THERE IS A JAR of severed heads sitting on the windowsill of Gemma Whiddett’s waiting room. China heads, to be precise, that customers have gleefully smashed from the shoulders of figurines she finds in charity shops. She drops the latest head into the jar, with a satisfying clink: all ready for the next session.
Whiddett manages Rage Rooms in Norwich , where customers can make an appointment to smash up heaps of unwanted crockery, small electrical appliances and miscellaneous jumble, using scaffolding poles. The concept first caught on in Japan as a way of working off stress, before spreading across the US and Europe, and is promoted as a fun, liberating means of venting everyday frustrations. And in Norwich around two-thirds of the customers are women.
“We had a group of little old ladies come in and I did wonder if they knew what they’d booked. But they absolutely got stuck in,” says Whiddett, a cheerful 40-year-old who reckons the most satisfying smashables are bread makers (“ They last for ages”). They get a lot of primary school teachers, she says, but this afternoon’s booking is for three impeccably mannered teenagers.
Maddie’s parents have driven her up from Suffolk for a belated 18th birthday celebration with friends Annabel and Kitty . The girls, fresh from trawling Norwich’s vintage clothes shops, explain that they’ve never done anything like this before. But they all know the episode of the Netflix series Sex Education where a bunch of teenage girls cathartically smash cars in a scrapyard, and they’ve all seen rage room videos on TikTok, where they’re often pitched as the antidote to relationship angst. “Block his number and smash up a printer instead,” as Tik Toker @vickaboo x urges her almost 800,000 followers.
Denne historien er fra March 10, 2023-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Denne historien er fra March 10, 2023-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Starlink's conquest of the Amazon leaves Brazil in a dilemma
The helicopter swooped into one of the most inaccessible corners of the Amazon rainforest. Brazilian special forces commandos leaped from it into the caiman-inhabited waters below.
Dalai Lama's mountain town feels the strain of tourist boom
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After the final report of the Grenfell fire inquiry was published, Hisam Choucair, who lost six family members in the blaze, said: \"We did not ask for this inquiry... It's delayed the justice my family deserves.\"
Celeriac soup with almond pangrattato
I'm not ashamed to say that as soon as September hits, my stick blender comes out. Just as I embrace salads when the clocks go forward in the UK, I wholeheartedly throw myself into soup season once the summer holidays end. Autumn is approaching in the northern hemisphere and I'm ready with my ladle. Celeriac is one of my favourite soup heroes, because it gives the creamiest, silkiest finish with little effort. You don't have to make the almond pangrattato, but it is a wonderful addition.
Are smoke signals telling me to make an oil change in the kitchen?
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A darkly humorous encounter between an American spy-cop and the members ofan eco-commune she is hired to infiltrate
All work and no play
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What the princess and the shaman tell us about hereditary privilege
It should have been an Instagram-perfect wedding image, but it turned out to be something more embarrassing.