Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2023 i Saga Magazine

Hello and welcome to October. For children it's the month of pumpkins and ghouls, but for the Saga generation, October is high season for holidays now schools are back, flights are cheaper and the garden's summer harvest is all safely gathered in and used up (apart from those pumpkins, of course). Nothing says autumn quite like neat rows of preserves, chutneys, jams, and – in my case as an enthusiastic beekeeper – jars of honey. It would seem many of you with grandchildren have also had a busy summer and are looking forward to a well-deserved bit of R&R. Research by Saga, picked up by The Times, revealed grandparents spent an average of 16 days providing childcare over the school summer break. ‘Everyone at Saga is really excited about the…

Mark Harrison Pru & me, p40 From palaces to parliaments and prisons, a decades-long career as a portrait photographer has taken Mark all over the world. Some of his work has recently been acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in London. Louise Gannon Dawn French, p22 A celebrity writer with 25 years’ experience, Louise has interviewed Madonna, Jack Nicholson, Helen Mirren, and Mick Jagger. Her first book, with Melanie Brown, Brutally Honest, topped the Sunday Times bestseller list. Mike Unwin Travel, p89 Award-winning nature and travel writer Mike is based in Brighton and has explored seven continents in search of wildlife – although he admits he still gets lost on the South Downs. His latest book is Around the World in 80 Birds. Emily Dean Beauty, p63 Our columnist co-presents…

How does it feel to have retired from Cambridge after nearly 40 years of teaching? I have to say I'm delighted! We have a compulsory retirement age at the university which is under constant review: when I came to the university in 1984 my first contract told me when I was going to leave. It was decades away then, but it was great because I think if it wasn't there I'd have had to think about it. Of course, compulsory retirement without good pension provision is quite a different thing, so I am privileged. Also I still have a key to the library and I can still eat in the college. What I can't have is any power, and that's great. It's time for someone else to make the decisions.…

We asked survey respondents for their favourite – and oddest – superstitions: * A spoon dropped on the floor should not be picked up by whoever dropped it. You must not ask them to do so, and you should not thank them – or bad luck will follow. * Hold your collar if you see an ambulance until you come across a four-legged creature. * Clap your hands when you sneeze so a fairy doesn't die. * If you're engaged, throw a nut on the fire at Halloween. If it burns quietly you will be happy. If it hisses, life could be turbulent. * It's bad luck to cut your nails on a Sunday. * Mending clothes while wearing the item is ‘sewing sorrow to your back’. * A green car brings bad…

GLOBEMAKING Peter Bellerby has tried many jobs on for size. He's managed a bowling alley, worked in television rights, and briefly tried his hand at violin making. But his latest has stuck. The 58-year-old is now one of the last traditional globemakers in the world. ‘Google Maps can get you from A to B, but it's not going to inspire you to go anywhere,’ he says. ‘The globe provides that inspiration.’ Stepping into his studio in North London, there's no shortage of travel inspiration. Globes of all sizes sit in varying stages of completion: some are blank orbs, some with half a map and others receiving their finishing touches. In near silence, his team are painting, gluing and measuring, the world at their fingertips. ‘This is our Churchill globe,’ Peter…

MEMOIR ‘Things got interesting the minute we arrived [in Australia, in 1984, to promote Too Low for Zero, which included hits such as I'm Still Standing]. During the recording of the album on the Caribbean island of Montserrat, Elton had struck up a close friendship with a German sound engineer called Renate Blauel. It was an odd set of circumstances, and while everyone found Elton's fixation with this perfectly delightful young lady curious, the mere fact that he was spending so much of his free time with her made for circulated speculation. During that period, Elton had been more in the habit of flying his infatuations in and out of whatever location we found ourselves in. He seemed to be in love with someone different every week. Usually young men…

Afringe is something I’ ve always longed to be able to carry off. On the right face, a good fringe can be a cheekbone-defining hairstyle of miracles. Sadly, that face is not mine. Fringes make me look like Henry V. An Italian hairdresser explained that my jawline and hair texture are just not fringe friendly – as he put it, ‘Darling, only tears will come from this choice.’ Over the years, I'd made peace with this, until I ran into a friend who'd grown a mid-life fringe to avoid feeling pressured into having forehead Botox. She still looked suspiciously unlined but swore this was down to anti-wrinkle patches. While I'll obviously swerve the fringe advice (see Henry V), the wrinkle patches intrigued me. Could a few sticky strips get rid…

