Nadia Manzoor, writer and comedian from Hertfordshire, speaks to Sophie Wilkinson about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her ex-partner, and why, even as a support worker at a women’s shelter, the abuse was hard for her to recognise.
I was 20 years old and had just graduated when my mum died of cancer aged 42. I was living at home in Hertfordshire with my Pakistani Muslim family. I was told that my dating of an Irish man had caused my mother stress, and when a male family member found a photo of me in a bikini at the beach, he laid down the law: if I didn’t change my ways, I’d be dead to him.
To escape, I went to the US to stay with my cousin, who was doing her PhD there, while I did an internship. At first, I was deep in grief and depression, spending my days watching re-runs and eating family-sized bags of Doritos with no family to feed but myself. Then I met him. Tall and charismatic, I couldn’t believe someone like him had paid attention to someone like me.
So, when he invited me over to watch and eat Chinese food, I turned up with unshaved legs, a parka and tracksuit bottoms, fully expecting to watch TV and hang out as friends. He had a very different agenda. It was consensual, but his energy was incredibly overpowering. I thought it was a one-night stand, so afterwards I got up to leave. Instead, he asked me to stay. We ended up together for four years.
The loyalty and community I’d just lost back in England suddenly existed again. Through him, I found a sense of belonging.
How climate change is pushing giant whales to Greenland
Giant whales are now moving into inaccessible areas in East Greenland after climate change has warmed the sea and melted ice caps.
Due to the ice blocking them whales have not normally been seen in these waters, but now a decades-long study has recorded hundreds of the species feeding in ice-free seas along the coast in summer.
Scientists describe the result of the melted ice as seasonal Arctic “feeding frenzies”.
A huge increase in whale sightings
The difference is striking – ship-based surveys did not record a single humpback whale sighting there until 2006.
Then in 2007, seven were seen and in 2024, there were 150 ship-based sightings.
An estimated 4,000 humpback whales, 6,000 fin whales and 6,000 minke whales travelled to the Greenland Sea in the summer of 2024.
3 min read
3 min read
Why the whales go to Greenland
Rising sea temperatures have meant fish have travelled to the waters of East Greenland and the whales have moved in to feast on them. Scientists estimated the three whale species would eat 800,000 tonnes of fish and krill during a summer feeding season.
- However, the relocation of the whales means they share a habitat with other whales such as narwhals and belugas, and can displace them in some instances.
Trump threatens Iran with ‘economic D-Day’ – the latest
Donald Trump has threatened Iran with “economic D-Day” in a post on Truth Social and warned he will launch tougher economic measures on any country that does business with Tehran.
The context
The threat comes after a 60-day ceasefire – which was largely ignored when hostilities resumed around a month in – officially expired on Monday.
Trump’s latest is an attempt to ramp up the economic pressure on Iran as the war continues almost five months on from Israel and America’s first strikes, and the ensuing shocks to oil prices.
Trump’s crackdown
ANY country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences.
Donald trump writing on truth social
Iran loses key economic stream
- The declaration by Trump comes a day after the United Arab Emirates severed all economic ties with Iran.
- This was prompted by the UAE’s defence ministry saying it detected two Iranian missiles targeting maritime traffic.
- Iranian entities have long used Dubai’s financial system to transfer money through exchange houses and shell companies.
6 min read
Designs on Hormuz
On Tuesday, the President posted a captionless image of the Strait of Hormuz, labelling it as a US territory.
It’s closure by the Iranian regime has spiked oil prices and caused global economic turmoil, something that has become a key issue for Trump himself.
The President first claimed the strait would become a “US territory” at an event last week, though America has so far been unable to guarantee safe passage for ships through the waterway.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are planning to move back to Britain more than six years after relinquishing their royal duties and leaving the UK for California.
Will Harry and Meghan resume their duties?
There are currently no plans for either Harry or Meghan to return to their official working roles within the Royal Family. However, the move raises the possibility that the couple could return to their posts in the future.
- Harry and Meghan stood down from their roles as working royals in 2020. The pair, in part, made the decision to due to media intrusion and the inability to set up their “SussexRoyal” brand.
