The Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which left 17 students and faculty dead, has reignited ever-present calls for stricter gun control laws and strengthening of the background check system for gun purchases.

Another proposal that has gotten renewed attention is arming teachers in the classroom.

After 20 children and 6 school administrators were murdered by a gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, the National Rifle Association put out a report suggesting school staff should be trained and armed on school grounds.

While the proposal has been assailed, that hasn't stopped some elected officials and law enforcement professionals from seriously suggesting it in the wake of the latest school shooting.

Since the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, there have been 25 school shootings in the US, but little change in gun laws.

“I believe that school teachers should be taught how to deal with guns, when guns come to the classroom,” Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones said.

The idea was also underscored by former House Speaker and current conservative radio staple Newt Gingrich. "If we are really serious about protecting our children, we must have trained and equipped protectors prepared to handle this type of situation whenever there are school activities," Gingrich wrote in an op-ed for Fox News.

The day I am required to carry a gun in my classroom is the day I leave education.

However, Refinery29 spoke to teachers who believe arming educators is not the way to stop school shootings.

"I think the idea of arming teachers is insane. Its a classroom, not a prison," Jenny Jordan a high school history, economics and government teacher in Kansas tells Refinery29. "How am I supposed to create a positive, supportive, and safe culture in my room if I am armed? How am I supposed to teach effectively if I am carrying or there is a gun locked up in my room? The day I am required to carry a gun in my classroom is the day I leave education."

Jordan — who grew up in a household with guns — says she has "nightmares about school shootings" and thinks often about how she would respond. "Where would we hide? Would I be able to break out the window and escape? Its really sad to see whenever there is a loud crash or bang, everyone stops and looks around with a worried look in their eyes."

Jordan's feelings of fear and anxiety were echoed by other teachers, as well. "I’m very concerned about school shootings, many surrounding schools have had guns found on the premises," a kindergarten teacher in Virginia tells Refinery29. (This teacher did not want her name used in this piece out of concerns for her privacy.) "To protect our kids it will take the passing of a law. Prevent these things from happening — not arm the teachers 'just in case.' What happens if a kid gains access to teacher weapons or someone breaks in to steal them? That’s just absurd. More guns are not the solution!"

Claudine Williams, who teaches sixth through eighth grade in the Bronx, New York agrees that teachers should not be armed. "At this point I think we need to have metal detectors in all schools and even a police officer on staff. School shootings have been increasing and we are losing too many innocent lives due to this nonsense," Williams tells Refinery29.

At no point in our profession should we feel the need to ever use violence in a classroom under any circumstance and we should firmly represent this attitude in order to educate our young people to follow suit.

While many US teachers have anxiety over the possibility of a school shooting, that feeling is somewhat unfamiliar to teachers in the UK, where we have much stricter gun laws.

"In terms of my normal working day, I can't say a school shooting has ever crossed my mind as an active worry, it's just not on my radar as something that could potentially happen to me during my day at work," Lauren Fallows, a secondary school English teacher in Blackburn (45 minutes outside of Manchester, England), tells Refinery29. "I'd go as far as to say that the thought of that happening is as alien to me as an elephant arriving at my classroom ready to study Shakespeare."

Fallows says she does not believe teachers should be armed, but that belief could be "influenced by the culture we have here in the UK a culture in which I feel safe at work."

"At no point in our profession should we feel the need to ever use violence in a classroom under any circumstance and we should firmly represent this attitude in order to educate our young people to follow suit," Fallows says. She also says that banning the sale of firearms entirely would be a solution to the problem of school shootings in the US.

"I feel that gun culture creates gun culture; you need one, so I need one, so everyone's needs one," Fallows adds."Before you know it, the whole world is armed and guns are in the hands of those who aren't fit to have them."

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As #MeToo ricocheted around the world last year, some people began to wonder if the phrase might become a haven for Hollywood stars and shut out women like Tarana Burke, who created the hashtag more than a decade ago.

In a true show of solidarity, many of the biggest names in entertainment banded together to launch Time's Up, an initiative that provides resources (in the form of information and a legal defence fund) to women who have experienced sexual harassment or assault in the workplace.

Only two months after launching, 1,569 people have contacted Time's Up for help, reveals The Washington Post.

The fund has raised $21 million so far and "those resources are being used to help waitresses, nurses, government employees, sales clerks and women in virtually every field who are coming forward." Representatives from Time's Up say that some men — 30 in total, or 2% of those reaching out — have also sought help from the fund.

Providing the financial means for victims to seek recourse and have their day in court after being fired or forced out of their jobs can go a long way. Economic intimidation is a major factor in why so many women remain silent about their experiences. At the same time, simply knowing what resources exist seems to be another reason why Time's Up has grown so quickly.

Tina Tchen, former chief of staff Michelle Obama and a founder of the fund told the Post it's no surprise that "the phones are ringing off the hook" as previously, many women had no idea where to find help. Now, Shonda Rhimes told the paper, "people are reaching out from all over the world."

To request legal assistance from Time's Up for sexual harassment or retaliation in the workplace, fill out this form at the National Women’s Law Center.

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The style at London Fashion Week is unparalleled for numerous reasons. Firstly, Londoners have a particular irreverence when it comes to putting an outfit together, happy to forgo conventional style rules to reach slightly off-kilter sartorial excellence. Backless kitten heels, fishnet socks, skinny sunglasses and a silk-blend trench when it's sleeting? Why not.

The UK fash pack also has a masterful way of fusing high and low, wearing streetwear with tailoring, maybe throwing an Aries long-sleeved T-shirt over a Simone Rocha or Molly Goddard dress.

Lastly, LFW brings together London's divergent style tribes, from the vibrantly clothed club kids outside the Fashion East show and the disco dressers giving us high-octane glamour front row at Halpern, to the Palace, Supreme and Gosha Rubchinskiy fans sporting the latest Burberry collaboration outside Christopher Bailey's last show.

Click on to see Refinery29's roundup of the best looks pounding the pavement at London Fashion Week AW18.

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Rosey Adams was at the start of her third trimester when her midwife encouraged her to go and see her GP. That same day, she was put on medication for depression.

“For a while, I was just in denial about it. I was scared to speak to my GP or my midwife, because I wasn’t sure of what would happen if I wasn't very well,” says the 29-year-old mother of three from Scotland, talking about her last pregnancy, eight years ago.

Despite having suffered from depression since her teenage years, Adams didn’t really worry about it when she found out she was expecting her first baby, at 18. “The thought of being a young mum and having a pregnancy was more of a worry than my mental health. It just didn’t really occur to me, I didn’t realise that pregnancy could have such a big effect on my mental health, and a lot of women go through the same, there’s just not enough awareness out there,” she says.

She now thinks depression affected all three of her pregnancies, although her last experience was the worst: “My third pregnancy was the one where it was most severe and the symptoms were far more obvious, with things like intrusive thoughts about not wanting to continue with the pregnancy and not wanting to be here,” she remembers.

Depression, anxiety and other mental health issues don’t only come up after giving birth, as a quarter of pregnant women actually experience these problems while expecting, according to a new study from King’s College London – more than previously thought, researchers say.

“There has been a lot of focus on the after-birth period, on postnatal depression particularly, it is almost as if people have assumed that pregnancy is a protective time. What the study illustrates is that it is not because, actually, mental health problems are really common,” says Louise Howard, professor of women’s mental health at King’s College London and author of the study.

