You are a professional English-to-Hindi translator, tasked with providing translations suitable for use in India (hi_IN). Your goal is to accurately convey the meaning and nuances of the original English text while adhering to Hindi grammar, vocabulary, and cultural sensitivities. The original English text is a short story. Aim to maintain the original tone and register, retaining the emotional depth of the story. Dialogues should sound natural and follow the conventions of the target language. Produce only the Hindi translation, without any additional explanations or commentary. Retain the paragraph breaks (double new lines) from the input text. Please translate the following English text into Hindi (hi_IN):


Kyle looked at his reflection in the mirror. He studied the lines etched on his face, each one a reminder of the years gone by. A hint of gray threaded his hair now, and for a moment, he felt the weight of change settling in.


He didn’t want to label it an identity crisis. Not yet at least. But as he splashed the cold sink water on his face, memories of his pro hockey career flooded his mind. The thrill of the game, the adrenaline of competition, the love of the fans. All forty years of his life had practically been dedicated to making it to the highest level. Now those days were behind him.


It had been a remarkable twenty-year pro career, one that most players could only dream of. He wore a gleaming championship ring, a testament to his hard work and dedication. Kyle truly couldn’t have asked for more. With his wife and son by his side through every triumph and challenge, he was ready to step into this new chapter and return the favor they had shown him.


Today marked a significant milestone for the Barnes family; Ryan’s first day of school in their new town. After Kyle’s retirement, they had chosen to relocate to New Hampshire so Ryan could attend St. Cassian’s, the prestigious hockey prep school where Kyle had once played.


It was usually his wife, Nicole, who ensured that milestones like this were executed flawlessly. But with his career behind him and plenty of free time ahead, they decided it was time to switch roles. After dedicating fifteen years to raising their son, Nicole was finally ready to return to work full-time and pursue her passion for interior design, leaving Kyle to navigate this unfamiliar routine on his own.


Kyle knew he should be excited, yet uncertainty tugged at him. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to focus. It was time for Nicole and Ryan to take the lead, with his unwavering support behind them. He was determined not to let them down.


“Fresh start,” he whispered to himself. “You got this.”


Kyle followed the enticing aroma of fresh coffee to the kitchen. Nicole was in the final moments of her new morning routine, screwing the lid onto her to-go cup. When she caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye, she flashed him a quick, warm smile.


“Morning, Mr. Mom,” she said, her voice bright with excitement.


“Morning,” he chuckled, closing the distance between them and pressing a kiss to her lips. “Pretty sure morning coffee is my new responsibility.”


“You get a freebie today, rookie.” Nicole slung her purse over her shoulder and gave Kyle an encouraging pat on the backside as she passed him. “Alright, I’m outta here. Ryan needs to be downstairs in five minutes, and you two need to be out the door in ten. And don’t forget to snap at least one picture of him in his new uniform. I want a smile, or it doesn’t count!”


“I’ll make sure he gets to school on time. No promises about the smiling part, though.”


“If he behaves for the picture, tell him we can hit the diner after practice.”


“Deal.” Kyle nodded. “Go get ’em, babe.”


Nicole winked at him as she opened the door to the garage. “Love you. Keep me updated!”


And just like that, she was gone. The sudden silence was almost unsettling, prompting Kyle to pour himself a cup of coffee to distract his restless thoughts.


“Hey, Ry! You about ready?” Kyle called up the stairs.


Silence followed, typical for a teenager. Kyle settled at the table for the time being, scrolling through his phone. A new text pinged, and he tapped on it.


“Barnesy.” It was from his old teammate, Luc Benoit, now coaching St. Cassian’s hockey team. “Need a favor. Meet me at the rink soon?”


“Already need my advice on day one, Benny?” Kyle shot a teasing text back.


“Just trying to keep you busy, old man.”


Kyle smiled at the jab. Even after all these years, their relationship had remained as lively and playful as it was in their twenties.


”Be there in fifteen. Bout to drop off Ry.”


“Shit,” he muttered under his breath when he checked the time. “Ryan William!” he yelled up the stairs. “If we’re late on your first day, your mom is going to skin me, and then I’m gonna skin you! Let’s go!”


Kyle pushed back from the table and swiftly poured his coffee from his favorite mug into a to-go cup. A moment later, the sound of hurried footsteps echoed down the stairs behind him. He grabbed his keys from the counter and turned to face his son.


“Got everything?” Kyle asked. He took in the sight in front of him; his heart swelling with pride and a touch of nostalgia seeing his old school colors on his boy.


“Yeah,” Ryan replied, tucking his school polo into his khaki pants. He noticed the warm expression on his dad’s face. “What’s with the look?”


“Royal blue and gold really suit you, Champ.”


Ryan smirked and rolled his eyes. “You’re getting so soft in your old age.”


With a playful grin, Kyle reached out to pinch the crook of Ryan’s neck, a gesture that had always made his son laugh.


Ryan burst into genuine laughter, tucking his chin and batting at Kyle’s hand to dodge the attack. “Okay, okay!”


“That’s what I thought. Come on, let’s get moving.”


Kyle smiled and gave Ryan’s backside a light swat, nudging him along. They stepped outside, where the morning sun cast a warm glow over their freshly painted house, a vivid reminder of their recent move back to New England.


The atmosphere in the car was charged with a blend of anticipation and anxiety. Kyle could sense Ryan’s nervous energy radiating beside him, and he couldn’t help but remember his own first day, driven by his dad to this very school. He understood, probably more than anyone, the mix of excitement and fear his son was feeling.


As they pulled into the school parking lot, Kyle exhaled, taking in the stunning, castle-like buildings. He remembered just how much he loved this campus, especially in the fall when the foliage was at its peak.


“Ready, buddy?” Kyle asked, glancing over as Ryan fiddled with his backpack in the passenger seat.


“Yeah, I think so,” Ryan replied, his voice steady despite the nervous flutter in his stomach. There was a determination in his eyes that reassured Kyle.


“Hey, you’ll do great,” Kyle said, offering a comforting smile. “But before you head to class, Mom wants a quick picture.”


Ryan groaned, anticipating the familiar routine. “Do we have to—”


“Ryan,” Kyle replied, his tone light but firm. “Less attitude, please. You know the drill.”


They stepped out of the car, and Kyle quickly snapped a picture he knew Nicole would cherish. It wasn’t Ryan’s most enthusiastic smile, but it was a smile nonetheless.


“I’ll see you at practice, okay?” Kyle wrapped an arm around Ryan’s shoulders, pulling him close and pressing a kiss to his soft, blonde curls. “Have a great day. Love you.”


Kyle stood for a moment, watching as Ryan disappeared through the arched doorway of the main building. As the door swung shut behind his son, Kyle took a deep breath, knowing this was just the beginning of a new journey for them both.


After a lifetime of strict schedules, the idea of an open day felt both liberating and daunting. So when Luc’s text came through this morning, Kyle was genuinely relieved, and a little thrilled, to have somewhere to be.


He made his way across campus toward the Griffin Den, the school’s storied ice rink, coffee in hand. The crisp morning air and familiar surroundings stirred something deep in his chest.


Kyle pushed open the doors to the rink, and the familiar scent of ice, rubber, and old gear hit him instantly. For the first time that day, he felt like himself. He stood in the stillness, letting the silence wash over him as he gazed out at the freshly zambonied sheet of ice, smooth and untouched, like a blank page waiting to be written on.


Kyle glanced up at the banners hanging from the rafters, his eyes quickly finding the year he and Luc had won their championship. The sight pulled him back in time, memories flooding in all at once, sharp and vivid, like the ice was still beneath his skates.


Suddenly, a voice cut through his thoughts. “The good ol’ days, eh, Barnesy?”


Kyle turned to see Luc emerging from his office, a grin on his face as he walked over.


Kyle resisted the urge to roll his eyes at that grin. It was annoying as hell that Luc still looked like he belonged on the cover of GQ , even after a grueling pro hockey career of his own.


“Just what I needed, another reminder that I’m getting old,” Kyle said with a chuckle. “It’s surreal being back. Seeing all this again…it feels like a lifetime ago.”


“You’ll get used to it,” Luc said with a smile, reaching out for a firm handshake and pulling Kyle into a quick shoulder-clap hug, the kind of greeting that hadn’t changed since they were teammates.


Kyle noticed the file in Luc's hand, its edges worn from use. “What’s this? Got a scouting report for me?” he asked, curiosity piqued as he leaned in slightly, eager to hear what Luc had to share.


“This,” Luc hummed as he tapped the file with his free hand, “is the favor. I’ll fill you in on the details. Come on, let’s sit.”


Kyle looked momentarily puzzled but settled onto the cold metal bleachers beside him.


”So, we’ve got a last-minute addition, and usually we don’t make exceptions, right? Once the roster is finalized over the summer, that’s typically it,” Luc began. “But this kid is something special. I’m telling you, man, he’s got insane potential.”


Luc handed the file to Kyle, who opened it with interest. "Declan Avery Hull" was printed in bold letters across the top, accompanied by a photo paperclipped to the top right corner. Kyle mentally noted the boyish features: deep green eyes, shiny, long, floppy brunette hair, and a bold expression that suggested confidence. His gaze then shifted to the hockey resume, and he raised his eyebrows at its impressive details.


Kyle let out a low whistle, the sound escaping him like a mix of surprise and admiration. “Damn, this kid is going to be a stud.”


“Just wait until you see him play, he arrives tomorrow,” Luc said, his tone shifting slightly. “But I do have some concerns.”


“With what?” Kyle asked, unable to find anything amiss in the details his eyes were scanning on the page.


Luc flipped to the back, where the more personal information was stored, and pointed to the notes section with his finger.


Kyle read the first bullet point: “Off-ice behavior must be addressed if he wants to reach his full potential.”


His eyebrows instinctively raised at that, a knowing look passing between them as he turned to Luc. “Sounds like he’s a bit of a wildcard, huh?”


Luc sighed, shaking his head as he fell deep into thought. “I don’t want to make excuses for him. Hell, I don’t even know him yet. But the kid has been bouncing from boarding school to boarding school for most of his childhood. That can’t be helping, right? I think what he really needs is stability.”


“Where are the parents?” Kyle asked, the question feeling all too obvious given his own experiences.


He and Nicole had made it a priority to effectively manage their son’s off-ice behavior throughout his upbringing, committed to ensuring no negative bullet points marred his hockey resume. Any acting out was always nipped in the bud, immediately.


“Mom’s not in the picture; hasn’t been since he was a baby, from what I hear,” Luc replied. “And the dad isn’t very present; he doesn’t show up to any games. Just writes the checks when he needs to.”


“Shit,” was all Kyle could manage in response.