What has been the King’s reaction?
King Charles was informed of the move on Sunday and it is understood he is pleased for the opportunity to see them on a regular basis.
However, it is reported the King is clear that the Duke and Duchess’s status as non-working royals and private individuals, in keeping with their previously expressed wishes, will remain unchanged.
3 min read
What arrangements are being made?
Security arrangements for the Duke and Duchess have not yet been disclosed, but the government has so far refused to provide Harry with taxpayer-funded police protection when in the UK.
The couple will reportedly retain their homes in Montecito, California, and Portugal, while the Duchess will continue to run her lifestyle brand, As Ever, from their new base.
4 min read
3 min read
How did we get here?
- Harry and Meghan married in May 2018 and originally worked closely with Prince William and Kate as senior members of the Royal Family.
- Reports later emerged of a rift between the two couples and in March 2019, Buckingham Palace announced Harry and Meghan would set up their own, separate household.
- Around a year later, the couple said they were scaling back their involvement with the Royal Family and would split their time between the UK and US.
- Harry and Meghan then made a series of startling allegations about the family.
- The couple then formally relinquished their royal titles and took part in a bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Five things to know after major cancer vaccine breakthrough
Cancer vaccines given as treatment for the disease have moved a step closer after promising results in a landmark trial.
Vaccine could halve cancer recurrence
The treatment, developed by Moderna and Merck, is based on the same technology used to make Covid vaccines. It was given to patients with high-risk melanoma who remained free of cancer after surgery.
The manufacturers have not yet said exactly how much the treatment reduced cancer return, but a previous small study found the treatment halved its recurrence.
5 min read
2 min read
How it works
The vaccine works by revving up the immune system so it is better able to recognise the unique proteins made by the cancer cells’ mutated DNA. Treatment involves surgically removing the patient’s cancer, then genetically sequencing the tumour cells to make mRNA.
- The mRNA is then injected into the person’s body, and their cells start producing the cancer proteins in small amounts. This trains the person’s immune cells to react more aggressively to the cancer cells.
Potential for patients to be
cancer-free for longer
The vaccine, which is called Intismeran, is personalised to each patient’s tumour. It is used along with another cancer drug already prescribed by the NHS, Keytruda.
The combination treatment “has the potential to establish a new treatment paradigm, helping patients remain cancer-free for longer”, said Professor Georgina Long, the study’s principal investigator and medical director of Melanoma Institute Australia.
When will it be used in the UK?
- The treatment could be at least a year or two away from being used within the NHS.
- The manufacturers first need to file for approval of their treatment with the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
- Then, the financial body Nice would need to decide if the treatment could be administered on the NHS, if it determines it to be cost-effective.
The products that increased in price most since 2021
Inflation has risen by a cumulative 28 per cent since the cost-of-living crisis began, but the prices of some products have risen by much more than others according to research by AJ Bell.
Food and drink
Olive oil
A combination of poor harvests and higher energy costs mean the price of olive oil has risen by 116.3 per cent.
A staple of many people’s diets, egg prices have risen by 56.7 per cent.
Now seen by many as a luxury, takeaways and fast food are up by 38.1 per cent.
Energy and household items
Motor insurance
Factors similar to those that pushed up gas prices have seen the cost of electricity surge by 40.8 per cent.
The items that have fallen in price over five years
Sound and vision equipment has experienced the sharpest fall, at 30 per cent. Decades of technological advances have seen the price of computers also decrease, by 24.6 per cent. Motorcycles also dropped in price by 5 per cent.
3 min read
2 min read
How AI is threatening musicians as regulations fall behind
Musicians face being “squeezed out” and “marginalised” from their industry by AI, a study from Queen’s University Belfast has warned.
What you need to know
Dr Katherine Pittalis has examined how AI is used in music-streaming platforms, online retail for concert tickets and music-related content on social media.
She says that UK music regulations lag “woefully behind” that of the EU and US in terms of transparency around malicious actors’ use of bot technologies.
3 min read
5 min read
What else does the research investigate?
