Wet Summer to continue
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Wednesday
How much dough
‘How much dough are you looking to borrow?’
Ban the car
‘Dad, can I ban the car?’
Dieters buy up vital diabetes drugs
‘Oh sugar!’
The drawback to some of the stand up is when the material doesn’t!
‘The drawback to some of the stand up is when the material doesn’t!’
I might have been there
‘I might have been there. Let me check my photos.’
Chance would be a fine thing
Help! I’m addicted to online auctions
Participants in a 12-step programme generally identify a point of no return where things have become so bad that they must seek help. That moment should have come when I accidentally bought the emerald ring. Yet nothing seems to temper my addiction to online auctions. As a woman who likes the occasional flutter, it’s easy to get carried away during the actual bidding For the blissfully unafflicted, the-saleroom.com is a site that lists hundreds of thousands of lots, up at auction at houses all over the UK and Ireland. In other words, anyone can engage in online bidding wars without having to jump in the car and drive to a draughty warehouse. Only
The real problem with Thomas Straker
Thomas Straker became famous for his TikTok recipes, although he doesn’t like it when people point that out. He protests that he’s a serious cook – he has worked at Elystan Street, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal and The Dorchester – but most people know him as the butter guy. It’s hard to avoid that label when his flavoured butter recipes have led to a following of 2.1 million people. His TikToks are perfectly constructed using schizophrenic jump cuts and ASMR narration and he likes to make viewers salivate over his Bloody Mary butter, Biscoff butter, tequila butter, and bone marrow butter. Here’s him doing something indecent with chicken skin: Straker
What to pack for a walking holiday
I know it’s a tad warmer than usual in southern Europe but let’s not lose our heads. That holiday in stunning Andalusia is still worth it. Admittedly, some mitigating measures are probably worth taking. With the passion of model railway enthusiasts, we’d discuss what contents should go in the optimal med kit Since I started taking groups on Caminos, I’ve become – or had to become – a bit of a med kit aficionado. There is always someone with a little niggle or sprain that needs addressing. I’ve also found it’s a great way of meeting people and reconnecting with medieval chivalry: fair maiden, I see your eyes are watering
Tuesday
What skinheads did for reggae
Let’s play a game of word association. I’ll start: ‘skinhead’. Hmm. I think I can guess which words instantly occurred to you: ‘thug’ perhaps, ‘hooligan’ probably and possibly even ‘racist’? Yet for anyone who remembers the original incarnation of skinheads, another word will always spring to mind: ‘reggae’. If you believe that Britain’s love affair with reggae began in the late 1970s with Bob Marley, I’m afraid you’re out by several years and several million record sales. It began in the late 1960s with a happy confluence of Caribbean immigrants, Trojan Records and skinheads. Many West Indian migrants lived on London council estates alongside white, working-class teenagers who’d become disaffected with
Flavour of the month: August – rich dogs, secret marriages and the shortest war in history
Our monthly trivia round-up started with July, named after Julius Caesar – now we reach the segment of the year named after the emperor Augustus. It’s the month with the shortest war in history, the theft of the Mona Lisa, and the execution of William Wallace. You won’t believe what happened to his left leg… The Anglo-Zanzibar war takes place. It is commonly cited as the shortest war in history, lasting a mere 38 minutes
How Bali realigned my chakras
I am not normally one for spirituality and my previous attempt at yoga rendered me a sorry heap on the living room floor. So I am perhaps an odd choice for a luxury wellness retreat to Bali. All I really knew about the island was that David Bowie – more in touch with his chakras and their relative misalignments than I – requested to be buried there. But having spent a week in Bali, I now understand where he was coming from. My stay began at the St. Regis resort in Nusa Dua on the south side of the island. We arrived in the lobby to the sound of the
Monday
Martin Amis and the hunters’ lunch
Dordogne, France Down here in southwest France, the ripple effect of the war in Ukraine has become oddly visible. Normally the fields around our house are planted with sunflowers and maize – but not this year. Wheat and barley stretch to the horizon. As you drive around, the roadside fields all bear witness to the marked change. The faltering supply of grain from Ukraine has made French farmers wake up. Grains are the new cash crops and for this summer, at least, the Dordogne will look subtly different. The great summer rite of passage here is the répas des chasseurs – the hunters’ lunch The awful news of the death of Martin Amis in
Save our takeaways!
Rishi Sunak’s strategy for solving Britain’s crippling housing shortage has been revealed: converting redundant takeaway restaurants into homes. It was a strange role reversal for Sunak, so recently cast as the potential saviour of many of these outlets during his Rishi’s dishes period. Yet fast forward three years and here he is as Prime Minister announcing – not just the demise of many of these places – but their apparent imminent demolition in favour of a million new homes. Mains were made fresh to order, the fiddly sides like spring rolls and prawn toast all assembled painstakingly by hand The conversation of old takeaways was, significantly, the headline detail that was
Friday
Two bets for Ascot tomorrow
The Grade 1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Qipco Stakes, first run at Ascot in 1951, has lost some of its lustre in recent years. Many of best middle-distance horses have swerved the race and it has often been left with small fields of only modest quality. Yet tomorrow’s race (Ascot, 3.40 p.m.) is undoubtedly a contest to savour. It has been dubbed a ‘race for the ages’ with some of the best three-year-old colts, the so-called ‘Classic generation’, taking on their elders for the first time. The Betfred Derby winner Auguste Rodin and the runner-up King of Steel are at the head of the market and a lot
Sinéad O’Connor deserved better than the music industry
It started with That Song on the World Service in the early hours, the one I’ve always loathed; for me it symbolises the start of the state we’re in now whereby perfectly good toe-tappers are routinely strung out in slo-mo by interpreters for whom misery passes as creativity. OK, the Prince original wasn’t exactly a laugh a minute, but it wasn’t anywhere near as dragged out as the Sinéad O’Connor cover. So when I heard that the singer had died at the age of 56, my first thought was, selfishly ‘Oh no – they’ll be playing That Song all day!’ The second was ‘The tearleaders will have a field day with
Come off it, English wine is delicious
I hate to pick a fight with a fellow Speccie scribe but, as this august organ’s drinks editor, I must take issue with Dr Andrew Cunningham and his recent dismissal of English wine. Andrew lives in West Sussex and I live in East Sussex. He explains that he’s near Nyetimber, Nutbourne and Kinsbrook (not to mention Ambriel, Roebuck and Tinwood); I’m near Breaky Bottom, Court Garden and Ridgeview (not to mention Artelium, Black Dog Hill and Bolney). There’s no question that we both live in bona fide wine regions. I don’t drink English wine because it’s English, I drink it because I love it There are 950 vineyards in the UK and over
Love architecture? Visit Vienna
When asked how his production of Goodnight Vienna was going down with audiences in Huddersfield, Noel Coward is reputed to have replied ‘about as well as Goodnight Huddersfield would be going down with audiences in Vienna.’ I cannot vouch for Huddersfield’s cultural riches but there has never been a better time to visit Austria’s ‘City of Dreams and Music’. Over the past couple of years, many of Vienna’s most important buildings have undergone a thorough clean in preparation for the 150th anniversary of the World’s Fair. The sprucing up has certainly paid off; buildings once shrouded in layers of soot now gleam sugar white against the clear summer sky. Meanwhile, an epidemic of cholera swept
