A first person opinion piece questioning whether Netflix hit 'The Crown' will tighten the veil of delusion over our royalist sensibilities o

We’re almost a month into Lockdown 3 in the UK and the recent news of an NHS on the brink of collapse as well as a rising daily death toll is all a bit too much. While the roll out of the vaccine gives us hope, it still feels like we have a mountain to climb before we’re out of this mess and even with the point at which people stop dying from this virus visible just over the horizon, we’re bewildered by what kind of ‘new normal’ we’re going to find ourselves living in when we

Aside from the pandemic, it’s been a particularly rough year for me so I decided to take advantage of the Shakti Women Let’s Talk service and I’m so glad that I did. My counsellor has been helping me to work through a depression and a difficult relationship with my mother. We’ve been speaking for an hour most Sunday nights for the last couple of months. Just to give you a bit of context (not because I want your pity but because I’m hopeful that sharing will encourage others t

Lately I’ve been having a lot of vivid, water-related dreams. This is not a euphemism for wetting the bed (or anything else related to that delicate region), by the way. Honestly. The first one occurred a few weeks before Christmas. I was in a small boat, dangerously drifting over the waves of a turbulent sea. Someone was with me. We were both scared, but I seemed to be the one reassuring the other that we were going to be ok because I could see another vessel and people in t

COVID-19 has been a blow to everyone, but it’s punching women right in the guts, pushing back the fight for gender equality. The disheartening reality that women are bearing the brunt of the crisis has now been widely reported and is perhaps best summarised by the United Nations Women ‘Explainer’ website (May 2020). There’s a Quiz. Take it. If you’re a woman, there’s a strong chance that you’ve been shouldering the majority of the domestic and childcare burdens of life in loc