Table of contents for May 2020 in The Simple Things

If necessity is the mother of invention, then this is our most creative issue ever. Welcome to the May special scrapbook edition. Many of our regular readers have told us that The Simple Things offers some respite from stress, worry and boredom during this difficult time, so we wanted to bring you a magazine that was even more full of comfort, calm and cheer than usual. Like small businesses everywhere, we’ve been forced to find ways to work with less people, less money and less time. So, we combed the archive for our best work that offers the most help and diversion, or resonates right now. We’ve redesigned and updated these favourite features to gather them together in a magazine created to INSPIRE. You’ll find good things to eat (of…

We’re not using herbs as much as we could be. That’s the premise of Nat Mady’s social enterprise, Hackney Herbal, which aims to inspire people in the way they think about and use herbs. That doesn’t have to mean anything too complex – harnessing their potential for wellbeing can be as simple as this project for making your own herbal tea bags. Over the many workshops and events run by Hackney Herbal, one of the things that Nat always notices is how people connect with herbs in different ways, whether it’s through the folklore that surrounds them, or – especially in an area as diverse as the east London borough of Hackney – memories of different cultural uses. “People get so excited,” she says. “I’m always being told something I…

Cyanotyping was discovered by English scientist Sir John Herschel. He discovered if you mixed equal quantities of ammonium iron (III), citrate and potassium ferricyanide it created a photosensitive solution. Although he intended it as a way to copy notes and diagrams (what became known as blueprints), family friend and keen botanist Anna Atkins used the process to document her collection of seaweed. Because of this, she’s often referred to as the first female photographer.…

Ribollita This hearty Italian soup translates as ‘reboiled’, and traditionally it is made the day before you plan to eat it. It’s thickened with bread, but don’t let that stop you from pairing it with a delicious airy, herby focaccia. Serves 6 2 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for drizzling 2 onions, chopped 2 carrots, roughly chopped 3 cloves garlic, finely sliced 400g tin chopped tomatoes 250g cooked cannellini beans 250ml water or stock 1 tsp dried oregano 2 slices white bread, ideally stale A few handfuls of cavolo nero, roughly chopped Small handful of chopped fresh parsley 1 Heat the olive oil in a pan and gently fry the onions, carrots and garlic until softened and translucent. 2 Add the tomatoes, beans, water or stock, and oregano and bring…

CARDAMOM BANANA CAKE  Serves 8 170g softened butter, plus extra for greasing 5 cardamom pods 4 ripe bananas, mashed 170g caster sugar 3 eggs 115g walnuts, chopped 350g plain flour ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda 2¾ tsp baking powder ½ tsp salt icing sugar to serve (optional) 1 Preheat the oven to 180C/ Fan 160/Gas 4 and grease a non-stick 25cm square cake tin. 2 Crush the cardamom pods, removing the seeds and discarding the pods. Crush the seeds to release their flavour and add them to the mashed bananas. 3 In a separate bowl, combine the butter and sugar and beat until pale and creamy with an electric handheld mixer. Add the eggs, one at a time, continuing to beat. 4 Next, fold in the walnuts, banana and cardamom.…

During the ad break, Auntie Pearl sprays herself with L’Amour de Paris, before her violet eyelids flicker and switch off. When the mist lifts it’s 1975… Pearl’s 50th birthday. The house crackles with pop music and polyester leisure suits. I’m on the stairs, face pressed against the cool banister, eyes wide as champagne saucers, dusted in the crumbling allure of a vol-au-vent. Below me, Auntie Pearl sings Moon River in a ’50s hourglass dress and zebra-stripe stilettos, drowning in diamantes and the perfume she calls bottled Hollywood – its top notes, lily and rose, float up the steps through curls of platinum smoke. Four decades later, Pearl’s giggling: Let’s throw a party and liven up this joint. So I fix two Gin and Sins, put Sinatra on shuffle and we sway…

YOU WILL NEED A puncture repair kit, tyre levers, chalk or crayon and sandpaper METHOD 1 Remove the wheel. Use the hook end of a tyre lever to push the valve and release any remaining air. Then insert the tyre lever’s flat end in between the tyre and the wheel, hooking the other end around a spoke. Repeat with another tyre lever, about five spokes along, and then run along the inside. Repeat on the other side. 2 Remove the tyre and take out the inner tube. 3 Feel for what’s caused the puncture and remove it. Now find the corresponding damage to the inner tube. If not obvious, pump up and listen for air hissing. Mark the hole with a crayon or chalk. Rub with sandpaper, before sticking on…

