Melissa Todd

Melissa Todd reviews Claro’s Kent Edit, a summer seasonal menu in St James’s, London, built around produce from Kent growers, cheesemakers, vineyards and artisan suppliers. She praises the appetisers, pappardelle, pork rib and Biddenden Ortega wine, while noting the restaurant’s stylish setting and friendly service. Although Claro is sophisticated and intimidating at first, the review concludes that its cooking remains warm, generous and focused on letting high-quality Kent ingredients speak for themselves.

Sian Elizabeth Thomas, a Chatham chaplain and adoptee advocate, recounts being taken from her unmarried Catholic mother in 1970, having her identity changed and being raised in a highly institutionalised Salvation Army household. She describes childhood abuse, an unauthorised exorcism and decades spent tracing her birth family, while explaining how faith, humour and advocacy have helped her cope. Thomas welcomes government and Church of England apologies but says survivors need faster access to records, specialist counselling and lasting recognition; she also wants the Salvation Army to take greater responsibility. The organisation acknowledges that women and children in its care were let down and expresses regret. Thomas continues campaigning and plans to detail her experiences in a memoir.

Founder Kieron Riddell is launching MedFringe, an inaugural Medway arts festival featuring more than 50 shows across theatre, comedy, music and spoken word. The festival runs from July 4 to July 19, with its public launch at Chatham Carnival, and aims to give local performers greater visibility while creating a Medway equivalent of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. The event has already attracted interest from touring agents, review companies and performers internationally, with bookings for 2027 already underway.

The controversy surrounding Bonnie Blue’s sexual publicity stunt illustrates how visceral disgust continues to influence moral judgments, even among socially liberal people. The column argues that disgust evolved as a useful response to potential contamination but can become attached to unconventional lifestyles and then be mistaken for evidence of immorality or harm. Although people need not approve of Bonnie Blue’s conduct, liberalism requires distinguishing personal revulsion from grounds for prohibition.

Melissa Todd reflects humorously on the stigma surrounding kink and sex work after appearing on ITV’s Nobody’s Fool. She says clients and fellow models have avoided being associated with her, fearing professional or social repercussions, and compares the shame attached to kink with the historical stigma faced by gay people while acknowledging the comparison is imperfect. Rather than retreating, Todd plans to build a more public identity as a performer through her one-woman show Gag Writer, including a nationwide tour and an appearance in Margate.

Melissa Todd reflects on appearing in ITV’s strategy quiz Nobody’s Fool, explaining that her Mensa membership helped her secure a place despite disliking competition and group situations. She describes the show’s strict secrecy rules, including one monitored phone call per week, which made filming feel like prison. Watching the programme from home has revealed the betrayals and manipulation she missed inside the house, including her misplaced trust in fellow contestant Omar, while she remains amused by the experience and her rivalry with Harry.

Kent columnist Melissa Todd recounts joining ITV’s new reality quiz show Nobody’s Fool, hosted by Danny Dyer and Emily Atack. She describes undergoing psychological assessments, signing secrecy agreements, surrendering her phone and arriving at a hidden Kent filming location with nine other contestants. The show’s format centers on contestants judging how intelligent their rivals are, while Todd reflects humorously on consent, privacy, her health, the production’s security measures and her desire for notoriety.

Landlord and columnist Melissa Todd describes how her tenant became one of eight households warned by Southern Water to address a leak on a shared supply pipe, despite the company previously being unable to locate it and later saying the issue had been resolved. Todd criticizes the utility for threatening disconnection and prosecution while offering little practical guidance, particularly after the tenant requested clear communication due to being autistic. A plumber quoted £425 for an initial assessment and £695 for a full leak survey. Southern Water said responsibility for shared private pipes lies with homeowners, that it is reviewing the wording of its letters, and that it does not intend to cut off the properties’ water supply in this case.

Melissa Todd describes attending the Together Alliance’s large anti-far-right march in central London, portraying it as peaceful, diverse and community-focused rather than confrontational. The event brought together activists, trade unionists, local groups and first-time protesters, with varied placards, music and cultural performances making it more of a broad grassroots collage than a tightly unified political intervention. Todd contrasts its inclusive tone with the aggression of a previous far-right mobilization and argues that the march offered an imperfect but hopeful vision of a pluralistic Britain, although optimism may struggle to gain the attention that outrage receives.

Melissa Todd criticizes the use of threatening school-attendance letters that link persistent absence with later involvement in the criminal justice system. She argues that correlation does not establish causation, and that children may resist school for rational reasons including alienation, pressure and a mismatch with their needs. The column presents compulsory education as historically shaped partly by industrial and economic demands, with attendance enforcement falling most heavily on working-class families, and calls for schools to attract and adapt to pupils rather than rely primarily on coercion.

