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I am perfectly aware that when you are in love you do not see reality as it is and tend to idealize the object of my affection. I have fallen in love, deeply, but I will still try to be as objective as possible.

To put Galicia in context, it is a place full of magic with hidden treasures in each town or mountain. When my parents got married, they decided to take a road trip through Spain; so, my first contact with Spain was when I was little and I saw the photos of my parents' trip in the family albums. There was something that drew me to Spain, I don't know if it was the smiling people that I saw in the photos, the colors, or the light.

Over time, first on television and later on the internet, I began to see more videos and images of Spain and, specifically, of a small region that caught my attention, Galicia. It seemed different from other areas, very green and everyone spoke very highly of its gastronomy, so I decided that I should visit it.

I like to surprise myself when I travel and that is the reason why I never look for much information about my destination. That's how I ended up in the Ribeira Sacra, one of the most  enticing places I've ever seen in my life.

However, I have come here to talk about food, and, specifically, I have come here to tell you about my experience in what is possibly the best restaurant in that area, Trespes. In an quaint house on the banks of the river Cabe with a terrace full of geraniums, I found a restaurant serving typical Galician food. Sometimes things are not what they seem, sometimes they are better.

If you want to eat at this restaurant, I recommend you make your reservation in advance, especially in summer due to its popularity. I was very lucky, it was October, and autumn was beginning, the  tourists had already returned home. I was lucky enough to be able to enjoy the enchanting terrace without having made a reservation in advance.

The staff who welcomed me were incredibilly charming and, in addition to offering me the menu in English (something quite uncommon) they explained the daily specials to me in my mother tongue.

There were two of us and we decided to try the cockles. Neve in my life had I tasted such as flavoursome cockles. As a main course we let the delightful server advise us and although I have to say that it was very good, I think that any choice would have been fantastic. We tried a grilled wild boar loin marinated in citrus on a base of sweet potato mash with carrot and grilled parsnip that left us speechless and the tastiest, juiciest and most delicious pork shank you can imagine, with a chestnut garnish and vegetables that made us want to cry with joy.

Although by dessert we were not hungry, we did not want to leave the restaurant without trying its famous rice pudding. Rice pudding is a fairly typical dessert in Galicia and particularly in Asturias (another Spanish region bordering Galicia) and we had eaten it many times but....this was not your typical rice pudding, it was RICE PUDDING in capital letters. We also tried the bica, a typical sponge cake from the Ribeira Sacra, with cream cheese and red berries. As soon as we finished eating the last bite of bica, both of us were overwhelmed by a feeling between happiness for having been able to enjoy such a fantastic meal and sadness because the experience was over.

I don't know when but I am through and through we will return.

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The abandoned ham in Lugo will be destroyed after spending several days in lost property

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The abandoned ham in Lugo will be destroyed after spending several days in lost property

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Agents of the Local Police moved last Tuesday, the 14th, to their headquarters a ham that they found abandoned on a wall at the confluence between Pintor Corredoira and Ramón Ferreiro, in the capital of Lugo. Agents of the Local Police moved last Tuesday, the 14th, to their headquarters a ham that they found abandoned on a wall at the confluence between Pintor Corredoira and Ramón Ferreiro, in the capital of Lugo. Yesterday morning, the necessary administrative procedure for the destruction of the piece of meat was covered, which, apparently, is so hardened that it is not edible.

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The DJ cat that does not let the neighbors of lugo sleep

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The DJ cat that does not let the neighbors of lugo sleep

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The feline, who was alone at home, turned on the music device and put the volume at maximum.
The neighbors called the police thinking that someone was organizing a party but when the police went to the address in question, they found that there was no one in the house. The only one who was participating in the revelry was a cat, who had been left alone and, apparently, wanting a lot of party

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Prices are skyrocketing, so the team keeps only the essentials. It's called 'downsizing'.

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Hi there, I'm sharing my story cause I feel between a rock and a hard place and I don’t have a clue about what to do. My two best friends had an argument and all hell broke loose. If they hadn’t embarked in that Multi-Level Marketing scam, we wouldn’t be in this situation. They might not have understood the risk they were taking, their savings vanished into thin air and both blame each other. Guess who’s in the middle.

Hardly could I have imagined  a situation like this with a guy I met at kindergarten and spent my childhood playing with… And now he’s ghosting me after all we lived together - he leaves WhatsApp messages unanswered, missed calls are never returned and so forth, just for me keeping in touch with my college’s best friend. Of course, I didn’t spend my childhood and early teens with him, but we share professional interest, we have parallel careers and our paths may meet in a not so distant future.

