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The Guardian
31-03-2025
- Lifestyle
- The Guardian
Birthstone rings, luxury loungewear and a genius overnight bag: what you loved most this month
Never has the term 'fool's spring' been more fitting. When the sun came out early in the month, many of us began to prepare for the summer that felt just around the corner. Hundreds of you, like me, bought the most genius overnight bag for the weekends away that were surely about to happen, and the perfect nail colour for the new season. The Guardian's journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more. But let's be real: it's not summer yet. A fact evidenced by just how many of you were also buying practical raincoats, stay-in-all-day satin pyjamas and – less glamorously – microwave rice cookers. Here are the Filter recommendations you loved the most this month. Anyday Hennriette Point£49 at John Lewis Jess Cartner-Morley declared the pilates pump to be 'the new ballet flat' in her style essentials for March – and so many of you seem to agree. 'Something about the way a ballerina flat leaves the top part of my foot flat lacks grace, visually,' said Jess. 'I've found the solution in a new genre of ballerina/Mary-Jane hybrids, with a strap across the top – like the socks people wear at pilates, hence the name.' Sistema rice steamer £7.99 at Amazon We were as surprised as anyone when this £11 microwave rice-steaming bowl managed to hold its own in our recent rice cooker group test. 'Using its suggested ratios and timings, my basmati emerged after 15 minutes with individual fragrant grains, with no starchiness or chalky middle,' said our reviewer Joanne Gould. It also performed well for sushi and brown rice. It's no YumAsia for complete rice perfection, but if you're nervous about cooking rice in a pan, this is a great starting point. It does get incredibly hot, though. Antler Essential overnight bag£125 at John Lewis £125 at Antler This bag 'has had complete strangers stopping me in the street and on the Eurostar platform recently', said Cartner-Morley in her March style essentials. 'The clever thing … is the integral back strap, which allows it to slide over the pop-up handle of your wheeled suitcase. This keeps it sitting securely on top of your luggage without everything falling over in chaos when you try to buy a coffee or get on to a train.' It also fits easily into a luggage rack or under the seat in front. Fussy natural deodorant£10 at Fussy With more and more of us wanting to cut back on plastic, it's no surprise so many of you loved Anita Bhagwandas's roundup of the best refillable beauty products. And especially popular was this refillable deodorant from Fussy. 'Unlike many 'natural' deodorants, it genuinely works,' she wrote. 'Choose your recycled plastic case, and pick from several scents (I'm obsessed with Parma Violets) to create your own bespoke deodorant.' Nails Inc Turks And Caicos Beach nail polish£8 at Amazon Not only do 'cappuccino-coloured nails look great with everything', said Cartner-Morley in her monthly style essentials, but also the 'shade is subtle enough that if – like me – you're not exactly a dab hand on the DIY, a few application wobbles won't show'. Rains unisex long jacket£71.50 at John Lewis Scandinavian label Rains 'is one of the brands I reach for whenever the weather takes a turn', says Ellie Violet Bramley in our guide to stylish raincoats. 'Its long jacket has seen me through countless soggy commutes, playground trips and walks in the woods.' It's machine-washable, too. Stacking family birthstone ringFrom £21.60 at Etsy This sentimental gift idea was popular for Mother's Day, but it would also make a lovely gift all year round, for mothers and friends alike. 'If in a few years, my now three-year-old decided to give me one of these, her birthstone nestled next to mine, I can guarantee I would melt,' said Bramley in our gift guide. Satin pyjamas£34.90 at Uniqlo Lounging around must have become much more glamorous around the country after hundreds of you bought these satin pyjamas from our Mother's Day gift guide. They even have pockets, so they're practical too. Smol laundry capsulesFrom £6 for 24 at Smol We've been overwhelmed with responses since we asked in this newsletter for your tips on cutting down on plastic. So many of you told us how much plastic you'd saved by switching to Smol refillable cleaning products, and now many more readers have cottoned on to this as well. Thank you so much for sending in so many great tips – read below for more we've received. From smash-proof cases to updates: how to make your smartphone last longer The best cordless vacuum cleaners for a spotless home: 10 tried and tested favourites Is the Simba Hybrid Pro mattress worth the hype? I slept on it for three months to find out Always roll your clothes! 13 travel packing hacks to save you space and money – according to seasoned travellers 'Reminds me of sun cream': the best (and worst) supermarket coconut milk, tasted and rated It's been nearly 11 years, but I can still remember the number of bouquets that filled my flat after the birth of my daughter. Don't get me wrong: I love flowers. But in those magical, insane early weeks there are, with hindsight, other gifts that could have lightened the load a little. A week's worth of meals, for example; or a care package filled with treats. Someone did buy me the Mother's Balm from this Neal's Yard trio though – a moisturising treat for my skin. Don't forget the new mums in your life. Hannah BoothEditor, the Filter Feel like you need that extra bit of help waking up in the morning now that the clocks have gone forward? Our expert Sasha Muller tested 10 of the best coffee machines for the Filter – having reviewed them for the past seven years, he knows his way around a drip tray. Not interested in a machine, but want tastier coffee? He's also given us all the kit you need to make great coffee at home – and what not to waste your money on. Our article on how to use less plastic resonated with you, and you've been writing in to tell us all the ways you're cutting back on your consumption. Libby Hutchings told us how she switched to plastic-free baby products for her two young children. 