See you next week!
Thanks for all your contributions today: we’re just searching for your secrets to happiness in the comments (some genuinely good advice in there) as many colleagues appear to scramble around for the last things they need to do in the office before seeking the same at the pub. Not sure how successful that ever is, but there you go. We also enjoyed working with some of the suggestions you’ve been sending, so feel free to keep on doing so at matthew.holmes@theguardian.com or sarah.marsh@theguardian.com
We’ll leave you with this rallying call, which I’m 100% sure is absolutely truthful and accurate.
Have a great weekend.
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A dog's life in the comments? No way
Each week we ask our team of moderators to flag up some of the comment threads they’ve really enjoyed reading, and this week the first of their highlights is an Opinion piece about dogs who can understand their owners.
Below are some of the comments the team enjoyed – you can click the links to explore the full conversation.
Brilliant. As an animal lover I couldn't agree with you more."It’s great to know that dogs are able to understand us, but we need to learn to understand them better. One of the deepest joys of dog ownership has been learning about my dog, getting to know her personality quirks and funny little ticks."
Understanding (even among humans) is a tricky concept. The philosopher Wittgenstein once said that if a lion could talk we wouldn't understand him. Rarely wrong, he was quite wrong about that one. Animals do talk and we can and do understand them, though they do not of course express themselves in human language.
I'm diagnosed with major depression, and when I'm going through a major depressive episode, my boxer Gracie will never leave my side without me asking her to be near me in any way. Then when I bounce back from it after several weeks, she lays off and knows that I'm okay. I've had her for 8 years, so we know each other very very well. These animals are truly remarkable friends.
I think you learn a bit more about them with every successive dog. Having made the mistake of not teaching previous dogs some of the basics (socialisation, recall, lead-walking, etc., I'm in my sixties now and I'm proud of our two current dogs. I'll have it mastered just before I pop my clogs!
It must be said that cats understand what humans are saying too, they just don't give a toss.
Readers on their best friends
On the subject of happiness and how you can make yourself happy the topic of friendship just came up:
Three things for a happy life:
Good friends, stoicism and chocolate.
Mainly chocolate.
One of my favourite stories to work on this week was a piece on that very subject (not chocolate, alas ... ).
We asked you to share stories of the relationships that you’ve kept throughout life’s ups and downs after a magazine feature on the same topic, resulting in readers sharing some really moving stories.
Have a read at the link above. You also shared more tales in the comments, which were a joy to read, despite what one reader’s reaction on Twitter might tell you ...
@guardian I think someone's chopping onions... 😢
— Ju Moon (@embroidertruth) August 27, 2016
Here are a few of those additional stories:
‘Twenty seven years later they are still my closest friends’
I have two best friends, and I met them within the same week twenty seven years ago when I was twenty years old. I had dropped out of first year university a year earlier, due to family issues resulting in acute depression and anxiety. When I returned I felt odd being 'a year behind' and wondered if I was going to feel even lonelier than I had before I dropped out. Instead I met one friend in a radio class, and the other when my boyfriend came home and told me 'I just met someone at uni today who I think you might really like.' Within minutes of meeting each of them I felt as though I had met my soul mate. Twenty seven years later they are still my closest friends, their children are my godchildren and my son is their godchild. I can't imagine how my life would have been without them.
‘We’d been everything to each other since high school’
I lost my best friend this year. We'd been everything to each other since high school. No matter where I was in the world, I could count on Joe to come running if I needed him. He was there for me through drug rehab, I was there for him through his HIV diagnosis, and all the other horrible curves life tends to throw. The realization that he's not here anymore hits me every so often. It's not enough to "remember the good times", as people love to tell me. Because we're too young to have the good times stop and exist only in memory.
I suppose it's strange that I'm writing this on a news site to a bunch of faceless internet folk. So I'll tip out a bit of my coffee in memory of Joe. Even though he hated coffee. And news sites.
