This has all got a bit out of hand
‘This has all got a bit out of hand.’
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Wednesday
I’d like to report an idiot using their phone while driving
‘Hello, Police? I’d like to report an idiot using their phone while driving.’
My shoplifting was a disaster
‘My shoplifting was a disaster – this was the only thing untagged.’
The joy of colleague-cancelling headphones
I’m writing this with headphones in, sitting at my desk on Old Queen Street. Please don’t tell Debrett’s. Apparently listening to headphones in the office is a huge faux pas, akin to cutting camembert with a fish knife. The company’s etiquette adviser, Liz Wyse, told the Times: ‘If you work in an open-plan office where there is frequent conversation and interchange of ideas between colleagues, do not wear AirPods or headphones.’ The worst thing that happens when zoned out on David Bowie is that a colleague has to wave near your eye line We will, she assures us, be ‘much more valuable staff members’ if we instead choose to ‘tune
What noise should an electric car make?
One of the great pluses of electric cars is that they are so quiet. The driver’s seat is a peaceful place to be, although safety regulations dictate they must emit artificial noise to alert pedestrians to their presence when travelling below certain speeds. Now that steps have been taken to prevent the visually impaired from falling victim to their silent menace – a subject that for some reason provokes laughter, but they have killed people, so they now make a friendly bleep – another sense can be spared the intrusions of the combustion engine. Isn’t silence, or your own choice of music or whatever, the preferable accompaniment to driving? But
Can Apple make virtual reality relevant?
Earlier this week, Apple unveiled their latest product: the Vision Pro ultra-premium mixed reality headset. It’s sleek, advanced and luxurious, powered by Apple’s class-leading M2 and R1 chips, running their new VisionOS operating system, and built with a blend of glass, aluminium and plush fabric. Seven years after that messy launch, the Watch division made Apple $41 billion last year Put simply: it’s the world’s most technically advanced pair of ski goggles. With dual ultra-high-resolution screens, five sensors, and 12 cameras, it can pull you into virtual worlds of unprecedented fidelity or – with a turn of a dial – project digital objects, tools, screens and notifications onto the world
Tuesday
Schofield, Willoughby and the question of blame
Holly Willoughby returned to the This Morning sofa yesterday with a brief scripted statement on the fall of her long-time co-presenter Phillip Schofield: I imagine that you might have been feeling a lot like I have – shaken, troubled, let down, worried for the wellbeing of people on all sides of what’s been going on, and full of questions, you, me and all of us at This Morning gave our love and support to someone who was not telling the truth, who acted in a way that they themselves felt that they had to resign from ITV, and step down from a career that they loved. I met Holly at an awards bash, very
Damn you Bella Freud
I was just arriving at El Vino on Fleet Street for a leaving do when my phone rang. It was my wife, sounding frantic. ‘Where’s that box?’ ‘What box?’ ‘The box that was outside our bedroom door.’ I didn’t just do the bins effectively, I did them with grace. I did the bins, I thought, in the manner of Roger Federer My mind started working quickly. It was a Thursday evening. The box in question, small and nondescript, had indeed been by our bedroom door. It had been there since Saturday evening or Sunday morning and I had passed it any number of times until earlier that day, shortly before 6 a.m.,
My weekend with the llamas of Surrey
Want a taste of the Andes without forking out for the trans-Atlantic flight? There is a herd of delightful llamas to be found in the fields behind The Merry Harriers Inn in the quaint village of Hambledon, Surrey, in which you can walk under the guidance of the equally delightful young llama handler, Clara. Afterwards, you can return to the inn for a pint and a roast, before retiring to your shepherd’s hut for a soak in the wood-fired hot tub. Or at least, that’s how I spent one relaxing weekend with the boyfriend and dog recently. I can highly recommend it. I was told to be sensitive with my
Monday
Dear tourists, you’re welcome in Brighton
