The Critical Commentator

  Sometimes I feel like I have two jobs. One is my day job as a writer for The Times. The other is what's beginning to feel like a full-time career perfecting my night-time beauty routine. Beauty and the Beast John Dickson Batten (1860-1932) Photo Credit: Birmingham Museums Trust [Public Domain] At the moment, it begins with 45 minutes in a red-light sauna blanket that is meant to help inflammation and muscle recovery. While that's going on, I also whack on an LED face mask with a blue light function, which is supposed to help to manage my acne, and a hair mask meant to strengthen my hair. Once that's over and I've showered, I spend another 15 minutes attempting to meditate while sitting in front of a red LED panel, which is supposed to help to manage wrinkles and stress. Then it's back to the bathroom to begin the eight-step skincare routine that involves double cleansing, serums, oils, moisturisers and various face sculpting tools. Then time for dinner, before kic...

  I'm writing this from Nasser hospital in southern Gaza, where I've just finished operating on another severely malnourished young teenager. A seven month old baby lies in our paediatric intensive care unit, so tiny and malnourished that I initially mistook her as a newborn. The phrase "skin and bones" doesn't do justice to the way her body has been ravaged. She is literally wasting away before our eyes, and we are powerless to save her. We are witnessing deliberate starvation in Gaza right now. This is my third time in Gaza since December 2023 as a volunteer surgeon with Medical Aid for Palestinians... The malnutrition crisis has become catastrophic since my last visit. Every day I watch patients deteriorate and die - not from their injuries, but because they are too malnourished to survive surgery... Four babies have died in the last few weeks in this hospital - not from bombs or bullets, but from starvation.. Children are being given 10% dextrose (sugar water)...

  "There are a lot of people that make it to what they thought was going to fulfil them in life [but] you get to No1 in the world and they're like, 'What's the point?' I really do believe that, because what is the point? Why do I want to win this tournament so bad? It's something that I wrestle with on a daily basis." John Locke (1632-1704) unknown artist Photo Credit: Yale Center for British Art [Public Domain] This was one quote from what will perhaps go down as the most frank, raw and profound press conference, well, ever. It involved Scottie Scheffler and if you are surprised as to the identity of the man who spoke the above words, join the club. Press conferences are typically forums that incubate banalities (I know: I've been to a few) but this was a brilliant golfer and reflective man pondering some of the deeper questions confronting someone who has spent most of his life - this brief illumination of existence that is all any of us gets - hitt...

  Sorry seems to be the hardest word , sang Elton John - but not for British people it appears, for whom it has 15 different uses (and only one of them expressing true regret). Linguists have analysed the context in which we say sorry and identified multiple meanings. They say it often causes confusion for foreign people moving to the UK, who take it as a literal apology rather than decoding what is truly being expressed. Frances Abington Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) Photo Credit: Yale Centre for British Art [Public Domain] Karen Grainger, a lecturer in linguistics at Sheffield Hallam University , says the word has become a reflex to be polite, soften disagreement, ease awkwardness and navigate social norms... The truly regretful meaning comes with someone being genuinely sorry to hear someone else's bad news and means they care what that person is going through. However, "sorry" can also be used in a passive aggressive way: "I'm sorry if I offended you",...

  The perfect earthenware mug, a hand soap bottle with nice font. Five minutes mindfulness on the garden bench in the morning (selfie optional). From bespoke WhatsApp groups and table settings, Spotify playlists to desk, drawer and fridge organising systems, we are no longer just living our lives but constantly "curating" them too. Still Life, Fruit William Duffield (1816-1863) Photo Credit: Victoria Art Gallery. [CC BY-NC-ND] Before my birthday at the weekend I curated a six-hour playlist that reflected  not only my life so far but how I wanted the arc of my party to play out. I dotted tables with sweetpeas in a collection of brown beer bottles curated from the recycling with that very purpose in mind. In the downstairs loo, more curation in the shape of a tomato leaf-scented candle... Self-indulgent or just making things nice? Showing off or hosting? Doing it for social media or because the wider world feels chaotic and here is a small way to restore order? Or fiddling whi...

  On a bright summer's day recently I found myself facing a quandary. Choosing a top and trousers to wear wasn't a problem, but my whole outfit was in danger of being derailed by a mis-step: the wrong socks. Portrait of a Young Girl with Tartan Socks William Ewart (c.1816 - after 1863) Photo Credit: Berwick Museum & Art Gallery   Should it be a pair that matched the rest of my outfit, or with a pattern that stood out? Did a frill look fussy, or bring just the right amount of detail? Was the fact they didn't have a four-letter word on them going to expose me as woefully out of touch? The only thing I was certain of is that they should be on show. Yes the young and the fashionable have known this for a while but for the rest of us it's taken time to notice the sock's shift to centre stage... My Guardian colleague Jess Carter-Morley says socks are fashion's "hottest topic of the decade", while Lynne Hugill , senior lecturer for the BA in fashion at T...