【推荐1】Four Best of British markets

Whether you’re looking for antiques, food, collectors’ items or just random junk, our rich heritage has produced some of the finest markets in the world. Here are four of them.

Edinburgh Farmers’ Market

Traders in Edinburgh have long sold their goods in the shadow of the city’s spectacular castle. It takes place on Castle Terrace every Saturday and attracts a huge crowd with its locally sourced goods. The market is now in its 15th year and champions the very best in Scottish produce.

Billingsgate Fish Market

This hub in the heart of the East End of London is the biggest inland market in Britain. Dating back to the 16th century, Billingsgate is now served by almost every UK port, with fish transported through the night to arrive for trading, which starts at 4 a.m.. It is famed for shifting 25,000 tons of fish each year.

St George’s Market

Follow your nose along May Street in Belfast and the smells of delicious home-made food from across the globe will land you in St George’s Market, once voted the best in the UK. Completed in 1896 and featuring tasty food, the trading place is also one of Belfast’s oldest attractions, thanks to its wide range of goods and live music performances.

Ford Airfield Market

Looking for an old-style prosthetic leg, a ventriloquist’s dummy, or even a suit of armour? The chances are you’ll find what you’re after – and plenty of other random stuff – at one of the hundreds of stalls here in West Sussex. Huge car-boot sales (旧货市场) are held at the weekends all year round, come rain or shine. The market has been running for 25 years and is a well-known treasure trove for antiques experts looking for a bargain.

【推荐2】What a Scoop! Readers’ Favorite Ice-Cream Shops

From pear and cheese in Edinburgh to pomegranate ripple at Ventor, our reporters show off the coolest licks.

Mary’s Milk Bar in the Grassmarket is popular with locals and visitors, and is the perfect pit stop for people dashing between fringe festival shows. Flavors change every day, with pear and cheese among the regulars. You can grab your ice and walk up the Vennel Steps for breathtaking views of Edinburgh castle.

Aisha

“Che buono! The best gelato (ice cream) outside Naples!” exclaimed my son’s Italian girlfriend on her first visit to Delphini’s. Giovanni grinned and gave her an extra, free scoop. Every day there’s a queue outside this shop in this progressive south Devon town. Delphini’s gelato is made out of organic local milk and cream. What’s more, it is dairy-free, making it a good option for vegans in Totnes. Flavors change daily and they do free tasting.

Kate

Shepherds Ice Cream Shop in Abergavenny is a Wes Anderson-styled drop-in. It’s all made locally from goat-milk, the business is run by two generations of a family that has some sort of tradition around a golden scoop. Shepherds often pop up with a vintage ice-cream trailer at festivals and events around the UK. It’s my family’s year-round Friday treat.

Alexia Tucker

Crave Ices at Ventnor invents new flavors constantly. Always over 20 choices, plenty of sweet, creamy ones, but also salty, alcoholic and non-dairy delights. Recent highlights include pomegranate ripple, whisky marmalade (over-18s only!). Once I mentioned a flavor I’d enjoyed the previous year. They made some especially for me so I could have it again before I left for home.

Lucy Marder

【推荐3】I used to think my little corner of urban England was somewhere I could get away from the stress and strain of modern-day life — until they moved in next door. There are two of them. They are white, woolly and probably have sharp teeth as well as loud bark. But every time their constant barking interrupts my sleep, I remind myself that, in many respects, I am lucky. The neighbors don’t hold all-night parties, nor do they shout or throw crockery at each other, and though their dogs may bark, they don’t bite.

According to a recent consumer magazine report on “nightmare neighbors”, dogs are the fifth most common source of bad relations between neighbors. Noise of any description heads the list of complaints, followed by DIY enthusiasts, parking quarrelling, and arguments over house extensions.

So what alternatives are there? One is to take legal action. But this can be time-consuming and expensive and does nothing to improve already difficult relationships. The other alternatives are to sell up and go, or to try to reach a solution with the help of someone neutral. Mediation UK— the United Nations equivalent of garden fence conflicts — was set in 1984 to help resolve community disagreements.

In most cases, the lack of communication is found the main cause of conflict. David Nation of Plymouth Mediation points to poor public housing and widespread unemployment as additional factors. He also reports more cases of complaints from people who live in flats. Large houses built in the nineteenth century and designed as single-occupation family homes have, he says, been changed into flats with little or no attention to sound insulation. Dividing walls are paper thin and hardly block out sound at all.

Buyers can also be put off by the external appearance of neighboring houses. Anything from wild, uncared for gardens to unusual external color schemes can put off buyers — even though the offending property is next door. But it could be worse. John Gladden, of Norbury in Surrey upset his neighbors in St Oswald’s Road by mounting a huge fish in fiberglass (玻璃纤维) and putting it on the roof of his house. The local council argued that he should have got planning permission; residents thought the fish did nothing to improve the appearance of the neighborhood, and war broke out. Sightseers poured in and homes near the suburban property can now be hard to sell.

【推荐2】Almost no one knows the world of competitive climbing like Janja Garnbret, an Olympic gold medalist and eight-time world champion. Having risen to the top of the sport, the Slovenian now is using her platform to raise awareness of the “cultural trap” in climbing. She says it is contributing to a widespread issue with eating disorders.

The problem is from an outdated idea that weighing less means you climb faster. Such a mindset has created an environment where young athletes start skipping or cutting down on meals, she says, sometimes to disastrous effect. Despite not having issues with eating disorders herself, she is more than aware of friends and fellow competitors who have damaged their bodies in the pursuit of a thinner figure.

“I have to recognize that weight does have some role to play in the sport. I also want to win, but I’m a strong believer that you can do climbing, or any sport, in a healthy way. Luckily I didn’t fall into this trap.” She says.

“I was trying hard to help them get out of it, but it didn’t work. It was really hard for me to see them destroying themselves, mentally and physically.” It was experiences such as this that inspired Gambret to post a message on the social platform in July 2023 about eating disorders. The post sparked a huge response throughout the climbing community and attracted support from the likes of US rock climber Sasha DiGiulian.

In her message, Garnbret spoke about Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDs) — a syndrome (综合征) that occurs when someone of any gender has overtrained and/or undereaten for a long period in an attempt to improve their athletic performance, often without knowing the dangers of failing to compensate (补偿) for the energy they consume in training, racing and their daily lives. Left untreated, medical experts say REDs can damage an athlete’s bone health, immune system, and psychological health, as well as his athletic performance.