Columnist Emily Blair brings you her hottest takes on queer identity in 2019.

I want to believe there's consolation in reminiscence, that mourning can be cleansing when it's set against green and red lights and holiday songs and a sense of impending renewal. But when time never moves forward for us, it can never be properly marked and peacefully released. Instead we are the ones marked. Holidays repeat endlessly.

By the next election, the two main reasons people didn’t vote Labour will not exist. And the bad news: the billionaire owned media will continue to demonise the Left. So what can you do? Accepting the reality we live in doesn’t mean giving up. Here’s what you can do.

For the third time in five years, the UK is having a general election. Again. We have more general elections than Marvel has female-lead superhero films. The rate of us having general elections is higher than the rate of Frank Ocean releasing albums. We have so many general elections, everyone in the UK has a chronic case of tinnitus.

At the end of every year Spotify presents you with a playlist of your top 100 most listened to songs. Boshemia staff have taken their top 10 to combine and make a playlist that reflects our vibes across the year. We’ve ruminated on how our top tracks ended up so and shared our thoughts.

With the false veil of oppression starkly lifted by our parents’ easy love and acceptance, I am forced to confront my perceived identity as a marginalized person.

What if your parents want to talk about The Wall? Or The NHS? What if they offer their unsolicited opinions on Elizabeth Warren or AOC? It’s too late to turn back, so enjoy these tunes as you drive towards an inevitable argument.

I’m still trying to absorb it. It felt so odd, intrusive, illusionary to see this (beautiful, though wrongly and overly beautified in many ways) image of these people — I’ve spent so many hours considering them, thinking of them, imagining, evoking.

You Must Remember This started as a passion project in April 2014. “I heard what it would sound like, and I was not really happy with my professional situation at the time. And so, I just thought “I can hear what this podcast sounds like in my head. Why don't I try to make it?" So, I did.”

Millennials are burnt out, in shitty underpaid jobs and many of us still trying to crawl out of generational poverty. Here are some straight-up useful resources for those who are short on cash.

If we are truly committed to sustainability, it needs to be accessible for all, or else fast fashion will retain its hold on those of us who don’t fit slow fashion’s desired consumer template. 

Whether strikingly scary or glaringly glamourous — which Queen would snatch the crown and reign as Hallow’s Eve Monarchy?

Anyway here’s our list of tried and true (well, mostly) suggestions — from the (s)experts at Boshemia.

Give Joker a skip — not just because Joker is a misogynistic, racist, incel manifesto that will incite violence, but because it’s bad. Joker bad.

The collection begins now, a digging / the excavation of her pomegranate hips.

If The Handmaid’s Tale explored the concept of freedom and freewill, The Testaments explores accountability. Each time one of the characters in this book are faced with a choice between bravery and self-preservation, the reader must ask what they would do with that choice.

Can any of us eat intuitively in a society in which nothing about a woman’s natural body is respected, honored, or trusted?

It’s Sexual Health Week, which means you should probably be thinking about booking your next trip to the clinic or ordering your free online testing kit, and having open and honest conversations with your partners about your sex life. While these are very important things to be thinking about (and Googling), it’s also sometimes important to take anonymous advice from someone who knows nothing about your life (or, indeed, about astrology).

There is still a stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS that is accepted and shared widely in the general public. The lack of education and awareness on this means that our modern society remains a toxic place for people who are HIV positive.

Boshemia designer and newly-Parisian-by-adoption Lauren sat down for a discussion with Mathilde Maire, better known as The Purrisian. Mathilde is a self-defined ‘crazy cat lady’ and book-hoarding librarian who is an up-and-coming illustrator in based in Paris.