Monday 29 September 2014

Amal Alamuddin marries an actor

There's a magazine called The Business Woman - and we like it.

This week it has reported on the wedding of Amal Alamuddin, top Human Rights Lawyer, going against the trend for a professional woman in her marriage to 'an actor'.

She's multi-talented, award winning and supremely popular - she's described by Julia Roberts (yes the actress) as "beautiful and smart" and by the solicitor who hired her to represent Julian Assange as "a fabulously bright woman, she's independent, has a Rolls-Royce mind and inter social skills to die for".

And then the magazine takes a look at the 'actor' she's marrying...

They say "He's probably a nice man, but seems to be a bit clingy, as since she met him it's hard to find a photo or footage of Amal without him hanging around in the background.  We only hope he doesn't hold her back from conquering the world."

We can only agree with this sentiment and wish the newly-weds all the luck in the world.

And they make such a lovely couple:


Monday 22 September 2014

Is it all Strictly above board?

As Strictly Come Dancing is all set to hit our TV screens this coming Friday, it is announced that Ben Cohen, now dancing with Russian Kristina Rihanoff, has split from his wife.

The newspapers have, of course, gone into a frenzy talking about the 'curse of Strictly' and citing former contestants Susanna Reid, Rachel Riley and Joe Calzaghe who all split with their former loves to take up with their dancing partners.

There have been some beautiful relationships built too - Kara Tointon with Artem Chigvintsev and Flavia Cacace with Jimi Mistry, who married this year.

We'll all be glued to the new series of Strictly this weekend, and by the end of Saturday night I bet we'll have forgotten about the bust-ups and just be revelling in the sequins and sparkle!

Monday 15 September 2014

No money = no happiness?

We all know that two of the greatest pressures on a relationship are money and kids.  A recent survey, by Relate, shows that couples who have suffered the most in this latest recession are EIGHT times more likely to break up.  And for those who have been hardest hit but who managed to stay together, their relationship was likely to have deteriorated.

However, the Office for National Statistics reckoned almost the opposite was true - that actually the divorce rate was falling whilst unemployment was rising.  They further say that couples have been brought closer together by having to work together harder to survive the economic downturn.

In Relate's study, six categories of economic survival were used:

1.  Forging ahead
2.  Doing well
3.  Getting by
4.  Overworked and underpaid
5.  Bearing the brunt
6.  Distressed and disengaged

Their conclusion was that people in category 6 were eight times more likely to break up than those in category 1.

Who knows, these 6 categories may in future be used to determine how at risk your relationship might be - any one of us, at any time, fits into one of those categories, and it might be a useful way of looking at our lives in general to keep a close eye on relationships when the going gets tough.