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The kindness of strangers: at San José airport, I couldn’t pay my departure tax – then a woman handed me the cash

The kindness of strangers: at San José airport, I couldn’t pay my departure tax – then a woman handed me the cash

There was no ATM at the airport and banks were closed. If I missed this flight, all my subsequent flights would have been cancelled Read more in the kindness of strangers series I was 19 and travelling by myself for the first time. It was 1994 and departure tax wasn’t always part of a plane ticket, so it sometimes had to be paid before flying out of a country. And if you didn’t have it, you didn’t leave – something I was about to learn the hard way. I was on a five-week trip around South America that I’d spent years saving for, visiting the pen pals I’d written to as a teenager. At the airport in San José, Costa Rica, I was waiting in line for customs when I realised the border guard was asking those ahead of me to pay US$5 in departure tax – money I didn’t have. It doesn’t seem like a lot now but it was back then. I’d flown in from New York’s JFK airport two days previously and the only ATM had been out of order, so I hadn’t been able to get cash out there, and I’d spent my remaining few dollars on an overnight stay in the city. Continue reading...

As a psychologist, I’ve seen that polyamory doesn’t fix relationships – it reveals them | Carly Dober

As a psychologist, I’ve seen that polyamory doesn’t fix relationships – it reveals them | Carly Dober

The success of any relationship hinges on the same pillars of trust, respect, honesty and shared values. Polyamory simply tests their integrity daily The modern mind is a column where experts discuss mental health issues they are seeing in their work Emilio* and Jessica* sat in front of me, disconnected and barely looking at each other. They had been together for seven years and had recently opened up their relationship and tried polyamory, upon Emilio’s suggestion. Jessica agreed to this, but it was not her first choice for how she wanted the relationship to be. They were now in a crisis, as betrayals and secrets had occurred before and during the attempts at this new relationship configuration. In my practice as a psychologist, a helpful question I often ask my clients is: “Is the configuration of this relationship working for you?” Continue reading...

Readers reply: what would happen to the world if computer said yes?

Readers reply: what would happen to the world if computer said yes?

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions asks whether we could cope with a world where computer gave up saying no … This week’s question: what if Shakespeare were dropped in modern-day London? After years of computer saying no, and giving us all migraines and premature grey hair, I’m starting to worry that computer – or rather AI large language models like ChatGPT and Gemini – are taking too much of a fancy to playing nice and saying yes. I confess to using both of these programs, but I’ve noticed that, well, it’s as if they’re trying to please, with statements such as, “You’re absolutely right, Jeff,” and “That’s pretty much right.” Often, when I ask, “Would you mind thinking for a bit longer on that?”, I then get another response saying: “Jeff, you’re absolutely right, again, to query that result. It turns out I was a bit hasty in my reply …” If the world runs even more on information filleted out from the sump of the internet by LLMs, what are the consequences? Can we look forward to a future in which AI is more concerned with appearing sympathetic (getting good reviews?) than being factual? Er, a bit too human? Jeff Collett, Edinburgh Continue reading...

ICE has detained this high schooler for 10 months. Here’s what he and his classmates want you to know

ICE has detained this high schooler for 10 months. Here’s what he and his classmates want you to know

Dylan Lopez Contreras, a senior at Ellis Prep academy, was taken by ICE in May. The Guardian invited him and five of his classmates to share their lives and dreams The students at Ellis Prep academy – like most high schoolers – have a lot on their mind right now. Essay deadlines, college applications, younger siblings and dance rehearsals. But also, the immigration operations across the US and the president’s goal of “mass deportations”. Continue reading...

Why does admitting you’re ambitious feel so wrong for gen Xers like me?

Why does admitting you’re ambitious feel so wrong for gen Xers like me?

In the 90s, we internalised an ideal of cool that appeared nonchalant and effortless. Now, young people are unafraid to say they want something and are going to work hard to get it Oh no, striving is cool now. “Never stop grinding and listen … Stop doing anything else but working,” as Pharrell Williams told the Grammys audience last month . The Times recently announced that “ trying really hard and talking about it ” was in, typified by Timothée Chalamet’s continued commitment to the “ pursuit of greatness ”, which he announced last year, along with being “ so fucking locked in ” to cinema. We’re all supposed to be paying for our big dreams in sweat again , it seems. What’s wrong with that? Nothing, really – but an open admission that you’re ambitious, you want something specific and hard to attain from your life, and intend to work single-mindedly for it doesn’t come naturally to me and my gen X brethren (apart from Williams, apparently, aged 52). We internalised an idea of cool that involved the appearance of, if not actual, effortlessness that’s hard to shake. Continue reading...

Rufus Hound looks back: ‘By the time I started to do standup, I realised I’d been training for it my entire life’

Rufus Hound looks back: ‘By the time I started to do standup, I realised I’d been training for it my entire life’

The actor and comedian on using humour as his cheat code, his internal monologue and the teacher to whom he owes everything Born in Essex in 1979, Rufus Hound is a comedian, actor and broadcaster. He left his job in PR in 2000 to work full-time as a comedian, first in standup and then on TV. A panel show regular, including Mock the Week and Celebrity Juice, he has also built a substantial stage career, with roles in West End productions such as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Wind in the Willows and One Man, Two Guvnors. He stars in The Mesmerist at Watford Palace theatre from 2-21 March. I was six, and on holiday. My dad was an accountant who benefited, briefly, from the jobs boom of the 1970s. Suddenly, getting on a plane was an option for our family. We spent our summers in Corsica, going on boat trips. A few years ago, I would have said that boy was wide-eyed and innocent. Now I’ve done a bit of therapy, I know he was consumed by anxiety and desperate for attention. Continue reading...

UK teachers and parents urged to talk to children about Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes

UK teachers and parents urged to talk to children about Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes

Experts say trusted adults must be brave and discuss issue or risk children looking for answers from unsafe sources Teachers and parents in the UK need to be brave and discuss Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes with children and young people or risk them looking for answers from dubious or dangerous sources, according to experts who will host the first public seminar for schools on the issue. Thrive, the education consultancy hosting the online seminar on the convicted child sex offender, said: “Many children and young people are encountering this material often without context, warnings or adult support, leaving educators to manage the emotional and safeguarding impact in real time.” Continue reading...