“Yeah,” Luc sighed, shaking his head in frustration. “I just don’t feel right being just another boarding school for him, you know? He needs something more, something different. He needs a hockey family .”


Kyle couldn’t agree more; he felt a deep empathy for the kid. Having experienced the support of a tight-knit hockey family throughout his own career, he understood how crucial that foundation was.


“How can I help, Benny?” he asked, his tone sincere.


“I thought about taking the kid in, but I know he won’t want to live with the coach,” Luc began. “I realize this is a big ask, and I won’t be offended if you say no-“


Kyle cut in, finishing Luc’s thought. “You want us to be his billet family.”


Luc nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve seen firsthand how you and Nicole raised Ryan, and just look at how incredible he turned out. If Declan has a support system like yours, it could be a game changer for him.”


Kyle took a moment to ponder. This wasn’t merely a simple favor; this was a responsibility for another soul. He hadn’t anticipated considering taking in a kid when he read Luc’s text that morning. Still, he would do anything for Luc, and the earnest look in his eyes made it clear just how serious this was to him. That meant it was now serious to Kyle as well.


“I hear you, and I appreciate that you think so highly of me,” Kyle said, a teasing smile playing on his lips. “Let me chat with Nicole and Ryan over dinner tonight, and I’ll get back to you, okay? I’m confident we can work something out.”


“I really appreciate it, man,” Luc said earnestly. “As a thank you for even considering it, feel free to use the gym here whenever you want. We don’t want you developing a dad bod, now do we?” he teased, giving Kyle’s stomach a playful pat.


“Don’t you dare start that with me, you little sh—” Kyle retorted, unable to suppress a grin.


“Got a meeting to run to!” Luc exclaimed, rising from the bleachers and jogging toward the coaches office before Kyle could finish his thought. “Keep that file tonight, just bring it back tomorrow. Love you!”


“Yeah, yeah,” Kyle said, rolling his eyes with a chuckle.


A mix of emotions stirred within Kyle as he found himself alone in the rink once more. The weight of the decision ahead loomed large, but he felt a flicker of hope. If there was a chance to make a difference for Declan, perhaps it was worth taking the leap.


He took a deep breath, glancing around the rink where memories flooded back once again: laughter, camaraderie, and the family he cherished. This new chapter was unfolding, a fresh purpose, and maybe it was finally time to embrace the unknown.


“Okay, we’ve got two classic burgers, one club sandwich, and fries all around,” the waitress announced cheerfully as she placed each plate on the table with practiced ease. “Can I get you anything else?”


“I think we’re all set, thanks, Jo,” Kyle said with a warm smile as he shifted his napkin onto his lap.


The Barnes family began digging in after the waitress left them to it. Ryan immediately reached for the ketchup and, true to form, drowned his fries in an absurd amount, completely unfazed by the amused glances from his parents.


Without a word, Kyle plucked the pickles from his burger and placed them on Ryan’s plate; a quiet ritual that had long become second nature. It was a small thing, but moments like that made Kyle feel grounded, like some parts of life hadn’t changed at all.


The table fell into a comfortable silence as everyone tucked into their meals, the clinking of silverware and the occasional satisfied hum filling the space between them. After a few minutes of quiet eating, Kyle leaned back slightly and broke the silence, ready to reconnect with his family.


“Alright,” he hummed, taking a sip of his drink before setting the glass down. “Big day for all of us, huh? Who’s up first, anyone want to share?”


”Oh, I’ll go,” Nicole said, her eyes lighting up. “As much as I love you, my beautiful boys, it was so nice to be back at the office today. Everyone was incredibly welcoming. Today was mostly administrative stuff, but we also talked through some upcoming projects, and I’m already itching to dive in.”


Kyle smiled, genuinely happy to see her so energized. “That’s awesome, babe. You’ve been waiting a long time for this.”


“Yeah,” Ryan added between bites. “Mom’s finally getting to make other people’s houses look as cool as ours.”


“Exactly!” Nicole cooed, giving Ryan’s bicep a soft pinch. “Though I do still expect your help moving samples around the garage, Mr. Muscles.”


Ryan groaned with a grin. “Knew that was coming.”


Kyle chuckled at their banter, then shifted in his seat, draping his arm around the back of Ryan’s chair so he could fully face him. As he moved, he gave the back of Ryan’s head a gentle scruff, earning a mock-annoyed eye roll from his son.


“Alright, your turn, Champ. First day at St. Cassian’s, how’d it go?”


Ryan shrugged, poking at a fry. “It was alright.”


“Just alright?” Nicole asked, raising an eyebrow.


“I mean, it’s school. But the campus is pretty sick, and a couple of the guys on the team seemed cool. Classes weren’t bad either.”


Kyle nodded, his gaze steady. “That’s a solid start.”


Ryan gave another shrug, but this time it came with a small smile. “Yeah, I guess it wasn’t the worst first day.”


Kyle began rubbing a slow circle between Ryan’s shoulder blades absentmindedly, his gaze drifting to the window beside them. The sun was beginning to dip below the trees, casting golden streaks across the diner’s parking lot, a reminder of how quickly time was already passing.


“Hey,” Kyle hummed, giving Ryan’s shoulder a light squeeze to catch his attention. “Tell your mom about practice. She’s been waiting all day to hear about it.”


Ryan perked up, his eyes brightening a little. “The rink’s insane, it’s like NHL-level. Uncle Luc- I mean, Coach Luc had us doing some light drills, mostly puck work and conditioning,” he said, trying to keep his voice even, though the excitement peeked through.


“Yeah?” Nicole leaned in, genuinely curious. “Did it feel like the right fit?”


Ryan nodded. “Yeah. Everyone’s really good, but I think I held my own. Coach Luc kept it pretty easy on us for the first day, but I know it’s gonna ramp up fast.”


“I’m so glad to hear that, baby,” Nicole said, reaching across the table to touch Ryan’s arm. Her fingers shifted, and she gave his chin a light tap with her knuckle. “Even if that smile in the picture your dad took this morning was, like, 40% effort at best.”


“I smiled, didn’t I?” Ryan laughed, ducking his head.


“Technically,” she teased, leaning back with a grin. “I have half a mind to make you retake it tomorrow.”


“Nope,” Ryan said quickly, already shaking his head. “One per semester. That’s the rule.”


Kyle chuckled into his drink. “He’s been keeping track, apparently.”


Kyle watched the exchange with a quiet sense of contentment, the easy rhythm between Nicole and Ryan filling him with a familiar warmth. Then his gaze dropped to his plate, the weight of the earlier conversation with Luc nudging at the back of his mind. The time had come to shift gears.


He gave Nicole a small smile, then cleared his throat gently.


“So, while we’re all sharing big firsts today,” Kyle began, his voice casual but deliberate, “there’s one more thing I wanted to run by you guys.”


Nicole looked up from her plate, brows knitting slightly with curiosity. “Everything okay?”


“Yeah, yeah,” Kyle said quickly, waving a hand to ease the concern. “It’s nothing bad. Just…something Luc brought up this morning when I saw him at the rink.”


Ryan glanced up from his fries, picking up on the subtle shift in his dad’s tone. His posture straightened slightly, curiosity taking hold.


“He asked me for a favor,” Kyle continued, glancing between them. “And it’s kind of a big one.”


Ryan raised an eyebrow, still chewing a fry. “Like, helping him move a couch kind of favor, or helping bury a body kind of favor?”


Nicole shot Ryan a disapproving look, but Kyle couldn’t help but chuckle. “It’s somewhere in between, I think.”


Ryan leaned back in his chair, taking a sip of his drink. “Okay, well now I’m really curious. What is it?”


Kyle shifted in his seat, removing his arm from the back of Ryan's chair and leaning forward slightly, resting his forearms on the table. “Luc asked if we’d consider being a billet family this season, for a new player joining the team.”


Nicole paused, setting down her glass with a thoughtful clink. “He wants us to take in a kid?” Her expression morphed, less surprise and more intrigue. “That’s definitely not something Luc would ask lightly.”


Kyle nodded. “Exactly. This kid, Declan Hull, he’s talented, no question. But his home life’s rocky. Luc thinks living with a stable family could really ground him.”


Ryan glanced between his parents, concern creeping into his expression. “Wait…does that mean he’d be, like, living with me? Am I going to have to share my room?”


Kyle met his eyes, offering a calm look to ease the concern. “He’ll be in the guest room, don’t worry. And honestly, part of why Luc thought of us is because he said you’d be a great example for him.”


Ryan leaned forward, mirroring his dad’s posture with his forearms on the table, his brows knitting together in thought. “Why wasn’t he at practice today then? If he’s on the team, shouldn’t he have started with the rest of us?”


Kyle nodded, understanding the question. He knew how important it was for a team to start the season together; same drills, same ice, building that early chemistry.


“Luc said things came together really last minute, the paperwork just cleared. Declan gets in tomorrow, but he’s already locked in on the roster.”


Ryan tilted his head, clearly still processing. “Huh…that’s kind of wild. Just showing up outta nowhere.”


Kyle gently bumped his shoulder into Ryan’s, his voice steady. “Life isn’t always neat, Ry. This kid’s been bounced around for years, not because he’s a bad kid, but because no one’s given him a real chance. This might be his shot at something solid. So let’s not judge him before we even meet him, okay?”


Ryan pouted slightly at the soft scolding, his shoulders sinking just a bit. He looked down at his plate, quiet for a moment as he pushed a fry through the last streak of ketchup.


“So he’s my age?” he asked, his voice more thoughtful now.


Kyle nodded. “Same grade. He’ll turn fifteen in May,” he said, watching Ryan closely for a reaction.


But nothing came. Ryan simply continued to eat the last of his fries, prompting Kyle to press on. “You okay with that?” he asked gently. “It’s a big shift, I know.”


Ryan shrugged, then nodded slowly. “I mean…yeah. I get it. If he really needs it, I’m not gonna be a jerk about it. Just gotta wrap my head around having a roommate now, I guess.”


Before Kyle could respond, Nicole quickly interjected. “If you weren’t okay with it, that wouldn’t make you a jerk, sweetheart. Do you understand? It’s natural to feel unsure, and you have the biggest heart I’ve ever seen, even when you try to hide it.”


Ryan gave a half-smile, eyes flicking toward his plate again.


Nicole glanced at Kyle, then back to Ryan. “And if this boy really needs a place to land, I think we’d be the right kind of home for him. It won’t be perfect, and it’ll probably take some adjusting, but we’ve got more to give. We always have.”


She looked at Kyle now, and his heart swelled. He reached for Nicole’s hand under the table and gave it a gentle squeeze.


”I think it’s worth a shot, yeah?” Kyle nodded, his voice steady as he looked between the two of them. “But just so there’s no confusion, family comes first. It always has, and it always will.”