'I used cloth nappies with my now five-year-old, and I'm now using them with my six-month-old. While I bought a lot of them new with my first, I also bought several secondhand and, with proper care, have been able to use the same nappies this time. The extra laundry isn't that bad and any stains come out in the sun! Once we're done with them I'll sell them on to others as they'll have loads of life left in them. And we use cloth wipes instead of wet wipes: they're much kinder to delicate skin as well.' And Elise Rayner emailed to tell us how she avoids plastic in her food shopping: 'I use my local refill shop for lentils, stock powder, porridge oats and chocolate raisins. I only buy plain yoghurt in the largest tubs to avoid the small pots. If there's a glass option instead of a plastic option, eg mayonnaise, I buy the glass. Cheese from the cheesemonger wrapped in paper.' Have you ever been surprised by a brand or retailer going above and beyond on customer service? Maybe they repaired an ancient raincoat for free or brought a much-loved kitchen appliance back to life with a new part. If so, let us know by emailing us at thefilter@
The Guardian
19-03-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Off the scent: how Atherton and Katich thrived in cricket without all senses intact
On the weekend, a friend and I went walking. As we strolled along the River Goyt, a sweet smell hit us like a packet of Love Hearts, which, as it turns out, is pretty much what it was. We had inadvertently walked past the Swizzels factory – producer of Parma Violets, Rainbow Drops and more in the Sett Valley since the company moved out of blitzed London in 1940, to an old textile mill in New Mills, Derbyshire. Alongside the sugary cloud drifted a junk shop of memories, sweets handed out at jelly and ice-cream parties, shared on the curb outside the corner shop, sucked on the way home from school. Later on, we passed a man pushing a mower to and fro on his front lawn and that fresh hit set off a whole other chain of flashbacks. As a cricket lover, you probably know where this is going. In the UK, where there are four seasons, albeit more confused these days, and the winters are long and damp and quite barren of natural smells, cut grass is the first sign the cricket season is on the way – quite quickly on the way now. There are only 16 days until Surrey walk out (probably wearing beanies and carrying handwarmers) to start their County Championship title defence. Smell is the most underrated of all the senses; the least glamorous, the most neglected, often held at bay by the indignity of a runny nose. But it is also the sense most connected to memory and is linked to the part of the brain involved with emotional and behavioural response. Which is why we have such a strong reaction to mown grass: sitting next to the cricket season to come is also the cricket season past, with people and players we have loved, but who have now slipped away to rest a while on the bench in the shadows. Alongside the lawnmower and the daffodils and the hawthorn blossom and the rudely fragrant hyacinth bulbs calling out from shop fronts, the world is slowly coming to life as the days stretch towards the spring equinox, first overs and beyond. It is one of the great pleasures in life to go for a walk in March and smell possibilities all around. But this isn't the way for every cricket lover or every cricketer. There are at least two Test players who have never sniffed the linseed oil, the groundsman's cuttings, stale kit or Deep Heat or, in Mike Atherton's case, even the odour of sweet toasted corn floating out of the Kelloggs factory round the corner from his former home ground, Old Trafford. Atherton has no memory of having had a sense of smell. His mum first noticed when he was six or seven years old. 'We lived in a village called Woodhouses [in Greater Manchester] where there are more pig farms per square mile than anywhere else in the country,' he says. 'At tea time, they would feed the pigs and there was apparently an almighty stink and she began to realise I was not registering any of this stuff.' However, it wasn't something that he had ever thought about until the Covid pandemic. 'Then, when everyone else was talking about losing their sense of smell, and what a loss it was, I thought, for the first time, what am I missing?' Practically, it means he needs someone to tell him if his food smells bad and he has begun to think his taste buds might be different to everyone else's – he sometimes struggles to tell the difference between tea and coffee and tends to like spicy food rather than anything more subtle. It also means he may have made a few olfactory faux pas in his time: 'My teammates could probably tell you about some stinky shirts I might have worn out of ignorance.' But he is typically no-nonsense about the whole thing, signing off with: 'What goes in my nose is air, it doesn't mean anything. If you're going to lose one sense, then that is the one to lose.' Sign up to The Spin Subscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers' thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week's action after newsletter promotion Another Test cricketer without a sense of smell is Simon Katich, who lost the ability to sniff an old baggy green after an attack of glandular fever. That also knocked him down the waiting list for a Test place after the rookie Ricky Ponting muscled into the vacant spot in the Australian middle order while Katich languished in bed. Not being able to sniff the difference between parsley and sage did not hold him back when he got to the semi-finals of Australia's Celebrity MasterChef in 2009, impressing the judges with his crispy salmon with wilted spinach and mashed potato, and then a 10-layer crepe cake. Can we take anything away from these two fine cricketers being unable to smell? Could it be that their inability to register the stinking pheromones of an angry fast bowler – thinking here in particular of a furious Allan Donald pawing at the ground at Trent Bridge in 1998 – helped keep them calm? Might a lack of flamboyance at the crease be related to their inability get a sensory hit from a morning espresso or never having to endure the whiff of a post-match nightclub? Fun as it might be to ponder, no amount of ruminating can stop the passing days. There is something in the air: the season is coming. This is an extract from the Guardian's weekly cricket email, The Spin. To subscribe, just visit this page and follow the instructions.
