Sydney Sweeney and Brittany O'Grady boosting their emotional intelligence in HBO's White Lotus |
Trust Aristotle... and read a novel |
My grandmother used to say novels shouldn't be read before the evening because they're "not serious things", says Jemima Kelly in the FT. Many male readers appear to agree – only 20% of men read novels. But those who dismiss fiction as self-indulgent are dead wrong. As Aristotle said: "poetry is a more philosophical and a higher thing than history, for poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular". He was right. In history books, "a narrative is imposed on a messy jumble of events", as if life "progress tidily and even rationally". With fiction, "there is no such imposition: the thing itself is the narrative". That's why fictional characters feel "more real to us than historical figures" – each one "represents a kind of embodiment of the human condition that we can relate to". |
There's plenty of research to back this up. Studies have found that reading "literary fiction" – as opposed to non-fiction or lowbrow fiction – "increases empathy and emotional intelligence". This, surely, is because it exposes the reader to a "much broader range of experiences and cultures" than they'd get from real life – different people, different beliefs, different desires, and so on. Other research has found that reading fiction gives you a "more complex worldview" and makes you more open-minded – you're less likely to want to "remove ambiguity and arrive at definite conclusions". So ignore the "life-hackers and productivity gurus". Curl up on a comfy sofa or sink into a bath, and get "thoroughly lost" in a good novel. You won't regret it. |
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Modern day agony aunt Dolly Alderton. Instagram/@dollyalderton |
Agony aunts used to tell it like it is |
"What better barometer of the nation's psyche could there be than the questions in an agony aunt's postbag?" says Tanith Carey in The Spectator. "My transgender brother is furious over my choice of baby name", "My Remainer husband is refusing to get a new passport" and "My leftie wife is condescending and annoying" are just a few timely examples from one recent broadsheet column. Unfortunately, most answers are now some bland variation of "live your truth". But it wasn't always this way. |
To a girl in 1895 who asked in The Girl's Own Paper if it was acceptable to go boating with a young man, the editors replied: "It surprises us to find that a girl sufficiently educated to write and spell well should be so deplorably ignorant of the common rules of society to think that she may go out alone with a young man in his canoe." And to a woman who boasted that she had managed to persuade her husband to do the washing up in 1929, one agony aunt replied: "I have difficulty replying civilly because you, who is so proud of her conduct, ought to be ashamed of it. You are an imposter of the worst kind. In my opinion there are plenty of criminals who are serving sentences who are not half so wicked." |
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Bond: wouldn't seem so invincible in a pair of Yeezy Belugas |
Come on Britain, put away the trainers and smarten up |
It's no wonder that shoe-polish purveyor Kiwi is taking its products off British shelves, says Judith Woods in The Daily Telegraph. Put simply, "we've become a nation of slobs". Offices are stuffed with trainer-wearing bosses who look like they're "desperate for a Saturday shift at JD Sports". Who can forget that "nightmarish" picture of Rishi Sunak preparing for the 2021 budget in socks and sliders? Even Liz Truss rocked up to the Conservative Party conference when she was prime minister in nothing more formal than a pair of white Reiss pumps. "Like almost everything else about her brief car-crash premiership, the optics were horrendous." |
This isn't about convenience – it's the "sloppy, outward manifestation" of an arrogant refusal to bow to the established rules. But dressing smartly isn't just a courtesy, it's an "index of self-respect". Look at the late Queen: her outfits projected "dignity, authority and a recognition that, in order to be taken seriously, one must look the part". Given the economic woes that beset us, our parliamentarians and businessmen ought to take note and swap their ripped jeans and hoodies for proper tailoring and polished shoes. After all, would James Bond have seemed so invincible and "quintessentially British" dressed in joggers and a pair of Yeezy Belugas? "No, he most certainly would not." |
China's "utterly miserable" Covid failure |
China "made grave blunders" in the early days of the pandemic, says Clara Ferreira Marques in Bloomberg, covering up early evidence of Covid "and ultimately failing to stop a global cataclysm". Three years on, the pivot away from its "draconian" zero-Covid policy has been handled equally terribly. With lockdowns abandoned and case numbers rising by as many as 37 million a day, there are shortages of basic medication, intensive-care beds, "even crematorium slots". Medical staff are working while sick. The anti-Covid Paxlovid drug "has become a coveted gift among the well-heeled". By one estimate, "almost a million may die" as omicron rips through China. |
It didn't have to be like this. There were three years for Beijing to prepare for a Singapore-style "path out of Covid repression": running vaccination drives among the elderly, building hospital capacity, stocking up on fever medication and anti-viral drugs. Instead, as late as October the government was pressing ahead with a $190m Shanghai quarantine centre, emblematic of a policy that's now been abandoned with "staggering" speed. It shows how the idea of "authoritarian advantage", accepted by many when China was building hospitals in days and locking down entire cities, "is nonsense". In the long run, what determined how a country fared with Covid was its ability to "analyse, react and rectify" – something democracies do well and autocracies do badly. "Pandemics are marathons, not sprints." |
Oldies but goodies: L-R Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi |
Americans love to complain that they're ruled by a "gerontocracy", says Franklin Foer in The Atlantic. For the past two years, the three biggest jobs in US politics have been held by Joe Biden (80), Chuck Schumer (72) and the now-ousted Nancy Pelosi (82). But experience counts for more in politics than people appreciate. Older leaders are more likely to be able to distinguish between people trying to fleece them and "the usual give-and-take". They are more willing to accept imperfect compromises, because they know "how rarely grand victories emerge". And they generally think less about "clinging to power" and more about trying to "write the first lines of their obituary". It is perhaps no coincidence that despite holding the narrowest of congressional majorities, the Democrats' ageing triumvirate "presided over one of the most prolific legislative sessions in recent history". |
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Lily Collins in Emily Loves Paris |
My guilty pleasure over Christmas was the "fabulous froth that is Emily in Paris", says Robert Crampton in The Times. The Netflix show, which follows the "vapid antics" of an airhead American who moves to the French capital, has been described as "like scrolling through Instagram, a great way to waste time looking at pretty pictures with no depth". And that's why I love it. Everything looks fabulous: the "laughably hot" cast; the outlandish clothes; the City of Lights itself. The blatant product placement only "adds to the comedy". But the main reason I love the show is "because I'm not supposed to". Clearly, 58-year-old straight white men are not the target demographic; indeed, I suspect a decent proportion of my cohort treat it with derision. Well, "I don't want to be one of those guys". Watching this "fun and frivolity" is as good a way as any of "showing where my allegiances lie". Je l'adore. |
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"Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot."
Charlie Chaplin |
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