While it is likely that some of the conditions detected in the research were longstanding, there are also many reasons why somebody would develop a new mental illness durin g a pregnancy. Especially if that pregnancy is unplanned, unwanted or the result of rape or partner violence, Howard points out.

A lot of focus is usually put on depression – which still affects an estimated 11% of pregnant women – but the study found anxiety to be the most common problem (15%), with women also experiencing eating disorders (2%), obsessive-compulsive disorder (2%), PTSD or bipolar disorder, as well as a combination of different issues.

“There isn't as much knowledge – research knowledge or general knowledge – about these problems in pregnancy, particularly the problems that aren’t depression,” Howard explains. All these illnesses are problematic, all of them are going to have an impact on the woman and her pregnancy, and there need to be tailored treatments in place, she argues.

Since 2015, the UK has been developing new services for maternal mental health care, but availability is still patchy and interventions tend to focus on treating cases at the more severe end, instead of working to prevent them.

Women usually seek help and advice from their GP, their midwife or health visitors, and Howard says these are the people who need to be trained to identify mental health problems and give the most appropriate information and advice – about possible risks, best psychological interventions or medication issues, for instance. “Certainly we have quite a way to go in terms of these professionals being trained up enough to feel confident that they know how to ask and know how to respond. And, of course, there is no point in asking if the services are not yet available.”

Christina Taylor was 26 when she got pregnant with her first child about six years ago, probably after a bulimic episode affected her birth control. Having struggled with eating disorders since the age of 13, she felt absolutely terrified and excited, at the same time.

“I told my midwife [about my eating disorder] immediately, but at 16 weeks I was struggling so much with keeping any food in me at all or knowing how to feed myself that I saw my GP and asked to be referred to eating disorders services and a dietician,” she explains. She didn’t receive any help, and it was only after a fall at 28 weeks pregnant that a midwife picked up on her distress and referred her to mental health services.

“I remember walking into my first appointment and the therapist asking why it had taken me 34 weeks to get any help, and I just burst into tears,” she recalls.

Three years later, when she became pregnant again, she was much further along her recovery process and more assertive about getting help. At that point though, she wasn’t considered unwell enough to receive support from mental health services: “It got to a point where the consultant I was under just brought me in every two weeks to talk to me and reassure me about the pregnancy, simply because no one else was interested in helping me,” she says. Her midwife also granted her extra appointments, but it is crucial that everyone is able to access the resources they need before symptoms get worse and recovery more difficult.

Some women may not even realise they have a mental health problem – despite having symptoms like extreme fatigue or not being able to sleep or to eat, for instance. They may not have been asked about their emotional wellbeing in a sensitive way, causing doctors to miss an official diagnosis.

Even for those who do realise, they may not want to get help, for fear of being judged. “A lot of women worry that social services might be involved, so they don’t want to access services for that reason,” Professor Howard says. “It isn’t the case that just because you have a mental illness there is going to be an impact on the child,” she clarifies. And no, you will not automatically get postnatal depression, if you had depression during pregnancy. “The simplistic messages that are sometimes out there are unhelpful and actually blame women, who end up feeling very guilty, thinking that somehow they’re causing damage to the next generation and that maybe they’re not good mothers,” she warns.

Having dealt with depression during and after pregnancy, Adams says women need more honesty from healthcare professionals, as well as other women and the media, to overcome the misconception that pregnancy is an ecstatic experience for everyone. “There’s a lot of taboo of not wanting to say you’re actually struggling and not enjoying your pregnancy,” she says.

Taylor’s eating disorder made her feel especially guilty: “So many women would kill to have a healthy pregnancy and baby – how can you talk about the fact that the idea of putting on weight paralyses you with fear or that you feel so miserable you can barely get up in the morning?” She feared talking about it, and even experienced a backlash on a website for mothers where women told her she was lucky to be pregnant at all, when she asked for advice.

Even though access to specialist resources is still limited, if a woman is struggling through her pregnancy the advice is to talk to a trusted professional – maybe a GP or a midwife – to work out the best intervention available locally. “Some GP practices actually do have a psychologist there, or they might be referring to a perinatal psychiatrist if it’s a different kind of problem, it really depends,” explains Professor Howard. “The important thing is to share how you are feeling with a health professional, ideally as early as possible, so you can receive treatment and hopefully enjoy the rest of your pregnancy.”

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When it comes to love, dating and sex, Muslims are often conspicuous in their absence from the public conversation. From Muslim dating apps to halal sex shops selling halal condoms, it’s clear that Muslims are in the market for intimacy, romance and love just like anybody else, but sex-positive portrayals are few and far between. This may be, in part, due to strict rules on sex and dating outside marriage, but that doesn’t mean the religion is anti-sex (for married couples, at least). Quite the contrary. Islam has long preached sexual gratification – from scripture emphasising that a woman’s sexual pleasure is equally as important as her husband's, to a heavy focus on foreplay, to numerous books on how to sexually satisfy a woman.

Of course, not every Muslim dates and finds love in the same way; what one person thinks may be at odds with another. And don’t be fooled into thinking arranged marriages are a traditional trajectory – one person may be staunchly "no nikah, no nookie" (no sex before marriage), while another may actively look for a husband on a Muslim match site, and another may not find dating and premarital sex such an issue.

Challenging the view that Muslims aren’t a monolith isn’t the only battle, either; many young Muslims struggle with an older generation which expects them not to have dated in their teens and adulthood but to have found someone compatible to marry by their early to mid-20s. Given that most people in their 20s and 30s are part of the Tinder generation, is it any wonder conversations about relationships both in the Muslim community and outside are shrouded in secrecy?

So how do young women and men grapple with the conflict between religion and a Tinder hook-up culture? How do they align their religious values with a society where sex is quite literally a button away? Refinery29 spoke to several young women and men and although they’re not reflective of every Muslim, given the diversity of the community, the results are certainly illuminating…

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Sheet masks have become regular features in our skincare routines, thanks to the Korean beauty trend that shows no sign of slowing down. Our approach to skincare is moving increasingly further from the cleanse, tone and moisturise routine that dominated the '90s and early 2000s. Multiple cleansing steps, layering products, multi-masking and essences are leading the way in our pursuit of perfect skin.

Haircare is looking towards at-home treatments that deliver salon-quality results. Expert colourist, Josh Wood recently launched his at-home colour range, including permanent colour dyes, root concealers and a colour-preserving mask and gloss for salon-quality results that can be easily achieved at home. Earlier this month, Redken launched its All Soft Mega Sheet Hair Mask, proving that the haircare industry is adopting the same attitude we apply to skincare and its constant advancement.

Like most sheet masks, Redken’s newest innovation is a convenient way for a time-conscious customer to up hydration levels. Similar to a shower cap, think of it like a 10-minute makeover for your tresses. It’s designed to soften, blending ingredients such as argan kernel oil, camellia seed oil, aloe vera and glycerin to instantly condition, lock in moisture and leave hair more manageable. Simply apply after your shampoo, leave for 5-10 minutes, then rinse as normal. The intense treatment, costing £10, is recommended to be used weekly.

Briogeo Don’t Despair, Repair! Deep Conditioning Hair Cap System offers a similar intensely moisturising end result, but with the added step of applying the deep-conditioning mask then covering the hair with a cap lined with argan oil beads to provide a deeply hydrating layer.

