THE INDEPENDENT
The hedonistic, boho-luxe of 1970s Marrakech is back – here’s how to do it like Mick Jagger and Grace Jones

︎︎︎ Quickview
︎︎︎ Read article 

In Marrakech’s dusk-hued medina, there’s a riad that opens a door to another world. The gilded home of the late interior designer and febrile socialite, Bill Willis, Dar Noujoum was once a royal residence, rented to Willis by a prince from the early 1970s until his death in 2009. Stood empty in the ensuing years, it was summarily ransacked – doors stripped of their hand-carved frames, copper piping wrenched from walls, baths hoisted out of windows to the street below. A decade later, Brits and best friends Tim and Neil would discover the riad and, with it, a slice of history.

PROSPECT
Kwajo Tweneboa: ‘Politicians underestimate the impact of housing’

︎︎︎ Quickview
︎︎︎ Read article 

Kwajo Tweneboa didn’t plan to become Britain’s leading social housing campaigner. Two years ago, he was a business student, living with his father and two sisters in a flat in south London riddled with damp, mice, cockroaches and asbestos. Mould grew on beds, kitchen cabinets were rotten and, at one point, the living room had no ceiling. Repeated requests for help from Clarion, the housing association responsible for the property, were met with silence or obfuscation. Ten months after Tweneboa moved in, his father Kwaku was diagnosed with stage one oesophageal cancer. His deterioration was rapid.

THE GUARDIAN
‘It felt like we were in the 90s!’ HomeBass, the white van revving up UK rave culture

︎︎︎ Quickview
︎︎︎ Read article 

In a public square in Dalston, east London, out the back of the kind of bog-standard white van more used to transporting fitted kitchens or cleaning supplies, a crowd of ravers are in a jubilant mood, all sweat-sheen and wide smiles. Inside the van DJs spin tunes characteristic of this itinerant party, dubbed HomeBass: garage, jungle, drum’n’bass. It begins to rain but they remain in place, arms upraised, waiting for the first drop from rising jungle star Nia Archives.

NEW STATESMAN
The witchcraft generation

︎︎︎ Quickview
︎︎︎ Read article 

Netty has been practising magic for 16 years. She cast a spell to get her current job in banking. She credits other spells with securing subsequent salary raises. She once used a spell to make her boss like her more. Another bagged her the love of her life, seven years ago. She still has the honey jar she used for it – into which she put herbs, a petition and a Corona bottle cap he’d discarded. (She assures me he knows about it.) Raised a Catholic, Netty has not completely reneged on the faith, nor does she see any conflict in casting spells and praying to saints. You might call her a Christian witch. You might be surprised to know there are thousands of them. 

THE TELEGRAPH
Trapped in a warzone: surrogate mothers and newborns ensnared in Ukraine’s crisis

︎︎︎ Quickview
︎︎︎ Read article 

Four days after the Russian invasion, Adam and Lara were frantically trying to get into Ukraine. They flew to Poland and managed to flag down a bus to Rava-Ruska, a border town in Lviv Oblast. Then they waited.

Shops were shuttered. Their Polish SIM card didn’t work. Nowhere accepted their euros. As the night drew on, they huddled in a public lavatory to shelter from the piercing cold.