‘We had no common ground. Now I can’t imagine my life without her’
I didn't meet my soul mate and best friend until I was 27, ten years ago. We had no common ground. Now I can't imagine my life without her. The first thing we do every morning is text to see how we've slept and wish each other a good day. We're there for each other rain or shine, loving and laughing through the good times and crying together when things are tough. I am so lucky, every day I'm grateful that we found one another. My life would be much much poorer without her.
Anyway – I’d urge you to go and have a look! Do share your stories, too.
How do you lead a happy life?
How do you lead a happy life? Yep, it’s a heavy question for a Friday afternoon, so Guardian Live shrewdly scheduled their event on this elusive subject on Thursday evening at Somerset House.
Now then, there are a lot of answers to that question that might seem appropriate this week, such as “don’t commute on Southern Trains” or “try not to end up as the president of Uzbekistan.”
But as I met my fellow panellists Vanessa King, Ruth Whippman and Dawn Foster, it did occur to me that one way to lead a happy life might be to avoid being stuck in a stuffy basement room on a glorious evening in early autumn listening to writers talk about how to lead a happy life.
Still, members, readers and general interlopers seemed, well, happy to be there. Whippman is amusing when describing the brutally earnest quest for happiness in America which paradoxically seems to be making everyone more miserable. King is good at the importance of emotional intelligence and self-knowledge. Foster chaired deftly with her customary deadpan delivery.
Once Guardian members and readers got stuck in during the Q and A however, it quickly became apparent that happiness is like beauty – in the eye of the beholder. Different strokes etc. It’s down to your parents, your freedom from psychological oppression, your upbringing, your emotional security, your self-esteem, your life choices, your talent fulfilment, the recognition of your intrinsic worth. Poverty can make you miserable, but money won’t necessarily make you happy.
So come on readers, get stuck in: what three qualities make for a happy life. Other than the Guardian’s website?
Updated
Astronaut coffee and DIY heart surgery – Designs of the Year
The Design Museum’s Designs of the Year shortlist was announced this week , featuring everything from a coffee cup for astronauts to a flat-pack refugee shelter made by Ikea. Once again, there was a big emphasis on the much-heralded “maker movement”, with many projects trumpeting their open source credentials and claiming to “disrupt” the usual supply chain of designer-manufactuer-consumer. But does this vision of mass armies of garden shed hobbyists, with access to laser cutters and 3D-printers, and the DIY know-how to assemble things, actually ring true? Are you an aspiring maker? Do you actually want to customise your own clothes on demand? Or is this vision of a culture of democratic, localised and bespoke making all just hype?
On this day ...
The Guardian Archive team are having look through their collection and highlighting some of our reporting on and around this day in history for the Guardian Social.
This week in in 2005 there was shocking news from New Orleans as the world digested the scale of hurricane Katrina.
And a year previously, in 2004, 334 people were killed in Beslan, after militants stormed a school.
If you’re interested, here was Friday’s front page, courtesy of Paul Johnson, the Guardian’s deputy editor.
A year after death of Alan Kurdi, awful so little has changed
— Paul johnson (@paul__johnson) September 1, 2016
Tomorrow's Guardian pic.twitter.com/dPlYojJdAR
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Stephen Merchant wouldn’t be the choice of many of you for host of the new Crystal Maze.
I'm disappointed that Stephen Merchant is the Mazemaster for the new Crystal Maze - not only because there have been some very talented young actors and comedians playing the part on the Crystal Maze live shows for whom it could have been a big break, but also because he just doesn't fit the bill for me, and that worries me as regards the direction of the show overall.
Stephen Merchant's strengths are in being an everyman. An awkward, nerdy everyman, but an everyman - he's a relateable character. The Mazemaster should be an eccentric, mischievous and somewhat otherworldly. He shouldn't feel like someone you might bump into in the staff canteen.
But what else should we bring back?
How about Rentaghost :-)
It used to make me cringe in embarrassment at being human.
On a more serious note how about Arabian Knights... "size of a mouse". Actually why not bring back the whole of Banana Splits? Tra la la...
