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Saturday

Kara Kennedy

How to stay sober-smug after Dry January

I simply love being sober. Isn’t it fun? Being totally level-headed throughout the day. Why would you want a glass of red when you can substitute some cranberry juice? January is just the perfect time to give up all of your vices because you get to hear, collectively, how great everybody feels. How much more productive and energetic your pals are after swapping out the sauvignon blanc for sparkling water. I’ll probably never have a drink again. I don’t even think about it. Then there’s the exercise. The only thing better than putting down the bottle is doing it amid multiple gym classes. HIIT class on Mondays, the best day

Friday

Penworthy

How a Spectator Life reader put me on to a 20-1 shot for a Festival handicap

One of the nicest parts about writing this weekly column for Spectator Life is the informed comments that greet it each week from readers. I am thinking specifically about people such as ‘Simian Leer’, ‘Oswald Grimes’ and ‘Simon’. This week my thanks go to ‘Simian’, who in late December highlighted the chances of NASSALAM in the Paddy Power New Year’s Day Handicap Chase. Nassalam finished a staying-on third that day and ‘Simian’ later posted a second comment asking whether the Ultima Handicap Chase might be a good Festival target for Gary Moore’s six-year-old gelding. The astute reader seemed convinced a step up in trip to more than three miles would

Alec Marsh

Bring back the railway restaurant car

It’s six o’clock and you’ve fought your way on to a train at a major London terminus. The carriage is rammed – heavily pregnant women, the stricken and the young stand in the corridors like it’s A&E – and everywhere people are diving into takeaways. The pungent egg and cress sandwich from Pret is bursting at the seams next to you; on the other side of the table there’s a lout blasting music from his phone speaker and eating the smelliest katsu curry money can buy. A pasty is crumbling down the front of a businessman going to fat on the far side of the aisle; another tubby businessman belches

George Llewelyn

The Whale is a work of art

If the 20th century was the age of the common man, the 21st is the age of the common man’s confounding. Between shambolic politics, culture wars and actual war, nothing is turning out quite as well as anyone expected. What was meant to be an era of freedom and enlightenment seems to have become the opposite.   Nowhere is this more evident than in the way we interact with one another. In what feels like the blink of an eye, discourse, and by extension society, has taken up residence on the internet. The pace of the outrage cycle has gathered such speed that we must always be finding something new

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

How to make the most of the third trimester of pregnancy

The final trimester of pregnancy is a strange time. You’ll be told to rest, as if you can somehow bank sleep. The reality is likely to be a dash to buy everything you need, as well as don’t need (a hi-tech ‘nappy bag’ for instance). Once the baby arrives, even trying to get out of the house becomes a mission. With that in mind, here are some helpful ways to focus mind and body during the final few weeks, if you’d rather not spend too much time obsessing over the correct shade for the nursery.  Complete your baby courses The National Childbirth Trust runs the most well-known antenatal courses, but

Thursday

Olivia Potts Olivia Potts

A French revelation: how to make Breton galette complête

When we were little we used to go on holiday to the same place in Brittany, a picturesque, quiet coastal town. There wasn’t a lot to do there for children, but I always looked forward to the holidays because of the food. It was the first time I was exposed to French food, and it was a revelation. The finished galette, unlike paler, softer crèpes, is dark gold, crisp and lacy I was an adventurous eater, taking after my father. Anything he ordered, I would try. Even as a little girl, I remember a sense of pride in my fearless eating: huge pots of mussels, big shell-on prawns, strong  cheeses

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