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The Old Swan Hotel, a grand old establishment in the centre of Harrogate, was once at the centre of crime writing’s greatest mysteries. This was the place that Agatha Christie chose to escape to when she went missing for 11 days in December 1926. After her husband allegedly revealed that he was in love with another woman, Christie left him and their young daughter in their family home in Berkshire without a word. Her abandoned Morris-Cowley car was soon found in nearby Guildford, but there was no other trace of her. Home secretary William Joynson-Hicks pressured the police to find the renowned author, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle even tried to

I have a new love in my life; Budgie, a miniature dachshund. After collecting our little friend from Kent, she has taken over the house. I am preoccupied with how to keep her entertained. I talk about her as if she were my child. My google search history includes “tips for surviving the first 30 days with a new puppy, bonding with my pooch and how do I know if I’m becoming a dog bore?” We go out to dinner for the first time in months. Our conversation centres around how soft Budgie’s ears are and how many poos she has done that day. The topic changes course when the

Jonny Lee Miller is to play John Major in Series Five of the Crown. In the 1990s, when Major was prime minister, Miller got his big break as Sick Boy in Danny Boyle’s iconic film, Trainspotting. So it looks like a counterintuitive piece of casting. The dour and insipid Major will be played by an actor who achieved fame as a jobless heroin-addict. When Major entered Number 10 in November 1990 he seemed like a bank of cold grey fog after the storms and excitements of the Thatcher years. But his image as a boring bean-counter is inaccurate. The real life John Major is attractively masculine. Though not exactly a

On a balmy summer’s day, few things can beat a lazy lunchtime spent beside the sea. Just ask the G7 leaders, who enjoyed a leisurely barbecue on the beach during their Cornish escapades. Stand-out seafood, unspoilt views across the waves and that care-free atmosphere particular to British seaside escapes await those clued up on the best beach eateries. From Cornish cliffsides to Scottish shores, here’s a pick of the best cafes, shacks and restaurants along the 30,000-odd kilometres of British coastline. The Hut, Colwell Bay, Isle of Wight If the past is a foreign country, then a summer trip to the nostalgia-soaked Isle of Wight might pass as a far-flung

Yes, we tune in for the tennis on Wimbledon fortnight. But lovers of SW19 also tune in for another kind of spectating on any given day: the sport of the Royal Box. A championship of notoriety and celebrity in its own right. Raised feudally above the Centre Court, the Royal Box has seventy-four Lloyd Loom dark green chairs for its chosen occupants on all thirteen days of play. For nearly a century, since 1922, the Royal Box has welcomed an illustrious rollcall of guests, described by the All England Club as ‘British and overseas Royal Families, heads of government, people from the world of tennis, commercial partners, British armed forces,

While weddings have been given the green light to go ahead with (some) degree of normality, overseas holidays have not. This means that soon-to-be newlyweds dreaming of jetting away somewhere exotic after the ceremony will have to make alternative plans. Fortunately there are plenty of very romantic honeymoon spots dotted around the UK. Here’s our pick of the best. Isle of Eriska, West Argyll A private 350-acre island, Eriska was for centuries only accessible at low tide, via ford, or by boat. Thankfully there is now a bridge so that visitors to the five-star Eriska Hotel can schlep over with their bags and golf clubs. Otherwise you can catch the Caledonia

The moon would be more interesting with Wally Funk on it, and clearly Jeff Bezos agrees: the entrepreneur has just invited the 82-year-old female aerospace pioneer to join him on his inaugural space flight later this month.  In 1961, when she was 22, Wally took the physical tests to become an astronaut. They were grisly – ice-cream was dripped in her ears and she stayed in a floatation tank for almost eleven hours. She performed better than John Glenn – the vainest of the original Mercury 7 astronauts – but the tests were cancelled. No American woman entered space until Sally Ride in 1983. But Funk is too interesting to reduce

I have never been a huge fan of cold soup. It has always seemed to me to be contrary to everything good about soup: soup is inherently warming and cheering. It demands large portions and an accompanying doorstep of bread. Who on earth would want to chill it down and serve it in tiny portions – and without bread and butter? Madness! Historically, I have made an exception for gazpacho and salmorejo on the basis that they hail from hot countries, and that they aren’t thickened with dairy. But I drew the line at what I thought of as hot soups served cold. Vichyssoise was doubtless the worst of them: give

While most parades and public fireworks displays have been called off for 4 July, it is still an excellent excuse for a good old American knees up. Good food and drink are key to any Independence Day party. From smoky barbeque joints to slinky speakeasies, here are the best places to celebrate in London. The Stafford The Stafford Hotel’s American bar was designed to dispel any sense of homesickness among visiting Americans in 1920s and 1930s London. Day-to-day items donated by visitors over the decades, from baseball caps to toy aeroplanes, dangle haphazardly from the ceiling. It is one of the longest surviving American bars in the city and a plaque

In a watershed moment for modern history, the Pentagon’s long-awaited report on UFOs landed last week. And it will no doubt send parts of the internet into overdrive. Officials who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity said there were ‘no clear indications’ that the sightings in the report could be linked to non-terrestrial origins but that the data available was not sufficient to form a clear explanation for the various phenomena observed. If you’re amongst the millions fascinated by mysterious flying objects, here are eight films you may enjoy: The Phenomenon Amazon – to rent Undoubtedly the quintessential appetite-whetter before the big Pentagon report, The Phenomenon is the magnum opus of