Kocostar's Home Salon Hair Pack, £7, and its Long Hair Pack, £6, are other options. The affordable beauty brand, hailing from South Korea, is stocked on ASOS and promises to leave hair soft, silky and nourished with its mix of moisture-infusing ingredients.

As for now, the selection of hair sheet masks is limited, but it’s unlikely we’ll have long to wait before they're lining the shelves of the haircare aisle in Boots. They’re a convenient and tidier alternative to the traditional format of a cream mask, while offering the same results. Not only does a hair sheet mask lock in moisture, it also seals in the benefits from your shampoo and nourishes damaged tresses. They're particularly useful during winter weather, when hair is left dry and often dehydrated from the cold. If you're after a quick fix for silkier locks, it's time to pick up your first sheet mask today.

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Paying for a wedding really can break the bank, and expenses may vary by tens of thousands, depending on size, location, and taste. In partnership with the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), we asked a recent bride to spill the beans — anonymously, of course — on every wedding-related expense, from the dress to the table vases...

FSCS is a free service which automatically protects your money, from £1 up to £85,000, in UK banks and building societies and credit unions. They also have loads of helpful money tips and guides, as well as a free wedding budget planner and future savings calculator to help you find out how much money you could save (now and for your future!). Whatever you’re saving for, your money is safe with FSCS.

Click through to find out how one bride spent her £35,000 budget.

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This story contains spoilers for season 4 of Mozart in the Jungle.

In a scene halfway through the fourth season of Mozart in The Jungle, aspiring conductor Hailey Rutledge (Lola Kirke) is given some tough love by a competition judge after the only other female contestant is eliminated.

"You know that only four of the top 150 orchestras in the world are led by women. Four. Take the fucking Mahler, and ram it down their throats."

Directed by Aza Jacobs, who helmed two episodes this season, it's a scene that perfectly illustrates the tone of of a season that grapples with relevant and urgent themes of female representation in the arts, and gender equality in the workplace. In the end ( spoiler alert!) Hayley doesn't win the competition, though she does get her moment to shine later on. But that's the point; her struggle is a vehicle to shine a light on a problem that plagues nearly every industry.

"The show really masters using the world of classical music as a device to talk about all art forms, and all industries," Lola Kirke said in a phone interview with Refinery29. "When you're an actor you're very much a member of an orchestra, and when you're a director you're kind of like a conductor. So, I think that it was important this season to talk about gender and equality in major industries."

Kirke couldn't have known, of course, that the show's release would coincide with a national conversation about how industries — and specifically Hollywood — can better support its women. ("We preempted that shit" she joked.) The Time's Up initiative, started by Hollywood powerhouses including Reese Witherspoon Shonda Rhimes, America Ferrera, Ashley Judd, Eva Longoria, Amber Tamblyn, Kerry Washington, Lena Waithe, Natalie Portman, and Emma Stone, and which seeks to provide a legal defence fund for men and women facing discrimination or harassment in the workplace, wasn't launched until January 1, 2018, months after filming ended. But in reality, showrunners Roman Coppola and Jason Schwartzmann have been setting up this arc since season 3, when Hailey, originally an oboist subbing for the New York Symphony, discovers her real talent may lie in the much more male-centric field of conducting.

For Kirke, that just goes to show that our current reckoning with the systemic power imbalances in Hollywood and their consequences didn't just come out of nowhere. "Here's the thing about the conversations that are going on in Hollywood right now: They've been going on forever," she pointed out. "But it's a conversation that needs to happen. I'm grateful that the struggles that we're portraying on the show — which are very real struggles — will have even more traction because of what the world is looking at right now."

Like many, Kirke wasn't aware of the gender disparities in the upper echelons of classical music until she met her conducting coach, Eimar Noone, an Irish conductor and composer who impressed upon Kirke the importance of getting it right.

"She was really excited, almost to the point of tears, when she first told me: 'There's never been a woman conductor represented, ever! And for that reason you need to be really fucking good," Kirke recalled."It's a terrifying thing to hear in a way, because it meant more work for me, but I wanted to carry that torch as best I could."

Kirke learned the movements necessary to play a convincing conductor over Skype, while she was filming in Japan, and Noone was in Ireland with her family.

"She'd be holding her toddler on her lap, and I'd be waking up in Japan, and we'd be doing these very weird, almost choreographed dances to Mahler, or whatever the piece at hand was," Kirke said. "And what I thought was really amazing about her Skyping with her baby is that is such a facet of being a woman artist that is less present in the lives of male artists. I wish that there was a way that [motherhood] could be more celebrated as part of who we are as artists, rather than something we have to suppress in order to be artists."

The toll of those sacrifices is made clear earlier in the season, when Hailey visits the home of an eccentric classical collector and stumbles into an abandoned room filled with ephemera belonging to female composers throughout history.

And just as Rodrigo de Souza (Gael Garcia Bernal), the whimsical conductor of the New York Symphony and Hailey's boyfriend, has imaginary conversations with Mozart throughout the show, so Hailey develops her own back and forth with overlooked legends Isabella Leonarda, Nannerl Mozart (Wolfgang's sister, who some believe was the more talented musician in the family), and Fanny Mendelssohn, whose more famous brother, Felix, took credit for much of her own work in an era that prohibited women from entering artistic professions.

Together, they convince Hailey to use a piece by modern composer Caroline Shaw (the youngest winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music) as her audition piece for the conducting competition mentioned above. For luck, a heavily pregnant Fanny hands Hailey her own personal baton. "Batons came into style when I was a child, but of course I could never have one," she sighs. "So I made it myself, just to dream."

Only yesterday, National Sawdust, a performance space in Brooklyn dedicated to highlighting women in music, announced the very first class of winners of the Hildegard Competition for up and coming female and non-binary composers. Emma O’Halloran, X. Lee, and Kayla Cashetta were chosen from among 140 submissions from around the world, and will receive a $7,000 prize, along with mentoring from the all-female panel of judges, and a performance in June.

The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media has a saying: "If she can see it, she can be it." Hailey may have lost the battle, but by competing at all, she's striking the winning blow in a much bigger war.

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Social media has made it easier than ever for us to spread body positivity and rally against society's beauty standards. With the help of the humble hashtag, we've been encouraged to embrace our size and learn to love specific body parts, but this acceptance hasn't extended to our faces. That is, until now.

Noses are the latest feature that people are learning to love, specifically, how they look from the side, with one British campaigner encouraging people to share a #SideProfileSelfie. The body-positive movement, spearheaded by freelance journalist and author Radhika Sanghani, is quickly gaining momentum all over the world.

Breaking the big nose taboo with my new campaign on the #sideprofileselfie!! Let’s stop hating our noses for not being tiny, little snubs and learn to love them by sharing a #sideprofileselfie https://t.co/2WpuNQmqmY pic.twitter.com/hL6mZmYEwZ

— Radhika Sanghani (@radhikasanghani) February 20, 2018

Sanghani was motivated by her own long-held shame and insecurity over her own nose and side profile, she told Refinery29. "Every time I see a camera at a side profile angle I panic. But in the last year I’ve started to change my mind.

"Instead of hating my big nose and thinking it makes me unattractive, I’ve decided to see it as beautiful. It’s interesting and gives me character and okay, I don’t look like Gigi Hadid or Angelina Jolie, but I look like me."