This recipe uses full-fat cow’s milk, but you can use other milks, such as lower-fat cow’s milk, goat’s milk or sheep’s milk. In order to trigger the fermentation process, ‘live’ yogurt needs to be added, which will be labelled as such on the pot when you buy it. The yogurt should be incubated in a warm place, such as an insulated cooler box with a couple of sealed jars of boiled water in order to raise the temp. Makes 600 ml 800ml whole milk 3 tbsp ‘live’ yogurt You will need: Kitchen thermometer Large sterilised jar or a couple of small sterilised jars 1 Place the milk in a heavy-based saucepan and heat gently until it reaches 85°C (185°F), checking with the kitchen thermometer. 2Remove the pan from the heat…

The classic family favourite. Sniggering at the word ‘trumps’ never gets old. BASICS: 2–7 players; 52 card deck; Ace is high Seven cards are dealt to each player. The next card is turned up and becomes the trump suit. The player to the left of the dealer places the first card. Each player must follow the suit led, if possible. If not, play any other card, including a trump card. The highest trump wins the trick or, if no trumps are played, the highest card of the suit led. The winner leads the next trick. Once all cards are played, players without any tricks are eliminated. The player with the most tricks picks trumps for the next hand; if two people have the same amount of tricks, cut cards to…

19TH CENTURY  Restuff mattresses with fresh straw. Scrub down the bedposts with deadly liquid mercury to deter lice. Chuck some wood ash in the privy to counter bad odours. Use a goose wing to dust. Whitewash the kitchen. Turn out the lumber room. Sort old correspondence. 21ST CENTURY  Flip mattress over. Change duvet cover. Squirt some Ecover around the toilet bowl and open a window. Use the thinnest attachment of the vacuum cleaner to remove dust – use sleeve to get rid of the rest. Drool over salvaged kitchen tiles. Shift rash eBay purchases next to the back door. Delete ex-partners on Facebook.…

Wild flowers In May, an abundance of cow parsley fills country lanes and city edgelands. If you don’t mind the bugs when you’re picking it, it makes a great accompaniment to other wild flowers you come across. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know their names – only pick when they are plentiful and don’t take too many. Play around with height and proportions, the odd tall, strategically placed stem won’t make your arrangement look too top heavy.…

There are a few basic need-to-knows for making beauty products at home: • Essential oils shouldn’t be put directly onto the skin, or into water first. As in these recipes, they need to be used with another ‘carrier’ oil. Pregnant women should check with their doctor before use. • Sterilise equipment and make sure it’s fully dry before use, as water causes bacteria growth. These recipes don’t contain preservatives, so keep them water free. • Do a patch test on your skin 24 hours before full application, in case of any unforeseen irritations. • For a really pro look, don an apron, hairnet and disposable gloves.…

It’s easy to take cuttings to make plants to give to friends. Make the cuttings a few inches long and ideally all this season’s growth (stems that are more pliable, less woody), then strip the leaves from the bottom two thirds of the cutting. Take a terracotta pot full of gritty compost and make a hole close to the edge, drop the cutting into it then firm around with compost. You can fit five cuttings into a small pot. Water, then cover the top of the pot with a clear plastic bag and secure with an elastic band. Place on a bright, but not sunny, windowsill. Remove the bag occasionally to look for signs that the cuttings have taken. It can be removed completely as soon as new growth is…

Simple to make and very, very tasty, energy balls are brilliantly handy ball-shaped snacks – just the job for a snack on the go, to fuel some digging in the garden, or as a little boost before bed! They can be sweet or savoury, any size you fancy, packed with healthy ingredients or just a few simple leftovers, but always full of natural energy. I’ve been making energy balls for years, as a fun way of getting nutrient-dense ingredients into family meals and as a healthier alternative to pre-packaged goodies. The kids love to get involved, especially when it comes to the hands-on rolling, and it’s great fun trying out different combinations of ingredients, too. For sweet balls, use any nut or seed you fancy, any dried fruit you have…

“This was the room I grew up in. It s no longer a bedroom in which I sleep, talk to friends or secretly drink wine so my mum won’t notice (though I still might drink wine here!). Now, it’s the place where I focus, think and create. This desk is a Polish design from the 60s and, despite its mint condition, if you put your nose inside the drawers, you’ll notice a characteristic smell that reveals all the years it must’ve spent in some very substantial office of some very serious department. The desk is the central piece of the room and its drawers form a complicated structure in which things get lost easily. As I’m a plant-a-holic, I came up with the idea of hanging plants using macramé instead…

