Teenagers
A quest for retribution: Fire, by John Boyne, reviewed
Freya, a respected consultant in a burns unit, is on a secret mission to destroy as many young boys’ lives as possible, having been raped by teenagers on holiday in Cornwall at the age of 12
‘Childhood has been rewired’: Professor Jonathan Haidt on how smartphones are damaging a generation
Something strange is happening with teenagers’ mental health. In Britain, the US, Australia and beyond, the same trend can be…
Will vaccinating teenagers really prevent disruption to schools?
After the JCVI recommended against offering vaccines to children aged 12 to 15 on health grounds, the government asked the…
Hell hath no fury like an irate teenage girl
Something troubling is happening to our girls. I noticed it again most recently at this year’s Battle of Ideas —…
Thank god for the return of the generation gap in pop
In June, a 20-year-old man called Jahseh Onfroy was murdered after leaving a motorcycle dealership in Deerfield Beach, Florida. Onfroy…
How to raise and train a teenage daughter
‘Dad, am I driving like a normal driver yet? Are you relaxing like a normal relaxed passenger or are you…
Dear Mary: I keep needing the loo during formal dinner parties – help!
Q. My wife and I have been invited to a small but formal dinner in the presence of some impressive…
Emotional intelligence
The difference between a poor ballet of the book (see the Royal Ballet’s Frankenstein) and a good one — indeed…
The male gaze
Everybody Wants Some!! is a comedy written and directed by Richard Linklater, which is the good news, but it’s set…
Whatever happened to ‘Snog first, talk later’?
Sometimes I sit my nieces down and treat them to tales of dating in the dark ages, before iPhones arrived…
National Poetry Day broke the key rule of poetry readings: never let normal people do the reading
Imagine what Brennig Davies must have felt like just before 11 o’clock last Tuesday evening. The 15-year-old was about to…
Letters
What we’re building Sir: I was surprised and frustrated to read Ross Clark’s piece on housing associations in last week’s…
Songs of innocence and experience
We live in an age of generational turmoil. Baby-boom parents are accused of clinging on to jobs and houses which…
Dear Mary
Q. For ten years, I have made a reasonable freelance income working from home. During this time my husband has…
Why do bright schoolgirls run away to Syria?
How could they? How could girls brought up in the wealthy West abandon their families and their own bright futures…
A pivotal moment on a Portuguese beach
I’m writing this from Portugal, where I’m staying with my old friend Sean Langan. His family has owned a farm…
Girl power
It was when she said how she loved ‘watching the computer do exactly what you wanted it to do’ that…
Conversion experience
Reckoning with my stepson’s turn to radical Islam
How the Delingpoles triumphed over the Vikings
Have you managed to book tickets to the Viking exhibition at the British Museum yet? If you haven’t, my advice…
Dear Mary
Q. Is there a polite way of halting a wannabe novelist from reading his oeuvre aloud to an unwilling audience?…
