized with a frenetic desire to make the most of it. We want our homes to be light, airy and inviting and our outside spaces full of colour and scent – but if you’re anything like me, that stuff doesn’t necessarily come naturally. Instead, I’m chasing bluebottles, sweating into my sofa and staring enviously over the neighbours’ wall at their impeccable garden.
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4 days ago | 
theguardian.com | Emma Beddington
Vogue has spoken: chic is dead. Not being it, but the word. Chic has, Lauren O’Neill argues, lost its essence, co-opted to cover whatever glazed-doughnut-skinned influencers on TikTok decide it should, from monogrammed lip balm to iced matchas.
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5 days ago | 
msn.com | Emma Beddington
Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.
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5 days ago | 
theguardian.com | Emma Beddington
I’m wary of gendered generalisations. They rightly raise hackles: we are unique, not defined by gender, not all men! But I was struck by one I read from Ella Risbridger of Jessica Stanley’s recent novel, Consider Yourself Kissed.
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1 week ago | 
msn.com | Emma Beddington
Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.
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1 week ago | 
theguardian.com | Emma Beddington
Is there enough magic in your meetings? I can hear the hollow laughter from here. Research from the London School of Economics found that more than a third of meetings are considered unproductive, which seems awfully low to anyone who has been to a meeting, ever. “People throw meetings at problems,” Priya Parker, meeting specialist and author of The Art of Gathering, lamented on the Fixable podcast recently, before offering her solution.
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1 week ago | 
msn.com | Emma Beddington
Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.
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1 week ago | 
theguardian.com | Emma Beddington
It’s “Celebration Day” on bank holiday Monday and it’s making me feel a bit … funny. Dreamed up in 2022, this “civilian Remembrance Day”, or British Día de los Muertos, is intended “to honour those we have loved and lost, as well as those whose lives have inspired us”, according to the website.
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2 weeks ago | 
theguardian.com | Emma Beddington
Reading about ways to foster joy last week (I know, most of us would settle for waking without lingering dread, but why not dream big occasionally?), I was captivated by the memoirist and cancer survivor Suleika Jaouad’s suggestion: live each day like it’s your first. When Jaouad’s leukaemia returned last year, well-wishers urged her to live each day like it was her last, but the pressure to carpe each second of every damn diem left her feeling panicked and exhausted.
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2 weeks ago | 
theguardian.com | Emma Beddington
I am starting to think the international research community might be in the pay of pets. It’s not an allegation I make lightly, but have you been following companion animal news recently? First, research from the University of Kent concluded pets were equivalent to £70,000-worth of life satisfaction and wellbeing, of being married. Then, in a Hungarian study, dog owners reported “greater satisfaction with their dogs than with any human partner except their child”.
