Many of us are convinced our insecurities are screaming out because we compare what we feel like on the inside to what other people look like on the outside

The question I grew up in a household that was supportive and well-meaning, but lacking in any affection or warmth. I know my parents love me in their own way and that they are funny and kind under the coldness.

I can demonstrate love and affection towards my own daughter, but I know I have inherited their traits in other ways. I have only a handful of people who I’m close to. I know my sense of humour and outlook can seem cold and sarcastic. I find small talk hard.

All you need is the comfy socks to slip into first

As we are deeper into winter and the clocks have changed, I have thrown myself fully into cosy chocolate pursuits. I will scatter the column with Christmas ideas, too, in the coming weeks.

First up this week is Table ’s hot chocolate, £12.50/250g. All single origin and they come in flakes. (PSA: I use hot chocolate flakes in any recipe that asks for grated chocolate and it works brilliantly.) There are three in the collection, all award winners. I particularly liked, for something a bit different and warming, the Chai Spices, 59%. There’s cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, white pepper, cloves and star anise in there, and all you need are the comfy socks to slip into first. The 62% from the Dominican Republic is a more classic hot chocolate and the 63% from DR Congo has a hint of salt, which is very good in hot chocolate, even if the words salt and chocolate together make you feel fatigued.

New research from the US shows that poorer students living more than 30 miles from college are unlikely to continue with their studies

Too many people go to university is a popular argument. I disagree. Insofar as our economy does not create enough highly skilled jobs for the graduates we produce, the fault lies with our economy, not an “overeducated” workforce.

But let’s park that row about the volume of higher education and focus on its geography. MPs calling for fewer students never answer the next question: which university to close? They don’t suggest one in their constituency.

A deep dive into football’s puppet masters; an evocative slice of Americana; and another tour de force from Pure author Andrew Miller

Nick Miller
Bloomsbury Sport , £18.99 , pp 256

The screenwriter behind hit TV dramas National Treasure and Kiri, as well as the Harry Potter stage play, talks about his new, more personal project created with his wife - a feature film, Joy, celebrat​ing the birth of IVF

In 1968, three people decided to cure infertility. In the 10 years between 1968 and 1978, Robert (Bob) Edwards, a scientist, Patrick Steptoe, an obstetrician, Jean Purdy, an embryologist, worked together, with many others, to do something incredible. Basing themselves in an outbuilding at Oldham general on scraps of money, with nurses volunteering their time, and patients their patience, they worked incessantly on the issue of infertility.

Bob had had a number of breakthroughs working with mice and rabbits, and thought that with Patrick’s innovations with laparoscopes (keyhole surgery), there was a possibility that tubal infertility could be, at least partially, cured.

A new book by Musa al-Gharbi accuses liberal professionals of talking about justice but entrenching inequalities

When Musa al-Gharbi first arrived in New York in 2016, what he most noticed was the operation of a “racialized caste system” under which “disposable servants… will clean your house, watch your kids, walk your dogs, deliver prepared meals to you”.

The “disposable servants”, who earned “peanuts for their work”, were inevitably mainly black or Hispanic, the ones being served, almost exclusively white. No one remarked upon this; it was taken to be “the way normal society operates”.

YouTuber Jake Paul versus the 58-year-old boxing legend – a grizzly pantomime? Or a grim harbinger of the future?

The trailer for Netflix’s latest ­multimillion-dollar venture starts with a dramatic drumbeat, the slap of glove on pad, and a familiar Brooklyn drawl. “He’s a manufactured killer,” says Mike Tyson, with almost cartoon relish. “I am a natural-born killer.”

The camera then cuts to the man he will face in the early hours of Saturday UK time, the influencer Jake Paul. “We’re going to war,” predicts Paul, who made his fortune filming pranks such as I Sunk My Friend’s Car And Surprised Him With A New One before an even more lucrative pivot into boxing. “And he’s getting knocked out.”

Questions raised about potential for undue influence after appointment of Ruth Dempsey, formerly of Philip Morris

A former director at the tobacco giant Philip Morris International (PMI) was handed a role on an influential expert committee advising the UK government on cancer risks, the Observer can reveal.

Ruth Dempsey, the ex-director of scientific and regulatory affairs, spent 28 years at PMI before being appointed to the UK Committee on Carcinogenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (CoC).

Bans and taxes on the most popular and effective aid for giving up smoking could lead to a major health crisis

Imagine we’d found a way to get millions of people to switch from alcohol, which in this country kills 10,000 people a year , to another kind of substance: still addictive, still not risk-free, but when compared with the booze, pretty harmless. Coffee, say.

A public health miracle is hailed. Liver units are empty. Heart surgeons spend more time on the golf course, and costly government prevention programmes close. Millions chink into NHS coffers.