Almost everything these days is affected by social media, from pop culture to divorce issues. To prove this point, try to find one individual in your family or among your coworkers who do not have a social media profile. The likelihood is that someone will have Twitter, Instagram, or other accounts. 

Social media is everywhere, and it is also felt in the courtroom. When it comes to divorce, the issue of electronic evidence, mainly social media evidence, comes into the equation in various ways. According to https://ocfamilylawanddivorce.com/, modern relationships are jeopardized by the sometimes illicit activities of partners that end up being publicly disclosed for all to see on the Internet. 

Social Media in Divorce Cases

Attorneys must account for Facebook or Twitter posts, direct messages, Instagram photos, and other harmful evidence during divorce cases. To emphasize this point, here are some notable statistical data:

• Eighty-one percent of attorneys believe social network posts are admissible in court.
• Facebook is used as a primary source of information in 66 percent of divorce cases.
• Affairs conducted online cause one-third of all court proceedings in divorce cases.

The numbers don’t lie in this case. Social media has a major and significant impact on relationships and divorce litigation. To successfully use social media proof in a divorce case, a lawyer such as OH Parsons must understand the consequences of such evidence and the existing law supporting it.

As per one publication, a spouse’s social media posts are probative in the United States throughout divorce proceedings if they are not obtained illegally. A few clients may find it comforting to know that an opposing attorney or an estranged spouse or partner is not permitted by law to open false accounts to “Friend” them. 

They may try to obtain specific pictures or posts on their Facebook or Instagram profiles to use as incriminating evidence in court, but it will be rejected. Similarly, spouses are not legally permitted to obtain those identical posts through hacking or other devious means.

Public posts or photos can be viewed or examined by anyone who has a profile on that platform. That material is admissible in court as proof for or against someone. Furthermore, if a spouse’s social media contact decides to re-post or re-share an image or text post, an ex may see those secondary posts, in which case they can legitimately use them in court.

What Does Research Say?

According to research on social media and marriage, it is solely responsible for 20% of divorce filings and a significant contributor in numerous other cases. In addition to harming the relationship, it can also damage your privileges in the divorce process and any settlements you are allowed to receive. The following are examples of possibly private data that your spouse could use against you:

• Knowledge about your financial situation, which may affect your settlement rights
• Info about your private life, such as social connections that may affect your child support payments and marital assets division rights
• Information about your emotions, any current difficulties that may affect your divorce case, and your rights in child custody cases

Some divorce attorneys ask their clients to avoid using social media during their divorce and close their accounts as a safety measure. Spending too much time on the Internet can be used against a spouse and even fuel rumors of cheating.

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I spent a very satisfying 20 minutes in bed this morning with Charlie.

I know, sounds saucy doesn’t it? I haven’t taken a fast but efficient lover though, I was actually discovering some NEWS. I say it in capitals because really THE NEWS is not my thing. For a while a few years ago I thought I would try to take an interest and so I set my alarm to wake me up to Radio 4, but after a few weeks I was just so depressed. The awful news seeping into my subconscious from around the world was just too much.

Over the last couple of years it’s become even harder to take anything positive away from the news – it’s been a literal daily death count – and as a form of self-preservation I’ve had to step away completely. I have too much to manage in my own life, I don’t feel able to soak up everything else around me, especially when it’s stuff I can’t do anything about. I’m sure I’m not the only one who finds the news overwhelming?

The downside of filtering out all news of course is that you can feel like a bit of an idiot when people are talking about something big, that clearly everyone in the world knows about but you. ‘Ukraine?’ you say, ‘something going on with them is it?’

Okay, so it’s not quite that bad, but it definitely leaves you feeling ignorant, in all senses of the word when it’s a humanitarian issue.

How do you filter the news though? How can you make sure you have an awareness of what’s going on but still preserve your sanity? How do you pick out the stories that interest you without getting swamped in bad news?

Cue Charlie – your personal journalist.

Charlie is an AI bot who helps you sift through the news in a neutral, healthy way, giving you a selection of headlines and letting you find out more about any that take your interest. It’s a bit like having a partner sat in bed next to you, scrolling the news sites so that you don’t have to. They pick out things that might interest you and read out highlights, sparing you all of the anxiety inducing doom and gloom clickbait that news sites use to increase traffic and revenue.

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In partnership with ATS Euromaster. All research and findings are my own.

Regular readers will know that car maintenance isn’t exactly one of my strong points. Remember when that warning light came on on my dashboard and I just put the satsuma in front of it until one day I tried to turn a corner and the steering wheel wouldn’t move?

*looks awkward*

Having a basic understanding of your car though, things like winter tyres and car safety in general, could save your life, so it’s important to feel confident when it comes to the basics. Winter especially is a dangerous time to be on the roads – road traffic accidents increase by 20% during the winter, and many of these accidents could be prevented by safe winter driving.

