The Guardian - Life & Style • Jan. 26, 2026, 5:13 p.m.

Despite living on an island, David Warr avoided the water for five decades – until a swimming teacher made the link between his fear and a childhood trauma When David Warr was 11 he thought he was dying. At his school swimming lesson, he jumped in and swam – then realised with horror that his feet couldn’t feel the bottom.

He recalls his teacher, standing on the side of the pool, shouting at him to “just swim” and his own immobilising fear. “I thought, ‘I can’t.

I don’t know what to do.’ I started to panic hard. I thought, ‘She’s going to let me die.’” Warr, 61, has blocked out how he reached safety, but for five decades he refused to go out of his depth again.

The Guardian - Life & Style • Jan. 26, 2026, 5:13 p.m.

Holding multiple jobs without your employer’s knowledge has boomed in the age of hybrid working. Is it a canny response to job insecurity – or a fast track to getting fired?

Name: Polygamous working. Age: It’s really a post-pandemic phenomenon.

Continue reading...

The Guardian - Life & Style • Jan. 26, 2026, 5:13 p.m.

Academics draw on lived experience in their global peacebuilding work as they foster dialogue between opposing groups and look to give victims a voice “I’m less concerned with villains and heroes than I am with how the next 50 years can be more peaceful than the last,” says Richard English , professor of politics at Queen’s University Belfast. It’s a refreshing perspective in a world where peace often seems impossible, and the complexities of conflict are readily reduced to narratives of good versus evil.

Queen’s is a Russell Group university at the forefront of global peacebuilding and reconciliation research. It’s a research institution that influences academic thought, shapes policy, and transforms lives in conflict communities worldwide.

The Guardian - Life & Style • Jan. 26, 2026, 5:13 p.m.

After the failure of his police career, Jack came to live with us, caring for the whole family indiscriminately. When I was sickest, and felt unlovable, he reminded me I was loved Jack, the cocker spaniel, was sacked by the police.

His career as a detection dog was an utter failure – he was more interested in people than cannabis and made some embarrassing mistakes, including begging for treats from potential offenders rather than alerting officers about drugs. A colleague told me about a police dog that needed a home and so Jack arrived – via police van – at our house.

He was lithe, glossy black and animated. He ricocheted around the house, knocking over children and pot plants.

The Guardian - Life & Style • Jan. 26, 2026, 5:13 p.m.

Traditional bodybuilding advice has been to push workouts to the point of failure, and that soreness is an indicator of effectiveness. But recent studies show there’s another way Until pretty recently, the conventional wisdom about building muscle was that it worked via a system you might think of as “tear and repair” – the idea being that working out causes microtears in the muscle fibres, which trigger the body’s repair processes, encouraging the muscles to come back bigger and stronger.

That’s why many old-school trainers will tell you that there’s no gain without pain, and why a lot of bodybuilding advice includes increasingly byzantine ways of pushing your biceps and triceps to the point where you can’t do another repetition: the more trauma you can cause, the thinking goes, the more “swole” you can become. Continue reading...

The Guardian - Fashion • Jan. 26, 2026, 5:13 p.m.

Fashion elder compères his own celebration of designs revived from his archive by design director Sam Cotton This January marks the first menswear fashion week in Milan without a familiar constant in Giorgio Armani, after the designer died aged 91 in September. But the brand will still show on Monday, and there are other elder statesmen on the schedule in the shape of Ralph Lauren, 86, and Paul Smith, who will be 80 this year.

Paul Smith showed his collection on Saturday evening at the brand’s Italian HQ . Its playful nature was evident from the format as Smith himself compèred, with descriptions of the designs and inspirations over a microphone.

The clothes demonstrated all the hallmarks that fans have come to love – bold prints, great suiting (this time oversized) and bright colours on sweaters and shirts. Continue reading...

The Guardian - Fashion • Jan. 26, 2026, 5:13 p.m.

There are so many great value bathing creams and gels, you can indulge yourself all winter long January is cold, frequently depressing and almost everyone is indoors and feeling broke. At the start of the year, the most activity I can manage is to pop on a podcast and haul myself into a bubble bath.

It’s a comfort that has made me an expert in every bath cream, foam and salt on the high street. I am practically incapable of passing a shelf without popping a new one in my trolley.

And while I love a posh soak, there is something extra satisfying about using lavish amounts of product and enjoying a luxury-feeling bath without a drop of spender’s remorse. Continue reading...

The Guardian - Fashion • Jan. 26, 2026, 5:13 p.m.

I’ve got a feeling this is the year skirts regain their main character energy I never stopped wearing skirts, I just sort of stopped thinking about them. They were a plus-one, not the main event.

For the past few years I have planned my outfits around my obsession with pleated trousers, or my latest experimental jean shape. Or I have worn dresses.

Sometimes I have ended up in a skirt, but the skirt was kind of an afterthought. For instance, at one point last year when it was chilly and I needed to look smart as well as cosy, I picked out a sweater and a pair of knee-high boots, and then slotted in a plain midi in satin or wool, just something to sit in between.

The Guardian - Fashion • Jan. 26, 2026, 5:13 p.m.

Costume designer Marylin Fitoussi says Italy understands the show’s wardrobe is ‘about breaking rules and having fun’ Netflix’s famously frothy romcom Emily in Paris has long divided critics and Parisians alike, but as it returns for its fifth season it seems to have won a presidential seal of approval. On Monday, Emmanuel Macron named the series’ creator, Darren Star (best known for Sex and The City), a knight of the legion of honour for boosting France’s cultural prominence and soft power through the show’s global success.

It is a long way from the initial backlash, which partly centred on the brash wardrobe of Emily Cooper, the American in Paris played by Lily Collins. Brightly coloured, print-heavy and over the top, the outre outfits were received as a personal affront by many Parisians, who even objected to her embrace of archetypal French chic.

Continue reading...

The Guardian - Fashion • Jan. 26, 2026, 5:13 p.m.

A neat alternative to messing around trying to get the perfect T-shirt tuck. Here a three outfits to get you started Continue reading...

Sidebar

Paste your ad here.