Daily Mail - 01.08.2019

(Jacob Rumans) #1
Page 42 Daily Mail, Thursday, August 1, 2019

42 femailMAGAZINE


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KNACKERED


MOTHERS’


WINE CLUB


BY HELEN


McGINN


BARGAIN OF THE WEEK
Vecchia Modena Pignoletto, £7.49
(normally £9.99), Waitrose
MADE the same way as Prosecco,
this sparkling Italian white is a real
crowd pleaser when you need
bubbles at a bargain price. It’s light
and fresh with soft citrus flavours.

WHITE
The Society’s Hungarian White
2018, £6.25, The Wine Society
FORAGING for wines off the beaten
track will often reward you with a
brilliantly priced bargain. This is
from the Eger region of Hungary,
made from local grapes including
Kiralyleanyka and Harslevelu. The
result is a light, bright floral number
with a whiff of white jasmine and a
twist of citrus. Refreshingly good.
FOOD PAIRING: Herby salads.

RED
Adema Tinto 2017, £8.49, Virgin Wines
PORTUGAL is a great destination, not
just for holidays, but for properly
good-value wines. This unoaked red
from the Tejo region is spot on,
made from a blend of typical Portu-
guese grapes including Trincadeira
and Castelao. Ripe and juicy with a
dollop of earthy bramble fruits.
FOOD PAIRING: Lamb kebabs.

ROSé
Calvet Carcassonne
Rosé 2018, £6, Co-op
A PERFECTLY pale pink rosé from
Languedoc. Made from Grenache
and Cinsault grapes, it’s crisp and
dry with light redcurrant flavours
and citrusy freshness.
FOOD PAIRING: Tuna salad.
O HoMeMAde Cocktails by Helen
McGinn (£10.99, Robinson) is
available now.

The #MeToo


climate today


means my


teenage son’s


generation


has far fewer


female


friends than


we did –


and that’s


a shame


MALE PALS ARE MY


SOURCE OF SANITY


HANNAH BETTS
I detest When
Harry Met sally
and one of the
things I hate
most is its prin-
ciple that men
and women can-
not be friends —
that and the way
Harry thinks he’s
the best while being boring,
balding and thyroidal. As a life-
long tomboy, I’ve always found
(most) men easier than (most)
women, just as I find my brothers
easier than my sisters.
I adore my sisters, but there’s
just so much potential for
misunderstanding, so much sub-
text to every comment. Growing
up, girls en masse made me feel
claustrophobic; their bitchiness
as suffocating as the fog of elnett
hairspray and hormones perme-
ating the school lavatories.
My male friends make me feel I
can breathe — and this is as true
for me at 48 as it was at 18.
there’s been no societal change
in this respect.
After all, the #Metoo
campaign affects abusive
maniacs, not normal male-
female relationships.
Men friends are my refuge and
my source of sanity. I can be
frank and receive frankness

back, without any bitchiness or
hidden meaning. I rely on them
however dire the circumstances:
when I was sexually assaulted, it
wasn’t a female friend I confided
in, but a male.
Male friends frequently come
on holiday with me and my
boyfriend. And we don’t give our
gender a second thought —
because, really, it’s the least
interesting thing about us.

NEVER SLEEP WITH


FRIENDS YOU LOVE


EMILY HILL
WHen I was 11,
a debilitating
illness meant I
had to take a
year off school.
When I
returned, pretty
much the only
person who’d
speak to me was
a ginger-haired boy called
George. this earned him my
instant, undying friendship.
For the next two years, we sat
together in maths class talking
non-stop, and for hours on the
phone every night as well.
then, tragedy struck: he
watched When Harry Met sally
and declared that men and

