Fairlady April 2018

Suzy Brokensha: Pia’s joy was contagious – she deeply loved life: her family, her friends, her dogs… and there was a kind of Reuters strip that constantly ran through her head about how to make it even better – for everyone. She had an exquisite cake for every occasion, which has to be one of the great talents in life. She never sat still; she was always organising, cajoling, planning ahead. Resting in peace is not her style: she’ll be making something better somewhere. Every month she’d present a list of wonderful ideas of what to put in the next issue, and when we chose she’d always say, ‘Happy days.’ And they were. Tasneem Larney: What I will remember about Pia is her kindness. She had a gentleness in her…

The passing of Pia-Alexa Duarte really hit me. I didn’t know her, except through her writing in FAIRLADY. I wasn’t her friend or part of her family, but her death truly moved me. Maybe because she was a young woman, like me, who probably thought she had loads of time left to live and maybe even took that time for granted. I have spent years in a job that, while it pays the bills and I am treated well, does not bring me joy. Lately I have been thinking a lot about that word ‘joy’ and what it means. I watch people going through the motions of life or stressed out of their minds, including myself and those I love, and I wonder what the point of it all is…

Male perspective I have a confession… I’m a man and I read FAIRLADY. There’s a real risk of being ridiculed by my colleagues for writing this letter, but I believe it’s important to give credit where it’s due. While on holiday, I was looking for good reading material. With the mission approved, the target selected was a pile of my wife’s FAIRLADY magazines. A careful interrogation of the front covers ensued, with the objective of selecting articles suitable for manly interest. It was a difficult choice between ‘Mother-in-law horror stories’ [October 2017] and ‘Why male fertility is in trouble’ [November 2017]. While Emilia Clarke and Jennifer Aniston were equally distracting, in the end the header ‘Grown-up sex’ [December 2017] was the ultimate decider. Yes, you can say it: ‘Typical man!’…

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if you’ve watched any really good TV over the past decade, chances are you’ve seen Elisabeth Moss in action. While many stars have sought longevity in Hollywood blockbusters, Elisabeth was drawn to television. She’s starred in premier shows like Top of the Lake, The West Wing and Mad Men, all of which have made her the unofficial Queen of TV Drama and won her several top-tier awards. The 35-year-old American actress and producer was simply looking for good writing at the time, she told Vulture last year. ‘I think that enabled me to say “yes” to some television things perhaps before everyone was saying “yes”,’ she says. Award-winning shows like The Sopranos, Breaking Bad and The Wire have ushered in a new age of TV, which some are calling the…

We all know that one person. You’re trying to tell a story, but they keep interrupting – either with advice, or a counter-argument to what you’re saying, or to tell their own story – of that one time when something ‘just like that’ happened to their friend, So-and-So. Hey, maybe you’re that person. Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, phrased it perfectly. He said, ‘Most of us don’t listen with the intent to understand. We listen with the intent to reply.’ According to sound and communication expert Julian Treasure (author of How to Be Heard: Secrets for Powerful Speaking and Listening), we spend roughly 60% of our communication time listening – but even so, ‘we’re not very good at it’. In fact, we retain just…