Recipe Handmade pasta How to make your own pasta (even without a pasta maker) You will need 100g semolina flour and 1 egg per person 1 If you want to be properly Italian, put your flour on the work surface, make a well in the centre and crack your eggs in. Beat them well, then slowly work into the flour until it’s all combined. (Or you can bung it all in a food processor and whizz). 2 Give your dough a really thorough kneading in order to develop the gluten in the flour. This can take a fair while of stretching, pulling, slapping and pummelling. Expect to have achy arms afterwards. When the dough is really smooth and silky to touch, it’s ready. 3 Wrap your dough in cling film…

Creative gardening need not be restricted to outdoors. Or, indeed, to off-the-shelf plant pots. Making an eye-catching hanging plant holder is a craftier way to display greenery, and is a great project for anyone finding themselves with limited space. Be warned, though, this retro project comes with a major flashback warning. Macramé, once hugely popular in the 70s and now enjoying a well-deserved comeback, will have you hooked – a revival of a past craze, which, hopefully much like your plants, refuses to fade. The ancient craft of macramé was a hit with the Victorians, although it’s most associated with 1970s homespun style. Plant hangers are back, given a colourful – and, dare we say it, tasteful – makeover. There are plenty of options on the market if you’re after…

All I could hear was the clicking of Aunt Lois’s false teeth above the noise of the café. She had eaten every cake from the three-tiered stand in front of us and was looking at something behind my right shoulder, absent-mindedly tapping her upper against her lower set. Her bouclé jacket was too tight; the material straining between the button-holes to form the shape of the mouth from Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’. The rest of her was as unlike the figure in the painting as it was possible to be; Aunt Lois had always been both contented, and fat. It was through looking at her I learned the importance of controlling my weight. “She likes her food, don’t begrudge it to her,” my mother said, when I complained about having…

We’ve all been there; you get lots of seeds you fancy but are not sure when, where or how to plant them, so you just stick them in soil, water, and hope for the best. If you don’t succeed, it can be hard to work out why. Some plants grow well together, others don’t. Some crops need other plants to give them shelter and support to grow, others prefer open space and to be left alone. With natural planting, you create a diverse pocket of wildlife in an urban space and one that will hopefully provide rich tastes, colours and textures. If you follow these simple planting plans, you’ll realise how easy it can be. They’re designed for 1 sq m raised beds but are scaleable and feature plants that…

I am a dog person. I say that to leave you in no doubt that what follows is unlikely to be unbiased. I don’t dislike cats (even though they bring me out in a rash) and I certainly have nothing against their owners (some of my best friends are cat people). It’s just that my perspective on the pleasures of pet ownership is distinctly skewed towards dogs. As someone who regularly shares a sofa with two snoring, soft-eared Labradors, I don’t need a scientist to tell me my pets are good for me. Taking them on daily walks, soaking up the infectious glee with which they leap over fallen tree trunks and belly-flop into streams, I can feel that my mood is enhanced and my stress reduced. You could argue…

Books. Flowers. Chocolate. Cheese. What else could you possibly need to pop through your letterbox for a guaranteed delivery of happiness each month? Needless to say, the world of subscriptions has moved on from the wine clubs of yesteryear – and now some 58 million of us subscribe to something. From the array of options available, here’s our pick of our favourite subscription pick-me-ups. Greenery on delivery We’re not scientists but we’ve estimated being given fresh flowers increases our happiness levels by 97.8%. Bloom & Wild, bloomandwild.com ramp that up to 100% with their floral dispatches (monthly, from £20), cleverly designed to fit through letterboxes. A more substantial delivery of an actual plant is the joy of Bloombox Club, bloomboxclub.com (£35 a month), which comes with a pot and details…

A game best played with two people, also known as Crazy Eights or Swedish Rummy BASICS: 2–7 players; 52-card deck Each player receives 5 cards (with two players, each receives 7 cards). Remaining cards are placed face down as the stock, with the top card turned up as the starter. First player lays one card on the starter, which must match in either suit or rank. If unable to do this, the player must draw a card from the stock. When the stock is exhausted, a player unable to play must pass. Eights are wild and can be played on any card, regardless of its suit or rank, with the player specifying its suit. Play ends when any player lays his last card. He scores the total of cards remaining…