The Crystal Maze is set to make a come-back. What else should return?
Knightmare.
No modernisation, no reboot - same format, same characters, same graphics, same helmet, same everything.
And, going full circle:
How about Dungeon Master Treguard from the old Knightmare tv series instead of Stephen Merchant?
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Parenting moral dilemma of the week
I had the afternoon off yesterday, and asked my three-year-old boy James what he wanted to do together. “Play Pokémon” was his request. So that’s what we did. It’s left me wondering whether I did the right thing though.
We played Pokémon Go for a good couple of hours. We spent about an hour of that walking through a forest and by a lake, and we spotted ladybirds and holly bushes, and got some fresh air and exercise, and it was an outdoor activity. But we still spent a lot of of that time with our eyes glued to a screen.
He’s suddenly become absolutely obsessed with it. He knows all the names, he’s constantly asking his mum to message me when I’m at work to ask a question about a particular Pokémon type, or to see if I’ve caught any new ones. It’s amazing the facts and figures their little minds can hoover up and memorise if they are really interested in something.
But are games like that something a three-year-old should be playing? Should I have done something more traditional with him instead? If we’d done the walk in the woods as an activity in its own right, I’m not sure his attention on it would have lasted that long.
His older sister, Emma, is six. She’s already fantastically adept at using computers and typing, I think in part that is through having played games on smartphones and the iPad when she was younger. Those seem to me to be useful life skills to learn. But what do you think?
I'm not saying James is obsessed but... pic.twitter.com/y8TkGuFZz5
— Martin Belam (@MartinBelam) September 2, 2016
Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley voted joint leaders of Green party
This news just broke - let us know what you think below the line.
The Crystal Maze is set to make a come-back. What else should return?
It was announced this week that The Crystal Maze set to return to TV after 21 years – what other shows would you like to bring back? My list would be:
- Charlie’s Angels
- Sunset Beach
- Sister Sister
As well as this, we heard of the must-see autumn TV. What do you think?
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Here’s one especially for one reader both on the subject of Instagram and their interest in “ISS and Hubble telescope stuff”.
I left Facebook for several reasons and one of the annoyances was people tagging themselves throughout the day and then posting their dinner at some point. Tagging used to be a punishment for criminals!
Anyway, found I still had an Instagram account which is a much friendlier platform. So far so good, no food shots unless I go looking for them. I do have a minute following so far though and enjoy the Nat Geo, ISS and Hubble telescope stuff.
I am guilty of sending WhatsApp pictures of pints to mates when they're at work and I'm in pub.
So it’s not all what we had for lunch ... you can follow the Guardian on Instagram for more like this.
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Yes, Instagram really does get you talking. Here are some more of your comments:
The point of Instagram, or anything like it, is that it's user-submitted, it is what you make of it. When I first signed up, I joked that I'd just use it to take "arty" photos of mundane food; microwave pasta, or some toast, or a Pot Noodle or whatever, as I never really got the fuss over "Instagramming" your meal unless, say, you run a business selling food and it might make you a few quid to show it off.
But what I realised when I started using Instagram is that, unless you want to tag every post with a million hashtags to chase likes/followers, it's best use is just posting stuff to amuse your mates, or to amuse yourself. And if photos of food are part of that, more power to you.
I like instagram, from a sport or hobby point of view it is really great at connecting you with people who may have similar, but niche interests.
For food though it seems bizarre, the focus tends to be on decadence or size rather than taste. ie, am I ordering a 'freakshake' because it tastes amazing or just because it will look good on social?
When your enjoyment is defined by social envy then it has gone too far
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Question of the week: what should Brexit look like?
British prime minister Theresa May has said that “Brexit means Brexit”, and that the government must push ahead with plans for Britain to leave the European Union (EU). But, in an ideal world, what would our new relationship with Europe look like?
We discussed this question on Thursday – catch up on our discussion here and share more comments below the line.
