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Thursday

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Why England vs Scotland is always one to watch

If you think the Calcutta Cup is just any old rugby match between England and Scotland, then the latest in BT Sport’s fine series of documentaries should put you straight. It’s called The Grudge and is about the 1990 Calcutta Cup, the climax to the Five Nations with everything at stake for the first and only time: the Grand Slam, the Triple Crown, the Championship and the Cup itself. The film is narrated by the actor Robert Carlyle, so not entirely unsympathetic to the men of Scotland. Craig Chalmers, looking slightly less boyish these days, chews the fat with Peter Winterbottom, who still looks like someone you wouldn’t relish packing

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

Still thrilling: the Wolseley reviewed

Restaurant and dog years are similar, and so the Wolseley, which is 20 this year, seems as if it has always been here. Other restaurants fall so swiftly you have only fragments of impressions. Breakfast on Bond Street in what feels like a one-bedroom flat belonging to Patrick Bateman. Pasta in a cellar with art, and they only care about the art. Salad at an Aslan-style stone table without mice. Nudity and berries. The original Wolseley was so good it spawned a slew of bad impersonators It was opened by Chris Corbin and Jeremy King, the best restaurateurs of the age, in the old Wolseley building at 160 Piccadilly, between

Wednesday

Neil Clark

In praise of greyhound racing

I feel strangely and disproportionately elated when Number 2 dog, Ballyblack Bess, powers home strongly to win the 20.03 race. It’s a Monday evening in January in the greyhound stadium in Blackbird Leys, Oxford. I only won £9 but I’m pleased I came because an evening at the dogs is still great old-fashioned fun. The punters love it, as do the dogs, so it’s devastating that the RSPCA has demanded it be banned. They’ve teamed up with two other leading charities, the Dogs Trust and the Blue Cross, to request that it’s phased out over a five-year period. But the RSPCA is – excuse the pun – barking up the

Kara Kennedy

Eva Green and the death of the Hollywood diva

The HR department has killed day-to-day divadom. No longer can you tell your co-worker that her hair needs a good brush; nor can you explain to Richard from accounts that his tan brogues and shiny blue suit sting your retinas. That might upset them. People would be a lot more presentable if you could say these things, but you can’t. Nobody can.  French actress Eva Green, who starred as James Bond’s love interest in Casino Royale, seems to have escaped the great diva slap-down. She was at the High Court this week suing White Lantern Films over a $1 million fee for a film that never got made. It seems

Mark Solomons

The horror of gastropubs

Last week saw the publication of the 14th annual Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs of Great Britain, a list consumed by middle-class foodies as eagerly as a £27 fish finger sandwich served on a piece of slate, washed down by a non-alcoholic cocktail in a jam jar. Couples scroll through former drinking holes transformed into Michelin-starred restaurants with ‘wacky’ names such as the Unruly Pig and the Scran and Scallie, noting the ones they have been to and others to put on a gastronomic bucket list – the bucket probably being what their sweet potato fries are served in. It’s a far cry from George Orwell’s 1946 essay ‘The Moon Under

Ameer Kotecha

In defence of February

Everyone has their own most loved and hated months. While for Chaucer, Browning and others April was a time of joyful rebirth, it was of course for Eliot ‘the cruellest month’. Still, February tends to get a bad rap from everybody. It manages to be both the shortest and longest month of the year. In theory the days are getting longer, and yet the darkness of the previous night and the next morning blur, making for a grim nocturnal existence. It doesn’t matter if you’re a night owl or a morning lark, in February you’re commuting from work in the dark. Still, better than midwinter isn’t it? Hardly. The glamorous,

Tuesday

Joe Rogers

Where to break Dry January

Anyone who did Dry January will by now be eyeing the door and contemplating a night on the town. Because it would be a shame to break your sober streak with any old rubbish, here’s a list of the very best places in London to drink right now. Even if you did that very British type of Dry January where you don’t go out for pints but have a bit of wine at home, you’ve definitely earned yourself a treat and should read on. Seed Library X Ruben’s Reubens, Shoreditch The East London hideout of cocktail avant-gardist Ryan ‘Mr Lyan’ Chetiyawardana slides into February with a fresh menu and barbecued