Luxury Moisturising Handwash MAKES: 125ml KEEPS: At least three months INGREDIENTS: 2 tsp avocado oil Essential oils: 10 drops chamomile, 10 drops lavender, 10 drops neroli 1 tsp glycerine 2 tbsp liquid soap 2 tbsp + 2 tsp boiled or distilled water 2 tbsp + 2 tsp rosewater METHOD 1 Whisk the avocado oil and essential oils into the glycerine. 2 Slowly mix in the rest of the ingredients. 3 Pour into a hand-soap dispenser and shake from time to time. Found in The Domestic Alchemist: 501 Herbal Recipes for Home, Health & Happiness by Pip Waller (Ivy Press)…

ROMEO AND JULIET Don’t be Fortune’s fool when it comes to remembering Shakespeare’s teen tragedy. In fair Verona, we meet two warring families – the Montagues and Capulets. The children of both houses fall in love and secretly marry but Romeo has killed Juliet’s cousin in vengeance for his friend’s death, and is banished from the city. Juliet is told to marry another guy, Paris, so plots a fake death with a sleeping potion. When Romeo arrives, he believes she really is dead, and kills himself. Juliet awakes to see him dead, and takes her own life. The lovers’ bodies are discovered and feud, and play, end. Do say: For never was a story of more woe, than this of Juliet and her Romeo. Don’t say: I prefer West Side…

Picture yourself on holiday. It’s warm and sunny, and you’re lounging somewhere comfy with a beautiful view. There’s a cool drink by your side and… dammit, you’ve left your book on the bedside table. What do you do next? Hands up if you become fidgety, eventually flouncing off to retrieve your paperback or digital reading device. You may as well grab your smartphone and headphones, too, for good measure. What was so unbearable about the thought of just lying there, drifting off into a daydream? Boring, you say? Perhaps that would have been a good thing. A growing body of evidence suggests that we need to let boredom back into our lives if we want to achieve the peace of mind and contentment that we recognise as ‘happiness.’ According to…

Before the understanding comes the wonder. Comes the delight. And that is the first aim of being a birdwatcher: the calm delight of the utterly normal, and the sudden delight of the utterly unexpected. The only real skill involved is the willingness to look. It’s not skill that gives you a sighting; it is habit. I have developed the habit of looking: when I see a bird I always look, wherever I am. It is no longer a conscious decision. I might be in the middle of a conversation of amazing importance about the Direction Of Our Marriage, but my eye will flick out of the window at a hint of movement, caught in the tail of my eye, and I will register: bloody hell, sparrowhawk! I might say it…

What makes the difference between a bog standard tomato sauce and one that is redolent of an Italian kitchen garden in summer? Between a passable salad and one that is complex and moreish? Or a basic béchamel and a fragrant and savoury one? A tiny sprinkling of herbs. Herbs punch above their weight in the kitchen, a mere teaspoonful lending interest and depth, a good handful turning dishes into vibrant celebrations of the season. They are also brilliantly easy to grow, and so a good place to begin if you have a new interest in growing your own. Herbs can produce for meal upon meal from an occasional trickle of water. Many even thrive on being picked, using the nipping out of a few leaves as the stimulus to stop…

M O N O P O LY WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT? A timeless classic. Build a property empire… as well as family rifts that will persist for decades. ANALYSIS Buy orange. In Monopoly, jail is the single most-landed-on square, because there are so many ways of arriving at it. But it’s more about leaving jail. As the most common numbers thrown with two dice are 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, the orange properties – 6, 8 and 9 throws away – offer the steadiest revenue stream. For every 100 hits on purple or blue, you tend to get 122 on orange and red. It’s also about the amount you can extract. Add up the total required to buy all the properties and put hotels on them. Then add up…

Project Make a floral crown Because everyone deserves to feel like a flower queen. • Use some florist’s wire to create a circle that sits neatly atop your head and secure the ends with florist’s tape or washi tape. • Choose greenery and flowers from the garden. A mix of big blousy ones and dainty blooms is good. • Attach the greenery all around the wire to cover it. • Tape together mini bunches of three to five flowers and then secure each bunch around the crown with craft wire. • Add a ribbon to trail artfully down your back. • Retreat to the garden barefoot with a drink of your choice in an elfin manner, if you like. READ... ❍ The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig. Nix sails…