Nicole gave a small, knowing smile, and Ryan met his dad’s eyes, listening closely.


“We’ll do our best to make this work,” Kyle continued, “but if it doesn’t feel right, if it’s too much or causes strain in the house, then we reassess. No guilt. No pressure. Just honesty.”


He paused for a beat. “But something tells me we might be exactly what this kid needs.”


Nicole reached for her water and nodded. “And maybe he’s exactly what we need too.”


Ryan leaned back in his seat, nudging his empty plate aside. “So…does finding out I’ve got a roommate now at least get me a to-go milkshake or something?”


Nicole raised an eyebrow, clearly amused. “Oh, we’re negotiating now?”


“I mean, emotional growth is exhausting,” Ryan said with a grin. “I think I’ve earned some sugar.”


Kyle laughed, reaching for the check. “Fair enough. One chocolate milkshake, extra whipped cream. You definitely earned it.”


As they stood and gathered their things, the air around them felt lighter. They stepped out of the diner as one, Kyle’s arm draped protectively over Ryan’s shoulders, his other hand gently clasping Nicole’s.


There was still a lot unknown about what lay ahead, but they were facing it together.


And that, Kyle thought, was more than a good start.


The house was quiet again. The kind of quiet that settles in only after a full day. Kyle padded barefoot down the hallway, coffee mug in one hand, Declan’s file tucked under his arm.


The bedroom light cast a warm glow across the sheets as Nicole emerged from the bathroom, brushing out the last bit of moisture from her hair. She wore one of Kyle’s old team t-shirts, the fabric soft and oversized, sleeves brushing her elbows.


Kyle was already propped up against the headboard when she climbed into bed beside him, pulling the covers over her lap with a contented sigh.


“Ry asleep?” Nicole murmured, easing into his side, her fingers brushing lightly against his arm.


“Mhm,” Kyle hummed, setting his mug down on the nightstand with a soft clink. The folder remained open on his lap, Declan’s profile page catching the soft pool of lamplight. Nicole’s gaze drifted to it.


“You’ve read that three times already,” she said softly.


“Yeah,” Kyle admitted, eyes still on the page. “I keep thinking about how young he looks. He’s just a kid. But there’s something in his eyes…I don’t know. It’s like he’s already carrying the weight of someone twice his age.”


Nicole leaned her head against his shoulder, her hand finding his on the file and resting there. “You’re already in it, huh?”


Kyle let out a breath through his nose; half a laugh, half a sigh. “I don’t know. Maybe. I just…I keep picturing what it would’ve been like for me at his age without my dad showing up to every game. Without someone giving a damn.”


Nicole was quiet for a moment, her thumb gently tracing his knuckles.


“We’re good at giving a damn,” she said finally, her voice barely above a whisper.


Kyle turned to look at her, his expression soft. “You sure you’re up for this? Things were just starting to feel…balanced.”


“I’m sure,” she said, meeting his eyes. “We’ve always made room when it mattered. This matters.”


“And Ryan?” Kyle’s voice dipped, laced with quiet guilt. “I promised him this next chapter would be about him. More time together, just the two of us; his hockey, his moment. And now, day one, I’m asking him to share all of that with a complete stranger.”


“What if it’s good for him too?” Nicole asked gently, her voice thoughtful. “Learning how to make space for someone else. Figuring out who he is not just on the ice, but as a teammate, a friend. Maybe even a brother.”


Kyle hadn’t considered that angle, not really. The idea settled over him slowly, unexpected but not unwelcome, like a shift in light that made the whole picture look different.


“Damn,” Kyle murmured, a quiet smile tugging at his lips. “You’re good.”


Nicole grinned, tilting her head as she bumped her shoulder against his. “That’s why you married me, Barnes.”


“Among a million other reasons,” he said, leaning over to press a kiss to her temple. “I love you.”


She smirked sleepily. “I love you too. Now turn off that light. We’ve got another big day tomorrow.”


Kyle chuckled, snapping the folder shut. He placed it gently on the nightstand beside his mug, then clicked off the lamp.


As darkness settled around them, he lay back beside her, one arm beneath her shoulders, the steady rhythm of her breathing already beginning to slow.


And for a long while, Kyle stared at the ceiling, wide awake.


Tomorrow, everything would begin again. New roles. New routines. A new kid.


The bus hissed as it came to a stop in front of St. Cassian’s entrance, its doors folding open with a mechanical sigh.


Declan Hull sat in the second-to-last row, elbows propped on his knees, thumbs drumming anxiously against each other. His headphones rested around his neck, the music paused a while ago, but he hadn’t noticed. He’d spent the last hour watching pine trees blur past the window, wondering if this place would be like the others.


With a slow exhale, Declan rose to his feet, slinging the duffel bag over his shoulder. The blue canvas was stiff and new, the St. Cassian’s crest embroidered in gold on the side. It had been overnighted to him in anticipation for his arrival, along with his class uniform and team-issued hockey sweats. He’d conveniently ignored the uniform, pulling on the sweats instead. After seven hours crammed on a bus from Syracuse, he dared someone to say a word about him showing up late and out of dress code.


The driver gave him a brief nod as he stepped off the bus.


The fall air was colder than he expected, brisk and sharp as it hit his lungs. He zipped his windbreaker up higher and adjusted his grip on the bag. His eyes scanned the wide campus, tracing the stone buildings and manicured lawns with casual disinterest until they landed on the rink in the distance.


Hockey was the one thing that always made sense, even when everything else didn’t.


On the ice, he was free. He could move how he wanted, think how he wanted, and he was good . Nothing else in his life had ever been that simple.


He shifted his bag higher on his shoulder, drawn toward the rink like muscle memory. His feet started moving without him even really deciding to. Then a voice snapped him out of it.


An older woman in a St. Cassian’s blazer was waving him down from the main entrance, clipboard in hand and a no-nonsense energy that made him stop in his tracks.


“Uh, yeah,” he said, squinting against the sun. “I’m Declan. Declan Hull.”


“Oh, hi, Declan.” She smiled as she caught up to him, a little out of breath but friendly. “I’m Heather Burke, Director of Admissions.” She extended her hand with practiced warmth, like she’d done this a hundred times before.


“Hi,” Declan said, reaching out to shake her hand. His grip was firm, but quick; polite enough, though his eyes kept drifting back toward the rink.


She noticed the way his gaze kept pulling back to the rink and smiled knowingly.


“You’re ready to get after it, aren’t you?” she said with a spark of encouragement. “Well, no point in delaying. I know your coaches are looking forward to meeting you. Shall we?”


She turned, already walking toward the rink, trusting he’d follow.


Declan didn’t say a word, just adjusted his grip on the duffel and fell in step, eyes fixed straight ahead.


”So,” she hummed, breaking the silence, “you missed the first two days of classes. I’ve got all your classwork and homework here.”


She handed him a folder as they walked; blue and gold, stamped with the school crest in shiny foil. Declan almost rolled his eyes. Even the homework was branded.


“Normally, we have a zero-tolerance policy for late work,” she continued. “But given the circumstances, you’ll have until the end of the week to get it turned in. If you need a tutor to help you catch up, that can be arranged.”


Declan’s brain buzzed, already overloaded by the flood of expectations and deadlines. Heather must’ve picked up on it. She gave him a brief pat on the back, like that would somehow make it better.


"Don’t worry, everything you need to know is in the school handbook," she said, her tone casual, as though she was well-accustomed to the overwhelmed look on new students’ faces.


Right . The endless handbook they emailed over. As if he’d actually sit down and read all that.


Before Declan’s brain could short-circuit from the overload, Heather pushed open the doors to the rink. The blast of cold air hit him like a welcome shock, instantly calming the chaos in his head.


“Coach Benoit’s office is just through here,” Heather said, leading him down the hallway.


She knocked on the door, and it swung open immediately. The man who stepped into view was the same one from the school website photo, his broad smile instantly recognizable. He beamed at Declan like an old friend.


“Declan!” he exclaimed with enthusiasm, his smile widening. “Welcome to St. Cassian’s. How was the ride in?”


“Long,” Declan said with a shrug, the weight of the journey still lingering in his voice. “But I’m just glad to finally be here.”


Luc stepped forward with a confident handshake, his grip firm but welcoming. “We’re thrilled to have you on board.” He turned to Heather with a smile. “Mrs. Burke, thank you for making the trek out to The Den.”


She waved him off with an easy smile. “Anytime. If you need me, you know where to find me.” With a final nod, she turned and swept out, her heels clicking in steady rhythm across the rink floor.


“Come on in, Declan,” Luc said as he opened the door and stepped aside to let him through.


Declan walked in but hesitated a few steps past the threshold. His gaze landed on a man already in the room, someone he recognized. His posture stiffened.


”Whoa, wait. You’re Kyle Barnes,” Declan said, the corners of his mouth lifting for the first time all day. The weight of the bus ride, the nerves, the folder full of homework gone for a moment.


Kyle’s smile was easy, confident. He stepped forward and extended a hand.


“Nice to meet you, Declan. I’ve heard a lot about you.”


Declan shook his hand, barely keeping the awe off his face. A breath slipped out, half disbelief, half nerves, and before he could stop himself, his mouth got ahead of his brain.


“I had you on my fantasy team last year. Not gonna lie, you lost me the championship.”


Declan pressed his lips together the second the words left his mouth, the grin fading as panic crept in. Nice one, he thought. Way to chirp an NHL vet five minutes into meeting him. He resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands.


A snicker sounded behind him. Declan glanced over his shoulder to see Coach Luc with a hand half-covering his mouth, doing a poor job of hiding his amusement.


Kyle nodded, the corners of his mouth twitching as he fought back a smile. “Is that right? Sorry to let you down. Guess it’s a good thing I hung up the skates when I did, spare a few more fantasy teams the heartbreak.”


Declan opened his mouth, then quickly shut it again, heat creeping up the back of his neck. “I mean…your Cup run with the Kings was insane, though. That game seven OT goal? Unreal.” He scratched the back of his neck. “So… uh, what are you doing at St. Cassian’s? Are you coaching here now? I didn’t see you on the website.”


Luc settled into his chair, the leather creaking softly as he leaned back, then gestured to the seat across from him. “That’s actually what we wanted to talk to you about.”


Declan dropped into the chair, his duffel still slung across one shoulder, curiosity flickering behind his eyes. He wasn’t sure what he expected, but something about Luc’s tone made him sit a little straighter.


Luc leaned forward, resting his forearms on the desk, his tone shifting; slower now, more deliberate. He glanced over at Kyle, then back to Declan.


