Getting older and losing your autonomy is even harder without family around. You need to consider both the practical and emotional issues involved

My wife and I are in our late 70s, and have been married for more than 40 years. We didn’t have kids and were rather traumatised after failed IVF.

My wife is Asian and has no UK-based family. I do, but they are not close geographically, nor are they people who would be able to give any support if needed. Friends are of a similar age and so have their own issues to deal with. My wife and I have always been a self-reliant unit, and we’re both reasonably healthy, but I’m increasingly aware that there will soon come a time when help is needed.

The crumpet has the texture of a damp Always Ultra

I’ve done some fairly rash things in my time, but I’ve never popped into anywhere for king scallops with ’nduja and come out with a swallow tattoo on my neck, though what is this life without adventure? Which is where Moods comes in: the space is an all-day restaurant, bar, tattoo parlour and hair salon in Leeds, offering violetta potato with ox cheek, a short back and sides, and the chance to tattoo “Mum” on your lower left arm, all in one Grade II-listed building.

It occupies the former First White Cloth Hall on Kirkgate, built in 1711 for the trade of white undyed cloth. This cavernous ark, with roof timbers dating back to the 1470s, lurked on Historic England’s Heritage at Risk register for more than 20 years, during which time it was under almost constant threat from the bulldozers. It took the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Leeds Civic Trust and Rushbond, a Leeds-based developer with a penchant for rescuing buildings, to drag it out of danger. Then Will and Hayley Moody arrived, slotting in their Buzz Club Tattoo Studio and a hair and beauty salon called Self, and now, on the ground floor, there’s Moods, a kitchen reportedly run by Craig Rogan. Laugh at the tattoo/hair/dinner triumvirate, if you want (I know I did), but it’s a grim joke that we treat our old buildings like this, and that hospitality is in a state so wild that this seems to be the solution. Bring on the bright new future of ye olde small plates, buzzcuts and half-sleeve emporiums, all under 400-year-old timbers.

It was so refreshing to hear Aaron Sorkin admit he was bad at parts of directing after his movie flop. If only others could be as frank

By most accounts, Aaron Sorkin’s new film The Social Reckoning, a follow-up to his 2010 smash-hit The Social Network, is a flop. The film critic Mark Kermode’s response to seeing it was that Sorkin, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest living screenwriters, is “not a great director”.

It seems that Sorkin agrees. Because Sorkin is very famous, he has had to do the rounds talking about the film in the media, which led to his appearance on the Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast earlier this week, in which he addressed these kind of criticisms head on. “I’m very worried that the parts of directing that I’m not good at are those parts that you can’t learn,” he said. “In addition to having absorbed none of the science of filmmaking, I have – and this is a problem in a visual medium – I have no visual sensibility at all, it turns out.”

Imogen West-Knights is a writer and journalist

There has been a steep rise in the number of people labelled autistic over the last 20 years. Is that down to greater understanding – or overdiagnosis?

The home of 85-year-old Uta Frith does not exactly look like the latest front in the culture wars. Located in a serenely quiet corner of north-west London, it suggests a life still well lived, a set of deep interests and an idyllic kind of retirement. There are so many books that some are reachable only using a very tall ladder. The four hours I spend talking to her – and her husband Chris, an expert in schizophrenia – are an absolute pleasure. There is no sense of outrage or upset: even when I ask her about the stream of hostile and abusive emails she has recently received, she is relaxed and phlegmatic. “I tend to cope by just deleting them,” she says. “I don’t dwell on it.”

“It” is a reference to the controversy kicked up by her recently expressed views on a subject that sits at the heart of Frith’s academic career: what it is to be autistic, and who should or shouldn’t qualify for a diagnosis. Back in March, Dame Uta Frith – she was honoured with the title seven years ago – gave an interview to TES magazine (formerly the Times Educational Supplement) scattered with stark pronouncements. Among them was a claim that the so-called autistic spectrum has “gone on being more and more accommodating”, to the point that it “has come to its collapse”. Then, in August, she published a piece in the academic journal Psychological Medicine claiming autism was in dire danger of being turned from a “precise, clinical” term into a “vague, culturally amplified identity category”.

Kinaan Dadou, 10, has been left disabled since 7 October 2023 as his parents struggle to find funding for specialist treatment

It was 7.30am on 7 October 2023 when a Hamas rocket exploded next to 7-year-old Kinaan Dadou. The rocket was aimed at the Israeli settlement of Efrat in the occupied West Bank but missed its mark by a few hundred metres, landing in front of Kinaan’s family home instead.

A piece of shrapnel struck Kinaan in the head. He stood rigid, his hands frozen to his sides, and screamed “Baba!” before collapsing to the ground. An Israeli soldier who passed by promised to call an ambulance. No help ever came. Kinaan’s parents rushed him to the hospital themselves, but it was six hours before a doctor arrived due to the chaos of the day. All the while, Kinaan’s brain was haemorrhaging.

Donald Trump mag dan graag een dansje maken voor zijn aanhangers, thuis krijgt hij er minder applaus voor. Volgens de Amerikaanse president heeft zijn vrouw Melania hem dringend gevraagd daarmee op te houden: „Hou in godsnaam op met dansen!” Dat vertelde hij tijdens een campagnebijeenkomst in Daytona Beach in Florida. Het publiek reageerde met gelach.

Trump sprak vrijdagavond 30 oktober in aanloop naar de Amerikaanse tussentijdse verkiezingen. Volgens berichtgeving van BILD, aangehaald door andere Duitse media, waren ongeveer 8.000 aanhangers aanwezig in het Ocean Center. De president gebruikte het podium ook om te vertellen over de kritiek van zijn vrouw op zijn optredens. Het gaat dus om Trumps weergave van een privégesprek, niet om een publieke uitspraak van Melania zelf.

Niet presidentieel genoeg

De ergernis is niet nieuw. Al in januari vertelde Trump tijdens een bijeenkomst met Republikeinse volksvertegenwoordigers dat zijn vrouw zijn dansjes niet kon waarderen. „Mijn vrouw haat het als ik dat doe”, zei hij toen. Volgens hem vindt Melania het gedrag niet passen bij het presidentschap. Zijn tegenargument: „Maar ik ben toch president geworden!”

Vooral zijn bewegingen op Y.M.C.A. zijn herkenbaar: een stijve houding, gebalde vuisten en armen die ritmisch heen en weer bewegen. Zijn publiek beloont die optredens met luid applaus, maar Melania zou liever zien dat hij het wat ingetogener houdt.

Ook zijn argument dat de mensen zijn dansjes nu eenmaal leuk vinden, overtuigt haar volgens Trump niet. Haar verklaring voor het enthousiasme is een stuk minder vleiend: „Ze vinden het niet leuk. Ze willen gewoon aardig tegen je zijn.”

Meer weten?

• BILD: Melania vraagt Trump te stoppen met dansen – Bericht over Trumps anekdote tijdens zijn campagneoptreden in Florida.
• Der Spiegel: Melania vindt Trumps dansjes niet presidentieel – Eerdere berichtgeving over de kritiek die Melania volgens Trump op zijn dansoptredens heeft.
• Merkur: ‘Mijn vrouw haat het als ik dit doe’ – Meer over Trumps uitspraken over de reacties van zijn vrouw.

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