I love my adopted hometown of Brighton and Hove – I moved here in 1995 and I still feel like I’m on holiday. I love everything about living here. The obvious thing is the sea. Although I hear what our local Surfers Against Sewage say, nothing’s going to keep me out of the briny. The water quality at Hove Lawns Beach – literally at the end of my avenue – is excellent at the mo, whereas when I first lived here, it was quite normal to emerge from even a brief dip festooned in all sorts of unmentionable stuff, like an obscene Christmas tree. Here comes the summer – and
Inside Denham Place, inspiration for the early James Bond films
House hunters nearly always have to make a compromise to suit their budget – the size of the garden, say, or those dated avocado bathroom suites, or the slightly inconvenient distance from the station. You might think that being a multi-millionaire would exonerate you from such stresses, making finding your dream home trouble-free. Not so, according to Mike Jatania, the British Asian cosmetics tycoon who reportedly sold personal care brand Lornamead to Li & Fung Ltd for $200 million a decade ago and who regularly tops charts of Britain’s richest Asian people. ‘When the family asked me to come and look at Denham Place, I was totally blown away
Friday
Everyone needs to calm down about The Little Mermaid
‘I do not think we do our children any favours by pretending that slavery didn’t exist,’ wrote Royal Academy of Dramatic Art chair Marcus Ryder, in a blog about the newly remade Disney adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale The Little Mermaid. ‘Setting the fantastical story in this time and place is literally the equivalent of setting a love story between Jew and Gentile in 1940 Germany and ignoring the Jewish holocaust,’ he wrote.’ Not to be outdone, the singer Paloma Faith wrote on Instagram after she’d been to watch the remake that, ‘As a mother of girls, I don’t want my kids to think it’s OK to give up your
Two tips for the Epsom Derby
It is usually the Grand National at Aintree that throws up a delightful human interest story for the media to relish. Think Devon Loch throwing away the race when poised to win for the Queen Mother in 1956, Foinavon’s 100-1 victory in 1967, Red Rum winning his third National in 1977 and former crock Aldaniti and cancer-suffering jockey Bob Champion’s triumph in 1981. I could go on and on…but I won’t. Tomorrow I am hoping that it is the turn of the Betfred Derby (Epsom 1.30 p.m.) to produce a story to tug at the heartstrings when two horses, which I believe represent the best bets in the race, would
Forget cod – there are plenty more fish in the sea
When it comes to seafood, Britain is a curious place: surrounded by water, in which you can find some of the best fish and shellfish money can buy, and yet so often we are averse to eating it. There have been numerous campaigns promoting British fish led by just about every chef on television. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is one. It seems almost every month that the River Cottage fellow is trumpeting the virtues of our fish stocks. Rick Stein is another; a little more successfully, from his empire in Cornwall. When was the last time you spotted a John Dory in Tesco or a fresh megrim sole on ice in Sainsbury’s?
So long to Luton’s old stadium
I’ve been following Luton Town FC since the singer Helen Shapiro was ‘walking back to happiness’ in the 1960s. Luton is the bungee club of English football. Since reaching the 1959 FA Cup final, they’ve been boldly bouncing up and down the leagues. It’s only now that Helen’s words are coming true. ‘Say goodbye to loneliness’ – Luton is back in the top flight. The promised land of the Premier League. Few seats at the ground are without a pillar blocking some part of the pitch Typically, when they were last in Division One 30 years ago, they voted for the introduction of the EPL – only to be relegated
The strange allure of wine tinnies
Some years ago, on a trip up America’s Pacific Northwest, I spent a night in Portland in a hotel that was depressing in the way that not-quite-posh, not-quite-cool hotels can be. As part of its attempt to inject a sense of pizzazz into my cavernous room, there was a welcome pack whose starring feature was a can of Pinot Noir – the size and shape of a Diet Coke can, with a joke on the side about this being ‘soccer mom’ wine. The reference to hassled housewives ferrying their progeny about to games, desperate for surreptitious booze, depressed me further and I added ‘wine in tins’ to the list of vulgar
Wednesday
I believe what sets me apart is my unique perspective
‘I believe what sets me apart is my unique perspective as a bald, white, middle-aged male.’