“Coming to a new school like St. Cassian’s is no small thing. You’re stepping into a new environment, away from home, with big expectations; on the ice, in the classroom, socially. That’s a lot for anyone, even a kid with your talent.”


He let the words breathe for a moment, letting them land before continuing.


“When we found out you’d be joining us, one of the first conversations we had was about how to make that transition easier for you. Where you’d land. Who you’d be around. Not just where you sleep at night, but where you’d feel like you had solid ground beneath you.”


Luc nodded toward Kyle. “Kyle and his family moved here this summer. His son, Ryan, is one of your new teammates. His wife, Nicole, she’s the kind of person who makes a place feel like home the second you walk in. And Kyle? Well, you know who he is.”


He paused again, not for dramatic effect, but because it mattered.


“He’s not on the coaching staff, at least not officially. But he’s part of something new we’re building here. A different kind of support system; player development, mentorship, leadership off the ice as much as on. And we want you to be part of that.”


Luc’s smile came easy, a little crooked. “So, here’s the offer: Kyle and his family have opened their home to you. If you’re open to it, we think it’s a great fit. But no pressure. We wanted to bring it to you first.”


Declan blinked, caught off guard. He hadn’t expected this. At all.


Every boarding school he’d been to had followed the same formula; dorms, roommates, shared bathrooms, and noise. This? Living off-campus? With a former NHL player and his family? That was…new.


He glanced between Luc and Kyle, trying to read between the lines, to figure out if this was really optional or just dressed up to feel that way.


“I thought I’d be living on campus,” he said finally, his voice quieter, not confrontational, just honest.


Luc nodded, like he’d anticipated that reaction. “Totally fair. And yeah, most students do. But with your background, and the level we expect you to compete at, we wanted to try something a little different. Give you a foundation.”


Declan shifted in his seat, still trying to wrap his head around it. Living with Kyle Barnes. Having breakfast across the table from the guy who used to light it up in the league. It was a lot to take in.


Kyle let out a soft chuckle, picking up on the hesitation in Declan’s eyes. “It’s a lot to process, huh?”


Declan didn’t answer, but the look on his face said enough. He watched Kyle carefully, the weight of it all pressing in.


Kyle leaned back in his chair, settling into a more relaxed posture, but his eyes stayed sharp and knowing. “I’ve been where you’re sitting. New town. New team. Big pressure. It can mess with your head if you let it.”


Declan’s mind flickered through every worry he’d been carrying since stepping off that bus. Was Kyle reading him that easily? It felt like he was peeling back layers without even trying. That low, familiar buzz of uncertainty crept up again, and somehow, Kyle seemed to catch it without a word.


“I know it’s not easy, kid.” Kyle gave a small, almost fatherly sigh. His voice was lower now; gentle, but steady. “But here’s the thing. If you stay with us, you’re not just crashing at a billet house. I’m offering you space to breathe. A place to land when everything else feels like it’s spinning.”


Declan felt his throat tighten. Like the room had gone still for a second.


“Hockey’s a hell of a ride,” Kyle went on, “and yeah, I’ll push you. But I’ll have your back every step of the way. This isn’t just about stats or ice time, it’s about becoming the kind of player, the kind of person, who can handle the long haul. And I’ve been through the trenches. I know what that takes.”


He folded his arms casually, the edge in his voice softening into something more inviting. “It’s a big decision, I get that. So here’s what I’m thinking, you crash with us tonight. No pressure. See the house, meet Nicole and Ryan. Feel it out. Then tomorrow, if it feels right, we’ll talk.”


Declan didn’t even realize he was nodding until the motion was halfway done.


Something about the way Kyle spoke; calm, direct, like he actually got it. It cut through the usual static in Declan’s brain. He didn’t know what was happening, not really. Just that, for some reason, this guy already had a kind of hold on him. Not in a forced way. Just…steady. Solid. Like someone who meant what he said and wouldn’t flake the second things got hard.


No adult had ever made him feel that before. Not a teacher. Not a coach. Not even his own dad.


So yeah, maybe he wasn’t sure about any of this, but his head kept nodding anyway.


“Okay,” he said finally. “I’ll give it a shot.”


Luc and Kyle exchanged a quick smile, something quiet and satisfied passing between them.


"Great!" Luc said, his enthusiasm palpable. He leaned forward, a spark in his eyes. "Any questions or anything on your mind before you head out to practice?"


Declan paused, the question hanging in the air for a moment. He glanced between Luc and Kyle, then shook his head. "I think I’m good for now."


"Alright, go ahead and get settled in," Luc said, standing up and motioning toward the hallway. "Locker room's down the hall to the right. Your name’s on one of the stalls, and your gear's already waiting for you."


Declan rose to his feet, clutching the duffel a little tighter.


Luc gave him a nod. “Practice starts in twenty. Coach Reynolds will meet you on the ice.”


Kyle stood too, that same calm energy still radiating off him. “I’ll see you after. Nicole’s making chicken parm tonight. Hope you’re hungry.”


Declan gave a half-smile without meaning to. “Yeah. Sounds good.”


And with that, he turned and headed for the hallway, trying not to overthink the million things racing through his head.


Practice flew by in a blur of crisp passes, sharp turns, and the unmistakable rush that only came when his skates hit fresh ice. Declan didn’t need time to adjust to that, his instincts kicked in from the first drill. It wasn’t long before heads were turning and quiet nods of approval passed between coaches.


It felt good. Easy. Like slipping into something that had always fit.


The locker room buzzed with post-practice energy; snapping tape, the thud of gear hitting benches, and a steady stream of chirps flying from stall to stall.


“Not bad for the new guy,” one of the defensemen called, grinning as he peeled off his jersey.


Declan smirked as he unstrapped his pads. “Figured I’d show up, impress a little, then humble you tomorrow.”


A few guys let out loud “Oooohs,” one of them chucking a rolled-up sock at him.


As he dodged the sock, Declan caught Ryan watching him from across the room. Not in a hostile way, just…quietly. Studying. Like he was still deciding what to make of him.


Before Declan could read into it, Ryan stood, tugged his hoodie over damp hair, and headed out without a word.


The rest of the guys were still laughing and joking around, but that moment stuck.


Declan finished peeling off his gear and slung the duffel over his shoulder. When he stepped out into the hallway, he spotted them; Kyle and Ryan, standing just outside the rink doors. Kyle’s hand rested on his son’s shoulder, his voice low and calm, the kind of tone only a dad could pull off.


Ryan nodded at something, eyes on the ground. Declan didn’t catch what was said, but he could tell instantly that they were close. Really close.


Kyle glanced up and spotted Declan, a smile already forming as he lifted a hand in an easy wave. “There he is. You survive your first Coach Luc practice?”


Declan nodded, catching up to them. “Barely,” he said, though the grin tugging at the corner of his mouth gave him away.


Ryan gave him a short glance, but didn’t say much. Just gave a subtle nod, then walked ahead toward the parking lot.


“Come on,” Kyle said, clapping a hand gently on Declan’s back. “Let’s get you home.”


Home. The word sounded weird in his head. But as he followed them to the car, something in his chest loosened, just a little.


The car ride was quiet in a way Declan hadn’t realized he’d been craving. No one asked him questions or tried to fill the silence with small talk. Ryan had earbuds in, staring out his window. Kyle kept one hand on the wheel, the other resting casually on the console, humming now and then to the classic rock playing softly through the speakers.


Declan leaned his head against the window and watched the world roll by. The narrow roads wound through thick trees brushed with the first touches of fall; burnt oranges, deep reds, and gold. It was nothing like the city. The quiet felt intentional here. Peaceful.


He hadn’t noticed any of this from the bus, just the ache in his back and the buzz of nerves. But now…now it didn’t seem so bad.


The car turned off the main road and onto a quiet, tree-lined street, the tires humming softly against the worn asphalt. Declan glanced out the window, taking in the quaint homes tucked into the hillsides, most with wide porches and tidy yards. Everything felt still out here, like the whole world had taken a breath and held it.


They pulled into a modest driveway in front of a two-story house with deep blue siding and white trim. Warm yellow light glowed from the windows, casting a soft welcome as twilight settled over the neighborhood.


Kyle eased the car into park, the soft hum of the engine cutting through the quiet of the evening. He turned to look at Declan with a small smile. “This is us. Home sweet home,” he said, his tone light but with a quiet certainty, as if he were laying down an unspoken promise.


Declan didn’t answer, but he opened the door and stepped out. The air smelled faintly of pine and chimney smoke. Calmer than anything he’d felt in weeks.


Ryan was already unlocking the front door, his silhouette framed by the porch light.


Kyle gave Declan’s shoulder a gentle tap before heading up the steps. “Come on. Nicole’s got dinner waiting, and she’s been asking about you all day.”


The door swung open with a quiet creak, and warm air spilled out into the cool evening, carrying the unmistakable smell of garlic and tomato sauce. Declan stepped inside behind Kyle, the hardwood floors smooth under his sneakers and the house glowing with soft, ambient light that gave it a lived-in, welcoming feel.


“Hi!” a voice called from the kitchen. A moment later, a woman stepped out, wiping her hands on a dish towel. She was tall, athletic, with a sharp but warm energy that instantly filled the space. “You must be Declan.”


Declan hesitated for a moment, caught in the awkwardness of the moment. He nodded, unsure whether to wave or offer a handshake, his mind scrambling for a response. “Uh, yeah. Hi.”


Before he could say anything else, Nicole stepped forward, her arms open in a welcoming embrace. She pulled him into a hug without missing a beat.


“It’s so nice to meet you!” she said, rubbing his back gently in a motherly way before pulling back from the hug. “I’m Nicole. Hope you’re hungry, I made chicken parm. It’s a family favorite.”


Ryan had already disappeared upstairs, his footsteps fading above them, leaving the three of them in the open kitchen and living room. Declan took in the house. Family photos lined the walls, the dining table was half-set, and the smell from the kitchen was enough to make his stomach growl. Everything felt grounded, like people lived here and liked living here.


Nicole gestured toward a stool at the island. “Sit, relax. Dinner’ll be ready in a few. Any food allergies I should know about?”


Kyle was already pulling plates from the cabinet. “He held his own at practice,” he said casually over his shoulder, like it was no big deal.


Nicole raised a brow at Declan. “Impressive. First day and already showing off?”


He shrugged, a flicker of pride sneaking into his chest. “Just trying to keep up.”


It felt…comfortable in a way he hadn’t expected. Like maybe, for once, he wouldn’t have to brace himself all the time.


By the time they sat down for dinner, that feeling hadn't gone away.


Declan hesitated only for a second before sliding into his seat next to Ryan, who was already digging in like it was a competitive sport. He glanced at his own portion and, after a quick taste, instantly understood why. The chicken parm was insanely good.


