Michael Segalov

1 month ago | observer.co.uk | Michael Segalov

Why are young men flocking to a Shaolin temple in rural Germany? Photography Paul StuartShi Heng Yi is a very modern monk, and quite the celebrity. He has close to 1m Instagram followers. His Ted Talk, “Five hindrances to self-mastery”, from 2020, has been watched 17m times.

2 months ago | theguardian.com | Michael Segalov

Penelope Brown, 50, OxfordshireBoarded from the age of nineI’m a typical drifting ex-boarder – the type who never really plants or puts down roots. I now live in a van. It’s common amongst third country kids: settling feels a hard thing to do. Our lives are peripatetic. Dad was a civil engineer and my early years were all over the place: Saudi Arabia, Papua New Guinea, Lesotho. Then I was sent to boarding school, where your dormitory changes every school year. You’re constantly shifting sands.

2 months ago | theguardian.com | Michael Segalov

Early riser? I try, although I’ve been slacking recently. I like to be up at 6.30am and off to an empty Hampstead Heath. I’ve got antisocial dogs who think they own the park, so it’s easier that way. Then I can spend the rest of the day at home away from everyone. Not a people person then? On Sundays, no. I live in east London, where Sundays are stupidly busy. I’m old enough to remember when everything was closed. I miss that sense of the world being shuttered. I love being in southern Italy.

2 months ago | theguardian.com | Michael Segalov

Ramy Youssef has this theory: “The more fucked up the climate, the stupider television must be.” Granted, he came up with it barely 10 seconds ago, but the 34-year-old is committing. “You need something dumb,” he’s newly certain, “to cut through the tension for relief.” Now he’s frantically tapping away on his phone, searching for facts to prove it. Bingo. “You see, [MTV celebrity prank show] Punk’d premiered on 17 March 2003. Know what happened three days later? The US invaded Iraq.

Mar 23, 2025 | theguardian.com | Michael Segalov

When Charlotte Church arrives, she starts to cry. “I break down,” she says, “every time I reach here. It’s the first thing I do when I set foot on this soil.” It’s a two-hour drive from her home in Barry to The Dreaming, the retreat centre she opened in 2023, a pilgrimage across Bannau Brycheiniog and into the myth-steeped hills of the Elan Valley in Powys, central Wales. “Two to three weeks,” she’s explaining, icy ground crunching underfoot, “is the longest I can stay away before I start clucking.