How to survive the cruise ship dinner table

Picture this scene: with newly sanitised hands and an appetite as big as the QE2, you have been seated at a restaurant table where you will dine for the duration of your cruise. You’re then handed a printed card by the couple next to you. It reads: “Please do not smile or greet us at […]

How to stack your fridge and make food last longer

How to organise your fridge Have a clear-out Pick a day when your fridge is looking sparse and start with a good clear out, checking use-by dates and looking under lids for signs of mould. Whether food is still safe to eat once mould has appeared depends on the food – for example, if a hard […]

How to spider-proof your home

You may have noticed them scuttling across your laminate flooring, or dropping from the ceiling, fangs glistening, hairy legs outstretched, all eight of them. If they’re not in your home yet, they will be. They’re coming, and this year according to reports, some are as big as rats. It’s spider season. Arachnophobes, be afraid, be […]

How to avoid being a victim of crime, by the world’s top security expert

Kate Bright pickpocketed her friend on a Tube escalator recently, just to see how long it would take her to notice.  “She couldn’t believe how easy it was for me to do it,” says Bright.  Six-foot, blonde and the founder of Umbra International, Bright is one of the 6.8 per cent of women out of […]

How to dress everyone for the family wedding

Then one day, walking down Bond Street, I nipped into Dior – as you do. There it was: the Bar Jacket I’d always wanted, although not in navy as I’d imagined, but in a stunning, glow-uppy pink. As I live in separates, I could wear the jacket endlessly, with jeans, navy, black or cream trousers… […]

How to talk to your children about sex

Almost every parent will inevitably have faced the question about ‘where babies come from’ from their child. So if, like me, you were given very little in the way of sex education when you were a child, it can be a little daunting to know where to start. However, doing it sooner rather than later […]

How to eat ham without it damaging your health

Ham sandwiches are a favourite for a reason. They’re simple, cheap and a crowd-pleaser.  But they may pose a risk for our health. A study from Cambridge University this week found that eating 50g of processed meat per day – the equivalent of two thick slices of ham – raises the risk of developing Type 2 […]

How to save Britain from a doom loop of decay, decline – and default

And yet the size of the UK’s public sector has inexorably increased, from around 30pc of GDP last century to, during Covid, over 50pc; even now it is around 45pc. The number shows little sign of reducing.  Second: along with a large state comes the corollary: high taxes. Over and again, academic studies have shown […]

How to qualify for two state pensions – and get increases for life

Ireland may be close by, but this doesn’t make the rules around pensions any less complicated.  The number of paid Pay Related Social Insurance (PRSI) contributions you require before being eligible for an Irish pension depends on when you reached pension age. If it was on or after 6 April 2012, you need to have […]