How has driving become such an awful sin? Back in the dark ages, I got hold of a provisional driving licence the moment I was old enough and my schoolfriend Alyson passed her test at 17. Being able to tootle around in my parents’ old Mini was thrilling and so grown-up. I was independent, mobile, … Read more
Something unusual happened last week. I had two smart lunches. Not five-star, full-on corporate lunches, but not a quick cappuccino-and-scrambled-egg-with- a-girlfriend kind of thing either. Since March, such experiences have been in short supply. In fact they completely disappeared. So naturally I made the most of these. Despite the puddles and rain, I put on … Read more
There isn’t much good news around Covid-19, but for many mothers who have long wanted more flexible working, their day has come. When I edited Vogue, I had a staff of about 30 who were mainly female. It was a curious fact but office pregnancies seemed to happen in cycles, and often four or five … Read more
I reckon that once you’re checking in a case, you might as well cram in absolutely everything you could possibly need or want. Coleen Rooney is pictured above arriving in Barbados The Rooney family arrived for their Barbados holiday with shedloads of luggage. Seven vast hard-shell suitcases. Yes. I counted. But seven cases for eight people … Read more
Another face covering has just arrived. This from my friend Rachel, who is working with Kenyan women on a recycling project. And it’s gone in the drawer with all the other masks that I have been given or bought over recent weeks. Do they work? I haven’t the foggiest. Because this country’s confusing guidance on … Read more
It used to be so simple. Your friends were people you liked to hang out with. People you found interesting and had a laugh with. There were some you saw regularly and others less frequently but the key qualification for friendship was whether you enjoyed their company. Now, though, everything is different. Now we have to … Read more
It’s been nearly 11 weeks since we were told that what we had previously thought of as normal daily life was to be shut down. Most of the activities we enjoyed would be off the menu: restaurants, hairdressers, dinner parties, garden centres, multi-generational family gatherings, sport. When Boris announced lockdown that evening of March 23, … Read more
Our 13-year-old cat Coco clearly knows something is up. Her next-door neighbour Pumpkin, has gone AWOL (his owners having taking him out of London) and, more unusually, she can see that we are around all the time. Last week, an animal psychologist reported that many dogs are enjoying life in lockdown because they are getting … Read more
Alexandra Shulman’s Clothes… And Other Things That Matter is a wry and candid part-memoir, part-fashion history, part-social commentary By Kate Finnigan Published: 22:01 BST, 25 April 2020 | Updated: 22:01 BST, 25 April 2020 Clothes… And Other Things That Matter Alexandra Shulman … Read more
The shattering news that Boris had been admitted to intensive care will be remembered as one of the defining moments of the coronavirus outbreak. Until then, for those of us lucky enough not to have severely ill friends and family, there was still an element of this being a phoney war, something we were waiting … Read more