My brother died in July. He was 71 and had been unwell for some time but, as we all realise when losing someone we love, these things still come as a shock. The finality is so difficult. After being diagnosed as diabetic 20 years ago and showing little inclination for giving up drinking or smoking, and with no enthusiasm for exercise, Adrian – pictured on the left of the photo (above right) with me in our younger days – became increasingly frail, culminating with having his right leg amputated two years ago. He hated being confined to a wheelchair. We were completely different but remarkably close – perhaps because we were so different. Most weekends, he would ring me or I would call him. Often he challenged something I had…

Serves 2 YOU WILL NEED • 50g hazelnuts • 20g sesame seeds • 1 × 4 00g tin chickpeas, rinsed and drained • 1 tbsp ground cumin • 1 tsp smoked paprika • 2-3 tbsp tahini • 1 tbsp oats • 1 large garlic clove METHOD 1 Preheat the oven to 2000 C (180°C fan/gas 6). 2 Place the hazelnuts and sesame seeds in a food processor and blitz to a fine crumb. Set aside. 3 Add chickpeas, spices, 2 tbsp tahini, oats, garlic, a big pinch of salt and pepper to the processor and blitz until the mixture is fully combined and starts to come together. If the mixture is too dry, add a little more tahini. 4 Roll the mixture into 12 equal size balls, roll each in…

Parkour is offered to both hospital and GP patients with mental health issues through a charity working in the Bristol area. Charlotte Boenigk, a former exercise specialist with NHS Mental Health Services in Wiltshire, is passionate about the benefits of parkour for anxiety and depression, among other conditions. After trying to persuade her NHS bosses to introduce parkour sessions for her patients, and meeting enthusiasm but lack of funding, she set up the charity Free Your Instinct, together with Jacob. ‘There's something about how you engage with your environment in parkour that triggers an emotive response different from running on a treadmill,’ says Charlotte. ‘A lot of people come to sessions thinking they can't do certain things and finding what they can do creates hope and optimism. ‘Play at any…

* A one-way trip on the Scillonian ferry from Penzance to St Mary's takes two hours and 45 minutes and costs from £76.25. * A one-way Skybus flight from Land's End to St Mary's takes 20 minutes and costs from £121.50. Book through islesofscilly-travel.co.uk. * The Star Castle Hotel (star-castle.co.uk) costs from £200 per night B&B (£269 half board), based on two sharing. Trips from the hotel on the Calypso II cost from £30. Other inter-island ferry services cost from £16. For Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust activities, see ios-wildlifetrust.org.uk.…

PODCAST History's Secret Heroes Helena Bonham Carter (below) knows a thing or two about war heroes: her grandfather, a Spanish diplomat, defied his government's orders and helped Jewish people escape the death camps; her grandmother volunteered as an air warden. This background – and her cut-glass tones – make Bonham Carter the perfect narrator for this BBC Sounds series about lesser-known Second World War heroes. One episode tells the story of a group of Norwegian men tasked with stopping the Nazis obtaining heavy water, the material they needed to build an atom bomb large enough to destroy London. They hid for months in the hills until given the word to invade the plant. Their daring infiltration and escape pursued by German soldiers will have you gripping the edge of your…

1 What are all the queens in a pack of cards holding? 2 The Balanescu Quartet plays the signature tune to which TV quiz show? 3 Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Emma Watson, Carey Mulligan. What colour eyes do they all have? 4 Which Puccini opera, first performed in 1904, tells the story of Cio-Cio-San and the perfidious American lieutenant B F Pinkerton? 5 ‘Once there were four children, whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy,’ is the first line of which novel? 6 How many holes are there in a ten-pin bowling ball? 7 Canteloupe, galia and honeydew are all varieties of which fruit? 8 There are two main sects in Islam. Shi'ite is one. What is the other? 9 The Americans call it a derby. What…

The older I get, the more time I seem to spend at our house, the Old Vicarage, in Grantchester, near Cambridge. My wife Mary and I were renting a flat before we bought it in 1979 as we couldn't afford a house. Then, my third book, Kane and Abel, sold for £2.5m million and, overnight, I was a millionaire. The first thing I wanted was a family home. The children [William, 51, James, 49, their wives and five grandchildren] prefer the house in Majorca. Who can blame them? And there's the apartment in London, overlooking Westminster. These days, that's more of an office, but it does hold a lot of my artwork: Picasso's Two Doves and Westminster by Albert Goodwin. Mary's banned me from buying more, so I'm trying to think…

PAUL STUART Dear I thought you might enjoy a free copy of Saga Magazine – no strings attached. All you have to do is call this number: freephone 0800 302 9741 quoting code GF2310 and they'll send you a free copy of the magazine*. *Offer for friends and relatives of subscribers or newcomers to Saga. Offer available to UK residents only. One free magazine per voucher and only redeemable once per customer. Cannot be claimed by subscriber for someone else. Allow ten days for delivery.…