Sun printing sounds magical and actually, the process is about as close to magic as you can get. By applying a light-sensitive dye to a piece of paper or fabric and exposing it to sunlight, you’ll see it change colour before your eyes! Where things get interesting is when you start shielding areas from the sunlight to create intricate patterns. As the process requires very little kit or set-up, it’s a simple way to make your mark. It’s a method with a proud heritage – it links back to the earliest days of photography and cyanotyping (see below). The very first images made using this method were of botanical specimens – plants and flowers, reeds and grasses all offer easy-to-find and distinctive templates. However, anything with a distinctive shape can…

Resilience is something we hear talked about a lot at the moment. We admire people who demonstrate it, employers list it as one of their most desirable assets in workers, and the Finnish – who are revered for their consistently high happiness levels* – pride themselves on their own version of resilience, which they call sisu. But what exactly is it and how can we become more resilient? Resilience is a combination of mental toughness and mental flexibility, says Sam Owen, author of Resilient Me (Orion Spring). It’s that amazing skill that sees us pick ourselves up and carry on when the unexpected happens. An inner strength and determination that kicks in, whether that’s in the everyday stresses or when faced with life’s bigger setbacks. “Like bamboo bending in the…

Onions are a dependable staple that we take fully for granted, but they are also the start of so many delicious things: many of us start an evening meal by chopping and slowly frying an onion and then seeing where the rest of the cupboard takes us. The basic white bulb onions store so well that they are available all year round, as do red onions. Both are lifted in summer and autumn, the skins dried off, and then eaten all through the year. Spring onions do have a season: sown in autumn, they will have grown slowly over winter and put on growth over the last few months, but are always readily available. They have an entirely different set of uses in the kitchen – where the bulb onions…

THE MYSTERY  Frank Copper Sr runs a building firm on the coast with his son, Frank Copper Jr. The seaside weather means houses need painting regularly. Frank Sr’s house is due a facelift but they’re so busy it must be done on weekends. Frank Sr decides that, by working solidly over one weekend, they’ll have enough time to prepare and paint two exterior walls of his house. The next weekend they can paint the two remaining outside walls. By the end of a fortnight, all four sides will be done. But Frank Jr suggests painting just one side of the house. Frank Sr is bemused but decides that, as the business will pass to his son, he should accept his radical idea. The weekend comes and the Franks start work.…

ORIGINALLY, THE SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER – this year it falls on the last Sunday in May and the week that follows it – Whitsun is also known in the Christian calendar as Pentecost. Originally marking the start of summer, since medieval times it’s been associated with time off for workers: with pageants, walks, games and tankards upon tankards of ale. Up until the 1970s, children in the north of England paraded before grandparents in new ‘Whitsuntide clothes’ to receive a little pocket money. It’s also inspired poetry from Larkin, Plath and Auden. So, wherever you are this Whitsun, tie bells to your ankles and have a jig in its honour.…

TO KEEP DRAINS CLEAR, pour half a cup of bicarb or washing soda down the sink. Follow with a cup of white vinegar. Leave, without rinsing, for 15 minutes. Then pour a kettle of boiling water down, too. Taken from Women’s Institute Practical Know-How: In The Home (out of print) A MULTITUDE of baking sins can be covered with sieved icing sugar and/or cocoa. Use a doily as a template when sieving icing sugar onto a cake for an easy decorative effect. Taken from Women’s Institute Practical Know-How In The Kitchen (out of print)…

The Covers Word search Correct answers highlighted below Carousel Answers Ache, Chat, Dhal, Each, Echo, Etch, Hale, Halo, Halt, Hand, Hate, Head, Heal, Heat, Held, Hoed, Hold, Hole, Hone, Loch, Oath, Tech, Than, Then, Ached, Chant, Cheat, Cloth, Death, Hated, Helot, Holed, Honed, Hotel, Latch, Lathe, Leach, Letch, Loach, Loath, Nacho, Notch, Teach, Thane, Theca, Chalet, Clothe, Detach, Haloed, Halted, Handle, Lathed, Loathe, Techno, Cathode, Chanted, Clothed, Ethanol, Latched, Loathed, Notched. 9-letter word: DECATHLON Spot the difference answers 1 Bowl 2 Chillis 3 Chopstick rest 4 Pattern on plate 5 Watch 6 Ribbon 7 Fish motif 8 Finger bowl Quick Fire Quiz Answers  1 Cheese rolling 2 Christina Rossetti 3 Spring vegetables 4 Barwick, Yorkshire 5 Mae West…