Sanghani's end goal? It has been "life changing" learning to love her nose, she said – and now she wants to help other women do the same. "I hope the campaign inspires people to embrace their noses and celebrate them with me. It’s scary to do it alone, but so many women are already joining in, and it feels so powerful. This has been taboo for so long but things can change."

She was emboldened by the myriad campaigns helping women to embrace their weight and body shapes. "I’ve never had a problem with my weight but it made me realise how I’ve always hated my nose – and if other women can get over their biggest insecurities I can get over mine!"

#SideProfileSelfie is rapidly picking up speed on Twitter, with countless people – men and women – sharing their selfies on Twitter following Sanghani's appearance on ITV's Good Morning Britain this morning.

Owning my side profile on @gmb this morning 💅🏾💅🏾💅🏾 do the same and send me a #sideprofileselfie pic.twitter.com/WBtFtV6LEA

— Radhika Sanghani (@radhikasanghani) February 21, 2018

I once got told by a boyfriend that I would never be “pretty” because of my nose....! @GMB #sideprofileselfie pic.twitter.com/1JFZfL1gxd

— Charlii Siddu (@charliicl) February 21, 2018

#sideprofileselfie I have always had issues with this! X pic.twitter.com/nkCdiBdLvX

— Endo & Me (@EndoMeno) February 21, 2018

Great to see this on tv this morning ever since I was little I’ve had issues with self confidence due to my nose pic.twitter.com/6Rrn4FUhMe

— julie wiseman (@juliewi60221855) February 21, 2018

Big noses unite!! Side profiles not to be sniffed at... pic.twitter.com/J2da4paaV3

— Jonathan Samuels (@jonathansamuels) February 21, 2018

Always hates side pictures, it also effected me mostly in my younger years #sideprofileselfie pic.twitter.com/ZsjxAWYwlk

— Nat White (@natwhite1980) February 21, 2018

Back in school I use to get really badly bullied for how I looked. My nose (and unplucked eyebrows) were always targeted.
Only recently I started to pluck my brows and to love my nose. I don't care what people think anymore❤ #sideprofileselfie #selfie #bullying pic.twitter.com/NivKi3YjRp

— *✧°• ♡ •°✧* (@stubbsuichan) February 21, 2018

My big nose is as much my identity as my big ears! Vive les grands nes! #sideprofileselfie pic.twitter.com/UBPy1tVRwv

— Solo (@Sansomchris) February 21, 2018

Here goes! My side profile in all its backlit glory. Embrace your big noses girls, don’t hide in the shadows like I did. #sideprofileselfie pic.twitter.com/BGtjLtQJ8S

— Kayleigh Pritchard (@locketmoon) February 21, 2018

Sanghani hopes the fashion and beauty industries stand to attention and realise "how many women with big noses have been made to feel unattractive by virtue of never seeing celebrities who look like them."

Ultimately, she continued: "My goal is for Hollywood and the fashion world to start seeing the beauty of strong profiles and finally let larger nosed ladies step into the spotlight."

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Your journey home after a night out in the capital is about to get cheaper and easier thanks to Citymapper. The urban transport app is launching a minibus service, known as Smart Ride, that will take passengers around set routes in London.

The service, made up of a fleet of eight-passenger vehicles driven by licensed private hire drivers is a hybrid – it acts like a bus service sticking to fixed journeys, and like a taxi – operating along the lines of a ride-sharing service like Uber Pool.

"If you want to hide something, hide it in plain sight." We. Are. Live! pic.twitter.com/0F6cBzRGvH

— Citymapper (@Citymapper) February 21, 2018

“It’s a bit like a bus because it has stops, it’s a bit like a cab because you book it and it has guaranteed seats, and it’s a bit like a metro because it has a network of roads," Omid Ashtari, Citymapper’s president and head of business, told the Guardian.

The company wanted to use larger buses but London's transport regulations prevented it from doing so. “Carry nine-plus people in London and you’re a bus and have to follow strict regulations on fixed routes, schedules and service frequency,” Citymapper explained in a blogpost on Tuesday. “Carry eight people or fewer, and you’re a private hire vehicle that can go wherever you want, however you want, how often you want.”

The free Citymapper app is already a prerequisite for many to navigate their way around the capital, so an IRL minibus service seemed like a natural next step for the company. Last year it launched a network of shared black cabs offering journeys for a fixed £3, and it currently operates the CM2 nightbus at £1.50 a journey, which runs between Highbury and Islington station and Aldgate East station.

The startup developed the route based on user data, which it says allows it to identify the main gripes people have with public transport in the capital. "We found central London fairly well covered during the day by existing TfL services, but we identified bigger gaps in the night network. People in London are staying out later, especially in East London," the company wrote when it launched the service last summer.

Judging by the low price points of its other IRL services, Smart Ride could end up a cheaper alternative to Uber (although it's not yet clear exactly how much it will charge for journeys), while giving Londoners another way to get home after the last Tube.

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A photograph from a Red Sparrow photocall has gone viral with people the world over claiming that Jennifer Lawrence's outfit was evidence sexism persists in Hollywood despite #TimesUp and #MeToo.

The photo, taken in London to promote the upcoming thriller in which the actress plays a ballerina-turned-spy, shows Lawrence standing alongside the film's male director and fellow (male) cast members on a balcony on a typically chilly London day.

This is such a quietly depressing (and revealing) image. Not least because I've been outside today and it's bloody FREEZING. pic.twitter.com/BRnmgKJ5wY

— Helen Lewis (@helenlewis) February 20, 2018

True equality means either Jennifer Lawrence getting a coat, or Jeremy Irons having to pose for a photocall in assless chaps.

— Helen Lewis (@helenlewis) February 20, 2018

But Lawrence's dress – a plunging black Versace gown with a thigh-high slit – very quickly got the internet talking. Specifically, the fact she wasn't wearing a coat and had a large amount of skin on show, while the men looked comfier and better insulated in their casual wear. And to be fair, she does look a little chilly in some of the photos.

In a now-viral tweet, the New Statesman's deputy editor Helen Lewis called it a "quietly depressing (and revealing) image", considering the cold London weather. "True equality means either Jennifer Lawrence getting a coat, or Jeremy Irons having to pose for a photocall in assless chaps," she added. "Not least because I've been outside today and it's bloody FREEZING.”

Thousands weighed in online, saying J-Law's outfit reinforced the stereotypical roles women are still forced to play in society.

Jeez, why didn't Jennifer Lawrence dress in warm clothes for this photoshoot. Seriously... pic.twitter.com/CQFroXg4Yq

— Susan Dalgety (@DalgetySusan) February 21, 2018

But then the whole thing took an unexpected twist with Lawrence herself getting involved – and she is having none of it. The 27-year-old responded to the controversy on her Facebook page this afternoon, calling it "absolutely ridiculous" and offensive. She even went as far as to call it an example of sexism in itself.

"Wow. I don't really know where to get started on this 'Jennifer Lawrence wearing a revealing dress in the cold' controversy. This is not only utterly ridiculous, I am extremely offended," she wrote.

"That Versace dress was fabulous, you think I'm going to cover that gorgeous dress up with a coat and a scarf? I was outside for 5 minutes. I would have stood in the snow for that dress because I love fashion and that was my choice."