Do you remember the vuvuzela, the tuneless horn that ruined the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa for so many? I regret to inform you that reports of its death are greatly exaggerated; first we heard it during the Soccer Aid charity match at Old Trafford in June and then again at the Notting Hill Carnival in August. At least we have been spared it so far at the Rugby World Cup. Of course, rugby fans have their own travails with noise. We've got used to visiting French teams bringing along their supporters, with an entire band in tow, the bass drums of which are stuffed implausibly into the pantalons of an obligingly obscure local mayor. They then shuffle past dozy turnstile officials who reveal they know quite as…

It seems perfectly fitting that an encounter with Dawn French, one of the country's funniest women, involves several comedy moments. We meet in a cosy tea shop, up in the hills, not far from her home in Cornwall. Due to a rail strike and a local driver who made several wrong turns, it's taken seven hours to get here. I am 30 minutes late. Dawn is beside herself – not in a diva way – but because she feels I've been horribly put out. ‘Oh no… we should have done a Zoom,’ she says. ‘But I really wanted you to see how beautiful it is here. This café has the most incredible view over Cornwall.’ We step outside into a sudden thick fog. Not even the cars in the car…

Ruth offers the following advice: * Do not accept a follow or friend request from a stranger. It will be a scammer or a pervert, 100%. * If you met on a dating site, have a proper video chat within a week and a face-to-face meeting shortly after. If he/she is unable to meet you for whatever reason, cut contact. * When you have a video chat, do not accept a quick glimpse of someone talking on mute which then cuts out. There will be all sorts of excuses – ‘The sound's broken’, ‘My camera's not working’. * Do a reverse image search on the profile pictures you are sent. Click the camera icon on a Google search bar and follow the instructions. ScamHaters United will carry out a more…

GARDENS S oaring summer heat and frost-free winters, flash-flooding and snow in April: our weather has never been as unpredictable or extreme as it has in recent years. Even seasoned meteorologists are concerned at the pace of climate change. ‘I was shocked to see the temperature reach 40ºC in the UK for the first time last summer,’ says Peter Gibbs, weather forecaster and host of BBC Radio 4's Gardeners’ Question Time. ‘But as long as greenhouse gases continue to build up in the atmosphere, we're heading for a not-so-distant future where that's the norm.’ While the effects of climate change are alarming, tackling the causes seems even more daunting – but experts agree that most of us can do our bit through gardening. From cooling our homes and improving air…

WINE Wine and war are so often intertwined, from 15th-century France – when English occupying troops lost the Battle of Castillon and fled Bordeaux along with looted barrels of wine – to the appalling travails of Ukrainian winemakers today. Inspirational people like Sergiy Stakhovsky, a world-renowned tennis player turned winemaker who fell in love with wine while playing in Bordeaux. He even ships Bordeaux barrels to Ukraine to mature his wines – ironically, from near the very vineyards where the Battle of Castillon was fought in 1453. His Ace Saperavi (12.5%, £21.99, lokiwine.co.uk) is a wonderfully peppery, fruity wine. ‘It is tough to look forward and create wine, which is supposed to deliver joy, while we have only sadness’ Sergiy's vineyards are in the west of Ukraine, near Moldova and…

PROBLEMS Q My husband is approaching 70, but I am 12 years younger, so he became a father rather late. Our two children are now university graduates living at home due to high rental prices. I feel it is better for them to save money for a house deposit, plus I enjoy the company. However, our house is up for sale and my husband keeps talking about moving abroad. I fear that if we boot our children out into extortionate rentals, they will never be able to afford to buy. But my husband doesn't want to feel ‘obligated’ to provide shelter for our adult children. I don't think it's fair to penalise the kids for having an older father. I can't see us agreeing. ‘If you don't want to live…

FINANCE Waspi wants action Nearly four million women mainly born in the 1950s whose state pension age was raised from 60 to 65 and then to 66 are still waiting for a ruling on what compensation they should be paid. Two years ago the Parliamentary Ombudsman found the DWP guilty of maladministration in how it informed them of the change. An initial report into compensation was withdrawn in April after the High Court found it unlawful following a successful legal challenge by campaign group Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi). The group claims one in three of the women affected tried to re-enter the workplace after their pension age rose but could not find a job and many fell into debt or struggled to pay bills. It also claims that…