I am close to my 30th birthday, and I wonder if I should try to fix the situation or just part ways with both and move on with my life.

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Did you say I am taking anti-covid measures too far? Nonsense.

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“I don’t understand this complaint. What do you mean I’m so old-school, I’m stuck in the Dark Ages?”

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Are you “human” or “animal” dentists? That’s ACTUALLY the question!

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Are you “human” or “animal” dentists? That’s ACTUALLY the question!

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Dear receptionist,

I believe that’s the actual question you should be asking yourself and the people who run the dental clinic. Judging by your comment about the number of teeth a crocodile has, I don’t think you’re qualified to be dealing with animals at all: a crocodile can have over 3000 teeth through its whole life, not within its mouth — like sharks, their teeth fall down and new ones grow to replace the old.

Though I appreciate that you enjoy my column, I’m afraid I have to be rough with you, pets are a delicate matter and people hold them very close to their hearts! Even your regular cat and dog have a special needs that differ from one of a human, what is good to a person might be toxic to them. What I’m trying to say is, you could have put those pets in danger if you were using the same dental products you were using with your human clients.

The dilemma, therefore, has an easy answer: you shouldn’t do it, but you shouldn’t accept regular pets either!

Stay in your lane and establish clear boundaries to your clients, less you want a cougar next — if they want their pet’s teeth cleaned, they should go to a vet or a specialized professional.

P.S. if you were curious, a crocodile can hold over 80 teeth in their jaws, while a cougar around 30. Still, they have equal chances of “unhanding” you, if you know what I mean!

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Tell the next helpless princess to come in for the interview.

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Dear Overworked,
I think you are in an -almost- impossible situation where you have to choose between your friends and a job that makes you feel miserable.
In my humble opinion, your options are clear: You can talk to your colleagues to gauge whether they would be willing to take a step to change the situation in your company. If they are, and you manage to unite, submit a proposal to the parent company.
If they are not, run away! Your emotional well-being is more important than a "bearable" job with a "decent" salary. I am sure you will be able to find a position where your efforts are more valued. And as for the friends you have already made, you can always meet them outside working hours. Besides, this way you'll still be able to keep up with the office gossip!
I hope these tips will help you to clear your head.
Regards,
Your Agony Aunt

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Hi there! I'm Laura, from A Coruña. I love languages and wish to live in a foreign country in a not-so-near future. Maybe I'll manage to do so when my child comes of age!

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I’m stuck at a crossroad regarding my job situation and I don’t know what to do. While my boss constantly breathes down my neck to get things done and not once has he recognized my efforts, I’ve made good friends in the company and I can’t complain about the pay. Ditching this job for another could entail a bad workplace and even worse salary. Even if the new job saved me from the boring routine of my current one and the new boss appreciated my work, it doesn’t feel worth it in the long run: money makes the world go round and being good friends with the colleagues makes the hours bearable, while the opposite would quickly turn the workplace into hell on earth.

My colleagues are unhappy as well with their work situation, but I doubt they’ll back me up if I were to complain to the boss, as they have more to lose than me if things go sour. However, my position in this company —I’m the only one who speaks the same language as our parent company and I’m the one responsible to mediate with them— allows me more bargaining power, so the support of my colleagues might not be needed to get things done.

Should I stick my neck out for my colleagues or should I only act on my best interests, ditching the job and leave my friends behind? Could there be a third option? If our boss hadn’t overworked us so much, we wouldn’t have gotten into this situation.

– Overworked

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Hi! My name is Rebeca, and I was both born and raised in Mieres. However, I hope to move somewhere else in the future — that’s why I strive to get my C2 certificate as soon as possible. Language is key to communicate and move around, after all. Once I master English though, French is next!

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Time to roll!....

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Hello Agony Aunt!                    I'm not going to beat around the bush so I'll just quickly start off with telling you my most recent problem.     I was hanging out with a friend the other day when suddenly they made a few  comments that were borderline homophobic. I didn't really process those comments until I came home and replayed the conversation. I started freaking out since they are one of my closest friends and it hurt to think that they might be homophobic. And so here I am asking for advice on how to handle this. Should I simply confront them about it? Tell the rest of our friend group since it would actively affect them to have a homophobic person in the group? Should I forget about it? Maybe it wasn't with ill intention. I just don't know what to do and I would hate to look back on this and feel regret, thinking that maybe if I had handled it different the outcome would have been better.      What do you think I should do? 

