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Wednesday

Antonia Hoyle

Why summer diets don’t work

Tis the season to eat salads and wear skimpy clothes. At least, that’s what we’re led to believe, egged on by adverts featuring bikini-clad models, barely-there fashion in shops, television series such as Love Island that equate sunshine with slender figures and the perennial expectation that we should by now be ‘beach body ready’. We’re undoubtedly more sociable in summer. A study last year found that we’re twice as likely to make excuses to avoid a social event in the winter Yet quite aside from the idiocy of only being ‘allowed’ to enjoy the warm weather when we’re deemed aesthetically agreeable enough by unidentified authorities, summer isn’t ever when we are

Zoe Strimpel

Live like Louis XVI for a day

Some of the ways the rich can amuse and refresh themselves today include spas in the Maldives with glass floors offering views of brightly coloured fish during treatment, private retreats in the mountains of St Lucia costing thousands per night, and fabulous overnight trains through Rajasthan. But the last word in luxury is still to be found in the heartlands of European civilisation – France – and it almost always involves the creative, bordering on unbelievable co-option of heritage, only possible through the most fabulous contacts, patience and expense.  So after a year of trying, I finally found myself sleeping on the grounds of the chateau of Versailles, in the

Tuesday

Andrew Cunningham

Admit it, English wine isn’t worth it

Sales of English wine are booming, soaring by nearly 70 per cent over the least two years, at least according to the industry body. There are now shelves devoted to English wine in just about every large supermarket.   I even tried a red wine by a local producer, who had better remain nameless. It tasted like a cross between cough medicine and Vimto Since I live in West Sussex, the heart of one of the English wine-growing regions, I feel I ought to like it. No fewer than three of the major wine-producers – Nyetimber, Nutbourne and Kinsbrook – are nearby. The daily dog-walk takes me through their huge vineyards

Sam Carlisle

How rollerblading changed my life

The eight-year-old me hated Barbie. My family couldn’t afford the impossibly-proportioned doll that my friends gleefully dressed as an air hostess or housewife. I made do with her cheaper, lumpen British equivalent, Sindy, instead. And yet I shall be in the queue for the Pepto-Bismol explosion of neon that is the new Barbie movie, starring Margot Robbie as my friends’ brash plastic heroine made real. Our gang includes a retired barrister and a graphic designer who started skating in her late sixties What won me over is not that the film stars bare-chested Ryan Gosling, as Barbie’s anatomically-challenged boyfriend Ken, although obviously that is quite a pull. The lure for me

Liz Rowlinson

Why Crete is the ideal island for a second home

Crete has a long and illustrious history: birthplace of Zeus, king of the Greek gods, and the seat of the Minoan ruler King Minos who is said to have ruled from a palace of 1,000 rooms.  The largest Greek Island, and nearly the one nearest to Africa (bar it’s tiny neighbour Gavdos) it’s also the best for year-round living, with its mild winters allowing the odd December dip in the sea. Thankfully it has not had any of the forest fires that Rhodes and Corfu are experiencing and its busy beaches and restaurants this week suggest it might be a beneficiary, according to local news. The Germans have always been

Monday

Liz Rowlinson

Solar panels in, swimming pools out: 2023’s property trends

Inflation has finally dipped a little but is still riding high, and mortgage rates may still rise further: Britain’s households are suffering a pay squeeze. But what are home-owners still spending their money on – and what has fallen out of favour? Here is Spectator Life‘s guide to the winners and losers in the property market this year so far… The winners… Solar panels High energy bills have kickstarted British householders into going green. During the first half of this year, sales of solar panels were up 82 per cent on the same period last year, according to MCS, the standards body. The hot spots of solar installations? Cornwall, Wiltshire

Mark Solomons

Why don’t more tourists visit Ethiopia?

Standing on a cliff edge looking at where the Blue Nile is just a trickle, watched by a gelada baboon on a distant rock and staring over miles upon miles of some of the most beautiful countryside I’d ever seen, one thought struck me: why is there hardly anyone else here? Ethiopia is stunning to look at, once you get out of the capital, Addis Ababa. It offers history, culture, architecture, religion and everything in between. Yet when you tell anyone you’re going there the most common response is: ‘Really? Why?’ In a country twice the size of France and with a population of 120 million, there were times when I

Steve N. Allen

What my father’s Alzheimer’s taught me

When I tell friends, ‘You never hear people talking about the upside of Alzheimer’s’, they look at me like I’ve said something about Hitler being nice to animals. In general, a mention of dementia will ruin any conversation. People freeze up at the thought. It’s true that having a relative with dementia is hard and the bad far outweighs the good, but that is no reason to ignore the positives completely. In fact, the tiny benefits can help you deal with all the downsides.  I’ve had a lot of time to look for the positives. Growing up, my grandparents had Alzheimer’s so I was aware of the condition, but I hadn’t

Friday

Penworthy

Two ante-post bets for Glorious Goodwood

The delights of Glorious Goodwood are on the horizon and now is a good time to have a bet on a consistent, well-handicapped horse with rock solid course and distance form and who is not ground dependent. Furthermore, he is on offer at a super-generous 33-1 with most bookmakers. REVICH is a credit to the training skills of his Newmarket handler Richard Spencer. The seven-year-old gelding, owned by the Middleham Park syndicate, recently took his career earnings to more than £150,000 when he came fourth last time out at Sandown despite being denied a clear run. However, it is Revich’s run in the Golden Mile at Glorious Goodwood last season

Ruth Bloomfield

The growing appeal of the outdoor kitchen

For most of us the main ingredients of outdoor cooking are a smouldering barbecue grill, slabs of alternately under- and over-cooked meat and a light sprinkling of frustration. But these days, it seems, there is another option on the menu. Ever since the pandemic, more and more homeowners have been investing in lavish outdoor kitchens – keeping up with the Joneses with garden wine fridges, rotisserie grills, pizza ovens and professional-quality prep areas so they can cook and eat outside in comfort. The concept has been enthusiastically adopted by the likes of David and Victoria Beckham, who are reportedly awaiting a verdict on a planning application for an all-singing, all-dancing

Jonathan Ray Jonathan Ray

Forget Amsterdam – spend a weekend in the Hague

I love Amsterdam. I go every year for the galleries, the opera, the beer, the genever, the rijsttaffel, the brown cafés and, well, the fun. I’ve had many a fine time there, sometimes with and sometimes without dear Mrs Ray. It’s a top place.  I was cut to the quick, then, on hearing recently that the good burghers of Amsterdam had asked any British tourists in search of a ‘messy night’ to stay away. Admittedly, this controversial campaign is aimed chiefly at 18- to 35-year-olds on stag parties, rather than senior railcard-holders like me. But any drunk and disorderly behaviour risks a hefty fine and a criminal record – and since

James Innes-Smith

Who needs Hollywood actors anyway?

For the past week Hollywood’s film and television actors have been on strike, plunging Los Angeles’s most famous industry into chaos. Performers joined screenwriters (who have been striking since May) on the picket line after talks broke down in what has become the first simultaneous strike in more than 60 years. The strikes have attracted plenty of headlines, not least when the cast of Oppenheimer walked out of its UK premiere last week. But do we really care if studios have to shelve Fast and Furious 15, or if the latest superhero movie fails to take flight – or indeed if the entire cocaine-encrusted edifice crumbles into the Pacific Ocean? Hollywood

Wednesday