lifestyle
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How a good night's sleep became the ultimate status symbolArianna Huffington espouses the virtues of eight hours and luxury products promise rejuvenating rest, but who can really afford to sleep safe and sound?
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Dope and glory: the rise of cheating in amateur sportNow anyone can artificially enhance their performance – from buying drugs online to tricking time-trial apps and riding bikes with hidden motors. But if you’re not racing for cash, what’s the point? -
Cartoon - the spooooky truth about NHS 'ghost patients'GPs are reportedly being paid to look after patients who are no longer with them. A scandal or just supernatural spin? -
Were there once mountains higher than Everest?Readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific concepts
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Shakespeare's translators: do they change the archaisms and obscurities?Readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific concepts
talking points
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With overpopulation a key environmental concern, safe access to birth control, abortion and reproductive health services offer a simple solutionWant to help fight climate change? Start with reproductive rights
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Martí Guixé's food designs: hands-free lollipops and edible pie graphs – in picturesCatalan designer Martí Guixé is known for imaginative food inventions – from instructive party cups to a lollipop with a plantable orange seed and he’s bringing a family-friendly exhibition to Melbourne
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FDA issues guidelines for reducing sodium in processed foodsThe US government suggests sodium reduction goals for 150 categories of food, with the ultimate objective of dropping Americans’ average intake
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Food blogs, Instagram posts and gluten-free brownies may seem like quintessentially modern artefacts. But perhaps we’ve been here beforeAre today’s clean-eating women really so different from 1950s housewives?
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Ten brilliant beers to take to a festival this summerForget queueing for a plastic cup of overpriced lager – take your own craft beer instead. Beer experts pick their favourites, from refreshing pale ales to gose-style, black IPA and imperial stout
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Which is the world's most stylish city?Does real style come from a city with a rich manufacturing history (Milan), high-end designers (Paris), the avant garde (Tokyo) ... or is it found in more unlikely places?
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Dior at Blenheim Palace: English countryside meets Parisian styleDespite the lack of a starry designer, the fashion house revisited this historic venue with a mix of Anglophilia, Alexa Chung and equestrian jackets
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Fashion is a big business in Australia – but you wouldn't know it from the newsThe Mercedes Benz fashion week kicked off last week with some sparkly media coverage but it soon fizzed out – why can’t we write well about fashion?
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Work it! Behind the catwalk with Karlie Kloss and Cara Delevingne – in picturesPhotographer Matt Lever has been shooting the backstage action at fashion shows for almost two decades – and has seen everything from frantic repairs to gatecrashing workmen
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Paris fashion week autumn/winter 2016: the key shows – in picturesThe Observer fashion team rounds up the key collections and looks from the Paris autumn/winter 2016 shows
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Shia LaBeouf embarks on a digital road trip: #TAKEMEANYWHEREThe actor and performance artist is hitchhiking for a month and inviting the public to track him down and take him … anywhere
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How Carleton Watkins’ photographs shaped Yosemite Valley’s futureAbraham Lincoln’s 1864 law to preserve California’s Yosemite Valley may have helped create the National Park Service but it was Carleton Watkins’ striking images that inspired the president
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Interview with a Bookstore: Papercuts JP, the smallest bookstore in BostonWith only three employees, the creators of the tiny Boston icon talk about growing a community, cosmic dreams and what they’d do with more space
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Los Angeles’ new rail extension makes its way to the beachFor the first time in 60 years, Angelenos can take a break from the city’s gridlocked traffic and hop on the extended Expo Line train from Downtown all the way to Santa Monica beach
regulars
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ExperienceExperienceExperience: my army platoon abandoned me in the desertOne morning, I was bringing food and water over the hill as usual, only to find the refugee camp was deserted
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Felicity Cloake's perfect recipesFelicity Cloake's perfect recipesHow to make the perfect ajo blancoGazpacho’s older cousin, this cold almond soup dates back to the Moorish middle ages. But should you use water, milk or almond milk? How much garlic? And what about garnishes?
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Sali Hughes on beautySali Hughes on beautyBeauty: the best illuminating primersI’m still hoping Dior has second thoughts and gives Glow Maximiser another life, but if not, these are the best of the rest
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Swipe right - online dating for the real worldSwipe right - online dating for the real worldAsk Eva says goodbye: seven lessons I learned from answering your questionsI’m signing off after more than a year of helping you swipe right (or not), but first, here’s what I learned from being your electronic agony aunt
advice
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Problem solvedProblem solvedI’d like to have a healthy adult relationship with my brother, but he fobs me offI’ve had therapy to explore the abuse and anger issues in our family and want to reconnect with him. Annalisa Barbieri advises a reader
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Private livesPrivate livesMy husband lied about visiting a lapdancing club – how do we regain trust?This isn’t the first time he’s lied to me about his behaviour – I also discovered he had been paying for porn
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people
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My life as a ‘sex object’In her teens, strangers flashed her on the subway, teachers asked her for hugs and boys made jokes about her breasts. Should she laugh off a lifetime of objectification – or get angry?
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I felt my parents were stolenFrieda Hughes is a painter and poet. She is also the daughter of two giants of the literary world, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, and didn’t read her parents’ poetry until her mid-30s
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Three Tottenham brothers on their way to the topMuch of their success, they say, is due to their parents, who brought them up to be fiercely proud of their mixed race heritage
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Japanese food blogger Chika YoshizakiThe Japanese food blogger and photographer on stock-piling stock and sets of spoons
the big picture
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Readers' photos on the theme of feastFor last week’s photography assignment we asked you to share your photos on the theme of feast. Here’s a selection of our favourites
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