A BIG HUGE LIMITLESS THANK YOU for everything. For being tireless with your efforts… For opening doors to people side-lined in society like myself to get into work they would never imagine because I developed my writing skills (I'm working in YMU books, my dream internship and it's because you helped me).

Commenting on other people's bodies, or rather, refraining from doing so, is a topic increasingly circulating not only on image-heavy platforms like Instagram, but also in the collective consciousness. The more people I meet, the more I realise that attitudes are changing, or at least, some thought is being invested into what is and is not acceptable or appropriate to say to someone about how they look.

We live in a society where love is overly romanticised. Love is most often seen (incorrectly) as everlasting relationships, ‘till death do us part’. There are thousands of books and movies – like Pride and Prejudice – that sell us the dream of ‘happily ever after’, but does happily ever after even exist? Is it just a marketing gimmick? After all, love sells and sells well.

It is these types of questions that could help feminists grapple with over a decades’ old debate: How do we delineate between what is pornographic content filled with sexual menace and what accounts only as sexual fantasy?

There’s a quote from Jeremy Bentham – “Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet”. I think that this is true of many of us.

We’ve reached the magic seventh instalment of ‘Sacred England’, our series that seeks out mythology in English places – but what even is mythology, anyway?

Women have always faced judgement, and have had disproportionate emphasis put on, their relation to men. Labelled as virgins or whores, nurturing mothers or wicked stepmothers, dutiful wives or cheating Jezebels. Heaven forbid we should just be allowed to exist in our own right.

Ah Naked Attraction – we love it, we hate it… my Nan once confessed she watches it when my Grandad goes to bed.

It’s been about 14 years since we’ve been in touch. Why did we lose touch? I honestly don’t know. We were in our early 20s and had both graduated from separate universities, and were taking tentative steps into whatever came next. Neither of us knew what lay ahead but somehow, on the walk to get there, we moved at different speeds and drifted in different directions. I sent you texts every now and again, on birthdays and when you just popped into my head. But you didn’t respond.

There were 5 people involved in the efforts to save my Dad, one of whom grabbed a snorkel and fins from his barge and went under the boats to try to rescue him putting his own life at risk. Incredible. Truly. It must have been so scary for them to have been witness to the shocking and fast moving drama that unfolded that day

Producer and DJ Michael Diamond blurs the boundaries between electronic and jazz, layering his productions with organic instrumentation that slips in cleanly with the crunching beats and shapeshifting synths. His new album Third Culture, released on June 24, is a seven-track cycle that slides gracefully between minimal, percussive atmospherics and scattered dancefloor rhythms. We caught up with Michael to chat about his new album, the Oxford scene and the many artistic intersections of his practice.

Love Saves The Day is now a firm staple on the yearly festival calendar, holding the crown of Bristol’s biggest music festival, pulling in crowds from all over the UK. For its tenth year, Love Saves The Day made the ambitious leap up to Ashton Court Estate on the western edges of Bristol, with the capacity to hold 60,000 partygoers over the jubilee weekend.

Poetry intertwined with popular music is something the world needs more of. Luckily, current poet laureate Simon Armitage is doing just that with his leftfield ambient post-rock band LYR. Alongside Armitage, LYR are comprised of singer-songwriter Richard Walters and producer Patrick J Pearson. Following the release of their acclaimed debut album Call in the Crash Team LYR have recently released a new EP, Firm as a Rock We Stand, which is part of a wider multi-disciplinary project including a documentary film inspired by the story of Durham’s Category D villages.

Twenty years ago Canadian performance artist and musician Merrill Nisker, better known as Peaches, released her seminal debut album The Teaches of Peaches. As well as paving the way for an explosion of electroclash dance-punk into the musical spotlight the album was a gamechanger in other ways too. In an era when female sexuality was in the main still only put on public display for consumption by male audiences (and even then it was kept neat and sanitised), gender identity was still an underground concept and body shaming was ingrained in popular culture, Peaches unashamedly tackled these issues head-on, both in her music and on stage.

Love Saves The Day is now a firm staple on the yearly festival calendar, holding the crown of Bristol’s biggest music festival, pulling in crowds from all over the UK. For its tenth year, Love Saves The Day made the ambitious leap up to Ashton Court Estate on the western edges of Bristol, with the capacity to hold 60,000 partygoers over the jubilee weekend.

With a big blues voice, a rock star energy on stage and a style that combines country and Irish folk music, Derby-based singer/songwriter Kezia Gill has transcended the narrow confines of musical genres to hone a sound that is truly inimitable.