Declan took another bite, savoring the perfect balance of crispy breading and rich marinara. The flavors were way better than he expected, so much so that he couldn't help but mutter, “This is fucking good.”


The second the words left his mouth, the room fell dead silent. Ryan’s fork froze halfway to his mouth, his eyes snapping up to Declan with a mixture of shock and disbelief, like Declan had just unleashed a bomb at the dinner table.


Declan, unaware of the shift, continued chewing, casually glancing around the table, still absorbed in the taste of his food.


Then he noticed it. The tension. The quiet.


Kyle’s voice broke the silence, calm but carrying an unmistakable authority. “Declan,” he said, his tone measured. “We don’t use that kind of language, especially not at the dinner table.”


Declan blinked, caught off guard. “Oh. Um, we...we’re hockey players though,” he shrugged, trying to brush it off. “It's kind of part of the deal.”


Kyle didn’t smile. His face remained impassive, though there was a flicker of something in his eyes, a reminder that this wasn’t some casual request. “Maybe on the ice, yeah, but even then, you’re too young for that kind of talk.”


Declan’s brow furrowed, his words tripping over themselves. “You- what?”


Kyle’s gaze was steady, never wavering. “In this house, we keep it clean. We respect the people we’re around.”


Declan's confusion was evident as he leaned over to Ryan, lowering his voice. “You don’t talk like that?” he asked, genuinely curious, not sure what to make of it all.


Before Ryan could answer, Nicole's voice rang out, light but firm. “Not if he doesn’t want soap in his mouth.”


Ryan’s eyes widened comically, panic creeping into his voice. “Mom!”


Nicole didn’t bat an eye. “Just saying,” she added with a knowing smirk.


Declan’s chest tightened. Soap in his mouth? Was she serious? He shot a look toward Kyle, but there was no humor in his eyes, just a quiet, resolute discipline.


Kyle cleared his throat and leaned back, his expression softening just enough to show he wasn’t angry, but he wasn’t backing down either.


“Look, we get it. Hockey culture, the locker room, it’s different. We don’t mind a little edge when it's warranted, but when you're in my house, there are lines we don’t cross.” He gave Declan a pointed look, making sure the weight of the words settled. “You’re not just here to play hockey, you’re here to grow. And that means learning discipline, both on and off the ice.”


Declan couldn’t deny the way those words landed on him. His gut twisted a little, not from anger, but from something else. It wasn’t exactly comfort , but maybe that’s what he needed: boundaries.


Ryan eyed him again, his face unreadable now, like he was sizing Declan up all over again. Nicole, on the other hand, was already back to plating up another round of food, acting like nothing had happened. But Declan could tell, this family didn’t mess around.


Declan let out a small exhale, unsure what to say. “Yeah, sure. Sorry about that.”


He leaned back in his chair and stared at his plate, trying to collect his thoughts. The sudden shift in atmosphere threw him off.


Kyle nodded, his voice softening again, but still carrying that same steady cadence. “It’s okay.” His mouth quirked in reassurance. “Alright. Now, eat up.”


Declan met Kyle’s gaze. He nodded, offering a sheepish grin.


Ryan, still eyeing him like he’d just seen a rare species, let out a quiet sigh and turned his attention back to his food. Kyle gave Ryan a look that was all too familiar, a mix of casual suggestion and quiet command.


“Hey, after dinner why don’t you help Declan get started on his homework?”


Ryan immediately groaned, his fork clattering against his plate. “I’m not a tutor.”


Kyle didn’t flinch. He just raised his eyebrows, the eyebrows, stern but patient. The kind that said: You sure about that answer, kid?


Ryan deflated with a dramatic sigh, like he’d just been asked to scrub the entire rink with a toothbrush. “Dad, come on, I’ve got my own homework to finish. And I’m seriously wiped out.” He slouched even further, practically melting into his seat.


Before the tension could stretch any further, Declan spoke up, casually throwing Ryan a lifeline. “It’s fine. Mrs. Burke said I could get a tutor or something to catch up. No big deal.”


Kyle kept an eyebrow raised at Ryan, then looked back at Declan with a nod. “That works. We’ll talk to the school tomorrow, get someone lined up for you.”


Ryan shot Declan a look, something between surprised and quietly grateful. He didn’t say thank you, but his shoulders dropped a little, the way they do when someone realizes they’ve just been spared.


Declan just shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal.


Nicole bit back a smile. “Don’t worry about Ryan. He’s a lot more agreeable when there’s dessert on the line.”


Ryan groaned once again from his seat. “You act like I’m some kind of dessert-driven gremlin.”


Kyle laughed and stood, stretching. “Aren’t you?”


Nicole gave Declan a conspiratorial wink. “He once folded all the laundry in the house for a slice of triple chocolate cake. Don’t let the brooding fool you.”


Declan smirked. “Good to know. I’ll keep chocolate cake in mind if I ever need a favor.”


The tight coil of nerves in his chest loosened just a little. The way they all moved around each other felt…safe.


He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed that kind of energy. Or maybe how little he’d ever had it in the first place.


After the last dish was rinsed and stacked, the clatter of plates gave way to the softer sounds of evening settling in. Kyle dried his hands on a kitchen towel and nodded toward the hallway. “C’mon, kid. Let’s get you set up.”


Nicole offered a gentle smile, already halfway up the stairs with a fresh set of linens tucked under her arm. Declan followed, duffel slung over one shoulder, the adrenaline of the day slowly giving way to exhaustion.


The guest room was just off the staircase, second door on the left. When Nicole pushed it open, Declan blinked, surprised.


The room was a lot bigger than he expected.


Not massive, but comfortably spacious. Soft gray walls, a queen bed with a green comforter and a real headboard, not the cinderblock-and-mattress setup he was used to. A big window overlooked the backyard, and a framed print of TD Garden hung over the dresser. A small desk sat under a shelf lined with books and picture frames. It didn’t feel like a guest room.


“Wow,” he muttered. “This is… seriously nice.”


Behind him, Kyle chuckled. “Look at that. You didn’t even drop an F-bomb this time.”


Declan shot him a smirk over his shoulder. “I’m learning.”


Nicole grinned as she set a folded blanket at the foot of the bed. “Fast learner, too. That’s good news.”


Kyle knocked gently on the door connecting to the bathroom. “You and Ryan share this. Jack and Jill setup. Two sinks, one shower. Just don’t spend an hour in there or he’ll lose it.”


“Noted,” Declan said, still eyeing the space like it might vanish if he blinked.


Nicole gave the comforter one last fluff. “Let us know if you need anything. Seriously. Make yourself at home.”


Kyle nodded once, giving him a brief clap on the shoulder. “Big day tomorrow, so get some rest.”


Nicole lingered for a second longer, then stepped forward and wrapped Declan in a quick, warm hug. He froze for half a beat, caught off guard, before awkwardly returning it.


“Good night, love,” she said softly, giving his arm a gentle squeeze before stepping back.


Declan blinked, unsure what to do with the sudden warmth in his chest. No one had called him that in…well, maybe ever.


Kyle paused at the door, gave him a look that was genuine. “We’re glad you’re here, Declan. Really.”


And just like that, they left him to it. The door left slightly ajar, like a quiet sign he wasn’t on his own here.


Declan stood for a moment, duffel still in hand, just taking it in. The house was quiet now, except for the faint sound of a TV down the hall and the occasional creak of floorboards.


He let out a long breath, dropped his bag by the desk, and sat on the edge of the bed.


He kicked off his shoes and lay back, hands behind his head, eyes tracing the ceiling. Through the door of the Jack and Jill bathroom, he could hear faint movement; Ryan brushing his teeth maybe, or just walking around his own room.


A shared wall, a shared life, starting now.


Sue Kay of Hawke's Bay, New Zealand writes: "I wish to thank all the kind people who helped my husband and me find our way from the airport to our hotel in the Sydney CBD. My husband is 90, and I'm 74 but, despite making ourselves known to our guide at the airport on arrival, we were left behind! We didn't know how to get to our hotel as we had the transfer organised. We must have asked at least six different people how to get to the Furama and everybody was so helpful and even helped us with our luggage. Sydneysiders may be big-city slickers but they have a small-town kindness!"

You are a professional English-to-Hindi translator, tasked with providing translations suitable for use in India (hi_IN). Your goal is to accurately convey the meaning and nuances of the original English text while adhering to Hindi grammar, vocabulary, and cultural sensitivities. The original English text is a news article. Ensure the translation is formal, objective, and clear. Maintain a neutral and informative tone consistent with journalistic standards. Produce only the Hindi translation, without any additional explanations or commentary. Retain the paragraph breaks (double new lines) from the input text. Please translate the following English text into Hindi (hi_IN):


Some folks really do deserve a badge of honour for their pedantry (C8). Veronica Coyne of Springfield claims that "when bemoaning the loss of the express lane at Woolies "12 items or less," a friend told me she'd never used it on principle as it should have been "12 items or fewer.""


"Talk of badges reminds of the famous one from the 1960s-70s," says Merran Loewenthal of Birchgrove. ""It Begins When You Sink in His Arms and Ends with Your Arms in His Sink."" Jonty Grinter of Katoomba has one that reads "Chronically Advantaged" and adds that "it should be standard issue for all over seventy."


As we haven't heard from Tony Nicod of Collaroy for nine months, one could consider this offering as a radical re-entry: "Finally the kids are back at school. No more grommets in the water taking waves off us retirees who like to surf "gentlemen's hours" from 8am."


Readers will take a shine to this item from Janice Creenaune of Austinmer: "Thanks for the wonderful memories Hendrik Kolenberg (C8). I kept my father's beautifully constructed wooden valet box. It remains filled with old Kiwi polish and brushes (some admittedly a little dried). He brushed my shoes every day of my school life to a high shine as he always thought it a sign of character. (My husband and I did maintain the task with our own children.) And the valet box remains well stocked, albeit sometimes with those little sponge squeeze bottles as well."


Peter Miniutti of Ashbury identifies the utility value in buying the good stuff: "Before the advent of the Internet, I'm sure I once used the sturdy turnkey from a tin of Kiwi shoe polish to open a tin of spam."


2 sectors lead the market. Broadcom may have another custom chip partner


Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer releases the Homestretch - an actionable afternoon update, just in time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street. Market moves: Stocks were higher to start the new week, with the Dow, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq shrugging off the trade and tariff headlines that caused weakness on Wall Street last week. Energy was the top-performing sector Monday, thanks to gains in oil and natural gas prices. Our lone oil and nat gas name, Coterra Energy, was jumping roughly 3.8%. Tech, however, was the main driver of the overall market gains due to the strength in the Magnificent Seven stocks. The Club owns six of them: Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The seventh Mag 7 stock is Tesla. The only two sectors sitting out Monday's rally were health care and financials. Both sectors are among the top gainers so far this year but have come under pressure in February. All three of our financial positions - Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and BlackRock - are presenting at conferences on Tuesday. So, we'll hear the latest from each of them.