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Hello Agony Aunt!                    I'm not going to beat around the bush so I'll just quickly start off with telling you my most recent problem.     I was hanging out with a friend the other day when suddenly they made a few  comments that were borderline homophobic. I didn't really process those comments until I came home and replayed the conversation. I started freaking out since they are one of my closest friends and it hurt to think that they might be homophobic. And so here I am asking for advice on how to handle this. Should I simply confront them about it? Tell the rest of our friend group since it would actively affect them to have a homophobic person in the group? Should I forget about it? Maybe it wasn't with ill intention. I just don't know what to do and I would hate to look back on this and feel regret, thinking that maybe if I had handled it different the outcome would have been better.      What do you think I should do? 

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'I don't think this apartment is up our alley '

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Hello everyone! My name is Andrea and I was born and raised in Monforte. I'm fresh out of college with an educational degree under my arm and as for now, I'm focusing on my C2 certificate as well as my Oposiciones exam that is right around the corner.

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'The head of your last lover. Rare, as you like it.'

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I’m Néstor, born and raised in Mieres. I used to work as a freelance in the financial field, which forced me to deal with Shakespeare's language day in and day out. Eager to understand how the human mind works, I’m currently studying hard in order to get both my Psychology degree and my C2 diploma.

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"In the name of the father..."

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Hello! My name is Vanesa. I am from Monforte although I have lived in the UK for several years. Apart from teaching at the School of Languages, I am fond of photography and dancing and I also love languages and travelling, as Sara does 

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Hello! My name is Vanesa. I am from Monforte although I have lived in the UK for several years. Apart from teaching at the School of Languages, I am fond of photography and dancing and I also love languages and travelling, as Sara does 

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To brush or not to brush, that is the question

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To brush or not to brush, that is the question

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Good morning, I work as a receptionist in a dental clinic, throughout this week 3 people have come to ask if we can brush their pets' teeth, we said yes to a cat and a dog but now a man has come with a crocodile . The dilemma is: should we do it? would it be dangerous since the animal would have its mouth open? How much should we charge considering that a crocodile has 3000 teeth? I read you every week, you are great!

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I am Sara Mera, a student at the monforte language school. Half Galician, half Asturian and that shows in my love for cheese above all. I study English since high school but also German, Portuguese and I tried it with Hungarian. I love languages and traveling. What about you?

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Dear Agony Aunt,

I probably should have written to you earlier because I have had a hole in my heart for some time now that won’t heal.

It all started when a guy from work asked me out. I wasn't very excited at first, but eventually said yes. In the month that followed, I fell head over heels in love with him.

It all blew up when I discovered that M. was not only dating me, but another co-worker too! That caught me completely unawares. My heart wished it was all a mistake, but deep inside I knew it was true.

Since then, every time we cross paths, my stomach turns. I wish I had never met him! It is true that had I not accepted his proposal, I would not have lived that wonderful month in which I thought I was the centre of his universe… But still, I don’t think it was worth it.

As a consequence of this horrible experience, and even if I know I shouldn't close myself off to love just because of a bad apple, I find it hard to trust people and move on. Any advice?

Laura

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Each week The New Yorker has a Cartoon Caption Contest. A cartoon is published and the readers sumbit their own caption. We will share in this section the weekly cartoon and you have to write a new entry below with your caption. You can vote for your favourite clicking the ❤️.

You can also enter The New Yorker Contest for real!

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Cartoon Caption Contest | The New Yorker

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Each week, we provide a cartoon in need of a caption. You, the reader, submit your caption below, we choose three finalists, and you vote for your favorite. Finalists for this week's cartoon, by Adam Sacks, will appear online December 11th and in the December 18, 2023, issue of The New Yorker.

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We would like to meet and get to know a bit better our M&M newspaper staff!
You can introduce yourself with a tweet (280 characters) with or without an image or, alternatively, record a 1 minute message introducing yourself (audio or video)

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You are going to write a story to send to an Agony Aunt/Uncle section in a newpaper. Your story can be real or fake, but you must present a dilemma that the writer of the column and the readers must help you solve.
You must include certain grammar and vocabulary elements:
- One inversion
- One sentence using a third conditional.
- One modal verb for a past action
- Two phrasal verbs
- Two idioms.
Write your story in 150-200 words in one of the columns for your school.

