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Tuesday

James Innes-Smith

A Bagpuss film is a terrible idea

News that the classic children’s TV show Bagpuss is to be given the full film treatment doesn’t bode well for fans of the original series, which ran from February to May 1974. Set in an old-fashioned bric-a-brac shop, each of the 13 episodes featured the eponymous ‘saggy cloth cat’ and his eccentric friends poring over an object delivered to the shop by a little girl named Emily. In a world where brash, epilepsy-inducing cartoons have become the norm, you’d think a whimsical tale about a stuffed cat rifling through detritus might seem old hat to hyped-up, instantly gratified youngsters. But you’d be wrong. Seventies children’s classics such as Basil Brush,

Julie Bindel

The gospel of garlic

My partner’s mother, Enid, introduced me to duck with 40 cloves of garlic. She told me it originated from an old Jewish Ashkenazi recipe, although the French claim it’s theirs. It doesn’t matter because it’s delicious, with most of the cloves shoved under the crispy duck skin, permeating the meat, and several pushed into the cavity along with half an orange. Because it is cooked long and slow, and the duck is very fatty, the garlic turns mellow, sweet and extremely aromatic. When I asked Enid if she counted the cloves, she held out both hands and said, ‘about this much’. That opened my eyes to the world of garlic

Monday

Rob Crossan

Wild swimmers are the most boring people in Britain

There’s much to enjoy about the autumn months in the UK. Teenagers are restricted to school playgrounds rather than the high street between the hours of nine and three. Landlords in rural pubs start remembering that they have a fireplace that might be worth lighting. And provincial airports become populated with polite, cashmere-wearing pensioners on their way to the Azores, rather than gangs of stags and hens drinking the Wetherspoons dry at 7.30 a.m. But there is a fly (or should that be waterborne parasite?) in the ointment. There was a time when there was no such thing as ‘wild swimming’. You just called it swimming outdoors. Or you didn’t

Alec Marsh

Happy 200th birthday to our railway

You might have missed this because it hasn’t exactly been saturated with media coverage, but this week is the 200th birthday of Britain’s railway. In fact, it’s the 200th birthday of all railways, since we invented them. It was on 27 September 1825 that service began on the Stockton and Darlington Railway. Travelling a distance of just eight-and-a-half miles at about 15mph, the world’s first public commercial rail service arrived to a crowd of 10,000 and – as would become a characteristic feature of future British rail travel – was delayed by half an hour due to engineering problems. Yes, the worldwide rail revolution began in the north-east of England

Peter Cardwell

The evolution of the political animal

Most of our politicians themselves are not obedient, kindly and loyal. Similarities between candidates and their faithful cat or dog are few – but as trolls now deter supportive spouses and photogenic children from saccharine election leaflet photos, pets are increasingly becoming familial proxies. When Nigel Farage does a TikTok about his dogs Pebble and Baxter, thousands comment approvingly. But finding a family photo of the Reform UK leader is nearly impossible. And that, says Farage and many like him, is entirely deliberate. Political animals are not new. Caligula threatened to make his horse, Incitatus, a consul. Cardinal Wolsey’s cat is immortalised in a bronze statue in Ipswich. In the 20th century, cats assuaged Winston Churchill’s

Sunday

David Woodgett

Life lessons from a 105-year-old

I once asked a 105-year-old woman if she had any advice. What lessons had she learned throughout all those years? She paused and reached for the cup of tea I’d brought her. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said and took a sip. And that was that. I’d half expected my mind to be blown, to leave her room practically floating, to hear an illuminating sentence that would unlock life and help me understand how to live better. I’d prepared for enlightenment and received humility. I work in a care home where the average age of its residents is 88. I’ve heard many extraordinary stories from a prisoner of war, a

Saturday

Druin Burch

The no-choice rural restaurant with just two sittings a week

Long Compton is in the Cotswolds, but to the east, where there are no boutique hotels or shops selling artisan candles to tourists. Banburyshire and its surrounds are actual countryside. Fields roll away in the manner Germans call Kulturlandschaft, meaning landscape shaped by centuries of human care. This is the sort of country that makes people write poetry about hedgerows and choral music about sheep: lovely to live in but, by long British tradition, a dismal place to dine out. Discovering a truly great restaurant in Long Compton – population 764 – feels like finding in rural Warwickshire one of those bucolic la France profonde dining experiences that seemed nostalgic

Friday

Penworthy

Three bets for Newbury tomorrow

The death this week of film legend Robert Redford reminded me of my favourite quotation relating to gambling. It was uttered by his fellow actor Paul Newman, who was Redford’s co-star in two of their greatest films: The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. When Newman played the part of ‘Fast Eddie’ Felson in yet another film, The Color of Money, he said: ‘Money won is twice as sweet as money earned.’ I have this quote framed on the wall of my office and read it regularly as an inspiration to finding winners. Moving on to the task in hand: trying to find a weekend winner. I usually

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

Peter Mandelson’s greatest sin? Baby talk

There’s was so much to loathe and laugh at in Peter Mandelson’s contribution to Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘birthday book’ (which inadvertently has turned into more of a ‘burn book’). But the words ‘yum yum’ were, for me, in a league of their own. Whatever they were referring to – it could have been the peachy posterior of a pool-boy or a particularly perfect profiterole – they identified Mandelson as a practitioner of verbal infantilisation. For this alone, he deserved to be sent packing. I spent five months in hospital during last winter and spring, and though the nursing staff were generally excellent, we were oft spoken to like children in preschool. I

James Tidmarsh

The tyranny of tipping

At the Eurostar terminal at London St Pancras, on my way back to Paris, I stopped at the Station Pantry. It’s a counter at the back of the terminal, and it does a roaring trade because it’s the only coffee place between immigration, security and the trains. There’s little else to do while you wait to be called to board, particularly when there aren’t enough seats for everyone. I ordered an espresso for £3.60. The cashier swung the screen around for me to pay. Ten, 15, 20 per cent? A tip for a cup I was about to carry away myself. I said it was wrong to be asked for

Wednesday