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      ‘I strolled among lovely Lent lilies, wild garlic and beautiful bluebells’: readers’ favourite spring walks in the UK

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 07:00

    From a hike under huge Suffolk skies to aspen glades in the Cairngorms, our tipsters lead the way on these spring strolls

    Two of the great prologues of literature begin on the same seeping bank in the village of Slad. Start the circular Laurie Lee walk from where the infant was dropped from a cart in Cider with Rosie and from where the adolescent loped off to Spain in As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning. A well-managed schedule can see you enjoying the singular hospitality of the Woolpack Inn before and after your five-mile jaunt. Head clockwise or reverse to find primrose-bounded paths, skylark-serenaded pasture and slope-clinging beech trees. The ramble is punctuated by posts inscribed with poetry by the valley’s most celebrated son.
    Mathew Page

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      Fun with our piers: what to wear for a trip to the seaside

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 06:00


    From starfish necklaces to funky sandals, here’s how to look shipshape for a day by the beautiful briny

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      Alessandro Michele announced as new creative director of Valentino

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 15:34

    The former Gucci designer, a favourite of Harry Styles, will replace Pierpaolo Piccioli at one of fashion’s big luxury houses

    Alessandro Michele, the former creative director of Gucci, has been appointed as the creative director of the couture house Valentino.

    Michele stepped down from Gucci in November 2022 and the announcement ends much industry speculation about where he would go next.

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      My boyfriend’s behaviour is making me second-guess everything. What should I do? | Leading questions

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 14:00 · 1 minute

    An accurate gut feeling can be hard to distinguish from overreaction, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith . But there’s probably a good reason you feel this way regardless

    My boyfriend and I have been together for five years now, and for the most part, things have been really good. But lately, I’ve been noticing some stuff that’s got me really confused and frustrated. First of all, he’s been really distant , like he’s always got something on his mind but won’t tell me. And when I try to talk to him about it, he brushes it off like it’s nothing. Plus, he’s been cancelling plans at the last minute, which is not like him. It’s like he’s avoiding spending time with me.

    But here’s the real issue: I caught him red-handed flirting with some other girl on social media! I trust him, but this is making me second-guess everything. I don’t know whether to confront him about it or just keep quiet and hope it blows over. I just can’t decide between wanting to salvage what we have and not wanting to be played for a fool. And to top it all off, I’m scared that if I bring it up, it’ll just lead to a huge fight and make things worse. So please help, what should I do?

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      Dining across the divide: ‘The Lords needs reform – people shouldn’t just be put there by Boris Johnson’

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 12:30


    One wants to fix the second chamber. The other would scrap it and bring in the ‘Danish system’. Can they meet halfway?

    Hartley, 73, Worthing

    Occupation Retired architect

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      Living with my mum has been a blessing – but young adults should not be forced back into the family home | Jason Okundaye

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 12:14

    Although there are significant financial and emotional benefits to returning to the nest, it should be a choice

    The 2021 census already confirmed it: more adult children than ever are still living with their parents. But the Financial Times has recently revealed just how drastically the scales have tipped: about 40% of 18- to 34-year-olds now live with their parents , making it the most common domestic arrangement for this age group. Previously, it was living as a couple with children.

    It’s not just an epidemic of Young, Dumb and Living Off Mum – I’ve moved back home twice since graduating in 2018, and I know plenty of young well-to-do professionals who have felt obliged to do the same, or not moved out at all. There are also plenty of people who are unable to live in their family home due to distance and perhaps wish they could.

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      I didn’t learn to drive until I was 30 – here’s why | Coco Khan

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 11:00

    Young people of driving age are being criticised by the rightwing press for ‘refusing’ to drive. I say: leave those kids alone!

    Being young has always been hard. Sure, it has its perks – more energy, first loves, first everythings – but I feel for the under-25s with still so many life hurdles left to clear. With the list of current social ills ranging from the housing crisis to social isolation and the any-day-now background note of environmental doom, I think it’s fair to say it’s not easy for young people today.

    So when research last week from MoneySuperMarket found that driving age under-25s were costing their parents £1,300 a year in additional fuel from being ferried around – sparking unpleasant commentary about feckless young people “refusing” to drive – I found myself thinking: “Leave the kids alone, they’re doing their best!”

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      The experts: perfumers on 20 ways to make you, your house and your laundry smell fabulous

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 10:00 · 1 minute

    From picking a perfect fragrance to spraying your radiators and getting rid of the worst stinks, here is how to make sure your life always smells sweet

    From a fancy fragrance to a simple bowl of oranges, scent can transform how you feel about yourself, another person or a place. But how can you work out what suits the moment? And the best way to get rid of a stink? Perfumers reveal how to make your world smell fantastic.

    1. Smell is an extreme sensation
    “Scent provokes a visceral reaction,” says Ezra-Lloyd Jackson , a perfumer and artist who makes wearable fragrances under the brand name deya and creates scent installations for art exhibitions. What fascinates him about working with scent is the process of transforming “something that is grotesque or alarming into something that is familiar and comforting, or vice versa”.

    2. Your reaction to a smell is linked to memory
    Maya Njie makes perfumes inspired by her Swedish and Gambian heritage. She tried to capture this feeling in other artistic forms before realising that what she really wanted was to portray the way it smelled. “We know that our sense of smell is directly linked to the part of the brain where our memories are stored,” she says. “So it makes a lot of sense that fragrance and smells are connected to our memories. If you smell something that someone has worn, or you go to a house that belongs to your grandparents, smelling makes you feel way more emotional than a photo ever could.” Jackson describes this as “internal time travel. It is another form of communication that isn’t linguistic.”

    3. It is possible to train your nose
    “That is what perfume is all about,” says Jackson. He didn’t have a very orthodox route into perfumery: “I went straight into a laboratory and got to work, but most people will train at one of the schools in France, where the first year is all about learning 500 smells.” Brighton-based French perfumer Elodie Durande , who works for Somerset label Ffern, honed her craft at the University of Montpellier. “You start out by working on your olfactory skills, remembering smells and describing smells,” before receiving a wide-ranging education about the perfume industry, she says.

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      AI can help us find the right policies to fix the housing crisis | Letters

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 2 days ago - 18:35

    Dr Omar A Guerrero says technology could scrutinise policy proposals and formulate holistic solutions. Plus letters from a pensioner who was evicted after asking his landlord to fix damp problems, Daniel Carter and Martyn Williams

    Nick Bano makes a compelling argument that discussions about increasing the housing supply are misguided if their aim is to fix the UK housing crisis ( The end of landlords: the surprisingly simple solution to the UK housing crisis, 19 March ). His data and succinct description of the historical context are consistent with qualitative and quantitative evidence provided by various UK housing scholars.

    As part of my work as a computational economist, I try to understand the connections between housing wealth inequality and the set of incentives that are shaped by institutions such as the market and the government, ie “the rules of the game”. For this purpose, I develop artificial intelligence models consisting of a computational representation of every household and property in the economy (with their most relevant characteristics and behaviours), and the rules of the game that incentivise them to engage in interactions such as purchasing and renting real estate.

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