Oh wow I didn’t even realise Olivia Colman and Penfold from Dangermouse were single. But here they are. Sorry, kidding. Hugh is 55, a teacher and musician, and has a part-time job opening ...

This has been what you might call A Week, hasn’t it? Let’s not even go into it, let’s padlock it in the shed, wipe off the workings-out on the whiteboard, Febreze the f•ck out of ...

Is it better to have a terrible time when the sun is shining, or in the driving rain? Does the contrast of hot weather/everything is awful offer a sliver of cheer, or make you resentful that you could ...

I kept a journal for a few years, until last summer, when I got sick of the sound of my own voice (or sight of my own handwriting). At the beginning of the year, I started again, but on the Journal ...

Oh, the state of everything. Sometimes, as a writer, I am aware of a perceived responsibility to comment on everything all the time, but like everyone else – except columnists getting paid £££ to open ...

Funny old thing, love. We spend our lives looking for it, or avoiding it, or claiming to be incapable of it. It frightens us; it fascinates; it can result in fucking, or crying, or hating, or yearning ...

As we approach the concave middle of January, land of detox, naked trees and dark evenings, December and its joyous lights, capitalism-based optimism and mountains of cholesterol seems another world ...

Know how I’ve clocked that I have entered my Hyacinth Bucket ‘era’? First thing I did when I saw that knitwear pairing was shift my eyes straight down to their shoes. What footwear would you wear for ...

Time was, I would review this Blind Date column every week, but nowadays it’s very rare for me to do two weeks in a row. Time gets away from me, my brain doesn’t work on Saturday mornings any more, I ...

Fate has thrown together in the Guardian Blind Date blender of doom Imelda, 56, a local authority officer, and Jayesh, 66, who works in medical devices. Two jobs I want to know absolutely nothing more ...

Years ago, before social media became all jackboots and your nan’s nan posting AI cartoons of kittens asking for money to be be allowed into Cat Heaven, this blog was scarily popular with more readers ...

We all have our own Manderley, don’t we? That place we return to in our dreams, over and over, like the second Mrs de Winter in Rebecca? For some, it’s childhood homes, running their fingers over the ...