As I prepare to report on America's 2024 presidential election, for the first time in my career I am simultaneously writing obituaries of the two main candidates in the race for the White House. There is, of course, nothing unusual about journalists pre-writing obituaries of the famous and influential. All major newspapers and broadcasters have entire departments that exist to create these pieces. The New York Times has a curious record in this regard: its obituaries of Elizabeth Taylor, Bob Hope, Harold Pinter and baseball legend Ted Williams were all penned by writers who were then outlived by their subject matter. The newspaper has even explained its decision to publish articles that appear to be written beyond the grave. ‘If the reporting is exhaustive and the writing is fine, then…

To me, no season transports you back to your past like autumn – all those happy memories of kicking piles of soggy brown leaves on the way to school and hard-fought conker battles in the playground. I enjoyed school but I enjoy not being there so much more. That ‘happiest days of your life’ thing is surely a myth for most of us. As our very wise and wonderful cover star Dawn French (p22) says, growing up gives us all the freedom to stop caring nearly so much about what other people think of you. I spent far too much of my youth bearing the impression of the last person who sat on me, rather than just saying what I truly thought. Judging from all your marvellous letters, you've reached…

VIEWPOINT Almost 20 years ago, in 2006, I first began to think seriously about death and how it may be possible to ensure a person you loved might be helped to die with dignity. My mother spent the last year of her life, at the age of 80, in a nursing home suffering the ravages of late-stage Parkinson's disease. She had lost her dignity and independence entirely. She was in constant pain; she couldn't swallow. Each time I sat alongside her bed she whispered her plea: ‘Jen, please, help me. Help me die.’ No words have ever cut through me the way those did. Even now, I hear them and recall my response: ‘Mum, there's nothing I can do. I can't help you to die. It's illegal.’ Because of a…

* Touching wood most likely harks back to a 19th-century children's game where you couldn't be caught if you were touching wood. * Magpies are traditional harbingers of bad luck. To ward it off, some salute, spit, make the sign of a cross or say the rhyme ‘one for sorrow’. * Not walking under ladders may have come from the idea that the Devil hid under the ladder used to take Jesus down from the cross. Known in the 18th century, it didn't take hold until the 20th century. * The idea that spilling salt is unlucky (but only for the person who spilled it) dates back 400 years, but throwing some over your left shoulder to blind the devil is an 18th-century addition. * Some say crossing your fingers…

INTERVIEW ‘I've never been cool. I wasn't even cool when I was young’ Her thick hair has been returned to her trademark bob but it is now a beautiful shade of grey. She stopped dyeing it during the pandemic, thought briefly about going dark again, but then concluded, ‘Why bother? This is so easy. All I do is use purple shampoo every week and that's it.’ The grey brings out the green in her twinkly hazel eyes. She is wearing a rather beautiful Indian cotton kaftan top and on the window ledge by her side is an ornate, lacquered cane – a recent addition to her daily life due to her osteoarthritis, which will require a knee operation later this year. I ask her whether she agrees with her friend,…

home & style RECIPES / GARDENS / BEAUTY / WINE / TECH Tunisian prawn spaghetti Fragrant rose harissa, zingy lemon & fresh parsley Tunisians are one of the biggest pasta eaters on the planet and they have a whole load of their own pasta shapes and techniques. Fragrant harissa really amplifies the sweetness of the prawns here – delicious! Total time: 22 minutes. Serves 2 YOU WILL NEED • 150g dried spaghetti • 8 large raw shell-on king prawns • 2 tsp rose harissa • 1 (15g) bunch flat-leaf parsley • 1 lemon METHOD 1 Cook the pasta in a pan of boiling salted water according to the packet instructions. Meanwhile, peel the prawns, removing and reserving the heads and leaving the tails on. I like to run a small…

ENJOY a healthy threat Apples aren't just the star of the orchard and kitchen this month. According to diet expert Dr Michael Mosley, they're a wonder fruit for wellbeing, packed with gut-health-boosting fibre and flavonoids. Judge the right time to pick by gently twisting and lifting away from the stem – if it's ripe, it'll come away in your hand. While early fruiting apples are best eaten fresh, those picked from October to Christmas will store well on open racks in the airy, dark conditions of a garden shed. If storing indoors, wrap in a sheet of newspaper to protect from drying out. Leave windfalls for winter birds and turn blemished fruit into jellies or stewed apple to freeze. GUARD against frost Every gardener lost cherished plants in the extremes…

What exactly are pulses? Pulses are the edible seeds of plants belonging to the legume family (plants that grow in pods) that are dried before being cooked and eaten. The most common include lentils, dried beans of all kinds (kidney, black, haricot etc), dried split peas, and chickpeas. They are a highly affordable food group that pack a powerful nutritional punch, and are kind to the planet. Compared with animal sources of protein, they require less land, less water and fewer or no chemical fertilisers that contribute to greenhouse gases. This is because they use soil bacteria to draw nitrogen from the air, so there's no need to add nitrogen fertilisers. What's in it for us? Pulses are a good source of many important nutrients essential to the diet. These…

