List of All Articles with Tag 'lifestyle'

A British woman has shared her surprise and amusement after noticing her toddler has started to speak with an American accent from watching a popular YouTuber. Kelly Convey, who goes by the username @kelly_convey on TikTok, shared a video about the influence children’s YouTuber Ms Rachel has had on her 21-month-old daughter, Bea, earlier this month. In the clip, Convey began by asking: “Has anybody else got a British, and I have to stress British, toddler who watches Ms Rachel, and, as they’ve started to speak, you realise that they’ve actually got an American accent?” Ms Rachel, whose real name is Rachel Griffin Accurso, is a popular American YouTuber known for her educational toddler songs and nursery rhymes. The educator and songwriter, who has accumulated more than 4.7m subscribers on YouTube, is best known for her video series “Songs for Littles,” which teach children their first words. In the TikTok, Convey then filmed herself conversing with her daughter, with the London-based comedian filming herself asking the toddler to say “car”. After the child pronounced car in an American accent, Convey asked her daughter to say “more,” “ears,” and “zebra,” with the 21 month old pronouncing each word differently from her mother. “You’re so clever,” Convey told her daughter while giggling about the toddler’s Americanised pronunciations. In the caption of the video, which has since been viewed 5m times, Convey wrote: “Born in the USA.” @kelly_convey Born in the USA. #mumof2 #mumlife #motherhood #mumtok #mumsontiktok #mumsoftiktokuk #parenting #funnywomenoftiktok #fyptiktok #momlife #parentingtips #toddlertok #toddler #2under2 #familytiktok #missrachel #songsforlittles ♬ original sound - Kelly Convey The TikTok has been met with similar amusement from viewers, with many making comparisons to the influence of Peppa Pig on American toddlers. According to many parents in the US, their children have begun speaking with British accents as a result of the popularity of the British animated children’s TV show. The video also prompted comparisons to the influence of popular Australian animated series Bluey, which has had a similar impact on the accents of its young viewers. “This is payback for Peppa Pig,” one viewer joked, while another said: “Omg the reverse Peppa Pig effect.” “My very American toddler developed a British accent from Peppa Pig and it’s turned Australian from Bluey,” someone else wrote. According to another viewer, who revealed that their own children’s accents were influenced by Peppa Pig and Bluey, it’s “funny to see it with a British kid”. “I have an American baby with a Peppa Pig accent,” someone else jokingly admitted. The viral TikTok also prompted a response from Ms Rachel herself, who commented: “I’m sorry” along with a laughing face emoji and a heart-face emoji. The YouTuber also dueted Convey’s video on TikTok, where she filmed herself watching the toddler and smiling. After hearing Bea’s pronunciation of “more,” Ms Rachel could be seen covering her face in surprised amusement. @msrachelforlittles duet with @Kelly Convey mumof2 msrachel toddlermom ♬ original sound - Kelly Convey Speaking to The Independent about the viral reaction to her video, Convey said the response has been “really incredible” and “mostly from Americans”. “Clearly they relate, particularly with having so many of their children sounding like Peppa - a phenomenon I didn’t know about until the comments went wild,” she said. “I’m a comedian so hitting a relatable sweet spot is like gold to me so I’m chuffed.” As for when she realised the influence Ms Rachel was having on her daughter, Convey said that Bea has been saying words for a while now, but “only recently putting a few words together”. “This is when we noticed the strong R in words like door, four and more. But ZeeeeBra really takes the biscuit! Luckily she says water in the British way - not sure I could handle that!” she joked. The TikToker also shared her daughter’s excitement to Ms Rachel’s video response, with Convey revealing the toddler “couldn’t believe it”. “Ms Rachel has just responded with a duet video and I’ve just shown Bea and she couldn’t believe it. Really made her day (and mine),” she said. Read More Peppa Pig is changing the way American children speak, according to confused parents ‘Dunny’ and ‘Brekky’: How Bluey is changing the way American children speak Schoolboy almost dies from swallowing magnets for TikTok challenge Woman shares honest review of New York City apartment TikTok mom slammed after making 5-year-old son run in 104 degree heat

Around 8,000 revelers gathered around a prehistoric stone circle on a plain in southern England to express their devotion to the sun, or to have some communal fun