Lawrence's dress has been widely compared to the iconic Versace 'safety pin' gown worn by Elizabeth Hurley at the premier of Four Weddings and a Funeral, which caused controversy for different reasons back in 1994.

Lawrence continued: "This is sexist, this is ridiculous, this is not feminism. Over- reacting about everything someone says or does, creating controversy over silly innocuous things such as what I choose to wear or not wear, is not moving us forward. It's creating silly distractions from real issues. Get a grip people. Everything you see me wear is my choice. And if I want to be cold THATS [sic] MY CHOICE TOO!"

Her post has already racked up around 40k likes since it was uploaded and a string of supportive comments. "You say it girlie! Sick of this crap and tabloid fodder! You ROCK! I would have bloody done the same, if I would fit in to one! Lol!," wrote one woman.

While another added: "Had you opted for the coat and scarf, there would have been fashion police insulting how you disparaged the Versace line. It was a no-win situation, and I love seeing you stand behind your principles."

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As the main event on the Milan Fashion Week schedule, if not the most highly anticipated show of all of fashion month, Gucci quite literally had attendees counting down until this afternoon's show. The invite came in the form of an orange timer, sealed inside a plastic bag, with red digital numbers counting down to today's spectacle. On the front of the timer, a sticker read: “Parental Advisory, Explicit Content.”

Held in the brand's Milan Hub, the show space was transformed into a surgeon's operating room replete with PVC flooring, stark white LED lamps and hospital waiting room chairs surrounding an eerie operating table. "The concept reflects the work of a designer – the act of cutting, splicing and reconstructing materials and fabrics to create a new personality and identity with them," the brand shared on Instagram.

Seated in the front row of the hospital waiting room chairs were Nick Cave, Susie Bick and their son Earl Cave, joined by The End of the F***ing World stars Jessica Barden and Alex Lawther, Donatella Versace, Chloë Sevigny, Rowan Blanchard, Edward Enninful and Anna Wintour.

An essay written by Donna Haraway in 1984, entitled "A Cyborg Manifesto " served as the main source of inspiration for creative director Alessandro Michele's AW18 collection. In this essay, Haraway refutes the idea of strict categories, particularly those distinguishing between humans, animals and machines.

Hybrids, splicing, dualism and this nebulous line between man and animal, male and female, and man and machine were at the centre of the 90-look collection, which featured both menswear and womenswear. Some models emerged carrying frighteningly realistic replicas of their own heads while others held a snake, cradled a chameleon or even carried a baby dragon, inspired by the "legend of the baby dragon in the jar", the real story of an author who staged finding a baby dragon in his garage in Oxfordshire, England.

A speedy procession of 90 models stepped out into the doctor's theatre, to a soundtrack of classical music punctuated with the sound of beeping monitors and footsteps on clinical flooring. The vast collection incorporated many of Alessandro Michele's house signatures. His geek chic, vintage-inspired aesthetic was enhanced with rich embroidery, dresses were coated with sequins and feathers, headscarves were printed with horses, while bags were detailed with tiger heads. There was much tailoring, including a coat that had been "spliced" and cultural references were as diverse as the fabrications used, from velvet to fur and just about everything in between.

A knitted balaclava inspired by a vintage ski knit was topped with a jacquard turban, and worn with a dark gold lurex jacket and geometric beads. Accessories were also inspired by Asian architecture, such as an intricate hat in the shape of a pagoda. The collection included New York Yankees references, too, with the logo featuring on jackets, cardigans and caps. There were also trainers crisscrossed with crystals, sequinned jackets, frothy organza and lace gowns, vivid prints and metallic fringing. Michele's maximalism shows no sign of dialling down and, based on the rapturous applause from celebrities and editors alike, the creative director will continue to reign supreme for yet another season.

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Keeping up with movie awards season is full time job — literally. For the span of November to late February, film critics and entertainment writers ride the Oscars buzz wave. They see and evaluate films, coax up excitement, make predictions, and then cover the results of each awards show, especially as it relates to the Academy Awards.

These people are so plugged into pop culture they practically vibrate with movie trivia. And if you, too, aspire to become an awards show expert, then they're the ones you should be listening to. Each of these podcasts are hosted by movie and pop culture writers of different publications. Instead of reading their reviews, you can partake in their warm, lively thought process as it pertains to individual Oscar movies and general awards show phenomena.

You have until March 4, 2018 to catch up on the must-see movies. These podcasts will complement your movie-watching scramble.

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A new survey published in USA Today found that 94 percent of women in Hollywood have experienced sexual harassment or misconduct at some point in their careers, a statistic that's hardly illuminating given the watershed of sexual harassment allegations that began in October of last year. The Creative Coalition, National Sexual Violence Resource Center, and Women In Film and Television collaborated with USA Today on the survey, which was an effort to uncover just how much sexual misconduct actually occurs in Hollywood. The numbers are staggering but unsurprising: Sexual misconduct is universal. It's also important to note that the survey's umbrella of "misconduct" is a broad category that includes many different types of behaviour.

Of the 843 women surveyed, 87% had encountered verbal sexual harassment which includes "unwelcome sexual comments" as well as sexual jokes to or about the survey participant. The survey reports smaller numbers for more blatant forms of harassment. Almost a quarter of responders reported being forced to perform a sexual act. (This number is still high: That means almost one in four women working in Hollywood experience sexual assault.) One in ten participants reported being asked to be naked for an audition without being notified in advance, and about two-fifths reported being shown sexual photos without their consent. Furthermore, only one in four women who reported having experienced sexual harassment said they'd reported it.

These results reflect what seemed clear ever since the New York Times published its exposé of film producer Harvey Weinstein. Weinstein could only have flown under the radar for so long if he operated within a world with low standards for workplace respect. After the exposé was published in October, actresses began speaking up about their own experiences with sexual harassment. This revived the #MeToo movement, an initiative founded in 2006 by activist Tarana Burke. With a hashtag and a hefty support system, women in Hollywood finally started speaking up about workplace harassment. This led to the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund, an effort led by Hollywood's most powerful women to correct sexual misconduct in not just Hollywood, but in every industry.

USA Today' s survey is essential because it gives concrete evidence of a problem we already know to be true. Now that we have statistics, perhaps something can be done about sexual harassment in Hollywood.

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Alicia Vikander remembers the day she first came across Lara Croft. As a 10-year-old girl growing up in Sweden, her friends didn't really talk about video games, let alone admit to playing them. But her family friends had sons, and those sons had a Playstation.

"I stepped into that room and saw Lara Croft, the female protagonist of a video game, something I had never seen before," Vikander told Refinery29. "I was a bit afraid, because there were a lot of scary elements, so I used to spend a lot of time in the manor, practicing."

Fast-forward two decades, and the 29-year old is set to storm the screen as her childhood hero in director Roar Uthaug's reboot of Tomb Raider.

If you're already picturing an Angelina Jolie-lite version, think again. You won't see this Lara running through the jungle in short-shorts, holding her signature double guns. Vikander's character is more regular girl than Tomb Raider.

"She's not an action hero when we meet her in the beginning of this film," Vikander explained. "She's a girl who lives with her friends in East London, like I did when I was in my early twenties!" Of course, fate takes over, delivering a series of adventures and circumstances that lead part-time boxer and daytime bicycle courier Lara to become the heroine we know and love.