The jazz/hip hop duo CoN&KwAkE are the latest artists to release on Shabaka Hutching’s label Native Rebel Recordings, but neither are strangers to the London music scene. Con, otherwise known as Confucius MC, has been a major name in UK hip hop since the early noughties, and Kwake Bass is a producer and current or recent Musical Director for big names like Sampha, Kae Tempest and Nightmares on Wax, as well as the drummer of choice for, amongst others, MF DOOM and Lianne La Havas.

I Used To Be Sam is the latest step in an ongoing creative journey. Songwriter and vocalist Annie Goodchild took the brave step of exploring tough questions of identity, family and belonging through their music under their most recent artist moniker, I Used To Be Sam. We had the great pleasure of chatting with I Used To Be Sam from their home in Basel, northern Switzerland, taking in everything from family connections to graphic novels and artist friends.

To many, Batman is more than just his beginnings as a comic book superhero. Batman is not just the preserve of ‘comic book geeks’.

My question is, if these television shows are nothing more than garbage, why do so many of us tune in with eager eyes the minute they are released?

Throughout history, women have been told to sit down, be quiet and keep to yourself. Growing up, we are constantly told that sex is purely an act of procreation, that it’s something females should endure not enjoy. It is normalised to a point that we start looking at female pleasure as something wrong, especially self-pleasure. I mean women like sex – I sure do anyway!

Since Netflix’s breakthrough in 2013 with the debut of its original House of Cards series, many other streaming platforms such as Disney Plus and Amazon Prime Video have made it possible for binge-watching to become mainstream.

Despite visibly displaying all the hallmarks of the stereotypical female duo so often found in films: the hot, popular ‘queen bee’ and her nerdy, needy best friend, these two characters refuse to conform and subvert this dynamic throughout the film.

Losing Joy is a short film about a young woman struggling to acknowledge the first anniversary of her sister’s death. Faith [Michelle Tiwo] is lost in grief until close friend and former girlfriend Olivia [Shanay Neusum-James] guides her into acceptance.

In the aftermath of the London Short Film Festival (LSFF) this January, I sat down with one of its founders, Philip Ilson to speak about what they have achieved. Now coming up to its 20th anniversary festival next year, Ilson has been able to take a look back at what they have achieved over the festival’s lifetime, and consider how this will inform their plans for the future.

Since the beginning of the film and tv industry women have been pushed aside in roles that were traditionally dominated by men, such as directors, producers and writers. If we look back to the golden age of Hollywood, very rarely will you see a female working the camera, taking control of film direction and writing a hit. Many were leading ladies like Judy Garland, Vivian Leigh and Audrey Hepburn.

TISWAS would probably be pulled off the schedule within one episode nowadays. Ahead of Bristol Ideas and Slapstick Festival’s much anticipated TISWAS: The Reunion, at St Georges Bristol on Saturday 16th April, Slapstick Festival and Bristol Ideas director Andrew Kelly shares his memories of TISWAS, and how it sparked a love of comedy that would last a lifetime.

Bristol Bad Film Club has been ongoing since 2013. Set up by film lover, Ti Singh, each month the club showcases a notoriously bad film (the badder, the better) at Bristol Improv Theatre. With all proceeds going to charity, the film club offers a unique experience - the audience paying a fiver to watch a film about killer bees, a lion mauling Kathy Griffiths or watching Sylvester Stallone’s bodyguard act.

Based within the creative hub of Bristol at Jamaica Street Studios, Annie Clay’s work finds beauty in the everyday as her captivating landscapes demonstrate the beauty of Bristol and its surroundings. Her style is both unique and distinctive with the time and precision in each piece so evident within her work. There is something about Annie’s work that seems to trigger a sense of familiarity with a place and it was great to sit down and have a chat with Annie about all things inspiration and how working as an artist in Bristol influences her work.

Who dares to feel hope nowadays? In an era defined by climate disaster, Covid 19, and the rise and subsequent normalisation of right-wing politics, hope can be hard to find. Recently, it feels like the triumph of capitalism over community is nearing completion, the earth’s ecosystem is imploding at an alarming speed and the dystopian future we’ve all been warned about has arrived.

An evening at one of Bristol’s newest venues, The Mount Without, is something to look forward to. The space in this big old church is fantastic and its versatility really shone for this event as it hosted a staged performance by Tom Marshman and a broader floor space for the dance pieces from Cree Barnett Williams and Yos Clark. The Crypt provided drinks and DJ’s Mister Morgan and Jim Carna gave us some pop joy; the perfect end to a magical night.