ECOSYSTEMS AND BIOMES An ecosystem describes a community of living things within an specific area. It can be small or large – pond or rainforest, for example – but each organism within it has its own niche, and an ecosystem is based on interrelationships between them. Major ecosystems are called biomes: exactly how many different types there are is a matter of (thrilling) discussion, but they would include the likes of deserts, tundra, tropical forests, mountains and coniferous forests. Biomes are shaped by abiotic (nonliving) factors, such as climate, the relief and geology. Plants and animals within a biome will have adapted to these factors. Think of how cacti survives a desert with a waxy coating to reduce water loss, compared to a rose, which would shrivel in the heat…

THE DECKCHAIR Try as hard as you like, but it’s impossible to do anything but lounge in a deckchair. It’s the ideal perch from which to observe the passing scene, be that the local birds hopping about, or perhaps your other half pushing a lawnmower around the garden. This lounging and observing is, of course, best done while peering over a magazine, glass in hand. The deckchair’s zenith was during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when passengers of ocean liners reclined in them between bouts of deck quoits or cocktails at the Captain’s table. The Titanic had some 600 deckchairs. The first British deckchair is attributed to John Thomas Moore, who patented an adjustable folding chair in 1886 and manufactured two different models: the Waverley, described as being…

• Leave your emails unchecked next time you’re waiting for the kettle to boil. Sit and smell the coffee instead. • Go for a walk. Boredom novices find it hard to sit still and stare into space. Repetitive, mindless exercise, such as walking or swimming, leaves your mind free to wander while satisfying your guilt-prone conscience. • Visit green spaces. The sights, sounds and sensations of the natural world are gentle distractions that encourage the mind to go walkabout. • Embrace screen-free Sundays. Disconnect from all electronic media for one day a week and reconnect with your inner and outer worlds. • Listen to your boredom. Is it telling you that you’re unhappy in your job or lifestyle? Research shows that boredom can motivate us to become more altruistic and…

The natural properties of plants have been staples of beauty lotions and potions for centuries, but that can seem far removed from the baffling list of ingredients found on some bottles and jars. A growing number of enthusiasts are going back to basics, happy to know exactly what they are putting on their skin. Whether you’re after a one-off dabble or a more substantial switch in your pampering routine, these fuss-free recipes from Clean Beauty Insiders (cleanbeautyinsiders.com) are a gentle introduction to the art. Once you start experimenting with homemade beauty, you’ll see the contents of the kitchen cupboard in a whole new way. Add coffee grounds to use as an exfoliator, or use the anti-inflammatory qualities of oats to calm your skin. Not sure of where to get hold…

• Many herbs have edible flowers that taste like a slightly honeyed version of the leaf. Basil, oregano and thyme flowers are all ambiguous enough to use as garnishes for sweet or savoury food, and chive, dill and sage flowers are beautiful scattered over savoury dishes and salads. • Make use of seeds, particularly in their young and green stages, when they are like nothing you will ever be able to buy. Green coriander seeds in particular are pungent little flavour bombs and green fennel seeds are sweet, crunchy and aniseedy. • Buy a packet of seeds (or, even better, collect your own) and you can sow them thickly and harvest within a week or so as micro leaves, to provide little punchy and flavourful garnishes. Basil, dill, chervil, fennel…

ow did meditation H begin? It’s nice to think our hunter-gatherer ancestors fell into trance-like states while staring at their nighttime fires, but nobody really knows. The earliest written evidence of meditation comes from the Hindu Vedic scripts, around 1,500 BCE (talking about practices that date much further back, easily 5,000 years or more). By 500 BCE, forms of meditation are also being described in Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist texts in both China and India. Originally, the aim of meditation was to reach understanding of the higher being (Brahman in Hinduism), but Siddhārtha Gautama (aka ‘the Buddha’) shifted the goalposts when he reached enlightenment under the Bodhi tree. After this, Buddhist meditation became focused on realising our connection with all of creation. Zen Buddhism pared the process down even further,…

JENGA WHAT: Pull blocks from the tower without causing it to topple over. HOW: To steady the tower as you remove a block, put your elbow on the table and your forearm vertically against it. SIX DEGREES OF KEVIN BACON WHAT: Link Kevin Bacon to any other actor, just by the films they worked on together. HOW: Look for anchor points. John Wayne and Cary Grant will help you get to early-20th-century American cinema. Gérard Depardieu and Stellan Skarsgård help the leap to Europe; Amitabh Bachchan to Bollywood. QUIZZES/TRIVIAL PURSUIT WHAT: Gladiatorial combat for providing one’s social supremacy through the recall of unusual facts. HOW: There’s a central, inescapable truth about quizzing: it’s about knowledge. Sorry.…