This is a very different role for Vikander, who won an Academy Award for her performance alongside Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl in 2016. But in reality, she sees this as a way to get back to her roots. "I've always loved adventure movies. I can't tell you how many times I've seen Indiana Jones, or The Mummy series," she said. I was always curious of what it would be like to do those kinds of action sequences and stunts."

The training took four months, and included MMA training, rock climbing, and weightlifting. By the end, Vikander had gained 12 pounds of muscle. "It was pretty crazy when I stood on the scale and saw that I had gained that much," she confessed. "I've always been very petite, and it was very empowering to see that it worked."

But sheer physical strength isn't the only thing driving this performance. In late December, Vikander got involved in forming what would eventually become the Time's Up initiative, which aims to address issues of inequality in the workplace in Hollywood and across other industries, alongside the likes of Reese Witherspoon, Natalie Portman, and America Ferrera.

A key part of that struggle is changing the culture that only shows women as love interests and sidekicks. Vikander recalled rushing out to see Wonder Woman while wrapping up production on Tomb Raider, and being profoundly moved. "I didn't think that I could do these things," she said. "I couldn't even dream of it because it wasn't even in my perspective of reality."

If only that 10-year-old could see her now.

You can watch the full interview with Vikander below:

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In the book Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, the character Marco Polo conjures up ethereal portraits of 55 cities that could only exist in the imagination. The city of Octavia quivers above a massive abyss, held up only by fragile spider webs that won’t last forever. Where there is air in other cities, in Argia, there is earth. Given general physics and principles of urban planning, these cities could not exist — and yet, in the trace-like rhythm of Invisible Cities, one can’t help but think, “What if?”

I had the same thought while watching Wakanda unfurl during the opening scenes of Black Panther, the incendiary, game-changing Marvel movie that premiered last Friday. The central settlement in Wakanda could easily be described as if it were one of the entries in Invisible Cities ’ “Hidden Cities” section: "In a secluded valley between towering mountains, there lies a cluster of architecturally-diverse skyscrapers, low-lying bazaars, and crowded streets. Wakanda is a secret place."

What makes the experience of seeing Wakanda far sadder than reading Invisible Cities is that its “What If” doesn’t require so much of an imaginative leap. For all its impossible high tech — including levitating trains and invisible space ships — Wakanda is very much based in our world. In fact, there is a precise geographical location for Wakanda. If Wakanda were a real nation, it would border Uganda, Kenya, South Sudan, and Ethiopia. This precise spot is called the Ilemi Triangle, and, while technically located in Kenya, is also claimed by South Sudan.

The geography of Wakanda is rooted in reality, and so is the culture. “We pulled from Omo valley tribes in Ethiopia and South Sudan, the Igbo people of Nigeria, as well as large cities like Nairobi, Johannesburg, and Lagos,” the movie's production designer, Hannah Beachler, told Refinery29 in a profile. “As for the individual tribes you meet, I had to imagine who the tribes were that realistically would’ve migrated to the land of Wakanda based on where it was situated. Which tribes were that old and that historic? There are several, with the Dogon being one of them — more than 50,000 years old!” Wakandans communicate in English and isiXhosa, a language characterised by pops and clicks that is spoken in South Africa and Zimbabwe.

From Beachler’s comments, it’s evident that the creation of Wakanda was a process of imagining all the “What ifs?,” and bringing them to life. Mainly, what would an African country spared by the trauma of colonialism, spared from the slave trade, spared from neo-capitalism look like? What would an African country that could control its own precious natural resources look like?

Because for Wakanda, natural resources are a gift — not the curse they’ve historically been for many sub-Saharan African nations. Wakanda’s unique position was made entirely possible by a substance called vibranium, native only to Wakanda. As is explained in the movie’s opening scenes, a meteorite made of vibranium crashed into the land that would one day become Wakanda. Up until the start of Black Panther, the benefits of vibranium were two-fold. By experimenting boldly and intelligently with vibranium, Wakandans could build the most evolved country in the world, and seclude themselves from the rest of the world’s problems. In the movie, T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) grapples with the decision of whether or not to spread his country's resources to the rest of the world, and aid other Black people whose lives have been anything but utopian.

Recently, Bloomberg made a chilling comparison between Wakanda, which has all the world's vibranium, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has most of the the world's cobalt. Like vibranium, cobalt is essential for furthering technological progressions — the rare mineral is used to make rechargeable batteries. As the production of electric cars increases, as it’s predicted to do, so, too, will cobalt mining. But individual Congolese residents won't benefit much from the mining of cobalt. "A cobalt boom and national dividend would clearly generate some positive indirect effects in terms of employment and microfinance-style household investment — but it's unlikely to be enough on its own to lift Congo from its status as one of the poorest nations on earth," the article reads. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, a country consumed by wars over control for natural resources in the '90s and early aughts, never had a chance at being Wakanda and its vibranium. Cobalt won't be its chance, either.

Wakanda is a thought experiment of what an African country might look like if it were spared from the perils of history, and this seems to resonate with African viewers. Black Panther holds the record for the biggest opening weekend in the distribution territories of East and West Africa. In an article for The Root, Ugandan sports journalist Patrick Kanyamozi encapsulated just what Wakanda represents: “What we can learn from this film is that Africa has always had potential — the gold, the diamonds, and everything. It’s only we were not able to work on that in the years that went by, but still, Africans individually can still pursue their dreams,” Kanyamozi said.

Wakanda is too many "what if" questions away from being real, although the movie is vivid enough that many people were left wondering if the country actually was real — Google search for the phrase "is Wakanda real" absolutely spiked in the past seven days. In Kanyamozi's mind, the very existence of Wakanda — and a movie like Black Panther — imparts a hopeful, if a bit bittersweet, message.

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Update: Harvey Weinstein has apologised for including statements from Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lawrence in his attempt to dismiss a sexual misconduct lawsuit against him.

“Mr. Weinstein acknowledges the valuable input both Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lawrence have contributed to this conversation and apologises," his rep said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. “Moving forward, Mr. Weinstein has advised his council to not include specific names of former associates; and to avoid whenever possible, even if they are in the public record."

Read the full statement here.

Original story was published below at 12:15 p.m.

Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lawrence are firing back after Harvey Weinstein's lawyers used statements from the actresses in an attempt to dismiss a sexual misconduct lawsuit against the producer. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Weinstein asked a New York federal judge to dismiss a racketeering lawsuit, which was filed by six women who claim they were sexually assaulted or harassed by him. In the motion to dismiss, Weinstein's lawyers reportedly named Streep and included a recent statement in which she said the movie mogul "had always been respectful to her in their working relationship," and TMZ reports that they also quote Lawrence as saying "He had only ever been nice to me." The two women are having none of it.

"Harvey Weinstein’s attorneys’ use of my (true) statement — that he was not sexually transgressive or physically abusive in our business relationship — as evidence that he was not abusive with many OTHER women is pathetic and exploitive," Streep said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. "The criminal actions he is accused of conducting on the bodies of these women are his responsibility, and if there is any justice left in the system he will pay for them — regardless of how many good movies, made by many good people, Harvey was lucky enough to have acquired or financed."

"Harvey Weinstein and his company are continuing to do what they have always done which is to take things out of context and use them for their own benefit. This is what predators do, and it must stop," Lawrence told TMZ. "For the record, while I was not victimised personally by Harvey Weinstein, I stand behind the women who have survived his terrible abuse and I applaud them in using all means necessary to bring him to justice whether through criminal or civil actions. Time's up."