Pittalis’ research investigates “metric bots” – which can inflate metrics such as likes and follows on social media – as well as “artificial musicians”, which utilise deepfake technology to create an AI “influencer”.
- These phenomena are becoming ever-more sophisticated to circumvent rules on their platforms.
A closer look at the findings
- The research found evidence of scams where consumers bought high-demand concert tickets for inflated prices, only to find they never existed.
- Bots were also occasionally found to be moderating highly unregulated “buy and sell” groups on platforms like Facebook.
- Pittalis is also looking at AI-generated music, as musicians start to use AI in their production and sometimes whole songs are created with it.
The dog food recalled after reports of pets losing sight
A premium pet food brand has recalled all of its fresh meals following reports of suspected eye problems in dogs.
Here is everything you need to know.
What has happened?
The brand Years said owners should stop feeding its fresh meals to dogs “immediately”, and told them not to feed the meals to any other animal, or to donate or sell them. The firm runs a subscription-service delivering “personalised” gourmet meals for dogs.
3 min read
3 min read
What are the eye problems?
- Years said it had 192 customers report “potential, yet unverified, eye issues” out of roughly 40,000 customers.
- The condition is known as sudden bilateral dry eye. Dry eye occurs when a dog is unable to produce tears, making their eyes very sore.
- Affected dogs may rub at their eyes, squint or be sensitive to light.
- Some experts say the condition can require lifelong management.
3 min read
How has this happened?
Years said the recall followed reports of some dogs having a potential eye reaction to buckwheat, an ingredient in its meals.
- Buckwheat was reportedly added to the meals several months ago.
- Years told customers that their subscription will be paused for an initial period of six weeks while it makes fresh meals using quinoa instead of buckwheat.
What the company said
Further independent laboratory testing around the buckwheat supply is ongoing. Years has chosen to voluntarily recall the meals as a precautionary measure, without causation having yet been proven.
Years says on its website
How to be more grateful for daily life in five easy steps
The world feels like a difficult place at the moment, and it can feel very hard sometimes to find things to be thankful for; when we are overwhelmed, we have less capacity to notice and reflect on the good things. Yet, ironically, proactively cultivating gratitude is one of the things that can actually help us feel less stressed.
NHS GP dR RADHA
The science
Research has shown that feeling or expressing thanks can actually alter our brain.
- The balance of neurotransmitters change; more serotonin and dopamine (feel good chemicals) are produced.
- This can be long lasting if we make gratitude a regular habit.
- We also get a decrease in our cortisol (stress hormone) levels which helps lower anxiety.
- Being grateful can strengthen the nerve pathways which triggers positive emotion.
How can we build gratitude?
Change your words
Instead of seeing something as a problem, try to see the opportunities within it.
Our brains are very receptive and what we read or write can alter our emotional system.
Express it
This will not only make you feel good, but you will also get a positive response from others.
How can we build gratitude?
Notice more
Throughout your day, try to notice all the things that are going well; has someone opened a door for you, or smiled?
The basics
By being thankful for the small things every day, we are far more likely to be and stay healthy so that we can enjoy them.
What to do
Gratitude can lead to feelings of optimism, lower our blood pressure, and improve sleep quality.
- Write down what potential good aspects there are to the things you don’t feel like doing, or even what could be worse about it.
- Spend a few minutes writing down three things that you are looking forward to that day, or the good things that have happened to you that day.
- Say thank you to yourself for the things you have achieved, or managed to get through and changed that day.
About three months in, though, I heard him screaming at his female housemate. I can’t remember what set it off, but I later found out she’d got a restraining order against him. The next day, my boss noticed I was in shock and gently tried to talk to me. My cousin also said: “If he can do this to somebody else, he can do this to you.”
I wrote him a long email ending the relationship. Instead, he turned up at my cousin’s apartment, collapsed and sobbed, begging me to forgive him. So I stayed.
A few months later, I began a master’s in social work. As part of the course, I worked in domestic violence agencies for nearly three years, helping produce research and educational materials, speaking to survivors on a hotline, advocating for them at public meetings and fundraising.
