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Fancy a dabble in the wine business, at a knock-down price? The Prieuré of Saint Jean de Bébian, a trophy asset owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch, is set amidst 32 majestic hectares of artfully tended vines nestled in a beautiful corner of southern France. A brand-new climate-controlled production hall has all the mod cons. There’s even a Michelin-starred restaurant on the premises where you might entertain clients. A château within a walled park in a nearby village may be available by separate negotiation. And it’s just 20 minutes away from Béziers airport where you can land your jet. On the outskirts of Pézenas, a market town in the Hérault valley,

The sexiest scene in Adrian Lyne’s new film, Deep Water, starring Ana de Armas and Ben Affleck, may be de Armas eating an apple—a distant echo of the iconic food scene in Lyne’s 9 ½ Weeks (1986). Based on Patricia Highsmith’s 1957 novel, in which an openly adulterous wife suspects her husband of drowning her latest lover, the plot has more to do with power than pleasure. The 81-year-old Lyne, who hit paydirt with Fatal Attraction (1987) and Indecent Proposal (1993), has re-emerged after a two-decade hiatus since Unfaithful (2002). Sadly, the hotly anticipated return of the erotic thriller is neither erotic nor thrilling, which may explain why it was pulled

Just before the pandemic, I spent several months travelling through Europe from the north of Norway to Istanbul and beyond to Azerbaijan. I saw unforgettable sights: the endless daylight of the Arctic summer; the vast Hammershus castle on the Danish island of Bornholm; Vienna’s ornate Prunksaal library; and the sandy beaches of Corfu. But the focus of my journey was precisely those things that most travellers to these places often ignore. I was following the route of the Iron Curtain. My aim was to visit every part of that old great divide, all the places where NATO once abutted the Warsaw Pact, where overwhelming military might stood constantly primed for

Michael Gove has announced that members of the public will be able to offer rooms and accommodation to named refugees through a government portal – Homes for Ukraine – which was launched on Monday. Gove said that he was confident there would be no shortage of people coming forward, although he gave a somewhat roundabout answer as to whether he himself would be hosting a refugee. The British public, however, appear to be very open to becoming hosts, with one in three saying they would offer a room, according to a poll conducted by The Observer. When Gove launched the scheme in the House of Commons yesterday, Lisa Nandy was quick

After the two oddest years in the history of the red carpet, when Covid restrictions saw stars accepting gongs from their sofas via Zoom, glitzy prizegivings as we (used to) know them are back. Last night’s BAFTA ceremony, from the Royal Albert Hall, marked the opening salvo of a two-week run-in of the biggies, as the Oscars follows at the end of the month. It was, reassuringly for fans and teeth-grindingly for detractors, the customary heady cocktail of self-absorption and virtue-signalling, along with acknowledgment of some very fine pieces of cinema. As well as Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast. In recent years, awards ceremonies have tied themselves in all sorts of knots

The tragic ongoing events in Ukraine have highlighted the plight of refugees, with over 2m people (mainly women and children) fleeing the country since Russia invaded on 24 February 2022. Sadly, refugee crises have been occurring since the dawn of what may ironically be called ‘civilisation’, most notably the Biblical Exodus from Egypt and Caesar’s conquest of Gaul, which began when the Swiss Helvetii confederation, under pressure of Germanic tribes, sought to cross into Roman territory on their westward journey to safety. Movies concerning refugees range from the past (Exodus: Gods & Kings) to the dystopian future (Children of Men) and are international in scope, including the UK (Limbo), Bosnia and Herzegovina

When schools were closed during lockdown, it wasn’t only education that suffered. The classroom can offer an opportunity to identify children in danger of abuse, with tens of thousands of pupils on the at-risk register. Take away schools and this safety net vanishes. Now and again, stories emerged of just how badly things went wrong: for example, the murder of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes at the hands of his stepmother. ‘If that little boy had been in school, I do believe there would have been an extra chance to hear him,’ the Children’s Commissioner, Rachel de Souza, tells me, when we meet at The Spectator’s offices to discuss her mission to