Winter is also apparently an excellent time of the year for me to be especially stupid about my car. It was a winter a few years ago when I decided that it would be an excellent idea to scrape the ice off my windscreen with the base of a tin of paint I happened to be collecting from the car boot.

I know, I’m an idiot, but it was so handy. It worked really well too, and it wasn’t until the next time it rained and suddenly the windscreen was a cobweb of tiny scratches that I started to realise the mistake I’d made.

Give me a break… I can write novels, make my own Jaffa cakes and pose naked in front of strangers, just not cars… nobody’s perfect right??

*changes subject quickly*

I was interested then to test our collective winter driving knowledge with the ATS Euromaster winter driving myth challenge. I shared 10 top driving myths on Instagram to see exactly how smart we all our when it comes to winter driving – over 250 people took part and let’s just say a C+ overall, room for improvement. I’ve shared the results below.

If you’re as old as me you will remember ATS very clear from their ‘SOS? ATS!’ TV ad, which I just found on YouTube and discovered is now thirty years old. Good grief. Whoever came up with it though was a genius because it’s stayed in my head this whole time.

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What have been the small changes that you’ve noticed about yourself during the pandemic? I’m not talking the obvious stuff, like missing your friends and family, (or not), or accidentally starting an interior design degree and just doing one module, but the little things – the stuff that’s surprised you.

I surprised myself with how much I’ve enjoyed spending time alone, like REALLY enjoyed it. I’ve explored so many new places, been on so many walks, and I never get bored. It’s wonderful being able to go at your own pace and stop for ice creams as many times as you want. (If you like cute outings then go and check out my Instagram highlights, where I save my favourites.) As a teenager I always loved it when the whole family went out for the day and I was allowed to stay at home by myself, reorganising my bedroom and listening to recordings of the top 40. I’ve always known I didn’t mind spending time alone, but being a parent for the last 25 years hasn’t lent itself to solitude. Now though I’ve remembered how much I love it.

I’ve been surprised too by the things I’ve held on to and the things I’ve let go of. I haven’t plucked my eyebrows in over a year for example – it turns out I just don’t care about that – but I have continued to wear perfume. I wear the same perfume as my Gran – Chanel No 5 – and the smell of it every morning always reminds me of her. It feels significant, a reminder of my roots maybe.

On the flipside, I’ve hardly worn any jewellery and the dress side of my wardrobe has barely been opened. On the one hand I’ve enjoyed thinking less about what I wear, but I have missed the excuse to get a little bit more dressed up. It was why I was really quite excited when Rellery got in touch to see if I wanted to try a few pieces from their collection.

Rellery has a wide range of earrings, rings, necklaces, bracelets and anklets to choose from, and there are collections across different pieces if you like your jewellery to co-ordinate. The quality of their jewellery is fantastic – they only use precious metals, (sterling silver, 18K gold over sterling silver, and 14K solid gold), plus their chains are designed with tighter links to withstand up to 6lb of force. They also offer personalisation on a lot of their pieces, so you can make them extra special.

I used the excuse of a trip to the seaside to visit some friends last weekend to show off a couple of my new pieces.

First up I chose one of their 18K gold over sterling silver anklets. I haven’t owned an anklet in years but I am so happy with it – there is just something about an anklet isn’t there that makes you feel kind of young and free, like you should be strolling barefoot along an empty beach or dancing at a festival?

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Today I’ve teamed up with Eedi, the online maths support tool, to help you give your kids the confidence they need to thrive at maths. We’re also giving away a brand new iPad, so read on for more details!

I watched an interesting series of Instagram stories this morning from my friend Fritha all about maths. She was talking about the process of teaching her son, Wilf, maths at home and how it brought back traumatic memories of her own experiences of maths at school.

‘When Wilf started explaining the maths he is doing,’ said Fritha, ‘my head just said ‘I’m not good at this, I don’t understand.’ My brain just switches off and starts panicking. I was ‘top set’ throughout high school, largely because I had so many coping strategies to ensure I kept up, which involved lots of memorising. Because I got left behind somewhere in primary school though it was fully high stress, surviving and getting A grades but with no actual understanding of what I was doing. I basically had a breakdown during my last year of school and just wrote ‘x = 4′ for an entire paper.’

I wonder how many people this would resonate with when it comes to maths? That feeling of getting by under the radar, but without the real understanding or self-belief to thrive?

I know that I was lucky in that maths always came easily to me at school and I loved the buzz of new concepts slotting into place in my brain. As I got older though, through A-level maths, my degree and then actuarial training, there were definitely times where I felt lost and it was honestly terrifying. I would look at the page and genuinely just not have a clue what I was reading or how to make it make sense and it gave me, albeit later in life, an insight into how so many children must feel doing maths at school.

I actually taught maths one-to-one during university as a part-time job, and what I learned through that was that so much of maths is just about confidence, about overcoming that instinct where your brain starts to panic and believing that you can do it, that you can understand – it might just take some time or someone to explain it in a different way.