Weinstein's lawyers recently used an email from Ben Affleck in a similar manner following an accusation from actress Rose McGowan. "Ben Affleck expressed the following in an email to Mr. Weinstein, 'She never told me nor did I ever infer that she was attacked by anyone. Any accounts to the contrary are false. I have no knowledge about anything Rose did or claimed to have done'" Weinstein's lawyer Ben Brafman said in a statement, according to Deadline.

In October, Affleck condemned Weinstein's actions on Facebook, writing "I am saddened and angry that a man who I worked with used his position of power to intimidate, sexually harass, and manipulate women over decades. This is completely unacceptable."

This is also not the first time Streep has been dragged into the Weinstein controversy, who has been accused of sexual assault or harassment by over 80 women (Weinstein denies all accusations of nonconsensual sex). Rose McGowan slammed the actress by name in a now-deleted tweet, accusing her of being complicit in Weinstein's behaviour because she was once friendly with the producer.

"Actresses, like Meryl Streep, who happily worked for The Pig Monster, are wearing black @GoldenGlobes in a silent protest. YOUR SILENCE is THE problem. You’ll accept a fake award breathlessly & affect no real change. I despise your hypocrisy. Maybe you should all wear Marchesa," she wrote. Shortly after this tweet, graffiti with the words "she knew" started appearing in L.A. over a photo of Weinstein and Streep.

"It hurt to be attacked by Rose McGowan in banner headlines this weekend, but I want to let her know I did not know about Weinstein’s crimes, not in the 90s when he attacked her, or through subsequent decades when he proceeded to attack others," Streep responded in a statement to the Huffington Post. "I wasn’t deliberately silent. I didn’t know. I don’t tacitly approve of rape. I didn’t know. I don’t like young women being assaulted. I didn’t know this was happening."

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There are few parts of the human condition as misunderstood as loneliness. People find it hard to talk about, and harder to hear. By definition, loneliness is a kind of sadness that manifests in the absence of friends or company, yet the recommended cure contradicts the nature of the condition itself, with internet guides essentially telling you to get out more, get more friends, get ‘better’ at social interaction.

While loneliness is a hugely under-discussed topic in reality, there’ve been a lot of revealing studies about this particular type of ‘no friends or company’ loneliness: studies which say 3.9 million Brits consider their television their main source of company, or which send the lonely among us to an early grave, claiming that socially isolated people are 30% more likely to suffer a stroke or develop heart disease.

While the problem of loneliness is seemingly dealt quite evenly across different social groups, a Stonewall study from 2011 points out that LGB people over the age of 55 are three times more likely to end up un-partnered, two times more likely to live alone, three times less likely to have children, and twice less likely to see biological family than their heterosexual peers. Indeed, since 2011 there have been marked improvements in the way we talk about, uplift, profile and positively legislate for the LGBTQIA+ community, but in the same breath violence against us has increased, our spaces are closing en masse (a 58% decline in London since 2006, no less), and our world leaders seem hellbent on making the world a more hostile environment, in which our maltreatment and social denigration are only reified by the speeches they give and policies they push for.

Hence the LGBTQIA+ experience is lonely for all the reasons why others suffer with loneliness. But it’s also amplified by things like legal inequality, painful daily abuse, disconnection from family and friends (whether that’s literal cut ties or a severe sense of misunderstanding). Often it can feel like everywhere you look — on TV, in films, on billboards, in card racks on the high street – there are messages celebrating any lifestyle other than the ones you might find under our acronym. While many of these aspects are liveable — with many in our community seemingly thriving — collectively they thrust upon us a feeling of loneliness by making it seem that we do not fit in anywhere, really — and there’s no lonelier feeling than that.

“It’s got worse for me I think,” Steven* tells me over coffee. “I’m technologically illiterate, because I’m 68, and I don’t really understand the way the whole gay community socialises now. I lived in a radical commune back in the early '70s when London felt exciting, although indeed violent for us, but now I wouldn’t really know where to go. It’s not their fault, it’s the fact that nobody outside of our community — with the power — saw the desperate need to foster an environment for us to be together in. A lot of my friends are dead, and the connective friends we had I can no longer get in touch with. So there’s loneliness, mixed with grief, mixed with… I don’t know… sexual frustration!”

I spent a week dropping questions about loneliness into conversations I was already having with various LGBTQIA+ friends to see if any of them self-identified with feeling lonely. To my surprise, each one — perhaps nine or 10 in total — had experienced some sort of loneliness, linked not necessarily to being gay, or queer, or transgender per se, but more to how lonely it can feel moving through a world dominated by the cis-heterosexual experience.

“I feel pretty misunderstood in most spaces, and often fetishised in romantic or sexual spaces too,” Eva reveals. “My experience as a trans woman has been both lifesaving and deeply enriching for me, but a lot of that experience has been lonely too, because a lot of people don’t understand me.”

Eva goes on to explain the paradox that social media has provided: a virtual space in which to meet other women like her, but when projected into reality she explains that she is “often left feeling more isolated because when I see these friends I have here, there, together or with other friends, I am reminded I’m not there, then I’m back to self-pitying again. It’s a give-take kind of scenario.” It seems that in the climate of increasing connectivity brought to us by an endless array of social apps, our networks expand, yes, but in truth, perhaps become a little flimsier.

While the factors affecting our experience of loneliness vary from person to person, between generations, and across subdivisions in our wider community, there exists a ubiquitous loneliness that is often felt, but very hard to explain.

Last year, Michael Hobbes published a long read entitled “Together Alone: Why didn’t gay rights cure gay loneliness? ” in which he talks about the gay male community’s tendency to self-medicate with alcohol and drugs, to seek more temporary sexual interaction rather than long-term intimacy, to suffer much more acutely with anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts and attempts than heterosexual men. In the end, he puts it down to the harshly detrimental effects that years in the closet can have on a person — how years of hiding behaviours that might put you in harm’s way can have long-lasting effects on your mental health and your ability to form significant relationships. Hobbes concludes that a potential cure for gay loneliness — and the patterns of erratic or unhealthy behaviour that might stem from it — could lie in affirming your difference as a gay person by working with your outsider status rather than vying to be accepted by the “norms”, as my friends and I call them.

Hobbes’ suggested mechanism is definitely a positive step — as I discovered when I found a family of queer people who would celebrate my non-binary gender identity and my homosexuality. As my friend Gen said: “Having a person tell me they really, really loved me the way I am has been essential to my feeling less anxious.”

So perhaps, as those unhelpful internet guides might suggest, the cure for LGBTQIA+ loneliness is to find people who can reflect and validate your experience, whether that’s URL or IRL. Not just so you’ve got company, but so you’ve got company who understands you and the triggers and stressors that come with being different. For those struggling to meet people like themselves, there are online forums like TrevorSpace and 7 Cups, which offers trained listeners. You can call the LGBT+ switchboard to find out about socials and gatherings; the volunteer group operates from cities across the country and is the oldest information and advice point, providing callers with anything from local listings to a friendly ear. There are projects like the Hackney-based Out and About which aim to use lottery and public funding to get people out on the ground. I spoke with Katharine Collins, who manages the project.