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Tim's Free English Lesson Plans

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“How do you write an advice column?” - The Phoenix

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— anonymous, via Google form Hello, and thank you for your interesting question. I chose to answer your question because it wasn’t graphic, unintelligible, or any of the five questions I received asking what my last name was. So I regret to say that I don’t love your question. I will try my best t…

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After many years What I do is important to me, but I cannot fathom that this is what my life will be for maybe the next 40 years - wearing dress code-appropriate clothing, wolfing down sandwiches in my 30-minute lunch break, then puttering back to my home to get a good eight hours so I can do it all again. The dream job did not exactly come with a dream salary, so shorter hours are out of the question, and I honestly don't think that would solve the underlying issue. While I wait for automation to take away the need for humans to work at all, any advice? I have finally got my "dream" job - it's perfect for me, the work is meaningful and genuinely interesting. However, a new problem has reared its head that I was not expecting - while I love my job, I resent having to work at all. I have become irrationally angry at the amount of time work takes up, that its schedule dictates most of my days, decisions on where I can live, that I have to request days off.
First, let me warn you that many people who hear this may bristle and start telling you about the noble value of a job. "It's character building; you should be grateful you even have one." Don't listen.

While it's true that some people find meaning in their career or use it to forge an identity they're proud of, the fact that's true for them doesn't mean it should be for you. You're not deviant for feeling this way - I've said elsewhere that the idea that work has moral value unto itself is a myth we pay for with the one resource we can never replenish: our time.

But that doesn't soften the brute reality that we have to get money somehow. I think a lot of the resentment we can feel at work comes from knowing quite how brute that reality is: it's not just that the tasks grate, whether we're sending emails or stacking shelves. It's the feeling that there's no choice about it. That can make us feel hollowed of agency, conveyor-belted into a life we don't recognise - you capture it when you talk about wolfing meals, dressing for others, constantly needing permission. No one likes to feel they're not the author of their own life.

The task in front of you, I think, is to restore a sense of agency.

Start with the parts of life that aren't work. It's perilously easy to commute home, mush-brained and worn through, and collapse into screens until bedtime. Try very hard not to do that. Find whatever it is that restores your energy and identity after work and insist on doing it. Cycle home; dance to loud music when you get there; join a community group that will expect you at a certain time; put cold pickles on your eyes if you need to - anything that will wash the work torpor off you so can insist your leisure time will be spent on your joys and projects, not just the absence of work. The more you can populate life with things you recognise as yours, the less it will feel like work is swallowing you whole.

Then think about work itself. What can you do that will make your relationship to your job feel more deliberate, more inhabited? Is it being a workplace organiser for something you care about; resolving you don't answer emails after a certain time? Is it making a passion project of the history of work, so time spent at work feels like field notes rather than drudgery? You could even sit down and work out exactly how much money you need to live the life you want, and ask whether this job is the best way to make that money. You can answer either way, as long as you answer - as long as it feels like a decision.

You aren't alone in feeling this way. But the world does constrain our choices - every day we have to make decisions about what we'll sacrifice in exchange for something else. The key to not letting that fact erode you is being able to recognise yourself in what is decided.

Ask us a question

Do you have a conflict, crossroads or dilemma you need help with? Eleanor Gordon-Smith will help you think through life's questions and puzzles, big and small. Questions can be anonymous.

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While I love my job, I resent having to work at all. Any advice? | Leading questions

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After many years What I do is important to me, but I cannot fathom that this is what my life will be for maybe the next 40 years - wearing dress code-appropriate clothing, wolfing down sandwiches in my 30-minute lunch break, then puttering back to my home to get a good eight hours so I can do it all again.

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Skip to content

Long Reads

Written by Hannah Keegan

Hannah Keegan is the deputy features editor at Stylist magazine. You can find her on twitter at @hannahkeegan.

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Once a naff mark of 00s media, agony aunts are back and surprisingly better than ever. We track their steady rise.

It's a lazy Sunday evening and there is a nagging problem in your life, so who do you turn to? A good friend? Your therapist? Perhaps instead you grab your phone and fire off the dilemma to a 30-year-old, perennially smiley TikToker named Tinx. As the self-proclaimed "big sister" of the app, Tinx's rise to fame (she has over 1.5 million followers) has hinged on her uncanny ability to forge a sense of intimacy with her followers while positioning herself as a woman In The Know.

A regular question looks something like this: "Tinx! Why do men always ghost? I'm too old for these mind games." Tinx will then dispense advice so comforting that you will feel enlightened regardless of whether or not you relate to the dilemma. Now, in collaboration with SiriusXM, she's unveiled a new podcast and radio show that sees followers call in to seek her sought-after words. Even as someone who has always been slightly suspicious of advice, I am hooked.