Broadcom: One of Broadcom 's new custom AI chip partnerships is coming into focus. Reuters reported Monday that ChatGPT creator OpenAI is finalizing the design for its first in-house chip. The story suggests the chip is in the later stages and could begin to be mass-produced later this year. Taiwan Semiconductor is the fab that will manufacture this new custom chip, but the story says the chip was designed by OpenAI's in-house team in collaboration with Broadcom. The Hock Tan-led Broadcom currently has three custom AI chip customers, and those clients are widely believed to be Alphabet and Meta - and most recently, ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok. When Broadcom last reported earnings in December, one of the reasons why the stock soared almost 25% was Tan's reveal that the company was in advanced AI chip development with two additional hyperscalers. Based on previous media reports, OpenAI and Apple are believed to be those two customers. Microsoft is a financial backer and partner of OpenAI. On Broadcom's December earnings call, Tan estimated the company's service addressable market (SAM) for its AI business, which includes sales of both custom and networking chips, was $60 billion to $90 billion. That bullish target did not include custom silicon sales from these two new customers. If all the reporting is true, having a fourth AI chip customer in production is great news for Broadcom's ability to capture this large SAM. Broadcom shares jumped 4.5% on Monday. But they were still below their Jan. 24 close before Chinese startup DeepSeek went viral with claims of a cheaper AI model that slammed chip stocks.


Up next: It's a quieter week of earnings. Some companies reporting after the closing bell Monday are Vertex Pharmaceutical, Lattice Semiconductor, and Astera Labs. Before the opening bell on Tuesday, Coca-Cola, Marriott, Humana, and Club name DuPont report quarterly resuts. (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade.


South African opener Matthew Breetzke etched his name into the record books by becoming the first batter to score 150 runs on ODI debut in second match of the ongoing tri-series against New Zealand at the Gaddafi Stadium on Monday. His stunning knock of 150 off 148 balls, laced with 11 fours and five sixes, surpassed the previous record held by the legendary West Indies' batter Desmond Haynes, who scored 148 in his maiden ODI innings against Australia back in 1978. Before Breetzke's innings, the highest score on ODI debut for South Africa was 124 by Colin Ingram against Zimbabwe in 2010. Now, Breetzke stands alone at the top, delivering a performance that showcased patience, aggression, and remarkable shot selection as South Africa posted a mammoth 304/6.


Fresh off a month-long stint in the SA20 2025 season, Breetzke seamlessly transitioned into the ODI format, forming a crucial second-wicket stand of 93 runs with Jason Smith (41). He reached his half-century off 68 balls and continued to build on his solid start, eventually reaching his maiden century in 128 deliveries with the help of six boundaries and two sixes. In doing so, he became only the fourth South African to score an ODI century on debut, joining an elite club featuring Ingram, his current captain Temba Bavuma, and Reeza Hendricks.


Post-century, Breetzke punished O'Rourke with two boundaries and a six in a single over, thus accelerating South Africa's late-innings scoring and building momentum for the Proteas. While his partnership with Smith provided early stability, he went on to forge another century stand for the fourth wicket with Wiaan Mulder (64), pushing South Africa past the 300-run mark. Breetzke, who will later join the Lucknow Super Giants in IPL 2025, exhibited complete dominance at the crease, enabling South Africa to establish a formidable total and providing their bowlers with a substantial platform in their bowling defence.


This will be the year that Guinness loses its cool. Cheers to that!


I'm not sure I can remember exactly when I sensed it. Maybe it was when some of the more gimmicky London pubs introduced "stamp cards" to ration out Guinness after news of a shortage; maybe it was when I was served the 500th London Guinness rating video by my Instagram algorithm. Regardless of the precise moment the notion arrived, however, I have felt for a while that we are heading for a change when it comes to the pint du jour. For a few years now, Guinness has been the fashionable choice for millennial and gen Z drinkers, swept up in the aesthetic renaissance of the Good Old-Fashioned Bloody Pub. But I think the tide is turning. This will probably be the year that the Irish stout stops being cool.


I'm pretty sure that what will finally usher the Guinness hype train back into the station will be the same thing that came for Aperol spritzes and truffle: overexposure. The Aperol, once a genuinely trendy, vaguely Sex and the City-ish aperitivo-style drink is now a cultural behemoth in its own right - delicious, certainly, but definitely no longer "cool." And truffle, well ... would you like a side of truffle fries for that truffle mac and cheese garnished with truffle oil?


Overexposure, of course, is the death knell for cool in most cases (or at least self-conscious, trend-following "coolness," as I mean it here). This is particularly true amid the one-upmanship of contemporary food and drink culture which, as defined by social media, is always about being the first to find the undiscovered or most novel thing - the "hidden gem," the bakery and "pasta space" in London's zone 6 or what have you ("Come with me to the pub in Richmond that regularly floods"). And while Guinness's current round of popularity began because it was once viewed among younger pubgoers as a left-field choice - an "if you know, you know" order - it now couldn't be less of a secret.


Undeniably, Guinness is everywhere. For the 2024-25 season, it shafted Budweiser to become the official beer of the Premier League, and will hold this honour for the next four years. It is the official beer of rugby's Six Nations tournament (meaning that for the next month, it is also the official beer of people called Henry). And a few months ago, news broke that the brand will be opening a Guinness Storehouse attraction, described as a "microbrewery and culture hub," in Covent Garden - despite the fact that London has nothing to do with Guinness or its 250-year-old heritage. Add to this the countless Hinge prompts about "splitting the G," and the impenetrable gaggle of gilets that pretty much always surrounds Soho's Guinness Disneyland, otherwise known as the wildly successful Devonshire pub, and you have to admit that the brand's cool stock is sinking.


I don't speak as a Guinness naysayer. On the contrary, I grew up with a Dublin man and former pub landlord for a grandfather, so reverence for the stout is all but in my blood. As such, Guinness is pretty much the only pint I regularly drink, and I'll even admit that I'm One Of Those People who has long-winded opinions about their favourite Guinness in London, and who really does believe that it differs in quality depending on where you order it (it's all in the gas, the installation and the line-cleaning).


While Guinness may be at significant risk of losing its edge among, say, people who queue outside bakeries, this hardly matters to its bottom line. It has surpassed cult status, and has in essence become too big to fail. Debra Crew, chief executive of Diageo, the drinks conglomerate that owns the brand, told press this week that demand for the stout in October and November 2024 had surpassed even the amount called for during St Patrick's Day celebrations, noting that the clamour was "unprecedented." Crew also stated that Diageo is spending €200m (£170m) on a new Guinness factory in Kildare to keep supplies up to the level now required.


Music to my ears, really - I'm just pleased that while years ago you could walk into a pub and reasonably expect that Guinness wouldn't be served there, these days I can pretty much get my preferred pint anywhere. And, among all of the arguments to explain the surge in approval for the drink, it is important to acknowledge the obvious one: its smooth texture and subtly rich taste do just combine to offer something genuinely delicious, even when you get a mediocre one.


Ultimately, I'm more than happy to let the hype move on to a less obvious drink (over the past couple of weeks, I've been in two south-east London pubs that have recently installed the rival stout Murphy's, owing to local demand - go figure). Because as annoying as social media Guinness chat might be, and despite the extent to which the Schooner Scorer's camera angles haunt my nightmares (I mean it, don't Google it), it's like a wise man called Robbie Williams once sang: "You can't argue with popularity. Well you could, but you'd be wrong."


Pig Heart Boy review - lively staging of Malorie Blackman's stimulating novel


Some set designs instantly make sense. Paul Wills's clever arrangement of television screens and speakers, all linked up by glowing capillary-like tubes, encapsulates Malorie Blackman's 1997 novel about a boy whose pig-heart transplant leads to a media frenzy. Andrew Exeter's lighting switches from blood red to cool blue for scenes when 13-year-old Cameron repeatedly puts himself - and, eventually, his new heart - to the test when diving at his local pool.


Blackman's novel is itself a deep dive: this "what would you do?" book for young readers considers ethics, animal rights, othering and empathy. Keeping the pre-social media setting, Winsome Pinnock's new adaptation draws upon the heightened poetic style of Blackman's opening chapter. Pinnock retains the narrator's spirited interest in wordplay, boosts the wisdom of Cameron's Nan and makes water more of a unifying theme throughout the story. Her version also takes a thrilling new turn towards the end.


Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu's boisterous production has some vivid performances, too, including by Immanuel Yeboah in the main role. But by overplaying the comedy it drowns out some of the story's more reflective episodes. In the novel, Cameron often cracks jokes, even when face to face with the animal named Trudy whose heart he will receive, yet that encounter is hugely moving as the boy is overwhelmed with relief, fear, guilt and hope. On stage, Trudy is played as a disco-queen pig with pink puffer jacket and oversized glasses; discovering Cameron's plans for her heart, she squeals in jokey horror. Elsewhere, animal rights are thinly discussed.


The production is more successful at conveying how Cameron is viewed by his classmates both before the operation (when they see his illness as fragility) and after (when he is still considered different to them). The children are played by an adult cast, most doubling up as the grownup characters. The pioneering Dr Bryce (Tré Medley) is amusingly portrayed as a spy-like smooth operator, all dressed in white both in and out of his laboratory, when that set design again works efficiently. Christina Ngoyi as his best friend Marilyn (Marlon in the book) has the right note of compromised loyalty; Christine During's popular Julie has a buoyant ease but her later fear of Cameron again tips into comedy.


Cameron's asides to the audience include a raucous interrogation about who sold his story to the press that is strained and distracts from his inner tumult. The screens on stage could be used more effectively during Cameron's TV interview and for the camcorder footage he records for his brother.


The show is aimed at nine to 13-year-olds (probably geared more towards the younger side of that range) and dynamically captures the turbulent world of school thanks in part to DK Fashola's movement direction, especially appealing in an early slo-mo sequence. This staging has plenty of style and flows swiftly, helped by Xana's sound design and compositions - but it never has quite the same direct appeal to head and heart as Blackman's book.


If you thought Elon Musk was bad, look at his dreadful mini-mes and shudder for America


You would be forgiven for thinking we were back at the Bullingdon Club, in the company of Jonty, Munty, Stiffy, Kipper, Chugger and, to use the polite version, Pig Botherer - only in this case it's Big Balls and a guy with a history of racist tweeting. This is the sudden, startling emergence into American political life of a type deeply recognisable to Brits: that is, jaunty young men with juvenile nicknames and a firm belief they should be running the world.


