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Emma Beddington

Emma Beddington

The Guardian

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I’m on the slippery slope to living like Stig of the Dump. Can a £12 towel rail turn things around?

I’ve often mentioned the cardboard removal box where I dump my worn-but-not-dirty clothes, craving, I think, the cleansing fire of public shame. Who...

latest 30

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Should all workers get unhappiness leave? It beats awaydays, work-life balance seminars and company yoga

No more croaky, fake phone-in-sick voice for the employees of one regional Chinese supermarket chain: the founder of Pang Dong Lai, Yu Donglai, is...

yesterday 10

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

I love Vogue’s idea of ‘British girl energy’. But what does it involve? M&S knickers? Weaponised politeness?

Chioma Nnadi, who has taken over at British Vogue, says she has settled back in seamlessly after 20 years out of the UK. “I realised just how much...

06.05.2024 30

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

My life is all food stains and dead pot plants – no wonder I dream of beauty and good taste

I devoured the journalist Hamish Bowles’s recent account of his recovery from a severe stroke, not just because good writing on life-altering events...

05.05.2024 20

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

From hiking to birdwatching to early nights – gen Z are coming for my hobbies, and they’re much better at them

Of all the weird gen Z behaviours I have read about, this latest trend may be the most surprising: they are rambling. Yup, sturdy boots, waterproofs...

29.04.2024 20

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

What have I learned from 20 years of parenting? Never to underestimate how wrong I can be

How alike are parents and kids? Quite, right? Surely we all play that game. I, for example, am competitive like my dad (but without a shred of his...

28.04.2024 60

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Let’s hear it for the true geniuses: the people who name paints

Recently, I went on an adventure to an alien and intimidating place, a real no-go area: Belgravia’s interiors shops. My best friend is trying to buy...

22.04.2024 30

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Seven things you really don’t need to worry about, from ‘straw wrinkles’ to sitting too much

I don’t like to blow my own trumpet but I’m really good at worrying. If a family member fails to answer my message within 30 seconds, they’re...

21.04.2024 10

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Is writing down my rage the secret to resolving it?

A lifetime enveloped in a benign, insulating cloud of oestrogen left me ill-prepared to be this nakedly, shockingly angry as it ebbs away in...

15.04.2024 20

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Why do US celebrities love the UK? Because they don’t live here

‘I want to know Jubilee, Piccadilly, Northern, I want to know Edgware … Your system here is exquisite.” That is Sarah Jessica Parker raving...

14.04.2024 20

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Can a three-word style mantra save me from lifelong dishevelment?

As winter (black elastic-waisted trousers, four motheaten jumpers) gives way to spring (khaki trousers, two jumpers), the harsh April light forces me...

01.04.2024 30

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

To brag or not to brag? The etiquette is more confusing than ever

I have belatedly discovered the phrase “move in silence”. Apparently, Lil Wayne instructed people to do it in 2011 with the line: “Real Gs move...

31.03.2024 10

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

The Guardian view on Aya Nakamura: gifted, black and French

Opening ceremonies to Olympic Games are an opportunity for nations to tell a positive story to the world and to themselves. In 2012, Danny Boyle’s...

25.03.2024 10

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

English midlifers are the loneliest in Europe – and I think I know why

I’m sad English midlifers are the loneliest in Europe: poor Gen Xers, sitting at home, wishing we had someone to go to the pub with. Researchers at...

25.03.2024 10

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

The latest advice is to behave like a toddler. Is this the secret to happiness?

What would really make you happy? More money, more fulfilling work, more time to spend with your loved ones? All good, but have you considered a box...

24.03.2024 20

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

I am obsessed with my blood pressure. Can I hack my way out of high readings?

I don’t worry about my health. It’s a failure of imagination, I think, plus I’m busy worrying whether I use excess exclamation marks in emails...

18.03.2024 20

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

The closure of my childhood Sainsbury’s has tipped me over the edge

I actually gasp when I read the news. “Sainsbury’s is closing down!” I tell my husband, waving my phone in his face. “Which Sainsbury’s?”...

17.03.2024 8

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

My inability to say no is making me cry. But what can I do about it?

I’m working on something right now that involves reading a book I don’t understand. It’s on a topic so abstract and vast that I’ve cried...

11.03.2024 10

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

I loved having teenage kids – but I was often terrible at it. Here are eight things I eventually learned

My younger son just turned 20. We went to visit and, at his suggestion, hiked up a hill together. A birthday hike! Only a few years ago, he barely...

10.03.2024 20

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Why do so many women spend more time with pets than people? Where do I start?

‘The average woman with a pet now spends more time ‘actively engaged’ with her pet than she spends hanging out face-to-face with fellow humans...

26.02.2024 40

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

I have been forced into a month of minimalism – and I hate it

I am living minimally for February – not a Veganuary sequel, just poor planning for my month in the US. Our last-minute Airbnb is exceptionally...

25.02.2024 8

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Boston promised snow – and gave me rain. Can you hear my heart breaking?

I was excited to experience a Boston winter – being in snow country was a genuine attraction of our trip here – and last week looked set to...

19.02.2024 10

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

That’s our duvet cover! If you grew up in the 80s, the thrill of One Day is all the tiny details of way back when

I was sucked into the new Netflix adaptation of One Day in the first episode, grabbing the remote to pause it as Dexter sits on Emma’s bed after...

18.02.2024 20

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Food should be tasty, and it doesn’t have to come in a bowl. Could someone tell my lovely American hosts?

I almost never leave Europe, so spending a month in Boston is expanding my provincial horizons and blowing my tiny mind. Wild turkeys (huge!) wander...

12.02.2024 50

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

I still love my husband after 30 years. But I have no idea how we’ve stayed together

February is a double festival of love for me because my wedding anniversary falls just before Valentine’s Day. Most years we share nothing more than...

