CelebrityYahoo Lifestyle SEALove, Bonito CEO Rachel Lim is pregnant with her first child
A bundle of joy is coming to Rachel Lim’s way! The CEO of fashion brand Love, Bonito announced today (9 July) on her Instagram account that she is expecting her first child!
HealthYahoo Lifestyle SEAHana Kimura’s mother claims Terrace House producers forced her to be violent onscreen
Earlier in May, Terrace House star and Japanese wrestler Hana Kimura was reported to have died by suicide at a young age of 22. While investigations largely pointed to cyberbullying as the reason, Kimura’s mother recently shed light on what happened prior to the cyberbullying — Kimura’s “obnoxious behaviour” in Terrace House. “The Costume Incident” in the reality dating show depicted Kimura shouting at fellow housemate Kai Kobayashi, and hitting his cap off his head for accidentally shrinking her wrestling costume in the washing machine.
BusinessYahoo Lifestyle SEAYou can get tax deductions for your electricity and phone bills if you are working from home
Thankfully in Singapore, however, the government has agreed that we will be able to use these increased expenses as tax deductions next year.
LifestyleYahoo Lifestyle SEAINTERVIEW: Gibran Baydoun of Lucali BYGB — “The success of restaurants, I believe, comes down to intentionality”
Before arriving in Singapore, Gibran Baydoun’s previous places of employment include the Hillstone Restaurant Group, Ralph Lauren, Momofuku Ko, and Booker and Dax. In Singapore, he was instrumental to the success of MBS’ Adrift by David Meyers, and more recently, private members’ club, 1880 at Nanson Road.
CelebrityYahoo Lifestyle SEAYou can now pay Steven Lim $100 to make a birthday video for you, and people can't get enough of it
Steven Lim wears many hats, from YouTube star to Muay Thai fighter to talent manager to fitness instructor. But Singapore’s COVID-19 lockdown that began in April enabled him to pivot into an Instagram sensation when he started recording birthday video shoutouts for customers who couldn’t see their friends, family and co-workers in person because of movement restrictions.
LifestyleYahoo Lifestyle SEAMale chafing and what you can do about it
While chafing is a fact of life especially for those who lead an active lifestyle, there are plenty of ways to prevent it.
BusinessYahoo Lifestyle SEAWomen On Top: Rhonda Wong, CEO of Ohmyhome
Buying a house is one of the biggest purchases in one’s lifetime but yet the process is often confusing and cumbersome. To tackle the issue, Rhonda Wong, together with her sister Race Wong, started Ohmyhome, a one-stop solution for housing needs.
LifestyleYahoo Lifestyle SEAGetting a UV-C light box to sanitise your phones or masks? Here’s what you need to know
In addition to washing hands frequently and properly, wearing face coverings and practising safe distancing, many people have recently also turned to a product that combines the powers of modern technology and radiation to reduce their risk of contracting the coronavirus.
TechnologyYahoo Lifestyle SEAElectronics to look out for this 7.7 Lazada sale
Whether you’re a budding Youtuber, an electronics enthusiast or a gamer, here are some top-selling electronics on sale at Lazada.
LifestyleYahoo Lifestyle SEAThese three steps will banish your skin woes caused by wearing face masks
Is your skin bearing the brunt of wearing face masks day in, day out? Here's how you can fortify your skin from the inside and out.
EntertainmentYahoo Lifestyle SEACOVID-19: Cinemas in Singapore to reopen on 13 July with added safety measures
Cinemas can now reopen from 13 July 2020 onwards, according to a statement by the Infocomm Media Development Authority.
SportYahoo Lifestyle SEADeadly box jellyfish stings, what to do and precautions to take
While jellyfish sightings in Singapore are not uncommon, a highly venomous box jellyfish, known to be fatal to humans, was sighted in Sentosa on 3 July.
LifestyleYahoo Lifestyle SEABig sale alert: Lazada is slashing prices on home and beauty appliances
Lazada is now offering a huge savings sale of up to 90% on big-name home improvement brands like Xiaomi, Mayer, Cornell and more.
