Helen Kirwan-Taylor Journalist Profile

Articles

Grapes for £80? They saw us coming

Dec 3, 2024 | thetimes.com | Helen Kirwan-Taylor

Forget the Birkin bag. Today’s status symbol is a brown paper bag with the words Supermarket of Dreams written in pink. It’s a light bag from Holland Park containing just one punnet of £6 raspberries. Everyone knows that if you can afford to shop here — or at Notting Hill Fish + Meat or Westbourne Grove — then you probably also own a compound in Ibiza, a fleet of Maseratis and maybe a Gulfstream G500. Perhaps my local vendors are preparing for a missile attack from Vladimir Putin.
Opinion: Ellen DeGeneres, This Is How to Swap California for the Cotswolds

Nov 26, 2024 | yahoo.com | Helen Kirwan-Taylor

Photo Illustration by Thomas LevWelcome to the Cotswolds, Ellen! The counties would have thrown you a parade, except most of the farmers (who you will often sit next to at dinner because all British male celebrities including David Beckham and Alex James love to think they’re men of the land) were recently striking against the government (don’t worry, no one so much as hollered, too impolite).
Trust me, Ellen DeGeneres, the Cotswolds is the best place to escape Donald Trump

Nov 21, 2024 | thetimes.com | Helen Kirwan-Taylor

I’m sure they’ll make room at the Daylesford car park. News that the American presenter Ellen DeGeneres and her wife, the Australian-American actress Portia de Rossi, are moving to the Cotswolds — as political refugees, no less — has the whole of Gloucestershire talking (and freeing up tables at the Farmer’s Dog).
I went to a sexual wellness spa for the super rich

Oct 30, 2024 | afr.com | Helen Kirwan-Taylor

Helen Kirwan-TaylorOct 31, 2024 – 9.00am or Subscribe to save articleEmailLinkedInTwitterFacebookSubscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe. Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? Celebrities talk endlessly about menopause, sharing intimate details of hot flushes and hormone patches, but when it comes to sex, they’re less forthcoming. Or they were. Gwyneth Paltrow has done sterling work towards changing things.
I went to a sex spa for the super rich

Oct 29, 2024 | telegraph.co.uk | Helen Kirwan-Taylor

The SHA Wellness Clinic in Spain launched its sexual health unit last year Credit: Antonio Terron Celebrities talk endlessly about menopause, sharing intimate details of hot flushes and hormone patches, but when it comes to sex, they’re less forthcoming. Or they were. Gwyneth Paltrow has done sterling work towards changing things. Her Goop lifestyle brand – which includes the dedicated Instagram account @goopsex and a six-part Netflix series, Sex, Love & Goop – has helped to blow the lid off...
My semi-retired husband has become my CEO - help!

Oct 27, 2024 | thetimes.com | Helen Kirwan-Taylor

‘Did you ever get those cufflinks fixed?” my husband asks. It’s 7am. When I say I am not a morning person, it’s a gross understatement. Since I was 15, no one has dared speak to me (let alone set me a task) before I have a coffee (or two or three). My mother did once, and my response was so snarky that she threw a carton of eggs at me. I had to go to school wearing a yolk-imprinted blouse.
Teacups or mugs, tweed or trainers - what’s really #Britishcore?

Sep 13, 2024 | thetimes.com | Hannah Evans |Charlie Gowans-Eglinton |Helen Kirwan-Taylor

According to a recent report by TikTok, #Britishcore — videos and posts by influencers who celebrate “classic” British culture — is trending. It’s fuelled by the return of Oasis and Brat summer, but in short it means that Americans are going bananas for Britain. Nowhere is the fetishisation of this country more apparent than in the way others talk about our food. The reality is that day-to-day, true #Britishcore food isn’t very British or traditional at all.
Why I’m never going on a group holiday again

Aug 22, 2024 | thetimes.com | Shane Watson |Helen Kirwan-Taylor

The email comes in early January. “We’re thinking of taking a villa in Tuscany this July and wondered if you’d like to join,” it reads. You look for the small print. Is this an invitation to come and stay or an invitation to come and pay? How many other people did they send this to first? The email is bcc’ed — it’s impolite, my British husband says, to ask who else is coming and whether the villa is self-catering (group holiday hell, more about this later).
I've been hurt by so many toxic female friendships

Aug 4, 2024 | dailymail.co.uk | Helen Kirwan-Taylor

I didn't even have a chance to say hello before the shouting began. I was still in my pyjamas drinking coffee when the voice on the other end started screeching for what seemed like eternity.
What Taylor Swift needs to know as an American in the Cotswolds

May 30, 2024 | thetimes.co.uk | Helen Kirwan-Taylor |Gus Carter

Check the water pressure, Taylor, is my first piece of advice. Yes, you may be moving into a shiny, brand-new £3 million rental right in the heart of Chipping Norton, but that doesn’t mean you can expect the shampoo to rinse off (it never does) or the hairdryer not to fuse. As a fellow American who has a place 15 miles away, I have welcomed many of my countrymen to these parts, most of whom have never used an electric kettle or a hand shower (baths were phased out of America circa 1972).