Jess Knights’ illustrations are certainly ones that you’ll recognise if you’re into your food and drink around Bristol. Her passion for food and drink really shines through within her work as her unique images are rich in texture and life, making what could be considered mundane into art.

Jazz Thompson’s work is so integral to the city of Bristol as her captivating illustrations tell stories of individual experiences and community. Her murals have been placed all over the city from the M Shed, to The Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, speaking of individual experience and displaying a wealth of characters.

Art is an immortal representation of our culture, identity, and personal histories. The gradual censorship of artistic expression in Russia has been presented as more than censorship, but a simple disregard for what art is. Putin would have you believe that art is simply an additional extra, a visual option that does not express anything deeply political or particularly relevant.

Yes, so in the book I created, and in the exhibition text in the handout, at the beginning I wrote “I invite you to view the shape of each woman's body, and then read her story and hear her voice connect her form to all that it carries and holds and think of its future, and all that it deserves.” I think that is the thing that unites them; every body has a story. And everybody deserves so much. And every story deserves to be heard.

Giving that message to children, especially young black kids... that's my favourite thing in the world. That's what I want to do. I think a lot of it is because I never had any of this growing up. I didn't really have like any black role models and I just wasn’t exposed to them. I guess I just want to do everything I can for black people; everything I do is because of black people, my ancestors.

In this review roundup Lucy Pratt heads down to the Arnolfini to see their latest offering and Arts Editor George Trueman stumbles on a exhibition in the heart of Southville

Living in Stokes Croft, I just ended up being aware of Beth’s work. You pop into Jamaica Street Stores and you see her work, you go to the little shop at the bottom of the hill to end all hills, Nine Tree Hill, and you see more of her work; you pop into the Canteen for a pint and you see posters for the Life Drawing Classes she runs - you just get this sense that she has this momentum behind her; this sense of an artist being woven and fused into a city. That’s always how I saw Beth.

The future we imagine is getting bleaker by the second. Especially the looming threat of climate change offers a menacing backdrop for dreams of a world filled with even more gadgets and consumerism. Can speculative fiction help us here? Enter our possible hero: Cli-fi, or climate fiction. Books, film and media where climate and the effects of climate change form the plot, background or conflict we’re presented with.

We caught up with TikTok’s fave romance authors (and rightly so), Christina and Lauren! Their latest release ‘Something Wilder’ was the hot topic, and if you haven’t read it yet, READ IT! We gave it a 5 star rating, and we thought it was absolutely perfect.

When looking for an answer, and the answer is that there is no right one, it either results in reassurance or complete over-thinking. How To Be Everything frequently made the point that you don’t have to pick one thing. And yet, here I was trying to pick to be one thing – to be a multipotentialite – even if that one thing meant that I could be lots of different things.

Perhaps the most common response I get when I tell people what my degree is revolves around how I must really enjoy reading. A dual degree in English Literature and History is extremely heavy on reading … This being said, I have seriously struggled to read for my own enjoyment for the last four years.

Olivie Blake caught up with The Everyday Magazine to talk about the Tiktok sensation, The Atlas Six. She gave us the lowdown on how writing the book was, and her future releases.

As I quietly packed the last of my clothes into the car, Mia peeked through the flat window. I don’t know whether she regretted last night’s argument, but she did not say goodbye.

Jorge Luis Borges, the celebrated writer, poet, and essayist (also one of the literature’s most influential non-Nobel-Prize-winners), had a whimsical take on young poets. The anecdote goes that during a meeting of the Argentine Society of Writers, the topic of up-and-coming talent came up. ‘What can we do for young poets?’ he was asked. ‘We can dissuade them,’ Borges replied.

We interviewed the lovely Lyssa Kay Adams to talk about her book The Bromance Bookclub the first in an amazing series. Lyssa spoke about all things from the research background of the book, to the amazing response she got across the community.

Anchal Seda; makeup artist, YouTuber, podcaster, and now an author! Anchal has been in the public eye for over ten years, working to inspire and give advice to brown girls globally. Her latest release ‘What Would The Aunties Say? A Brown Girl’s Guide To Being Yourself And Living Your Best Life’ addresses taboo topics, whilst also providing sisterly advice for the many dilemmas brown girls go through on an everyday basis.