This being America, the class signifiers are slightly different from those in Britain. But in most regards, the cohort of young men hired by Elon Musk for his cost-cutting taskforce, the department of government efficiency (Doge), will be familiar to anyone who lived through the era of Boris Johnson's weapons-grade flippancy or reports of David Cameron's youthful hijinks. (Donald Trump is very flippant, of course, but his style skews locker room rather than debate chamber - or, in this case, maths olympiad.) And while politics has always run on young, volunteer energy, less common in the US, perhaps, is the imperial swagger, the sheer frivolous entitlement accompanying a crowd that has seemingly been given the keys to the kingdom.


Let's look at the lineup. The youngest of Musk's Doge hires, Edward Coristine - online username, Big Balls - is a 19-year-old former intern at Neuralink, Musk's neurotechnology company, who until recently appeared to be a first-year student at Northeastern University in Boston. Luke Farritor is a 23-year-old former SpaceX intern. Marko Elez, 25, used to work for X and SpaceX, and was revealed by the Wall Street Journal to have authored several since-removed tweets asserting, among other things, "You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity." (Elez briefly resigned before Musk announced he'd reinstate him.)


And Gavin Kliger, a 25-year-old who boosted a post on X by the white supremacist Nick Fuentes, and whose newly launched Substack this week highlighted the perils of skipping freshman English 101 with a post entitled "Why DOGE: Why I gave up a seven-figure salary to save America."


Between them, these men have gained access to federal premises and staffing systems that govern agencies including USAid, the Department of Health and Human Services, the education and energy departments, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and contain sensitive information relating to millions of Americans. Elez was, reportedly, erroneously given overwrite access to the Treasury department's payment system before it was yanked back to read-only.


Of course, given that Doge has not responded to questions about what, if any, security clearance these young men have gone through, read-only is bad enough. The head of Doge, hiring in his own image, has turned to young, male software engineers with startup energy and the conviction that if you understand coding, you understand life. They've established sleeping pods in spare offices at the federal agencies they have been engaged to gut or dismantle, so that while Musk goes on X to mock federal employees for not working at weekends, his mini-mes work round the clock.


This feat would be more impressive if their online remarks and bios didn't flag what might diplomatically be called large gaps in their skill-sets. Musk, a man with the emotional maturity of a cartoon bank robber, is leading a group of men most of whom have no government or management experience whatsoever, let alone expertise in fields governed by the agencies they have been tasked to reform. The whole scene is reminiscent of the 90s boom in management consultancy, during which new graduates stared with frank disbelief at anyone who was over 35 and still breathing. And sure enough, as reported in the New York Times, young engineers have been overheard referring to federal employees as "dinosaurs," who have in turn called the guys in baseball caps "Muskrats."


On X, meanwhile, Musk amplified a post pitching "autistic tech bros" against "non-binary Deep State theater kids," and another that said what's happening in the US right now is equivalent to "the yearbook committe and theater kid types getting rocked by a football team and chess club alliance." Theatre kids and chess nerds are, traditionally, both categories of social death in high school that are targeted by queen bees and jocks, a case of Musk siding with the oppressor that's even sadder when you consider that Trump isn't even a real jock. (For a full account of Trump's hilariously mediocre sports career relative to his claims about it, read Lucky Loser by Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig.)


Anyway, we know how this ends. In the largest sense, with the cancellation of programmes mandated democratically in Congress by a bunch of unelected goons in puffer vests. And in the smallest sense, with one of these 22-year-old jerks spilling his Big Gulp cup of Mountain Dew over a keyboard at the Treasury and wiping the social security data of 70 million Americans. I look forward to watching as Big Balls and co find new ways to tank an economy even more efficiently and irreversibly than Brexit.


A tale of two suckers: Donald Trump's plastic straws and Keir Starmer


It's difficult to know whether to set any store by Donald Trump's bleak and yet also often banal pronouncements, which read as if handfuls of offensive concepts have been tossed into the air by a monkey, read out in whatever order they landed and then made policy. Until it's clear they can't work. At which point, the monkey must toss again.


But this month, Trump, whose morning ablutions increasingly appear to consist of dousing himself in sachets of the kind of cheap hot chocolate powder I steal from three-star hotels, like a flightless bird stuck in the machine that glazes Magnum lollies, declared he wanted to build his hotels on the mass graves of Gaza. Hasn't Trump seen The Shining? It won't end well. Pity those whose children have the misfortune to die next to a monetisable stretch of shoreline. And hope humanity's next wave of mass killings happens somewhere uneven and way inland that hopefully wouldn't even make a decent golf course.


Is Ukraine the frontier upon which the future of European democracy hinges, or is it just a massive stretch of undeveloped fairway, its leisure/conference utility value currently compromised only by the desire of some losers to continue living in the country they consider home? Where we see the falling domino chain that starts with Poland and ends in your back garden, does Trump see only a succession of 18-hole courses full of men in caps and enormous flapping flares brokering manly deals at the tee? Drive your golf carts over the bones of the dead!


But maybe Trump's horrible mouth-cack is just continuing evidence of his former acolyte Steve Bannon's advice to "flood the zone with shit"? Does Trump really hate all sea creatures so much that he has to reinstate the plastic straws Joe Biden successfully, and commendably, outlawed? Perhaps he was once told to keep his hands to himself by a mermaid. "These things don't work," Trump said of paper straws. "I've had them many times, and on occasion, they break, they explode." Must millions of seabirds, turtles, manatees and dolphins die because Trump imagines that paper straws explode? Or so he can suck up his Diet Coke fast enough to amuse Elon Musk, Pete Hegseth and JD Vance by burping a smelly chorus of YMCA in Biden's face next time there's a gathering of ex-presidents.


Like some kind of infantilised diaper king, Trump has genuinely had a special Diet Coke-summoning button installed in the Oval Office


Because Trump, a fully grown man with unlimited funds, loves Diet Coke, and it's tempting to wonder how many of his seemingly incomprehensible policy decisions can be traced back to his desire to be continually saturated by the soft drink. Maybe there is a subterranean lake of the stuff somewhere deep beneath the Greenland tundra that the climate crisis, which doesn't exist, will soon make accessible to Trump's deep Diet Coke drills? Delighted Inuit strip off their sealskins and dance in the showering liquid as they realise they have just struck a rich seam of their new master's black gold. Like some kind of infantilised diaper king, Trump has genuinely had a special Diet Coke-summoning button installed in the Oval Office. Hopefully, he won't get it mixed up with that other button. It will be a shame if all life on Earth is fatally irradiated just because Trump wanted a 500ml bucket of fizz to swill down his Big Mac and fries.


But are we meant to take Trump's erratic announcements seriously? While the last concerned voices of the dying liberal press pen outraged articles to their dying liberal readers about Gaza hotels, the invasion of Canada and Trump making it compulsory to drink everything through a Trump Plastic Freedom Straw Company Deluxe Plastic Freedom Straw ™ ®, even cauliflower cheese soup, his homunculus Musk has been quietly dismantling the infrastructure of American government as you knew it. There are cup-and-ball tricksters on Parisian street corners with more subtle moves.


Half a dozen of Musk's own hand-harvested incels-in-waiting, the kind of people who under normal circumstances would have got rich by inventing a way in which hardcore digital pornography could have been mainlined directly into the bloodstream in liquid form, have, under the spurious authority of Musk's imaginary "department of government efficiency," gone in and stolen all the data about everyone and everything in the US ever. Never mind. I am sure they will use it responsibly. What can possibly go wrong?


Some people gathered at the scenes of Musk's cost-cutting exercises and waved placards. Others sat and gawked at news footage of Kanye West's naked wife's arse or enjoyed disappointing trailers for the new Captain America movie, while the world as they knew it crumbled beneath their king-sized sofas. Keir Starmer backed away, as one might from a neighbour's unpredictable weapon dog, avoiding direct comment, dodging a commitment to the AI declaration like a coward and hoping for the best, while Trumpy growls and foams. Which simply won't do.


Look. I'm as disappointed as the next metropolitan liberal elitist champagne socialist by Starmer's government. While I accept, for example, the migration crisis must be addressed, I didn't expect Starmer, who once left his "village and went to the city of Leeds" and "discovered a whole new world of indie bands - like Orange Juice and the Wedding Present," to do it with Nigel Farage-style performative cruelty. Address the migration crisis, by all means, but don't be a c*** about it. Did Orange Juice suffer the indignity of their eponymous third album not even entering the top 50 in 1984 just so, 41 years later, Starmer could send Yvette Cooper out to downgrade the desperate, like Paul Golding in heels.


Currently, as Putin puffs up under Trump's protection and unregulated AI threatens to rewrite history in real time, Starmer is on his knees sucking the paper straw of Trump's presidency. I fear it may be about to explode in his mouth.


Meghan's rebranded herself - and it's another valiant attempt to flog poshness to the little people


In these days of darkness we must take delight where we can find it, and one reliable source is the Duchess of Sussex. In her latest venture, Meghan, who occupies the tricky position of having a large platform and not enough to fill it (see also: Brooklyn Beckham), launched a new lifestyle brand that, she promised in a short video, would be "beautifully weaving together everything I cherish - food, gardening, entertaining, thoughtful living and finding joy in the everyday." The brand American Riviera Orchard is dead. Long live the new brand, As Ever.


The duchess and her husband, Prince Harry, have to do something and good luck to them, but it's hard not to study the rollout of As Ever for signs of the widening gap between Meghan's self-image and how the rest of the world sees her. ""As ever,"" writes the duchess on Instagram, "means "as it's always been" or some even say "in the same way as always,"" the "some" in this sentence apparently referring to the dictionary definition of a two-word phrase that no one has ever had trouble understanding.


It's ridiculous, of course, as is the hello-little-people tone adopted by the former royal highness, in keeping with the general attitude of the famous towards the unfamous - namely, one of stating the bleeding obvious as though sharing the key to existence. Still, I find myself sympathising with Meghan, who in her Instagram post and its accompanying video faces the stark challenge of having to pad out thin material. "This is what I do," she says to camera, "and I haven't been able to share it with you for the past few years, but now I can." What is the "it" here, and what has stopped her from sharing it? (It may involve jam, as did her previous brand, which she launched by sending "limited edition" jars of preserve to, among others, Kris Jenner, Mindy Kaling and Tracee Ellis Ross, who apparently also got a fresh bag of lemons.) Anyway, whatever the content, she hints darkly at some "whispers" abroad that forced her to jump the gun and share news of As Ever before she was ready - because "I wanted you to hear it from me first."