Ironically I didn’t seem to be able to transfer this to supporting my own children with their maths, and would often find myself frustrated, snapping at them – ‘just LOOK! It’s obvious!’ NOT helpful parenting at all.

If Eedi had been around when my children were younger I would have definitely signed up and spared us all my impatience.

Eedi is an online maths platform for children that really taps into that idea of confidence being key. It focuses on children in years 6, 7 and 8, where habits and beliefs about yourself and your abilities are really starting to solidify and where that extra confidence can have a real impact.

Children can choose to study any topic, at any level, at any time, whether it’s to do their homework, revise for tests or stay ahead by learning new topics. Over 100,000 children, parents and teachers use and trust Eedi and 98% of children say they feel more confident after just one lesson, which is an amazing statistic isn’t it?

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‘I don’t know how to switch it on!’

‘I pressed the button.’

‘Is it on then?’

‘I don’t know, I can’t hear anything?’

It turns out that the Nissan LEAF was on, but that the whole thing about an electric car is that you can’t hear it. Dur. I mean I knew that, or I knew the theory of it, but I didn’t expect it to be so quiet that I literally couldn’t tell whether I’d switched it on or not. Even pulling away it had an eerie nothingness about it, as though we were on one of those little trains giving us a tour of a theme park. Or a milk float.

If you’ve not seen the Nissan LEAF before, here’s a short introduction: View Post

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Every so often Belle gets a new THING. In the past these THINGS have taken the form of various musical instruments, workouts, crafts, hair care routines – essentially it’s just her having a go at something new. I think she feels like it’s a bit foolish, somehow a weakness to start things and drop them quickly, but I love it. I love that she decides to give something a go and whoosh, she’s all in, before you know it she’s spent £50 on an autoharp on eBay. I think ‘having a go’ is an admirable quality that more of us could do with embracing, and I never think she’s foolish.

(I am saying this partly thinking she might read it, but also because it’s true and I want her to know that I admire it about her.)

This month the thing has been the violin.

‘I’ve never touched a violin,’ she said one day when we were in the car, ‘so I thought it might be fun.’

Never touched a violin? I was slightly shocked. Surely touching a violin was just a thing that everyone has done? But then I remembered that my best friend in secondary school played the violin, a lot, and so perhaps my adolescent violin touching experiences weren’t standard. I mean, if you didn’t have a violin playing friend, when would you touch one?

Anyway, after some time where I was given a lecture about how as a parent I should have insisted Belle practice an instrument every day from age two, and that if only I hadn’t neglected my role she would be a musical genius by now, Belle decided that she was going to learn to play and she bought a violin.

Here it is:

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They say life is about balance. A little of what you fancy, some moderate exercise, getting your vitamins, having a small glass of wine at the weekends. Fine, I get it. I even conducted a little experiment into balance, from which I can only conclude that I’m allowed six bourbons every I eat a satsuma.

You can’t argue with science guys.

But blimey, this last twelve months has been tough balancing act hasn’t it? For so many of us, the bigger picture balance wise means a night out with friends on Saturday after a week a work or a weekend away mid-winter to escape the monotony of the rain. It means jumping in the car on your day off and driving to the coast to paddle in the sea even though it’s freezing, just for the change of scene, just to FEEL.

So what does balance mean in a global pandemic? How do we take care of ourselves and maintain some semblance of sanity when the scales always seem to be weighed down on one side by homeschooling, homeworking, home bloody everything?

I guess when your life feels small, one thing you can do is to come down to its level and take care of the small things. The small things like eating well, getting enough sleep, trying not to become an alcoholic and getting outside just for half an hour, even if it is with your coat on over your pyjamas. (It’s leisurewear remember.) View Post

I went to Lyme Regis yesterday.

I went to Lyme Regis a lot over the summer, but I haven’t been since one particularly tricky weekend a couple of months ago and I’ve missed it. I think it might be my very favourite seaside. It has pebbles and sand, pretty fishing boats, colourful beach huts, a couple of eccentric book shops and a kiosk selling excellent coffee and bagels.

And the sea obviously. But also bagels. Did I mention the bagels?

Of course while I was there I had a paddle. You can’t go to the seaside and not have a paddle can you? It was freezing, but I took my socks and shoes off regardless, and the cold was surprisingly exhilarating.

Lyme Regis also has some rather lovely gardens, which climb up the side of the hill from the beach, and feature a small mini golf course. If Lyme Regis wasn’t already my favourite seaside town then the mini golf would seal the deal.

For some reason though I don’t normally walk up and into the gardens, but yesterday I did. I hadn’t realised that the gardens have a little sculpture trail, and so I was quite surprised when I came across this.

My first thought was ‘me after bearing two children’,* but then I read the sign that went with it and felt a bit taken aback, because it really did feel like it was written for me.

I felt like I’d been caught out. View Post