en-uk Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:37:29 GMT Copyright 2007 Times Newspapers Ltd. custserv@timesonline.co.uk http://www.timesonline.co.uk Mon, 08 Feb 2010 04:22:50 GMT Newspapers 144 21 http://www.timesonline.co.uk http://images.thetimes.co.uk/TGD/picture/0,,116979,00.gif Janice Turner Sat, 06 Feb 2010 00:01:00 GMT 2010-02-05T07:53:15Z Although I celebrate the Oscar nomination for Colin Firth, undisputed king of simmering internal conflict, I’m concerned about his wife Livia. I’m not sure she will cope, not after the Screen Actors Guild Awards when, “just hours” before the ceremony, her dress woven from milk — yes, milk — didn’t fit, and her clutch bag encrusted in ring-pulls clashed with her gold vegetarian shoes. Undeniably, as her Vogue blog put it, this was a “near disaster”. Janice Turner Sun, 31 Jan 2010 00:01:54 GMT 2010-01-31T03:38:54Z My son begged me to switch the show off. “It’s too cruel,” he said. But that seemed to be the point of Fat Families. “You make me feel sick,” said the smug presenter as the obese couple looked forlornly at their takeaway supper. Later they were stripped naked — she weeping, he head bowed — while the camera boggled obscenely at their bodies. I hope they were well paid, this good-hearted pair, who clearly loved their kids and each other. What price to be paraded as an object of hatred and disgust. Janice Turner Sat, 23 Jan 2010 00:01:00 GMT 2010-01-22T08:07:29Z True love, I’ve grown to believe, is when you experience someone else’s pain as your own. There is no synaptic pause between their grave news and the summoning of empathy. Your reaction is visceral, involuntary: a winded blow when your wife loses her job, a sickened disappointment when your daughter is the sole girl not asked to the party. The proper seat of love is not the heart but the guts. Janice Turner Sat, 16 Jan 2010 00:01:00 GMT 2010-01-15T06:57:14Z It’s gone, or at least it’s going. And even adults with the most ebullient inner eight-year-olds don’t seem sad. In London parks, grubby snowmen stand lonely sentry, in rural towns at least it’s stopped long enough to dig out the car. Time to pause and reflect, before the next dump, on things we’ve learnt from the snow. Janice Turner Sat, 09 Jan 2010 00:01:00 GMT 2010-01-09T12:54:15Z Last year was the year I stopped watching television. Well, I still dip into Newsnight, track down and “series link” gorgeous new offerings of 30 Rock or Mad Men. But all those shows that punctuated a dreary week, a looked-foward-to hour when you reclined pasha-like to be entertained, have all palled. TV raised me, but now, in equal measure, it mystifies and bores me.