The fact there is no story here makes Meghan's insistence that she is getting in front of the story all the more enjoyable, but the more curious aspect of the announcement is the "you" to whom she refers and the idea she clearly has of her audience. The celebrity lifestyle space is crowded, ferocious and notoriously fickle, littered with the carcasses of former brand leaders such as Chrissy Teigen. Target and Bloomingdales distanced themselves from the star around the same time as she was accused of, and later apologised for, cyberbullying a woman called Courtney. The space is also dominated by market leaders such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Rachel Zoe.


Meghan is a minnow in these waters, but of course has her own secret weapon she isn't shy about using. In the new video, she deploys good old Harry to hold up the cameraphone and drop a few posh tones - "Is this thing on?" - to remind us that, even if As Ever isn't royal, exactly, it is at least royal adjacent. The new name is clearly a reach for something classier and more timeless than its predecessor, American Riviera Orchard, which sounded like a range of scented gift baskets you'd find at a discount shopping outlet, or the pair's charity arm, Archewell, a play on their son's name. Both brands have an aspirant lower middle-class vibe about them, which it would be rude to point out were it not for the fact that Harry and Meghan trade on class as part of their branding.


What they are selling isn't poshness itself, which strictly speaking should entail low-comfort, hole-in-the-elbows, bad cooking and draughty houses, but - much like Trump and his performance of "billionaire" - a kind of ersatz poshness they imagine might appeal to the peasants. It's a hard one to get right and, with the new brand name, Meghan seems to have changed course in the direction of, say, a Calvin Klein perfume or something a bit more abstract and upmarket. Although for my money she was on to more of a winner with the obscure and personalised brand name The Tig, her first attempt at lifestyle content that had to be shelved when she started dating Harry. As she explained at the time, The Tig was derived from an abbreviation of her favourite wine, tignanello, and had about it the confidence of something genuinely felt rather than a brand name that has been kicked through a comms team.


Which brings us to the duchess's understanding of audience. Discounting the forfeiture of sympathy that comes with money and privilege, there is something akin to pathos in the video that I find painful to watch. Meghan's aw-shucks, I-know-you-love-me tone assumes not only goodwill but abject fandom on the part of an audience which, I suspect, is at least 50% made up of those who regard her not only critically but with downright derision. It is hard to witness. "Sending lots of love," she signs off with noblesse oblige and an almost charming dedication to what she imagines we think of her.


I am a tweakment holdout. When will wrinkles, bad teeth and big pores be back in fashion?


Totally neutral question, no right or wrong answer: how do you feel about salmon sperm?


It's not a Nordic culinary microtrend or a sex thing, but a beauty treatment, in which "Polydeoxyribonucleotides (PDRN) derived from purified fragments of DNA extracted from yes, "salmon sperm"" are injected into your face. It does seem to work: proper research has found PDRN has wound-repairing properties in hard-to-treat contexts such as diabetic ulcers and deep burns. Good news (unless you're a male salmon). But what is it doing in healthy faces?


I learned about salmon sperm in a Sunday Times article on the "skincare secrets" of "26 tastemakers," which I read, increasingly aghast. It was a litany of lasers, microneedling, injectables and proprietary treatments with silly names that left me shouting crossly at my laptop: "But what does it do?" The only treatment I related to at all was Marina Abramović recounting how a friend of her mother's put hot mashed potato on her face to temporarily erase wrinkles; Abramović herself uses "thermage radiofrequency." No wonder a salmon sperm practitioner says it's "an exciting time in the aesthetic industry."


Some contributors were celebs, regularly running the unforgiving gauntlet of high-definition television, and the rest were at least very interested, if not professionally involved, in beauty, so they probably aren't typical. And there's a certain honesty to it, at least. No one is making out their dewy glow is "just good genes" and "loads of water." But I also think this newfound willingness to talk about "tweakments" (a jaunty portmanteau that makes me queasy) is a product of them being absolutely everywhere.


Because they are everywhere, for everyone. According to researchers at University College London, the UK injectables market will be worth £11.7bn by next year, with Botox and fillers available anywhere from Harley Street to high-street hairdressers. Writing in Grazia last week, the Guardian beauty columnist Sali Hughes described how "women in teaching, policing and the civil service" ask her advice on where to get "good injections." In the US, Botox use by 20- to 29-year-olds has increased 28% since 2010, with gen Z buying into "prejuvenation" (another awful portmanteau), fuelled by the poreless perfection offered by filters, staring at themselves on pandemic screens and social media skinfluencers (argh).


I shouldn't be surprised - actual children are buying expensive anti-ageing potions and fretting about their nonexistent crow's feet now. But still, this dramatic normalisation of invasive beauty procedures is unnerving.


For one thing, tweakments are so expensive! It's none of my business how people spend their money - my disposable income is dedicated to becoming the Joe Exotic of decorative poultry - but will we end up with an attractiveness inequality gap? Or will the democratisation of HD face mean almost everyone will be smoothly immobile soon? I suspect there will always be better and worse tweakments: that UCL research also points out how alarmingly unregulated the industry is.


It's also uncomfortable feeling so out of step. My only foray into tweakment territory is getting my brows, lost to alopecia, tattooed back on (which demonstrates how central frowning is to my character, so Botox is out). It's not that I'm smugly delighted with my 50-year-old face: the baleful crone in my new passport photo appears, inexplicably, to have a single black eye (actually just a dark circle), adding to the "pensioner arrested after brawl outside bookies" vibe. It would be nice to feel better about my neck, but not nice enough to actually do anything painful and expensive about it.


I suppose we tweakment holdouts will have to wait, and hope, for the tide to turn. As Ozempic and shiny veneers may make thinness and Hollywood teeth look boring and basic, perhaps perfect faces will fall from fashion? I mention the veneers, because when I was watching the Bridget Jones movie, I become fascinated by Chiwetel Ejiofor's teeth. They're absolutely lovely, yes, but sort of ... normal? One lower one peeps out from slightly behind the others. It only added to his charm. Hugh Grant's 64-year-old face looked charismatically crumpled too. Maybe when everyone has been homogenised to a glazed sheen of perfection, sagging, bumps, gaping pores and rough patches will be the height of desirability. At that point, I'll be ready for my closeup.


Trump's bullshit blitz has Europe on its knees


Was it really only a month ago that the pole-dancer patron, fridge explorer, Brexit get-doer, model bus maker, sofa-strainer, wall-spaffer, current Daily Mail columnist and former British prime minister Boris Johnson eulogised the inauguration of Donald Trump in the Mail, recounting how, as the "invisible pulse of power surged" from the battered bible into the hand of Trump: "I saw the moment the world's wokerati had worked so hard to prevent."


I hope Johnson is pleased with the way things have worked out. Because now the foolish wokerati have been schooled beyond Johnson's wettest dreams. It's the Trump-Putin-bin Salman party! An adjudicated sex offender and convicted fraudster, and a man who sanctioned a chemical warfare hit, killing a British citizen on British soil, have met at the luxury Saudia Arabian hotel of another man, who, according to the US, reportedly approved the murder and subsequent dismemberment of a journalist, to discuss the similarly brutal dismemberment of Ukraine, without consulting either Ukraine itself or the countries most directly affected by the legitimisation of Putin's territorial anxieties. Don't worry, Poland! Stable genius Trump has got this covered, so break out the bone saws, pop the cork on the novichok and grab the girls by the pussy! There are 1970s Italian slasher films with less gruesome plotlines. Well said, Boris Johnson! That's certainly stuck it to the wokerati!


If only Johnson, and Trump's other cheerleaders in the rightwing press and on the right of the house, could be brave enough to call out Trump for what he is. If only Johnson had the moral courage of Ed Davey from the Liberal Democrats. In what newly warped reality does that sentence even exist? But, on balance, the whitewashing of the deaths of tens of thousands of Ukrainians is a small price to pay for the delight Trump has bought to the smiling faces of people who hate the transgender community, wild swimming enthusiasts and Guardian readers. Sniffing mineral rights in the air, like the smell of napalm in the morning, Trump has grabbed Ukraine by the pussy and he ain't gonna let go. Trump is, unequivocally, the worst thing to happen to human civilisation since Hitler. And Ricky Gervais's After Life.


European politicians more rational and less self-serving than Johnson are trying to formulate the correct response to Trump's rapid and reckless redrawing of the postwar world disorder in his own, and Russia's, interests. The correct response is to shit your pants. On Tuesday, Trump even blamed Ukraine itself for being invaded, which is a bit like blaming E Jean Carroll herself for being sexually abused in a department store changing room. Couldn't she have cut a pre-emptive deal before things escalated? Victims! Always blaming someone else. But Trump has put the idea that the invasion of Ukraine is Ukraine's fault out there now, on the world stage, amplified by his collaborators in the tech bro media, and it will gradually calcify into one of those persistent alternative facts. By Wednesday he'd called Zelenskyy a dictator (and a mediocre comedian, which in my opinion is even worse).


Think what Hitler could have achieved if he'd had Twitter, currently X, and Google at his disposal


And it's that kind of reshaping of reality that needs a coherent European response. Recently, the US vice-president, JD Vance, who has the exact same face-beard as the main male oppressor in the TV adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale, came and told the Munich security conference that Scotland had made it illegal to pray silently in your own home. Many things are illegal in Scotland. Fruit, for example, and cushions, which are deemed too soft by the Scottish Cushion Committee. But not silent private prayer. Largely ignoring dead-in-the-water Ukraine, Vance also told Europe we had some kind of moral duty to allow unchecked, factually inaccurate bullshit to clog our infosphere via Trump's tech bro acolytes" social media platforms, his inflammatory comments about illegal Scottish prayer in the same speech proving exactly why such regulation is required. And I think he knows this.


Predictably, Vancewas one of the three main early investors in Rumble, the social media site for all the people whose conspiratorial untruths and borderline criminality make them too toxic for other social media sites - Russell Brand, Alex Jones and Darth Vader etc - so he personally stood to profit from this sort of popularisation of inflammatory actionable crap. As did fellow Rumble original main investor Peter Thiel, the man behind Palantir, the big tech company Wriggling Wes Streeting is keen to hand all our NHS data to, revealing an interlocking and endless web of bad influence that only "cat woman" Carole Cadwalladr had the persistence of vision to apprehend, and she's currently shunting off to a subscription Substack site, a crowdfunded Cassandra in an era busy eating its own brainstem.


For a brief period around teatime on Monday, Keir Starmer, who once left his "village and went to the city of Leeds" and "discovered a whole new world of indie bands - like Orange Juice and the Wedding Present" delusionally imagined he could be some kind of go-between twixt observable reality and Trump. But did West Yorkshire jangle-pop pioneers the Wedding Present radically retool their signature sound for 1991"s Seamonsters album just so Starmer could become a Neville Chamberlain for the cover-mounted fanzine flexidisc generation?