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Shane MacGowan spent much of his life in pubs, working in them, drinking in them, performing in them – even living in a couple. He would have turned 66 on Christmas Day, state retirement age, so he was only three and a half weeks short of reaching a finishing line of sorts when he died at the end of November.  Perhaps if he’d just stuck to pints, he might have made it. Guinness is, after all, good for you. But there were also spirits. I can’t imagine quite how many shots he drank over seven decades. And it was seven: MacGowan claimed to have had his first Guinness aged four, his first

My grannie, a proud working-class woman, had a fake crystal decanter on display in a glass cabinet, filled with weak tea. We all assumed it was sherry, and she didn’t disabuse us. I discovered the truth when I opened the lock with a hairgrip and took a swift glug. My face must have been a picture. Grannie worked in service, cleaning the house of a well-to-do family on the other side of the tracks. I reckon they had a proper decanter filled with the real McCoy, and she would have had the odd swig of it to help her get through scrubbing the fire grates. My relationship with sherry had

It’s that time of year. The sound of a Silesian Bratwurst connecting with cold lips. A security guard getting aggy with the actor playing ‘the elf’. Ketchup spraying into the air like celebratory champagne. Spilled mulled wine inebriating the local rat population. Overpriced tat sold in gift box form to drooling tourists.  It’s Christmas market season. A confusing month of crowded streets and impulsive shoppers. But Christmas markets have nothing to do with Christmas. They did once. They do in Germany. But these markets, the central city cesspits, are nothing more than shoddy farmers’ markets in tinsel.  ‘No, thank you. Merry Christmas.’ We walked away.  There is an idea of a Christmas market

I have followed the fortunes of GIN COCO closely for the past two seasons and, even though the gelding will turn eight on New Year’s Day, I am convinced his best days still lie ahead of him. He has been lightly raced during his career with three wins from just nine runs and he could yet go novice chasing next year. Gin Coco is clearly a much better horse on good rather than soft ground. The official going of ‘soft’ was initially thought to have been the reason for poor run in the County Hurdle at this year’s Cheltenham Festival. It later transpired, however, that he had fractured his pelvis

The housing market indices have stabilised, started rising even. So is that it? Is the great housing market crash over, before it had had a chance even to begin? Not according to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). Buried in its latest Economic and Fiscal Outlook report is a prediction that the slump is far from over. Average prices, it forecasts, will fall by 4.7 per cent in 2024 and will not return to their 2022 levels until 2027. Transactions, the OBR believes, will also plummet by a further 6.9 per cent next year. While that might not bother homeowners so much it certainly will affect estate agents, who live or die on

On a snowy night in Nuremberg, a city that encapsulates the best and worst of Germany, a huge crowd has gathered in the ancient Marktplatz for the opening of the Christkindlesmarkt, Bavaria’s biggest Christmas market. Cradling mugs of steaming Glühwein, stamping our feet to keep out the cold, we’re all waiting for the Christkind (Christ Child) to appear on the balcony of the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady), an event that marks the start of Nuremberg’s Advent season. Five hundred years ago, Nuremberg was one of the biggest cities in Central Europe Turns out we have Martin Luther to thank for this quaint Teutonic custom. Before the Reformation, German children