EntertainmentYahoo Lifestyle SEASupermodel Naomi Campbell opens Paris Haute Couture Week with call for inclusivity
Supermodel Naomi Campbell opened Paris Haute Couture Week with a video message as the fashion week goes digital.
HealthYahoo Lifestyle SEANow on: Designer sunglasses at unbeatable discounts of up to 60% off
Where better to get a pair of designer shades from Gucci, Balenciaga and Chloe than Net-a-porter’s twice a year seasonal sale?
StyleYahoo Lifestyle SEAGE2020: Fashionable moments among election candidates
We checked out some of the candidates' fashion style outside political settings.
EntertainmentYahoo Lifestyle SEATV guide for Singapore in July: The Umbrella Academy S2, Grey's Anatomy S16, A Quest To Heal and more
Every month, we’ll tell you about new shows to hit terrestrial and cable channels, as well as streaming sites in Singapore.
EntertainmentYahoo Lifestyle SEAWatch Eason Chan’s online charity concert on 11 July on Yahoo Singapore
Hong Kong singer Eason Chan will be staging an online charity concert, Live Is So Much Better With Music Eason Chan Charity Concert, on 11 July (Saturday) and Yahoo Singapore will be live streaming the concert.
HealthYahoo Lifestyle SEATheFaceShop is looking for a fresh-faced Singaporean talent
Korean beauty brand The FaceShop, kicks off the #EcoBeautySquad Campaign today (6 July), a nationwide search for a new local star right here in Singapore. The competition aims to find a young personality who embodies the brand’s ethos of real and natural beauty.
HealthYahoo Lifestyle SEAFitness experts made the most of the lockdown. Did you?
These happy fit people say that staying fit during the recent lockdown has been important to help them deal with the issues of isolation and creating a new routine.
StyleYahoo Lifestyle SEAShopping: Buy the hottest fashion items from Moda Operandi's 65% sale now
Fashion e-commerce platform Moda Operandi is another luxury marketplace for you to discover well-known to upcoming brands.
LifestyleThe TelegraphHow I created a tropical jungle garden... on my patio in Clapham
Few of us will be going anywhere exotic this year but don’t worry, I have a plan. Bring the tropics to you with an atmospheric garden full of emerald leaves and glowing flowers. For instant impact and a long season of interest, turning your garden tropical is an excellent choice. Traditional tropical stalwarts include the hardy banana, tree fern, Chusan palm and red hot poker. As useful and lovely as these are, tropical gardens have evolved. A new trend has extended its coiled tendril to redefine the genre. In my own designs I’ve been bringing a naturalistic planting approach to tropical gardens, and using unusual new plants for greater creativity. The natural look I was in denial about our garden. “It’s not tropical,” I’d defiantly say to puzzled faces, until I realised one day that that was exactly what I’d created. It simply didn’t look like the tropical gardens I knew. Our living room looks through bifold doors on to a half-sun, half-shade patio, which I’ve filled over the past six years with luxurious rarities, colourful gems to be treasured. I find that having exotic plants close to the house jolts me out of whatever head space I’m in to one of calmness through curiosity. Employing naturalistic planting techniques – usually seen with grasses and airy perennials – while using tropical-look plants, recreates the feel of a wild jungle to wade through. I have paddle-shaped leaves of Canna ‘Shenandoah’, hardy in mild areas, pushing vertically through spreading mounds of Persicaria neofiliformis, both competing with Phytolacca ‘Laka Boom’ (possibly the greatest name in horticulture).
