Lifestyle

It’s been a long day: one meeting after another. You leave your office, happy the working day is finally over. You could head out, network until the early hours, but somehow it doesn’t appeal. What you need, more than anything, is to relax and de-stress. You might be tempted to turn to the popular Scandinavian antidotes to stress, lagom and hygge. But are they really any good? Lagom, a Swedish word, can be translated as “in perfect balance”, or “just right”. Where lagom reigns, all is as it should be. Proportion is maintained: there’s neither too much nor too little… which is where the problem lies. Although lagom encapsulates nearly all aspects of a well-lived life, its puritanism isn’t compatible with the realities of the modern world. The problem with lagom lies with its emphasis on being a good person: a good person can never really relax. They’re too busy constantly weighing the ethical consequences of every little … [Read more...] about How the Finnish lifestyle of getting drunk while wearing pants became the new hygge

It’s hard to explain the exact appeal of Never Too Small. The YouTube series takes viewers on meditative tours of tiny homes from across the world. Yes the spaces are beautiful and the design innovative, but there’s a curdle in the architectural cream. The residences, which range from 22 to 40 square meters in size, are a curious mix of aspirational and off-putting. Part of you wants to live in these dreamy matchboxes, another wonders how anyone could. Never Too Small began as a pet project for director and design fan Colin Chee, a way to engage with the architects he admired. It only took four episodes to realise he was on to something. With views growing daily, his employer – Melbourne-based production company NewMac – encouraged him to develop the series. Two years later the channel has drawn a huge following, boasting over 700,000 subscribers, with videos regularly bringing in millions of views. The episodes are as spare and exacting as the designs they … [Read more...] about Never too small: the aspiration and nauseation of micro-apartments

A pair of spider-hunters stumbled across the mummified remains of two babies that lived 500 years ago in a Tenerife cave. The mummified infants are believed to be Guanche children, the aboriginal inhabitants of the Canary Islands before the Spanish conquest which began in 1402. One child was wrapped in animal skin and is better preserved than the other, with soft tissue and organs in tact.  The other infant is more degraded and only skeletal fragments remain.It is believed the cave is a burial site dating back to the 15th century. It is the first found on the island since 1969. Scroll down for video  The mummified infants are believed to be Guanche children, the aboriginal inhabitants of the Canary Islands before the Spanish conquest which began in 1402 One child was wrapped in animal skin and is better preserved than the other, with soft tissue and organs in tact. The other infant is more degraded and only skeletal fragments remainSergio Marrero and … [Read more...] about Two mummified babies of the indigenous Canary Island people discovered inside a cave on the volcanic island of Tenerife

Proposals to criminalise unauthorised Gypsy and Traveller encampments fly in the face of police recommendations to make more sites available to best tackle the situation, it has been revealed. The home secretary, Priti Patel, this month announced plans to crack down on unauthorised Traveller camps, including by making trespass a criminal offence. But police responses to a consultation launched last year about dealing with such encampments show forces are opposed to such a move. Their submissions, obtained by the Friends, Families and Travellers (FFT) charity under freedom of information (FOI) legislation, showed that 75% of police responses indicated that their current powers were sufficient and/or proportionate. Additionally, 84% did not support the criminalisation of unauthorised encampments and 65% said lack of site provision was the real problem. Abbie Kirkby, advice and policy manager at FFT, said the proposed laws would make the lives of Gypsies and Travellers a misery. She said: … [Read more...] about Police oppose Traveller and Gypsy camp crackdown, FOI shows

“Our children haven’t got a chance of getting a pitch. They haven’t got a chance at being able to live their culture,” says Marian Mahoney, an Irish Traveller and grandmother. Mahoney had lived on the same site on Eleanor Street in Tower Hamlets for 37 years until she and her family were cleared out to make room for Crossrail three years ago. They were moved, along with 19 other families, to a different site in the same area – a rarity in London today, where provision for Gypsies and Travellers has dwindled since legal protections for their sites were removed in 1994. Accessing appropriate housing in the capital is compounded by a fundamental problem: no one knows quite how many of them there are. “When they’re planning, they don’t include us,” Mahoney says. “I feel that we’re just left out of everything. At the moment there’s no future for us – it’s like we don’t exist.” First recorded in … [Read more...] about ‘It’s like we don’t exist’: London’s Gypsies stand up to be counted