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Christmas is coming and you know what that means? More Lindor truffles than any human being can decently put away, family size boxes of Quality Street and, for the upwardly mobile, Ferrero Rocher. My friends, I am as keen on Lindor truffles as the next greedy pig but there is another way. There is a whole world of chocolate out there which is respectful of the defining ingredient, cocoa, often imaginative and delicious. The starting point, the founding principle, for decent chocolate is, More Cocoa, Less Sugar. Simple as that. And this principle doesn’t just apply to Christmas chocolate, obviously, but to chocolate all year round. Chocolate is a bit

For a working musician like me – I compose and conduct – the run-up to Christmas is one of the busiest times of the year. I generally find myself writing some last-minute carols, then come the garage-sandwich weeks: endless travel to far-flung rehearsals in freezing churches and halls in preparation for the annual round of concerts and carol services where I’ve been invited to guest-conduct and perhaps to deliver a Christmas reading. It’s exhausting but inspiring. Two years ago I was due to join the Bath Camerata choir for a recital. Looking around at the jolly gathering of grannies, vicars, bushy-bearded real ale drinkers and earnest-looking students I started to

Burgh Island certainly knows how to make an entrance. As you descend the hill at dusk into Bigbury-on-Sea the white hotel drinks up all the light. Like a flashy piece of costume jewellery, it’s the only thing you notice on the skyline. But, then again, it’s used to making good first impressions. Despite its diminutive size, the island appears in Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun before any of the novel’s characters, upstaging even Hercule Poirot. The reader is never in any doubt that the book’s murder will hinge entirely on ‘the little windswept gull-haunted promontory – cut off from land at each high tide’ and the ‘comfortable and most exclusive hotel’ on its

The royals, like most families, had a very different Christmas last year due to Covid restrictions. Traditionally, multiple generations of the family gather at Sandringham House for the festivities. This year the Queen is expected to return to her Norfolk residence once again, to host her extended family for what will be a poignant Christmas – the first one without her husband in over 70 years. We have HM’s great-great grandmother’s generation to thank for many of the traditions of Christmas time. Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, inspired by his German heritage, popularised the idea of decorating a tree in the home. An illustration of the royal family standing around

Christmas puddings are a little like Marmite: you either love them beyond all measure, or you’d be perfectly happy if one never crossed your path again. But, unlike Marmite, there are dozens on the market to pick through – and given that most of us will only eat one a year, it’s important to get the right pudding for you. We’ve taste-tested more Christmas puds than one person should ever eat to bring you the best of the best. Best overall pudding runner up: Aldi Specially Selected Marc de Champagne Christmas Pudding, 400g, £4.99 What they say: A celebration of vine fruits, glacé cherries and nuts blended with cider brandy, Champagne and

The book Small Pleasures will warm even the stoniest heart. It defines joy as simple, brief instances in everyday life which people can access with little or no cost. My favourite chapters include: the joy of an evening sky, letting a child win at a game, a hot bath. We tend to let these things pass by unnoticed for the pursuit of other, bigger pleasures. This year, we had time to stop and pay attention. My new peace of mind was interrupted last week as I walked down a quiet pavement on a blue-sky day enjoying the cold air and sun on my face. A van drove past, the driver wound down his window, beeped

The 90s are back. From House of Gucci, Impeachment and the BBC’s unmissable New Labour documentary, it’s clear that this particular period is enjoying its turn in the cinematic limelight. For fans of the scandalous and surreal, this can only be good news. Hollywood has fixated on the 70s and 80s for years now which – while a boon to costume and wig designers – has begun to feel slightly repetitive. If drama commissioners are now shifting their gaze to the 90s, then we could be in for a wild ride. Admittedly, the 90s haven’t exactly been absent from our screens recently. We’ve already had the superlative The People vs OJ Simpson (and its thematic

If you’re looking for an alternative to Christmas cake (or an addition to it), then panforte is the bake for you. Sufficiently similar to our traditional Christmas cake in its flavours of Medieval spice, dried fruit and candied citrus that it can’t fail to evoke the Christmas spirit, it is still entirely distinctive. Panforte is shallower than Christmas cake, and more solid; the honey in the mix means that it is chewy rather than crumbly, and where a Christmas cake is stuffed full of vine fruits and cherries, panforte majors in dates and figs. A slim wedge of the dense, spiced bake is more than sufficient and even, whisper it,