'Posting pictures of your food on Instagram is really annoying'
You shared your views on Instagram below the line, and whether it’s changing our relationship with food. Some people were less than impressed by those who document meals in picture form:
Is Instagram changing our relationship with food?
No.
Instagram is changing peoples relationship with the rest of the world by turning them into narcissistic self absorbed tw*ts who can only communicate through a pictorial reference to some trivial facet of their unimportant lives.
The definition of a pointless 1st world life is surely trying to validate your existence through a picture of a dessert.
Pretty much everyone I know thinks posting pictures of your food on Instagram is really annoying and a pointless waste of time - unless it's something truly stupendous like a homemade multi-tier wedding cake.
I guess part of it is that posting photos of the amazing food you're about to eat is really quite narcissistic - if somebody posted photos of all the expensive pairs of shoes they bought on their Instagram we'd think they fell somewhere between being an attention seekers and a show off, wouldn't we? Well done - you can afford nice things.
I mean, people aren't posting photos of their beans on toast, are they?
Your question to Frances Ryan: why do we treat disabled people so poorly?
We got an interesting question this week from a reader, directed at Frances Ryan, who had most recently written about a potential Paralympic star forced to pull out due to cuts in disability support.
They asked: what can be done to challenge and change the current culture of treating disabled people so poorly? Here is Ryan’s response:
I think there’s two threads here. Firstly, challenging the government who are creating policy and in turn, exacerbating the culture. Secondly, challenging the culture itself. That first one probably feels a particularly insurmountable challenge right now but focusing on tangible hope is key. We can oppose the policy by writing to targeted MPs and Lords when this stuff comes up (look at Personal Independence Payments. It can work.) And crucially we can give practical help to people going through the assessments by organizing (see groups like Fight Back and Disabled People Against Cuts); whether that’s sharing tips for assessments or advocacy to help win on appeal.
Equally, changing the demonizing culture is a huge task but there are small things we can do: from challenging anti-disability and/or anti-benefit rhetoric when we hear it in the office or the pub, to telling our own disability stories through grassroots art. The campaign Stop Funding Hate offers a way to directly jolt right wing papers and their hateful rhetoric by lobbying their advertisers.
Freakshakes: the rise of a monstrous mashup of drink and dessert
When I first saw a picture of a freakshake I was simultaneously amazed and appalled. My mum loved knickerbocker glories, and when I was little they were sometimes a last-day-of-holiday treat, so I think they appealed to the child within me. But they are just so over the top, I really can’t imagine consuming a whole one. (And certainly wouldn’t encourage even attempting too more than once a year.)
Social media seems to be a factor in the extravagance. And I was interested to talk to people about its role in modern food trends. Not only do ideas spread more quickly than ever before, but people are actually thinking about Instagrammers when they are looking for new additions to their menus.
What do you think about this?
Most-read this week: Trump, trains and transfers
No week goes by without Donald Trump saying or doing something outrageous. This week the Republican candidate has presented his vision of a Mexico border wall and mass expulsion of criminal “illegal aliens”.
Other top pieces include news of football transfers before the transfer deadline for the Premier League 2016. As well as Theresa May saying that there will be no second referendum on whether Britain will leave the European Union. Today, everyone is talking about the fact Southern rail have seen their profits rise by 27%, despite many commuters being unhappy with the service.
Welcome one and all
Hello and welcome to another Guardian Social – your space to discuss the week’s news and views in real time. We’ll highlight some of the discussions you’ve been having both here and around the site by updating this blog for the next few hours, and you can get involved by posting in the comments – we’ll try to read them all!
You can also get in touch by email via matthew.holmes@theguardian.com or sarah.marsh@theguardian.com or fill out our form at the following link if you’ve got any feedback or questions you’d like our journalists to answer.
I spend most of my Friday afternoons reading the comments on this. So much so, I sometimes have to work Saturday morning to finish the work I am meant to do today.
This means I can't have a proper Friday night session, which I guess is better for my health.
Join the debate! Become fitter, happier?, wealthier.