I'm not alone. If you haven't noticed, agony aunts are back with a boom. Whether it's Stylist's own monthly advice column Ask Billie, which sees our fashion and beauty director Billie Bhatia field readers' concerns - from worries about making friends as an adult to body and intimacy hang ups. Or The Cut's buzzy Hola Papi, where writer JP Brammer guides readers on everything from what to do if your coming out moment feels anticlimactic to feeling jealous of a hot friend.

In the newsletter world, writer Heather Havrilesky's Ask Polly, formerly of New York Magazine, is in high demand, while writer Haley Nahman has incorporated a monthly advice column into her popular Maybe Baby newsletter. If you'd rather listen to your advice, then there are a plethora of ways to get your fix - from comedian Chelsea Handler's new Dear Chelsea podcast to the podcasting giant Dear Sugars, which is now in its fourteenth year. I could go on.

Perhaps, then, our revived interest in the form speaks simply to human nature and downright nosiness. "The earliest advice columns date back to the 1690s, if you can believe it," says academic Danielle Bainbridge, who hosted the PBS show Origin of Everything, which explored the history of agony aunts in an episode.

"In the beginning they focused more on societal questions and philosophical puzzles from 'experts' or gatekeepers of knowledge. But with rising literacy rates, they shifted to address more issues related to women in the late 19th century, with columnists like Dorothy Dix becoming popular." Dix's advice centred on marriage and home life - and at its peak in 1940, Dix received around 100,000 letters a year and had an estimated readership of 60 million.

Surprisingly, though, the advice column's pivot to ' women's issues ', which went on to eclipse the genre, was in some ways an accident. "It was a magazine publisher called John Dunton who first hit on the idea that his readers' own dramas were much more interesting than politics or current affairs."

"He published the first letters in the A thenian Mercury in 1691, but after a few years, his postbag was so full that he needed more people to reply to the letters, so he decided to hire some women writers to lend a feminine touch. The idea quickly caught on," explains Tanith Carey, author of Never Kiss A Man In A Canoe: Words Of Wisdom From The Golden Age Of Agony Aunts. "The first ever magazine just for women, The Ladies' Mercury, established in 1693, had a section just for questions from women. After that, the agony aunt's page mainly became geared to women."

But this was not exactly the picture of sisterly guidance you might at first mistake it for. "There was a total lack of sisterly solidarity towards the women writing in," adds Carey. "This is because for a long time agony aunts saw their jobs as maintaining the high moral tone of their publication and upholding societal expectations of the day. So if women wrote in complaining about their treatment by boyfriends or husbands, they usually got told to put up or shut up. Well into the 40s and 50s, agony aunts continued to tell women a wife's job was to prop up the male ego, look pretty on the doorstep when they came home from work and pay them compliments."

It was the sexual revolution of the 1960s that (thank god) finally shook the column world up. "Modern agony aunts like Marje Proops led the way by talking with a newfound directness about sex. It is at this point that agony aunts' replies start to move into the modern world," adds Carey.

Today, sexual freedom and the complications of relationships are a key marker of most advice columns you'll come across - and it's the honesty of these letters and, sometimes, their shock-factor that pulls us in. When JP Brammer began his much-loved column Hola Papi! in 2017, for example, it was for the dating app Grindr, which was launching a new content platform.

"It was meant to be a sort of joke column," he explains. "Imagine Dear Abby as a gay Mexican man on Grindr. But the letters were very personal and moving, and so it eventually became a much more serious endeavour. I think a lot of people sent me letters just to have someone to talk to or to put their feelings down and send them to someone. I think that loneliness and a longing for connection are defining features of this age we're in."

For some, there is the question of the ethics in dispensing advice without the psychology degree to back it up, but for most columnists this is a moot point. "Advice has never been the sole propriety of professionals," says Brammer. "I always make it clear that I'm not a therapist, that I'm really just some guy. But if you think about it, it's usually our friends who we go to for advice; it's sitting in a bar talking to your pals about your problems."

At a time when meaningful connections feel harder to come by for many, it's the trusted stranger - whether a TikTok star, a podcaster or a favourite newsletter writer - that we find ourselves turning to. "It brings a feeling of pleasure and solace in troubled times," adds Brammer. "Reality is messy, of course, but it can be nice to find refuge in the small universe of someone's column." We couldn't agree more.
Images: Getty

Copyright © 2010-2022 Stylist

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From TikTok to call-in shows, this is how agony aunts got their cool back

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Skip to content Long Reads Written by Hannah Keegan Hannah Keegan is the deputy features editor at Stylist magazine. You can find her on twitter at @hannahkeegan. background Layer 1 Add this article to your list of favourites Once a naff mark of 00s media, agony aunts are back and surprisingly better than ever.