Racegoers have descended on the first day of this year’s Royal Ascot after the grounds were hit by a deluge of rain this morning (Tuesday 20 June). But the torrential rain couldn’t dampen the spirits of those attending, with many bringing their best outfits to the racecourse. Fashion at Royal Ascot has always been a big deal, and this year is no different. Big, sculptural hats and bright, colourful fascinators are all the rage this year, with women seeming to compete against each other for who can wear the tallest headgear. When Ladies’ Day arrives on Friday (23 June), viewers will no doubt be treated to an even bigger spectacle. The race, which dates back to the 1790s, is a firm favourite among members of the royal family, as well as celebrities and public figures. The late Queen Elizabeth II was an ardent lover of the sporting event and attended nearly every year for seven decades throughout her reign. This year’s event marks the first time King Charles III and Queen Camilla have attended in their new roles. The royal couple, who were crowned last month, paid tribute to the late monarch in a joint foreword for the official programme. Aside from Charles and Camilla, other royals who were present today include the Princess Royal and her daughter, Zara Tindall. Princess Eugenie, the eldest daughter of the Duke and Duchess of York, and her husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi also attended. Other famous faces on the racecourse were singer Natalie Rushdie, Made in Chelsea star Georgia Toffolo, sculptor Daniel Lismore, models Rosie Tapner, Eunice Olumide and Hana Cross, TV presenter Charlotte Hawkins, and The Only Way Is Essex star Lucy Mecklenburgh. Here are our favourite looks from the first day of Royal Ascot. Queen Camilla The Queen floated through the grounds in a cream coat dress, with a matching hat and gloves. She also wore the Queen Mother’s Shell Brooch on her lapel, alongisde a pair of dangly pearl earrings. Zara Tindall Tindall’s elegant midi dress features pale green florals with hints of pink. She accessorised the dress, which is by designer Leo Lin, with a straw boater, a nude clutch bag by Anya Hindmarch and nude Sauvereign shoes. Daniel Lismore The designer and sculptor, who has been named “England’s most eccentric dresser”, did not fail to live up to the expectations set for himself. Lismore attended the race in a red crushed velvet dress, with a matching cape covered in silver embellishments. He also wore a Union Jack-themed headpiece featuring a large feather installation rising from it. Georgia Toffolo The TV personality wore a bright orange ensemble, reflecting the colour of the season. Her floor-length dress featured a drop waist and a pleated skirt. She also wore a large ruffled headpiece and carried a raffia bow clutch by Anya Hindmarch. Eunice Olumide The model dressed elegantly in a pastel purple Zimmerman dress with yellow accents. The bottom of her swishy skirt depicted a busy scene from a beach. She also wore a bright yellow hat. Hana Cross The model, and former girlfriend of Brooklyn Beckham, wore a chic fitted white dress with a bow detail and chest cut-out. Her wide-brimmed hat featured a white veil that framed her face, and she wore black silver-tipped shoes and a black handbag. Una Healy The former Saturdays singer wore a special hat made by milliner Ilda Di Vico, which paid tribute to jockey Frankie Dettori. A gold figurine of Dettori performing his signature flying dismount was surrounded by pink and green colours. This year’s event is his final outing after it was announced last December that he would be retiring. Healy also wore a white top by Victoria Beckham, paired with a white skirt and baby pink shoes. Michaela Kocianova The Slovakian model wore a white dress with long sleeves, a ruffled collar and asymmetrical hem. She accessorised with a dainty white fascinator. Silou-hat One racegoer wore an impressively crafty hat to the racecouse today. The blue headpiece featured silhouettes of horses circling the brim, as though they were racing against one another. Against the sun, the hat created a particularly striking effect. Butterfly batik One attendee wore a butterfly-themed hat with batik patterns decorating the wings, which matched the rest of her outfit. Reach for the sky A pair of racegoers wore purple and blue hats with floral features that sat high above their heads. The hats also included twisty twig-like tendrils that reached upwards towards the sky. Swirl of colour This racegoer’s unique pink and blue headpiece makes for a visually interesting design. Long, colourful attachments that surround it provide a festive feel. Read More I couldn’t climax, so I let ‘big testosterone’ take me for a ride Harry and Meghan ‘Duke and Duchess of Dior’ rumours untrue, report says ‘What in the wingardium leviosa?’: Emma Watson shocks fans with ‘levitating’ dress The wild and wonderful hats of Royal Ascot 2023 King Charles and Queen Camilla arrive at first Royal Ascot in their new roles Toff: Drinking mindfully is a gift to yourself