women can’t be friends. then he
sent me a Valentine’s card
declaring his love. Maybe back
in the eighties that could have
been the start of a beautiful, life-
long friendship that slowly
turned to love. But we live in a
more cut-throat world now.
even at 13, I knew no one ends
up with whoever they date in
school. I was sure I wanted him
in my life for ever. so I said no.
Over the years, I watched as he
changed from gawky redhead to
fully-fledged womaniser.
Harry made it look charming,
but George was a demon on the
dating apps. At one point he was
using Bumble to sleep with eight
different women at once.
I fended off his advances a
couple of times and I congratu-
late myself that I did. He’d have
broken my heart and we’d never
have seen each other again.
today, we’re still best friends
and he’s matured out of his
millennial dating ways —
probably because he’s finally
met the right woman.
now I’m focusing on making a
friend of her, too, so I get two
mates for the price of one.
With the divorce rate so high in
the 21st century, would Harry
and sally have lasted for ever?
If you love your friends, it might
be best not to sleep with them.

ONE MAN ISN’T


ALWAYS ENOUGH


JENNI MURRAY


I WAs in my late
30s when Harry
met sally and
made clear it
was impossible
for a man and
a woman to
be friends. I
couldn’t have
agreed more. there was one
friend — let’s call him Harry.
We worked together without a
hint of romance, until one
evening we decided to get a bite
to eat. An offer to walk me home,
a ‘do you want to come up for a
coffee?’ and the inevitable kiss.
the next morning I couldn’t
wait to get him out of the house
and things were uneasy until he
changed his job and moved on.
It may be rather different now.
there must be some reluctance
for a young man, or plenty of
reluctance for an older man, to
make an approach to a female
colleague, given the power of the
#Metoo movement.
no one wants to lay themselves
open to any accusation of sexual
harassment, so few liaisons are
engendered at the office these

photos is of my 11-year-old, torrin, in
football strip enjoying an improvised foot
spa, courtesy of his great friend elodie.
At that age, torrin’s father was
incarcerated in a brutish prep school where
older boys peed on his teddy bear and
feelings were not allowed.
I’m thrilled my sons are learning this as
they grow up, because when a man of any
age does really care about getting to know
women — in a non-sexual way — he’s in hot
demand. I’ve got a new pal called Max, and
he has a zillion female friends, because he’s
genuinely interested in what we are
thinking and feeling.
that said, some of my dearest man friends
are those I slept with years ago.
there’s a bit of a question mark hanging
in the air otherwise. I remember one male
pal saying after my wedding: ‘As you walked
up the aisle all I could think was, “I never
slept with her, now I never will!” ’

YOUNG MEN ARE SCARED


TO CHAT UP WOMEN


TOBY YOUNG
YOunG englishmen now
daren’t risk making passes
at women for fear of being
accused of harassment or
labelled a sex pest.
If you have any kind of
career, women are better
feared than loved.
the upshot is that male
millennials don’t seem to
have as many genuine female friends as my
generation did. Instead of going to parties
and chatting up members of the opposite
sex, they stay at home playing video games.
My 14-year-old son doesn’t have a single
female friend, unfortunately.
It’s a shame because cross-gender friend-
ships are enriching and beneficial. there
are things I can talk to female friends about
that I wouldn’t dream of raising with my
male friends — such as the romantic lives
of our mutual acquaintances.
same-sex friendships are often compli-
cated by competition, which can be a
barrier to intimacy. You don’t want to
reveal a vulnerability to someone who
might be a rival one day. But no such issues
contaminate male-female friendships,
which in my experience are more relaxed.
Maybe the benefits of a more heavily
policed sexual arena outweigh the costs.
But it feels like we declared a truce in the
sex war 30 years ago... now we’re at each
other’s throats again.

TOBY YOUNG


WANT a meal as healthy as a salad, but
as easy to eat as a sandwich?
Wrap your veggie salad ingredients
up in rice paper to make a delicious
‘summer roll’ you can eat with one
hand. Available from supermarkets,
rice paper is popular in Vietnamese
cooking — and it’s low-calorie
and gluten-free.
Or buy a box of ready-made rolls
from Kaleido (kaleidorolls.com),
which offers plenty of veggie
options at
only 100 calo-
ries each.
Roll flavours
include
Chicken
Caesar
and Tam-
ari Roasted
Aubergine.

Salad you can eat


with one hand

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