LifestyleThe TelegraphLovable rogues: five of the best corydalis varieties that like to suit themselves
Something wonderful arrived in the post this week: three little feathery clumps in 9cm pots, from the Beth Chatto nursery in Essex. The feathery clumps are Corydalis cheilanthifolia, a species of fumewort – similar but separate from close cousin, fumitory – that I have wanted to get my hands on for months. For me, this species is the zenith of its genus, raising yellow flowers to new heights and amplifying a characteristically delicate, pinnate foliage to the point of actually being mistaken for a fern. The leaves also redden for autumn. So a fern with flowers and autumn foliage; what more could you want in a plant? Acquiring C. cheilianthifolia concludes my preoccupation with the corydalis clan, for now at least; a fixation that began with frequent sightings of rogue yellow C. lutea undermining London’s civic stone walls last summer, and continued through exotic cultivars of pink C. solida, electric blue C. flexuosa and a handful in between. I have now gathered a small collection at the Garden Museum – my most recent horticultural whim – sitting together in a quiet corner of its sheltered courtyard garden. The clan belong to the poppy family, Papaveraceae, comprising a herbaceous rabble notable for their tubular, four-petalled flowers that, en masse, form a soft, frilly carpet. They hail predominantly from temperate Asia; China and Tibet in particular, where species number in the hundreds, but also East Africa, Iran and North America. Corydalis lutea, perhaps the species most commonly recognised, is an escapee from subalpine Europe that appears to thrive wherever it is not wanted. On account of this roguish behaviour, British gardeners often dismiss it as a weed, albeit an inoffensive one like herb Robert, common violet or garlic mustard. Last year, however, I rescued a runaway C. lutea from the perils of a well-trodden pathway, stuck it in a small pot with a grit mulch and left it on a shady stone step. Unexpectedly, the little plant flourished into something very pretty. The spring flowers were attractive, but the foliage more than warranted its place on permanent display, multilayered like a maidenhair fern yet bolder and, dare I say it, more elegantly splayed. Deadheading and the occasional removal of spent leaves kept it prospering through to winter: I became quite proud of my little experiment and repeated it in adjacent pots. What intrigues me most about corydalis is this aptitude for mimicking the foliage of other plants, as apparent in their botanical designations. You have C. thalictrifolia, for example, with leaves resembling thalictrum and C. rutifolia reminiscent of rue. C. anthriscifolia does a wonderful cow parsley impersonation while C. chelidoniifolia is named for its likeness to greater celandine, Chelidonium majus. My Corydalis cheilanthifolia apparently takes after a genus of sweet little rock ferns called Cheilanthes. Looking them up, the similarity is really quite something, the fumewort uncannily frond-like for a plant so taxonomically polar. Corydalis experienced a renaissance in gardens during the 1980s and 1990s as new species came into commercial cultivation. Loud colours caused a stir: hues ranging from deep red and purple to brilliant white, sprouting quickly and generously from a bulbous root system. Prior to lockdown I visited a garden in Suffolk all but neglected for over a decade. Under the dappled deciduous shade of an ageing hazel, pink and white C. solida ran riot: the effect was absolutely mesmerising. This is how you’re likely to encounter fumewort, overjoyed at being left alone in a pleasant enough spot with available moisture in the soil. Indeed, at the Beth Chatto Gardens it is the intermediate site their corydalis prefer – somewhere in between the extremes of shady woodland and exposed gravel. The task this week has been to find a suitable home in the museum garden for my latest purchase. Visually, C. cheilanthifolia’s “fernliness” suggests an Arcadian approach, fitting them between crumbling ledger stones (the museum gardens occupy a 17th century churchyard) in the Georgian romantic style. Horticulturally, however, their needs are not as straightforward as ferns. On the whole, corydalis delight in a confusing range of site preferences. Look up most species in any given plant-finder and you’ll be presented with such ambiguous specifications as: “exposed or sheltered”; “sand, chalk or clay”; “sun, shade or both”. The correct answer ought really be “wherever they choose”, as, being devoted self-seeders, corydalis prefer to place themselves rather than be placed, however inconvenient the favoured spot (I refer back to wall crevices and well-trodden pathways…). With this in mind, I am hedging my bets across three independent locations: one in a pot, another pressed into a west-facing wall (beside some adventitious C. lutea), and the third in cool soil, peeping out from a southern-lit tombstone. May the happiest win, and, with