Give these three basic moves a go – and rope in family or friends to make it a social activity. PRECISION JUMPS Practise jumping between two lines of tape on the floor, cracks in the patio paving or pavement, or off a kerb. Start with your feet together, bend your knees as you swing your arms back, then forward as you jump, landing on the balls of the feet, bending your knees again to reduce impact. Start with a small distance and build up from there. BALANCE Find something you are comfortable balancing on – a kerb, a low wall or rail. Place your foot from toe to heel in a straight line, avoiding putting it sideways. Pause to remain balanced before stepping forward again. CLIMBING Try bunny-hopping up stairs…

going places SCILLY ISLES / LETTER FROM AMERICA TRAVEL On an empty beach a small bird dashes back and forth, whistling plaintively. ‘That's one perturbed ringed plover,’ says Jaclyn Pearson, conservation manager for the Scilly Wildlife Trust (SWT). ‘I wonder where the chicks are.’ Barely has she spoken when a tiny ball of fluff appears, scurrying on clockwork legs across the sand towards its parent. ‘Phew!’ she breathes. ‘Only one, but that's a start.’ We're standing beside a bramble-tangled footpath overlooking Pelistry Bay on St Mary's, the largest of the Scilly Isles. Jaclyn has been telling me how visitors to this glorious holiday destination, 28 miles off the Cornish coast, can now combine their R&R with doing their bit for nature conservation. The ringed plover is in steep decline, she…

TURNING 50 Neve Campbell actor, right Seth MacFarlane animator (Family Guy) TURNING 60 Johnny Marr musician Nick Robinson broadcaster Rob Schneider actor Sinitta singer Sanjeev Bhaskar comedian and actor, right Toby Young writer TURNING 70 David Threlfall actor Les Dennis comedian and TV presenter Midge Ure singer/songwriter, below centre Peter Firth actor Lord Peter Mandelson politician, above right Tico Torres musician (Bon Jovi) TURNING 80 Anna Ford TV newsreader, above right Catherine Deneuve actor, below left John Nettles actor, right Michael Morpurgo writer Steve Miller musician TURNING 100 Glynis Johns actor, right…

LIGHT OVER LISKEARD Louis de Bernières Quantum cryptographer and cybersecurity whizz Artie, aka ‘Q’, escapes the urban-world-gone-mad, where bots do all the work and humans on universal benefit don fancy dress and play make-believe. He plans a simpler life in a crumbling Cornish farmhouse, a refuge for his loved ones when the system finally crashes, while still troubleshooting for the PM. But nothing on wild and woolly Bodman Moor is simple. Intense and curious friendships are formed. Q falls in love with a living woman, daughter of his Andean friend, Theodore, and a comely Edwardian ghost. The future might look bleak, but Bernière's dystopia is replete with obscure charm, endearing personalities and flights of fantasy. ‘Bravo, hermano,’ as Theodore would say. ABSOLUTELY & FOREVER Rose Tremain Life should be perfect for…

More puzzles! There are loads more puzzles on the Saga Magazine app. Download from your app store today! PRIZE CROSSWORD £250 prize ACROSS 1 Category B men's prison in London, originally opened in the 1890s (8,6) 8 French cookware company founded in 1956 (5) 9 Country of tropical islands with Malé as its capital (8) 11 I talian dish of veal braised in wine (4,5) 12 Horizontal colliery entrance (4) 15 Royal house of the Netherlands (6) 17 Large peninsula also known as Asia Minor (8) 19 Former shipbuilding town and port on the Firth of Clyde (8) 20 Disney dwarf who is prone to hay fever (6) 22 Egyptian god with the head of a bull (4) 23 Latin name for the Great Bear constellation (4,5) 27 Early 16th-century Frenchman who wrote of Gargantua and Pantagruel (8) 28 UK car company…

Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.’ There's surely no better musing on ageing than this one, from John Lennon. Many of us appreciate life is not so much about how old we are, but how we are old – or older. Language, though, isn't always on our side. Take the word ‘senile’, for example. Born in Roman times, a senex was a wise old man, tempered by experience and brimming with knowledge gained over time. It is from the same family as ‘senator’, ‘senior’, ‘senor’, ‘senate’ and ‘senorita’. Yet ‘senile’, another sibling, had by the late 19th century shifted from meaning ‘elderly’ to ‘infirm’ and, for added cruelty, ‘mentally incompetent’. ‘Geriatric’ has had a similar trajectory. Based on a Greek word for…