Uncategorized

Monday

Alexander Larman

Indiana Jones and the absurdity of Hollywood de-ageing

This week, in homes across the land, there is one guarantee: somewhere, someone will be watching one of the Indiana Jones films, and it’ll likely be the first or the third in the series. Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade are little less than perfect seasonal comfort food: witty, exciting, stuffed full of indelible characters and unforgettable set-piece action scenes. These films stand as those rare pictures that, however many times you watch them, continue to be fabulously entertaining. The others in the franchise – Temple of Doom and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – are less effective, and the latter has become a byword for mediocrity. Yet all are, at their

Saturday

Kara Kennedy

The office Christmas party is back with a vengeance

I’m bad at Christmas. I hate turkey, wrapping presents and the idea of forced, planned fun. My family – mostly – shares the same view. Extra shifts are picked up and presents are sent with time to spare to avoid actually having to see each other. Fortunately, even if I’m no fan of Christmas itself, there is one saving grace: the office Christmas party. No other work event can compare. Leaving drinks are strained, after-work drinks are pedestrian and inviting colleagues to things like birthdays often just feels wrong. The office Christmas party is the opportunity for a night of true debauchery before you all head off for the festive

Friday

Penworthy

How to make a profit on the horses

Welcome one and all to this new weekly column on horse racing. The industry is facing some challenging times – low prize money, small fields, rising costs for trainers/owners, a lack of cohesive leadership and more.  But it is not all doom and gloom and Penworthy – the name derives from a character in P.G. Wodhouse’s short story The Purity of the Turf – will try to lift the spirits of those passionate about the so-called Sport of Kings.   This will hopefully be achieved not by solving, or even addressing, any of the above important topics but instead providing some winning bets. For this is a tipping column – it will try

Adam Hay-Nicholls

Extreme E: how motor racing turned green

Prior to kick-off, Fifa declared the World Cup in Qatar to be ‘a fully carbon-neutral event’, triggering enough spluttering, snorting and involuntary cackles to feed an entire wind farm. Seven giant brand-new stadiums, open-air air-conditioning in the desert, goodness knows how many long-haul flights in and out, and an armada of cruise ships to store the Wags. Righto, Mr Infantino. The Fifa president is the poster boy of talking tripe – the Comical Ali of sports-washing. Football is losing the climate fight like Costa Rica lost against Spain (7-0). Instead, the world’s most eco-friendly sport is motor racing. I’m serious. Let me introduce you to Extreme E. Extreme E, or

Ameer Kotecha

The full English is a breakfast to be proud of

The British playwright Somerset Maugham once said that ‘to eat well in England you should eat breakfast three times a day’. I think he meant it as a jibe, but we should take it as a compliment. Our breakfast is as powerfully evocative of England as any part of our cultural heritage. In The Lion and the Unicorn, stirred to patriotism amid the country’s daily bombardment in the Blitz, George Orwell opined that English civilisation was ‘somehow bound up with solid breakfasts and gloomy Sundays, smoky towns and winding roads, green fields and red pillar-boxes. It has a flavour of its own’. That flavour is of sizzling bacon, straight from

William Cook

Why Munich is the ideal Advent destination

Ambling through the Christkindlmarkt, Munich’s biggest Christmas market, feeling distinctly tipsy after my third (or maybe my fourth?) mug of Glühwein, I experienced a strange sensation, something I hadn’t felt in ages. For the first time in a long while, I realised I was feeling rather festive. Back in Britain, I’m the archetypal Christmas grouch – but leave me in a German Christmas market for a few hours and I become a big kid again. This is the first year since Covid that Munich has been able to mount a proper Christmas market season. That might not sound like such a big deal to Brits, but it’s headline news in Bavaria.

Wednesday

Alec Marsh

A daily shower is money down the drain

When did it become an inalienable human right to have a shower every day? I ask the question because pretty clearly it wasn’t always so. Yes, the Romans had showers – of course they did (they probably had the internet, too, but archaeologists can’t see it). A potter about online will tell you that we got the first mechanical shower here (hand pumped) thanks to the ingenuity of a plumber from Ludgate Hill named William Feetham. That was in 1767, which means that by the time Jane Austen was getting ink on her fingers a shower was an option for some. So the answer to my question is somewhere between 1767, when

Alice Hancock

How to eat frites the Belgian way

Many things about Belgium are impenetrably mysterious to the incoming foreigner: the commune system, which language to use, how to politely eat moules. But few are as cryptic as the menu of sauces that accompany Belgian frites. Ketchup, tartare, barbecue and mayonnaise seem fine. But what is Samourai? Andalouse? Mega?  Unlike many great Belgian things that have successfully been exported (Trappist beer, chocolate, Tintin, speculoos biscuits, Audrey Hepburn), frites can only be experienced on home turf. And my, aren’t they so Belgian. First, the friteries or fritkots in Dutch – chip shop kiosks found wedged on to street corners and in city squares – are totally egalitarian and the service

Liz Rowlinson

A house-hunter’s guide to Somerset

It’s famed for cider, cheese and Glastonbury, but there’s much more to love about Somerset.  Alongside a popular private members’ club (Babington House) and a global gallery outfit (Hauser & Wirth), its most in-vogue country house hotel (The Newt) has helped to attract a steady stream of creative emigres. Among those embracing the county’s way of life are internationally known designers such as Alice Temperley and Bill Amberg and landscape gardeners such as Lulu Urquhart and Adam Hunt, whose rewilding garden won best in show at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show (which happened to be sponsored by The Newt). But from Frome via Bruton and Ilminster west to Chard