a bit of luck, self-seed a rambunctious new colony. Undoubtedly, I have taken great pleasure from growing fumewort in pots (mine are individually planted, but they would look just as good grouped below a potted shrub). In this way the full plant is exhibited, in all its fine-foliaged glory, and may benefit from free-draining compost and considered watering. Besides ferny C. cheilanthifolia, I suggest trying the popular C. flexuosa cultivar ‘China Blue’, or C. solida ‘White Knight’ for its prominent white flowers. C. anthriscifolia is next on my wishlist for interesting foliage, while in the greenhouse I’ll be sowing the striking purple-pink Corydalis hyrcana. The beauty of these plants is that they are compact and travel easily. They are the perfect choice, therefore, for home delivery: lovable rogues to lift the spirits. Matt Collins is head gardener at the Garden Museum in London. Follow Matt on Instagram: @museum_gardener C. solida 'Beth Evans'
StyleThe TelegraphIs winter jasmine scented? Why it pays to research even the plants you think you know
Winter jasmine – scented or not? Full marks if you said no. Of course, it isn’t. What made me ask the question was the arrival of one of those slightly breathless email from Thompson & Morgan, offering me a “scented shrub collection” for £9.99. The three shrubs in the collection were Philadelphus ‘Belle Étoile’, lilac ‘Miss Kim’ and – you guessed – winter jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum). Of course T&M; know that winter jasmine isn’t scented, and I guess some apprentice web scribbler just got momentarily carried away. But it did make me think that winter jasmine is a bit of a black sheep of the genus, because jasmines are usually scented. Which, in turn, made me wonder how easy it would be for a novice gardener to make the mistake of thinking that all jasmines are scented? Quite easy, apparently. For example, look up winter jasmine on the Gardeners’ World website and you find, of jasmines in general: “Jasminum are evergreen or deciduous shrubs that often climb via climbing stems. Their fragrant flowers are star-shaped.” It then goes on to tell you all about winter jasmine, without mentioning scent again, one way or the other. The RHS also introduce jasmines with: “Jasminum are evergreen or deciduous shrubs, many climbing by twining stems bearing usually pinnate leaves, and star-shaped white, pink or yellow flowers, which are sometimes very fragrant”. We then move on to the details of winter jasmine but, again, there’s no further mention of scent. Although, to be fair, they only say jasmines are sometimes fragrant, and maybe they think we’re all familiar with a common plant like winter jasmine. Nevertheless, I see a pattern here, and it’s not just about jasmine, or about scent. It’s about how far you need to go in telling gardeners about things that aren’t there. Of course most plants aren’t notably scented, but it would be tedious to have to put that in every description. On the other hand, I think in a genus where scent is a big selling point, you can’t just assume that everyone knows that this or that species or variety happens not to be scented. For example, although the RHS may have slightly taken their eye off the ball with jasmines, they don’t make the same mistake with honeysuckles. They introduce them with: “Climbing honeysuckles have twining stems with green or variegated leaves. They have clusters of trumpet-like blooms, with colours ranging from creamy-white, through yellow to red, that are often sweetly scented in summer”, but then go on to warn that “Not all climbing honeysuckles are fragrant (Lonicera × tellmanniana is an example of one that is not), so do check the label before you buy”. But Gardeners’ World don’t seem to have noticed that there are non-scented honeysuckles: “Honeysuckles are usually hardy twinning (sic) climbers or shrubs with scented flowers. Choose from evergreen and deciduous forms. Climbing honeysuckles produce scented flowers, followed by red berries that are very appealing to birds.” In fact, so keen are Gardeners’ World on scented honeysuckles that further down the same page we find: “Lonicera × tellmanniana – orange, yellow flowers from May to July. A deciduous climber with wonderful scent”. Yes, this is the same plant the RHS rightly warned you about: a lovely plant, but without scent. The lesson, I think, if you’re contemplating buying a plant in a genus where most species have some particular feature, is to assume nothing, and do your research first. Ken Thompson is a plant biologist with a keen interest in the science of gardening. His most recent book is a second collection of his Telegraph columns: Notes From a Sceptical Gardener. Order a copy from books.telegraph.co.uk.
EntertainmentYahoo Lifestyle SEAActor Chase Tan apologises to LGBTQ community after netizens slam Mediacorp drama for negative gay stereotypes
Mediacorp is receiving a lot of flak for drama series My Guardian Angels, which contains negative representations of gay people.