Modern-day dating feels like a complicated sport. And now, with a whole new vocabulary to describe every trial and tribulation, it’s becoming even more challenging to break out of the amateur dating division. Is it a red flag, a beige flag, or an amber flag? Is he ghosting me? Breadcrumbing me? Lovebombing me? Who knows, maybe he’s on the verge of delicate dumping me? Welcome to smart dating in the digital era. So, you’ve learnt the zeitgeisty lingo and have a newfound confidence in identifying certain behaviours. Things are seemingly going well with a third Hinge date on the horizon – then BAM. You find your promising beau’s face splashed across a Facebook group filled with tens of thousands of strangers asking: Are we dating the same guy? Originating in New York with over 110,000 users, the Facebook group has since branched out to London, Paris, Dubai, Toronto, Dublin, Los Angeles and Boston. For the blissfully unaware, Are We Dating the Same Guy works like this: Women share screenshots of dating profiles and ask for intel or red flags. The Facebook posts are often inundated with personal experiences ranging anywhere from STI claims, cheating allegations and toxic behaviours. To join the groups, women are asked a series of questions before agreeing to a set of robust rules and digitally swearing they will not leak any of the group’s contents to outsiders. Among the rules are no doxxing (publicly sharing someone's personal details), no roasting, and no naming of the men. That said, it's become all too easy to identify people online through reverse image searches and word of mouth – to name a few. “The popularity of these groups are in alignment to the increase of smart dating – this is a phase that I think society is in,” dating expert Paul Brunson tells Indy100. “We’re becoming more aware of dating behaviours – a prime of that being the word ‘toxic.’ Twenty years ago, no one was speaking about ‘toxic dating’, but now there are many people who believe they can define it.” The intention of Are We Dating the Same Guy is to keep women safe and create awareness about toxic behaviours. “These groups have great intentions because ultimately it is about identifying dangerous people and behaviour, which is a good thing,” Paul explains, citing that while women are going through an incredible “empowerment phase” with “more time and command over the dating space,” it is still is very much “far tilted on the man’s side.” “We still are living in a society that is far greatly tilted towards men when it comes to dating, and it’s not just men from a general standpoint,” he continues. “It’s even some of these terrible nuances in dating.” These include narcissists, psychopaths, Machiavellians, and sadists – people that contribute to the psychological theory of personality. Furthermore, a recent study from the charity Plan International worryingly revealed that a third of German men still find physical violence against women to be acceptable. A staggering 34 per cent admitted to violence against their partner to “instil respect in them.” Meanwhile, a further 33 per cent thought it was acceptable if their “hand slipped” during an argument. “The fact that we still have survey results like that shows that we definitely need spaces to protect and empower women,” Paul adds. Paul, who recently added Global Relationship Insights Expert to his impressive matchmaking resume in addition to Married at First Sight and Celebs Go Dating, explains how we’ve got “much more information and content around dating than ever before that goes beyond anecdotal.” There's now empirical evidence, with researchers who have been conducting studies for 10-20 years, which Paul believes to be the “driving force behind smart dating.” Paul highlights that women are becoming exceedingly great at dating which is often driven by feedback loops due and open discussions about their experiences. They've become more emotionally available, more courageous, and understand how to be less neurotic when dating. Men, on the other hand, hardly have any feedback loops, and Paul believes we could actually benefit from mixed-gender groups, as men need to catch up and “have a higher dating IQ.” “We know that guys suck when it comes to emotional intelligence, compared to women – so a lot of it is poor execution.” Ultimately, there are “far fewer bad guys than there are good guys.” We know bad men exist, but according to evolutionary psychologist Dr David Buss, the highest percentage of men that fall into the dark tetrad personality types is 15 per cent of the population. "That's the group that has evil intentions," Paul continues. This is not to get confused with misalignment and miscommunication when dating. When intentions aren't communicated, you could end up with two people seeking two different things. Subsequently, the person who seeks long-term commitment views the behaviour of the short-termer (i.e. casual sex and friends with benefits) as toxic. “Ultimately, I think we have a lot of guys that their intention is not fully outlined, and because of the misaligned intention you have the interpretation of their behaviour as being ‘toxic’, when in actuality, sometimes it’s not,” Paul explains. To make dating a more positive, safer and enjoyable experience, Paul shared three invaluable tips to have under your belt: Don’t exchange personal information right away A dark tetrad or a straight scammer will try and move you off the app quickly. And the reason they try and do that is because the apps are really good about safety now. If someone is asking for your personal information, the safety features will inform you not to send that information, thanks to the AI built into the app. If you have given up your information, the app can no longer protect you. Stay on the app and let it protect you. Be cautious when people ask for things The moment you have anyone ask you for anything, mainly money, that is a huge red flag. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a grand amount, it could be as simple as “I don’t get paid until next week, please could I have five pounds." Meet in a public space Meet in a public space, never get picked up from your personal address and inform friends about the date details. Most importantly on the first meet-up, set boundaries. You can very quickly see how respectful someone is to your boundaries. An example being, you meet up on your lunch break and you only have until 2pm. When that time comes, do they try and push you to stay even longer – despite informing them you have to leave because you have something to do? Anytime someone is disrespecting your boundaries, that is also a red flag. Have your say in our news democracy. 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Today’s college student-athletes have an unprecedented opportunity to monetize their name, image and likeness thanks to a 2021 NCAA rule change that lifted restrictions on such activities