11.02.2024 40

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

The Guardian view on film sequels: an infinitely expanding universe with no room to breathe

A few weeks ago, Bob Iger, the boss of Disney, stood in the latest outpost of the hugely profitable Frozen franchise – a theme park in Hong Kong –...

05.02.2024 5

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Think Emmanuel Macron has problems? Wait until the French find out about the existential threat to camembert

News so grave for France I can’t quite understand how it hasn’t provoked a general strike of its own: camembert is facing extinction. The French...

05.02.2024 60

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Sometimes I long for the life of a tradwife. Then I remember it’s a reactionary fantasy

I’ve been dipping pruriently into a kerfuffle that kicked off in the ruddy-cheeked and sourdough-scented world of the tradwife lifestyle influencer...

04.02.2024 10

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Too proud of your home to shut the curtains? Pull yourself together

A startling discovery in the Atlantic: apparently not closing your curtains, or not even having any, is a status symbol. “Americans who earn more...

29.01.2024 10

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Does having babies really make women more productive? I felt as if I had been dismantled

I might be particularly attuned to this stuff, but I feel I’m always reading about women – mothers – I admire powering triumphantly through the...

28.01.2024 20

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Is this the year of meong – a wellbeing trend I can actually master?

I subscribe to Vittles online magazine, because reading evocative writing about food I’m too lazy and incompetent to prepare or seek out is one of...

22.01.2024 7

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Kate Moss and I are turning 50 – and it has inspired me to make a new start

Thoughts and prayers, please, for those of us born in 1974, as the global news event that is Kate Moss turning 50 continues. Given the blanket...

21.01.2024 8

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Marina Abramović selling moisturiser? I don’t know whether to laugh or cry

Here’s something I didn’t expect to be typing: pioneering performance artist Marina Abramović has released a wellness range. The Marina...

15.01.2024 30

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Yes, it’s cold, it’s wet and it’s dark – but here are nine reasons to love January

As we head towards Blue Monday, supposedly the worst day of the year, where are we all, emotionally? For my part, I have just discovered I completely...

14.01.2024 10

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Why do middle-aged people love birds so much?

I often wonder why birds speak so universally to the sagging middle-aged soul that it has become a comic trope – the vertiginously swift passage...

08.01.2024 10

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Tipping in the US made me feel mortified and contrite

I am just back from New York and I’ve brought home a new anxiety dream as a souvenir. I’m paying in a cafe and a giant touchscreen asks me to...

07.01.2024 7

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Boasting season is upon us – and it can’t end soon enough

Be careful out there: it’s boasting season. Maybe you’ve already been cornered at a party, received your first round-robin email, opened a card to...

18.12.2023 8

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

How was 2023 for me? Well, I’ve ranked the top 5 letdowns …

I feel a bit left out by the whole Spotify Wrapped thing, where the music streamer reveals what you have been listening to this year. I use my...

17.12.2023 10

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Thinking of going to a Christmas market? Maybe don’t

‘If you’re thinking of going to York Christmas market on a Saturday,” says an exasperated local on TikTok, “can you just not?” I thought...

11.12.2023 9

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

I stopped looking at my phone every time I was waiting for something – this is what I learned

It’s hard not to feel personally attacked by some research (does that make me a raging narcissist? Probably). With crisps and now sitting down...

10.12.2023 7

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Move over, Sweden: here’s my essential guide to greeting strangers

In a development more chilling than its -10C temperature, the Swedish city of Luleå is encouraging people to say hello to each other. The Säg hej! ...

26.11.2023 7

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Need to get out of a Christmas party? Just take notes from Martha Stewart

Martha Stewart, the queen of hospitality, has issued a retraction of her recent declaration on The Kelly Clarkson Show that she had “cancelled...

24.11.2023 10

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Who wants to live in a world without Christmas lights?

Christmas in York has lost a bit of its sparkle. Residents of Twin Pike Way have decided they won’t be putting on their traditional light display...

20.11.2023 10

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

I know sitting is bad for me. But how can I cut back when it’s so much fun?

Are you sitting down? Not because I am about to say anything shocking. Sorry – I shouldn’t scare you. I bet you are sitting. So am I. Because...

19.11.2023 30

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

How long since I last had fun? I remember a time in 2017 ...

Barbra Streisand is looking for fun. “I haven’t had much fun in my life, to tell you the truth,” she told the BBC. “And I want to have more...

12.11.2023 10

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

I could have sworn HRT had cured my brain fog and rage. Then I read that it hadn’t

I started HRT in August and whoa, it’s good stuff. I said a few weeks in that I was still very angry, but my oestrogen level has now risen to the...

05.11.2023 4

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Furious about the petty macho point-scoring of the Covid-era government? May I suggest this shouty Belgian feminist video

It’s a bleak reflection on 2023 that the Covid inquiry – painstakingly detailing how sloppy, hubris-fuelled mismanagement led to thousands of...

03.11.2023 5

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

It’s just weeks since I lost Oscar, but already people are asking: will I get another dog?

I’m getting used to not having a dog, but it’s possible I haven’t really accepted he has gone. Surely Oscar must be lurking in his bed...

30.10.2023 10

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Maggie Smith, Miriam Margolyes, Harriet Walter … I can’t get enough of the new fashion icons

Have you seen Maggie Smith’s advertising campaign for the fashion house Loewe? I can’t stop looking; I’m rapt. The styling, clothes and bags in...

29.10.2023 2

The Guardian

Emma Beddington

Books / Nina Stibbe’s eye for the absurd is as sharp as ever

Nina Stibbe is back in London. It has been 20 years since she left, and 40 years since she first arrived from Leicester to nanny, ineptly, for...

28.10.2023 10

The Spectator

Emma Beddington

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