Farewell The Oprah Show, I'll miss you

Oprah Winfrey has touched your life. Yes, she has. She has most likely affected the way you speak, the foods you eat, the books you read, and the music you listen to. And today, she'll be saying goodbye to the eponymous show that launched her onto the world stage – after almost 25 years, 24 seasons and more than 4,000 episodes. I used to watch Oprah religiously as a child. Hearing the old theme tune now is as soothing as a lullaby and I have total recall of the cute Harpo (Oprah spelled backwards) Productions Inc animation at the end of her shows, in which a cartoon Oprah pulled a trolley and curtsied (it's not as weird as it sounds). 

The show that ends this week is light years away from its original, vaguely tabloid incarnation; I remember Oprah urging confessions from her guests – women looking to win back their boyfriends by any means necessary, skinheads talking about racial superiority, that sort of thing – looking all the while like "one of us". The hairspray was abundant, the jumpers were brightly coloured, the weight fluctuated.

Oprah was the originator of the "talking on telly as therapy" trend, which is now the norm for talkshow formats. Nowadays of course, Oprah is a polished multi-million dollar enterprise, as much a brand as Coca-Cola or Apple. She sells us things the way no one else can. It does give the show the air of an hour-long advertisement with a few celebrity guests thrown in, but brands know that an Oprah endorsement is practically a licence to print money. So many careers have been launched on Oprah – we can, for example, blame her for the wild success of singer James Blunt, as well as Rhonda Byrne, author of The Secret.

So many pop culture moments of the last couple of decades occurred on Oprah's couch. Tom Cruise's spectacularly ill-judged couch-jumping display, Ellen DeGeneres coming out and a shamed James Frey returning to face the ire of a disappointed Oprah. I remember the stark image of Oprah wheeling out a wagon of fat to illustrate how much weight she'd lost. It was she who gave away cars, holidays and extravagant gifts to her over-excited audience. Her unique, booming cadence and sing-song delivery – "You get a car, You get a car!" – saw her imitated and parodied; Maya Rudolph used to do a spot-on impression of her on Saturday Night Live.

For me, The Oprah Show was always a pleasure. I did not watch it as a cynic or with irony. It was, and still is, a thrill to see a black woman in such a position of power. Taking away the money element – Oprah was the world's only black billionaire between 2004 and 2006 and is still the only black woman billionaire in the world – here was a woman people listened to, respected and trusted. That was wildly inspiring. A large number of black British women cite Oprah as a major influence in their lives; like Ebony magazine, she is both black and universal. Oprah lives on in her magazine and OWN, the network she set up at the beginning of 2011. But it won't be the same.

Lady Gaga's Naughty Costume

Unusual Easter Eggs

Tokyo fantasy photography

Early marriages

Early marriages are the norm in small villages in Muslim countries.  After celebrating their wedding with relatives, the little bride's veil and go into a new life with their husbands.  "Some rural girls are considering marriage as an escape from under the total control of their families," says the activist. 

1.  "Whenever I saw him, I hid.  I was disgusted to see him "- so Taganov (in pink), recalls the early days of her marriage to Majid, when she was six years old, and he was twenty-five.  A young wife posed for this photo, along with a former classmate of Ghada, also became a little bride, not far from their home in the mountains of Hajj.

2.  After celebrating their wedding with relatives, Yemeni bride Sidaba and gallium wear the burqa veil and go into a new life with their husbands.  "Some rural girls are considering marriage as an escape from under the total control of their families," says living in the capital Sana'a activist.

3.  This group of young brides in the village in western Yemen were quiet and shy, until the conversation is not transferred to education.  Most of the girls, who were married at the age of fourteen to sixteen years, never attended school, but say they still hope that will be able to get an education.

4.  Asiya, a fourteen-mother washes her baby girl at home in the Hajj, and its year-old daughter is playing.  In Asia, the bleeding continued and she was very weak after giving birth, she has no education or access to information on how to care for themselves and their health.

5.  Nudzhod Ali was ten years old when she fled from her tormentor, her husband, much older than her, and a taxi arrived at the courthouse in Sana'a, Yemen.  Brave of a girl turned her into a national heroine - a fighter for women's rights.  Now they are divorced, she returned home with his family and then goes to school.

6.  Kandahar police officer Malalai Kakar arrested a man who repeatedly beat his wife with a knife fifteen years, for not obeying him.  "With him will not do anything," said Kakar, when asked what would happen to this man.  "Men are kings." Kakar was later murdered by the Taliban.

7.  Long after midnight, when the five-year Rajani was awakened from his sleep and his uncle carried her to her wedding.  Child marriage is illegal in India, so that such ceremonies are often held in the wee hours of the morning.  They are a mystery, which keeps the whole village, explained one farmer.

8.  Rajani and her child groom barely look at each other while they are married before the sacred fire.  By tradition, the young bride continued to live at home until puberty, when a second ceremony will mark their transition to full power of her husband.

9.  Although early marriages are the norm in her small Nepalese village, sixteen-year-Zurita screaming in protest when she leaves the house his family, and its transport to the village of her new husband.

10.  When parents Sunil, who lives in Rajasthan, India, organized by her marriage at the age of eleven, she threatened to report them to police.  They relented, and Sunil, now thirteen, has remained in school.  "Education will give her an advantage over the other," says her mother now.

Extreme Piercing for the Love of Gods

In late September and early October in Thailand held an unusual vegetarian festival. I order to Nine Emperor Gods give them good health and peace of mind, these people during the festival, which lasts 9 days, must comply with many rules. These days they do not eat meat, drink alcohol, have sex or wear white clothes, and must maintain body hygiene and kitchen accessories… What’s really spectacular is sticking various objects through the face: knives, sabers, saw, glasses, spears… Every drop of blood, and every scar is a gift for purifying the soul. This expression of devotion and love to the gods during the ceremony is often a very creepy and bizarre, but always spectacular.