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Set on a frozen Alpine lake in the glitzy Swiss ski resort of St. Moritz, the 37th annual Snow Polo World Cup — the world’s oldest snow polo tournament, held over the last weekend in January — is quite the sight to behold.  With 322 days of sunshine per year, St. Moritz’s cloudless winter sky is the kind of highly saturated, completely uniform cyan blue usually only found on Pantone colour swatches. Standing in contrast are the snow-capped mountains, blindingly white and fleecy with larch pines. On the polo grounds, which is actually a frozen lake roofed in 50 centimetres of ice, scampering ponies armed with studded snow shoes kick up frosty clouds of

There was a moment, about 20 years ago, when Londoners began to realise, and then boast about, the transformation in our food scene. No longer deserving of mockery compared to other global centres, our restaurants were suddenly producing delicious food every bit (well, almost) as good as that associated with the likes of New York. The revolution began with fresh takes on exotic cuisines, especially South and East Asian, Spanish and Italian. But soon another, delightful development emerged: the reinvention of British food. Gastropubs began taking ploughmans and sausage rolls and roasts very seriously indeed, and posh restaurants began to show that homegrown food, when it comes from domestic seas

‘There’s no such thing as bad snow, just bad skiers’ (Popular skiing saying) The 2022 Olympics have to an extent been overshadowed by diplomatic boycotts over host nation China’s alleged human rights abuses. The US, UK, Canada, Australia, Lithuania, Kosovo, Belgium, Denmark, and Estonia will not be sending any ministers or officials. Other countries (New Zealand, Austria, Slovenia, Sweden, and the Netherlands) cite Covid concerns for the lack of official representation. Whether boycotting the event will have any discernible effect is debatable. France’s President Macron certainly doesn’t think so: ‘I don’t think we should politicise these topics, especially if it is to take steps that are insignificant and symbolic.’ On a

There’s something inherently romantic about eggs: whether you’re preparing them for another person, or being served them, they always strike me as a little act of love. Maybe it’s that they suggest breakfast in bed. Breakfast in bed is not about flirting or seduction, it’s more than that. You don’t make breakfast in bed for someone in whom you’re uninterested. Breakfast in bed is not a collaboration, it’s a gift from one person to the other, reserved for those you wish to impress, or to whom you wish to signal your love. That said, while in theory I like the idea, in practice I can feel a little allergic to

Japan’s influence on the way we drink cannot be overstated. An entrenched culture of artisanship and craft combined with a love of the good life has made Japan a force to be reckoned with in the noble field of boozing. As a fellow island nation with a similar appreciation for the hard stuff, we Brits have taken a serious interest in how our Japanese cousins get their drink on. In London today, traditional fare like sake and shochu, as well as finely honed interpretations of single malt and gin, feature prominently on our cocktails lists. There’s never been a better time to drink Japanese-style in the city and these are

Back in the day, saving for your first home used to be a bit of a doddle. Find a nice savings account paying 5 or 6 per cent, stick away as much as you can every month, and, within a few years, head for the estate agents.  Talk of a ten-year slog to get on the housing ladder and using the stock market to build up your deposit was unheard of. But that was then. Kirstie Allsopp provoked controversy earlier this week by saying she felt ‘enraged’ when young people claimed they couldn’t afford their first home because ‘there are loads of people who can do but don’t.’ But is it

Joe Rogan is wildly popular with men because his podcast most closely approximates the way the majority of us speak, think and interact with one another. By turns funny, clever, stupid, thoughtful and irreverent, there is nothing else like it in the media. This means it needs to be cancelled. If you’re trying to organise a cultural revolution and bring down the patriarchy, the existence of The Joe Rogan Experience – a bastion of relatively guiltless masculinity that draws an audience of tens of millions of men three times a week – is unhelpful in the extreme. It is surely now clear to everyone that fundamental to the enormous gains made

Elliot, 28: ‘My greatest achievements in life are: drinking a bottle of Listerine in 10 seconds, beating my laptop at chess on easy difficult and surviving till the age of 28’.  Frank, 40: ‘Professional career, into extreme sports and stay fit, yet also enjoy the finer things in life like diner [sic] and a glass of champagne.’ It’s the communication culture spawned by Tinder itself that is the biggest menace These were the first two Tinder profiles I saw when I opened the app after watching Netflix’s The Tinder Swindler. They capture the fairly gormless but harmless nature of most male Tinder profiles, with fairly gormless but harmless men attached.