My cultural awakening: Ratatouille helped me overcome my insomnia

My difficulties with sleep stretched back to childhood, when I would put on a movie to pass the time – until I watched the children’s animated film and it made me drop off straight awayI have never been good at silence. When it’s quiet, my brain fills the gap with racing thoughts. It wasn’t until lockdown, when I was 27, that I was diagnosed with ADHD and autism, but looking back it made sense: the fidgety teenage nights, the late-night TV marathons, the constant need for background noise.As a kid, my insomnia was brutal. When I couldn’t sleep, all I wanted to do was get up and do something, but I shared a room with my sister so I just had to lie there, still and frustrated. I found our workaround: TV. My sister and I would put films on at night to soften the atmosphere and fill the silence. Continue reading...

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Mary Berry says moving to Channel 4 to judge Bake Off didn’t feel right ‘just for the money’

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