Columnist Melissa Todd explains her decision to join and financially support the Green Party after its by-election victory, describing the result as a rare source of political hope. She criticizes the Labour government over protest restrictions, online-safety rules, possible identity-card policies and its approach to sex work. Todd particularly supports the Greens’ proposals to fully decriminalize sex work and pornography, treat drug addiction as a health issue, invest in public services, introduce wealth taxes, bring utilities into public ownership and fund climate resilience. She acknowledges the party’s imperfections but argues that challenging managed decline is preferable to accepting deteriorating infrastructure and public services as inevitable.

Nipah virus is highly lethal but currently lacks COVID-19’s ability to spread widely. The column argues that post-COVID exhaustion, distrust of public-health messaging and online mockery may cause people to dismiss legitimate warnings as attempts at social control. Effective pandemic preparedness will require public cooperation, early reporting and preventive measures, yet institutional mistakes and weak accountability have made that trust difficult to rebuild.

Melissa Todd argues that “paedo” has become a routine political and social-media insult in Britain, used against people for views such as supporting the BBC, opposing Brexit or criticising Boris Johnson and Tommy Robinson. She contends that the casual deployment of the term—shaped by tabloid moral panics and social-media incentives—damages public debate, devalues language and trivialises the experiences of actual victims of child sexual abuse. Genuine safeguarding, she argues, requires nuance, evidence, support and effective reporting systems rather than online accusations and moral witch-hunts.

Melissa Todd humorously criticizes the widespread potholes on Kent’s roads, arguing that they have become recognizable hazards that damage vehicles, increase repair costs and force drivers to adapt. She highlights the 50mph restriction on the A299 Thanet Way as evidence of deteriorating infrastructure and questions why road repairs are treated as optional. The piece concludes by calling for better maintenance and more realistic expectations from local drivers.

Comedian Emmanuel Sonubi discusses surviving heart failure and a subsequent stroke, and how the experience inspired his new stand-up show, Life After Near Death. He reflects on denial, personal responsibility, lifestyle choices and recovery, including his decision to stop drinking after gigs. Sonubi says audiences have responded warmly to the show’s more serious themes, which encourage people to start living before experiencing grief or a near-death crisis. He is also advocating for organ donation, particularly among ethnic minority communities in the UK, through a BBC documentary and work with the British Heart Foundation.

A Kent ambulance worker using the pseudonym Chris plans to volunteer in Ukraine, where he hopes to deliver aid and establish community first-responder programmes for displaced people and victims of drone strikes. Drawing on his previous military service and thirteen years in the NHS, he accepts the risk of death despite having two children and an impending divorce. The column describes the continuing devastation faced by Ukrainians, including attacks on healthcare facilities, and calls for donations of medical supplies, warm clothing, sleeping bags, medication, nappies and sanitary products.

Melissa Todd reflects humorously on how difficult it is to define kink, arguing that it extends beyond unusual sexual preferences to include everyday experiences involving excitement, discomfort, vulnerability and pleasure. Drawing on her work and examples from clients, she concludes that kink is the courage to ask for or pursue whatever makes someone’s heart race and adds meaning to otherwise monotonous life.

The BBC is portrayed as an essential British institution whose news coverage, educational role, entertainment and international programming provide cultural identity, trusted information and soft power. Its long-running relationship with Kent through Call the Midwife illustrates its local as well as global influence. Although the corporation faces funding disputes, political pressure and accusations of bias from both left and right, polling and research are presented as showing broadly sustained trust and only a slight perceived government-aligned bias. The piece argues that weakening or losing the BBC would leave Britain less informed and culturally poorer.

Melissa Todd describes choosing sex work from an early age and entering the industry as a table dancer at 19 before moving into stripping, pornography and domination sessions. She says the work has provided financial security, personal satisfaction and freedom, and argues that sex workers should not automatically be viewed as victims of trafficking, abuse or addiction. Todd contrasts her experience with the risks faced by workers in other sectors and says she has no regrets, apart from not starting sooner.

Melissa Todd argues that although people cannot control luck or many of life’s circumstances, they can control their responses and choices. Drawing on Stoicism and Nietzsche’s concept of amor fati, she suggests reframing difficulties as meaningful parts of one’s life story rather than wasting energy resisting them. She uses her upcoming painful and expensive dental-implant treatment as an example of turning an unpleasant experience into an opportunity and a step toward future goals.