All the while, I was being abused. Even though I was learning about power and control every day, I compartmentalised everything. We tell ourselves incredibly powerful stories when we’re choosing not to see something.
The first time he verbally abused me was because, according to him, I’d flirted with someone in a bar. While driving us home in my car, he screamed at me for about 25 minutes, calling me all kinds of things. My whole body froze. Then I started shaking and crying. Afterwards, he walked me upstairs, tucked me into bed and acted as though nothing had happened.
The screaming and jealousy continued. Eventually, I learned to fight back. I learned to defend myself, raise my voice and meet him in that escalated place. Strangely, it felt like he respected me more because of it. I explained it away to friends. He’s from the streets. His mother threw plates at him as a child. He has ADHD. He’s just passionate.
We moved in together. The physical violence began through restraint. Holding me down. Pinning me. Putting his knee on me. Forcing me onto the ground so I couldn’t move. He never slapped or punched me, so I convinced myself it wasn’t abuse. We tend to think abuse only counts when it reaches the most extreme versions. That’s simply not true.
I was never financially dependent on him, and I always believed I could leave whenever I wanted. But by the time he became physically violent, I no longer understood how to leave.
By then, he’d also got me hooked on his medication. He’d been prescribed Adderall for ADHD, and one night, seeing me falling asleep over my laptop while studying, he handed me a pill and said: “It’ll help you focus.” From then on, he manipulated me with pills, handing them out like little dog treats whenever I’d done what he wanted.
I remember standing at the window one day praying that someone would end this. How could I, an intelligent master’s student working in domestic violence, be letting this happen to me?
What I was experiencing in the workplace seemed very, very extreme to me. Women were having to come to the shelter as a result of severe threats from their partners, and we were offering a refuge for them and safety and the police were involved. I told myself that wasn’t what was happening in my life. I justified it: I was in love with him, he was from the streets, he was very passionate.
I now know this can happen a lot when we talk about abuse stories. We say, let’s try to understand the evil man and separate them from the rest of society. They’re not evil men. They’re just regular people. That’s why abuse is so prevalent.
My friends slowly began intervening, each trying in their own way to pull me out of the relationship. Then one day my cousin called me over, handed me a key to her apartment and said: “If you ever feel like your life is in danger and you’re too scared to know what to do, here’s my key. Use it. But I can’t do this anymore.”
That broke my heart. It was the first time I realised how much my relationship was affecting everyone around me. It made me understand that what was happening wasn’t just dramatic. It was dangerous. By this point, it had become as extreme as what the women at the domestic abuse agency had gone through.
A close friend helped me leave. We moved to another city. But it wasn’t happily ever after. Not even close. Since then I’ve done years of therapy: EMDR, energy healing, psychedelics, deep spiritual work. Looking back, I was consumed by grief and overwhelmed with guilt about my mum’s death. I think some part of me was unconsciously punishing myself.
The first stage of healing after abuse is separation. They are bad. I am the victim. That distinction matters. But with enough time and distance, I found myself asking a different question: what was I getting from that relationship? What felt familiar? What need was it meeting?
If someone told me their husband beat them, I’d never ask: “Well, what were you getting out of it?” But for my own healing, I had to ask that question – not to blame myself, but to understand myself. I eventually realised he gave me somewhere for my rage to exist. Somewhere I’d never been allowed to put it before.
Compassion doesn’t mean excusing what happened or wanting him back in my life. It means recognising that people carry all kinds of wounds. Including me. I also realised I was constantly looking to other people for permission before making decisions about my own life. That’s codependence.
I’d been raised to believe that if I grew up, got married, had children, stayed attractive and was chosen by a man, I’d won. When we build a culture where a woman’s value comes from being chosen, we also create the conditions for violence.
Today, I’m in a healthy, interdependent marriage with my husband and we have two children. Raising children to become interdependent takes enormous self-awareness, emotional maturity and responsibility. I think, culturally, we’re finally beginning to have that conversation.
Jerk Off!, Nadia Manzoor’s show about her mother’s death and what happened as a result, is at the Edinburgh Fringe from 5–30 August