“We know that social isolation is a growing problem. Connect Hackney has been set up to distribute Big Lottery money to projects in Hackney aiming to prevent and reduce social isolation. Out and About is working specifically with the LGBTQ community and offering a combination of life coaching and peer support to help people overcome the challenges they are facing in their life at the moment.”

The service is offered to members of the LGBTQIA+ community aged over 50, who, as the 2011 Stonewall study showed, perhaps suffer the most social isolation.

“A lot of our clients feel that as they have aged, they have been pushed to the wayside," Katharine says. "Between them they have an incredible pool of experience, skills and wisdom, but instead of being valued they feel overlooked or patronised. The LGBTQ community has lost many of our queer spaces over the past few years and older LGBTQ people are telling me that they don't know where they can meet people. There is a lot of disconnectedness and loneliness. And it's only since I started running this project that I have really realised just how inaccessible much of London is. The toilets of restaurants and cafés are often upstairs or downstairs and the music playing is so loud that those who are hard of hearing have no chance of making conversation. This sends a clear message to people that their needs have not been considered. We are gathering people's stories to raise awareness of this issue, and we want to change public perceptions of ageing through a wallpaper art installation which will be displayed at the Hackney Museum during LGBT History Month.”

That’s a good place to conclude: LGBT History Month, which we’re nearing the end of now. We may be afforded moments, anniversaries and big legal ‘wins’ but the story on the ground for so many LGBTQIA+ people often involves isolation and the anxieties which come with that. As we fight the battle to be ‘out and proud’ (an overused phrase, yes, but perhaps one which works here), we must remember the value in others who are doing the same — those who can mirror our experience, and whose experiences we can mirror in return. If you’re feeling lonely, try to reach out; it’s likely the person you’re reaching out to has felt something similar. If you haven’t heard from someone in a while, try to reach out to them. For someone feeling lonely, a small act of care can prove to be a big game-changer.

*All the names in this article have been changed at the request of the subjects.

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Mental health problems among young women are out of control. That’s no secret. Barely a day goes by without a new headline describing the latest depressing stat. "One In Four Young Women In The UK Have Mental Health Problems " it may read, or "'Selfie Culture' To Blame For Huge Rise In Suicide Among Young Women ". Teenage girls are suffering from anxiety, from depression, from personality disorders, from eating disorders. They're crumbling under pressures that people older than them can't hope to understand, and they're struggling to find the help they need.

Which is why Girls On The Edge is an important watch. This new observational documentary airing on BBC Two follows three teenage girls who have been sectioned under the Mental Health Act. All victims of self-harm, the film shows the reality of their journeys from breakdown to recovery. If you can ever fully recover from mental health problems, that is.

It is set in FitzRoy House, a 110-bed capacity facility in Northampton devoted specially to teenagers with mental health problems. We meet Jade, a 17-turning-18-year-old who has a schizotypal personality disorder; Jess, 17, who is struggling with mixed disorder of conduct and emotions; and Erin, 16, who is slowly making her way back to teenage life after a destructive experience with anxiety and depression. All three girls have self-harmed and attempted suicide; all three were considered a danger to themselves. Jess’ parents remember their daughter trying to take her own life by overdosing on pills, drinking bleach, trying to throw herself under a car, and more.

For Erin, everything came to a head one night after a year spent trying to suppress the pain she was feeling. "I had started self-harming," she explains. "I think at this point it was depression I was struggling with, and all I did was try and hide it. By hiding it I was quite the class clown; this was me finding a different me, to hide how I was feeling."

She was at a party one night when she suffered a breakdown in front of all her friends. "It was the most horrible thing because my friends saw how I’d been struggling in the past year by myself." Her sister recalls Erin talking about "a girl with black hair who followed her and tried to make her self-harm". Erin herself doesn't remember much of what her sister says but finds it "scary" that she got into that position.

At FitzRoy, the girls are observed for 24 hours a day, they live in locked wards, there is no social media, access to mirrors and glass is limited. Listening to the girls speak about their experiences is hard; they've been through far too much for their young lives. Both Jess and Erin were bullied, something which all the parents agree has become far more malicious thanks to social media. Jess' dad recalls her listening to the Sugababes' song "Ugly" on repeat, alone in her bedroom, when she was just 9 years old. Life inside the ward is heartbreaking, too; on Jade's 18th birthday, we find her eating cake in a quiet common room while her twin sister is at home, giggling and watching Snapchat videos of herself from the Malibu and lemonade-fuelled night before.

Girls On The Edge presents FitzRoy House as a positive place; the staff are caring and knowledgeable, familiar enough with their patients to sometimes pre-emptively deal with incidents, effectively managing the fallout when they don't. The hospital puts on a prom for teenagers missing vital parts of their life outside, and holds an Annual Educational Achievement Day, where certificates are given out to patients who have excelled in certain areas.

FitzRoy House, though, is new. It is set to be followed by openings of spaces in Hull, West Yorkshire, Cornwall and Nottingham, in line with NHS England's promise to create 150 new child and mental health services beds by the end of 2019. However, until enough beds are created, oversubscription is a problem. In the past two years, the number of patients being treated outside their local area has gone up 40%. For families, this can mean a huge upheaval. Take Jess, for instance. She reckons she's been an inpatient in eight or nine different units across the country. Unsurprisingly, her concerned parents visit every weekend. Her mum describes how their son's GCSE revision was done in the back of their car as the family made their weekly 300-mile round trip to FitzRoy.

Last year, the case of X, a suicidal teenage girl, shocked the nation after it was revealed that she was to be sent home from a secure mental health unit because a bed could not be found for her. Sir James Munby, the UK’s most senior family judge, said he felt “ashamed and embarrassed ” and stated that Britain would “have blood on its hands” if anything were to happen to X. At the time, there was a six-month wait for the type of bed that she needed. In the end she was found a bed but experts warned this was far from a one-off case.

This problem is touched upon in the documentary, although it is not the main focus. In the end, it is adult mental health services that get most scrutiny, when 18-year-old Jade is forced to wait two days to transfer from child services to adult services while they struggle to find her a bed.

For Erin, though, the most important reason for her taking part in the documentary was to try and normalise the conversation about mental health. "I wanted to share my story so other people that are going through something similar can see there is some hope," she says. "I want people to get the message that three ordinary girls have just been through something that was totally horrific for them and that could happen to anyone."

If she can just get people to share their feelings when things start going wrong, she will be happy. "People should be open and understand it’s not just them, there’s a lot of people that are struggling too. For me, the important thing is, talking about it kept me alive. So I want to encourage people to speak earlier on, before they get to that crisis point like I did."

Girls On The Edge is on BBC Two on Thursday 22nd February at 9pm, and on iPlayer.

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Your 20s are a time for figuring things out. For leaving your purse in Charing Cross McDonald's at 3am, forgetting to cancel your card then, when someone buys 10 Big Macs with it, just taking the financial hit because you’re too hungover and ultimately, can’t be bothered calling the police. Just an example off the top of my head.

It’s also a time for making mistakes, and learning from them. So let me speed up that process for you, by sharing the money-based lessons I've learned over the last decade.

I went into my 20s very much checking my bank balance once a year; now, on the eve of my 30th birthday, I have an app on my phone that helps me invest money for my future. I also don’t go to McDonald's at 3am anymore. Part of me is devastated by this (I’m old), and the other part is euphorically smug.

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