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Sanjay Aggarwal’s now-booming business was based around a family heirloom: a 100-year-old spice mill. He started selling spice blends with his mother in 2012 almost by accident. “It wasn’t meant to be a business,” the 40-year-old admits. “It was only started as a retirement hobby for my mum. What started off as a silly little idea, so to speak, just grew. We started online and moved after a few years to selling in shops.” Spice Kitchen has been wildly successful, and now Aggarwal is adding another string his company’s bow by writing a cookbook. Above all the success, he’s really just appreciated spending time with his 72-year-old mother, Shashi. “She’s incredible – she’s a whirlwind. She was born in Kenya and raised in India, so she’s got a really eclectic mix of culture. And she’s a real spice expert – we’ve got a 100-year-old spice mill in our family that’s travelled the world and I’ve got it here now; we started the business using that.” Aggarwal says it felt “natural” to work with his mother, after helping his parents run their Birmingham shop when growing up. But he’s “learned loads” from her during their new venture. “It’s certainly made me realise how entrepreneurial my mum is, how creative she is… I’ve been really impressed by how similarly we think.” He says: “We’re certainly closer for it. It’s got the ups and downs and challenges that everything has, but we’re still talking!” While there are plenty of flavour-packed Indian dishes in the new cookbook – including coriander and tandoori fishcakes, chickpea curry and tarka dal – the recipes have a decidedly global outlook. Think fish tacos, jerk-inspired pork, crispy duck with pancakes – and Aggarwal credits this to growing up in the diverse city of Birmingham. “I was born and brought up there, so for me, that was all I knew. But for my mum, it was very much a big influence on her,” he explains. When she came to the UK as a young married woman, “her cuisine and culture was all very Indian” – something that soon changed. “My mum has really seen that development of food and culture, and that cosmopolitan nature of Birmingham. It’s had tidal waves of immigration – my mum being one of them from India – and from West Africa and Asia and all different places. She’s witnessed that, when she came to the UK.” Aggarwal recounts how in the early days of living in Birmingham, Shashi would grind her own spices – you couldn’t buy blends at the time – which “reminded her of home and made her less homesick”, but then her palate expanded. “She’s vegetarian, but got to try all these amazing different sorts of vegetarian food from all around the world, be it Middle Eastern, Chinese or Japanese or whatever. Some of those things weren’t accessible when she first came, but were as time went on – and my mum’s very experimental. “She’s a real foodie. She loves trying new things and experimenting – probably more than anyone else I know. I think she’s quite unique, because I think a lot of people from cultures where they’ve got a really strong food culture – certainly like Indian culture – a lot of my aunts and uncles, they don’t really eat or experiment outside of Indian food. They find it quite scary, not very flavoursome, or quite bland. But my mum really gets it – she’s got a really deep palate, and she can really appreciate different cultures.” This love of different cuisines means both mother and son are quite free with the way they cook– and they want other people to be the same. For example, if you’re making a frittata and you don’t have any Italian seasoning, Aggarwal says: “Try it with Mexican [spice blends], try it with jerk and you could still create something amazing. Don’t be afraid to experiment.” One of the more unusual combinations he’s tried? Mexican spices in a shepherd’s pie: “It actually tastes amazing in there. We’re just trying to get people to be a bit more free thinking and adventurous. What’s the worst that can happen?” Aggarwal says he’s often asked how to make an “authentic” dish – a question he struggles to answer. “It’s very difficult to understand what they mean by that – what is the meaning of authenticity? I’m a second-generation British-born person… Food has evolved over time. We wanted to make sure the dishes [in the cookbook] were authentic in terms of linking back to the original recipes and what they’re all about, and especially the blends being as authentic as possible – trying to respect the tradition. “But we’re also trying to say, we can only take our take on things. I can take my take on things and my mum can take her take on things – and things have changed over time.” That’s why Aggarwal advises against getting “too hung up on authenticity, because there is no way of achieving it”. Instead, he recommends taking a dish you like and “play with the flavours a little bit” to “make it your own”. ‘Spice Kitchen’ by Sanjay Aggarwal (Quadrille, £22).

Generations of Palestinians have worked the terraced hillsides of the West Bank farming village of Battir, southwest of Jerusalem

Parents of trans children are mobilizing in Poland seeking acceptance after the country’s leader mocked trans people last year during Pride season

Druids, pagans, hippies, local residents, tourists and costumed witches and wizards are gathering around a prehistoric stone circle on a plain in southern England to express their devotion to the sun, or to have some communal fun

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Shrimp and prawns are two tasty crustaceans that are often confused with one another. We examine the differences.