Reading Cleopatra and Frankenstein made me question whether it is more cathartic or more harmful to read about your exact experience, but depicted by characters more colourful and winning than those that populate your own universe. If what happened to me was worthy of a fictional novel, had all my decisions been ridiculous?

So, we've got new cars and new rules. But who's going to capitalise on this shaken up grid and make a good run for glory? Having poured over the admittedly vague data from Spain, I've drawn up these, at times wild, predictions. And yes, I set these in stone (and in audio on a podcast) after the Spanish testing. This means I knew nothing of the immediate evolutions of the sidepods or Mercedes ditching theirs entirely. We'll see how that pans out.

The global motorsport circus that is Formula One is back! At the time of writing, we've just finished an interesting week of testing at the Circuit Barcelona de Catalunya, with teams unveiling their answers to Formula One's new technical regulations.

As the old adage goes: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. So here we are trying to fix the World Cup, the most-watched sporting event on Earth. After all, only 3.5 billion people watched the 2018 tournament, so it's probably about time we rejuvenate this ailing formula, right?

Even as someone who has loved cricket since childhood, domestic English cricket can be a little impenetrable. The County Championship’s structure is at best a little convoluted, at worse downright baffling - and the changes to its format have even the most devoted county cricket fans confused.

Even as someone who has loved cricket since childhood, domestic English cricket can be a little impenetrable. The County Championship’s structure is at best a little convoluted, at worse downright baffling - and the changes to its format have even the most devoted county cricket fans confused.

Anxiety and climbing, how the Olympics showed the world how great climbing can be for our patience, wellbeing, and attitude to life.

I got really into watching the climbing at the Olympics.

The Football Association (FA) was created over 150 years ago. First records of the humble kickabout date as far back as 206 BC China. Yet female pundits, commentators, or journalists are an altogether new phenomenon.

With the start of the new season just around the corner, we take a look at some of the most iconic premier league goal celebrations in an attempt to fill the premier league football limbo.

The Football Association (FA) was created over 150 years ago. First records of the humble kickabout date as far back as 206 BC China. Yet female pundits, commentators, or journalists are an altogether new phenomenon.

Living with a disability or a live long health condition can be challenging in more ways than one affecting parts of life like career or even relationships. Sometimes all we can do is accept our disabilities and live life to the fullest, letting go of aspects we cannot control.

Bristol's food scene is full of truly awesome places. Every corner of this city is home to incredible restaurants, cafes, bars and vibrant street-food markets. There are countless choices to pick from, but some of them are an absolute must - and I had the pleasure to talk to one of the most iconic of them. Here is my interview with Zak Hitchman, Head Chef at the Michelin-star restaurant, and true gem of Bristol, Casamia

When it comes to posh restaurants with incredible views in the UK, people often tend to assume they can only be found in London. Of course, the capital is indeed filled with restaurants that offer great views of the London skyline and incredible food whipped up by highly skilled chefs.

Cardiff’s City Road might not strike you at first as a place buzzing with Gen-Z hangouts. But take a stroll down the street a hundred yards and you’ll find a café-shop that might persuade you otherwise. Heralded as a hidden gem amongst plant fanatics, Eartha attracts green-fingered students by day and hungry foodies by night.

The term cocktail originated in the seventeenth century. The tail feather of the family rooster would be plucked and dipped into alcoholic bitters to dab on sore tonsils. A long history of the creative use of alcohol to help what ails us.

Koulourakia are light, buttery biscuits and a staple snack in Greek households, usually eaten in the morning or as an afternoon pick-me-up with a strong Greek coffee

I’ve been married for 20 years. The only advice I’ll impart is to have a trick up your sleeve that is your sure-fire way out of the penalty box. For me, atonement through food seems to work. Cooking Teevan, a traditional Sindhi curry, is my proof of ‘I love you’ when the words are so worn, they no longer resonate.

Now, it may be cliche to admit that from the very first course of the mezze feast I knew we were in for a treat, but cliches exist for a reason and, in the case of this particular feast, it was true.

Cooking can cause all sorts of anxiety, stress and some embarrassment not because you can’t cook but perhaps, you feel like others will judge you. Maybe you have a favourite snack which is just combo mad, perhaps you’ve never even heard of hummus or don’t know how to use a microwave!

Christmas is just around the corner and with recent trends showing a consistent rise in plant-based eating. Statistically speaking a recent survey shows that 19.6% of Brits are expected to choose vegetarian or vegan food this Christmas and in 2021 82% of people who tried Veganuary had drastically cut meat intake, according to a 6-month survey carried out by Veganuary.