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From Gordon Ramsay to James Corden, predicting which Brits will make a splash in Hollywood has long been a fool’s errand – even in the Netflix era. After all, what’s the latest British export to conquer the greatest entertainment market on earth? The Great British Bake Off. Well, almost. Like Cary Grant (born in Bristol as Archibald Leach), our humble baking show needed a slight rebrand ahead of its launch stateside. Instead the show made its debut, in 2014, under a slightly different name: The Great British Baking Show. After becoming a ratings hit, the competition was then snapped up by a much bigger name altogether: Netflix. Within three years,

The number of different mince pies available in 2021 is staggering – more mince pies, frankly, than you could shake a stick at. And with all of them boasting about their vine-ripened fruits, their rich pastry, and the myriad boozed, how do you navigate the groaning supermarket shelves? We’ve tasted and tested until we had mincemeat coming out of our ears in order to bring you our guide to the best. Harvey Nichols Mini Traditional Rich Fruit Mince Pies, 12 for £9.95 What they say: Our decadently buttery Harvey Nichols Mince Pies are jam-packed with Christmas spices and rich fruit soaked in brandy and rum. What we say: These are

Like a lot of things it began with the cleaners. You may be old enough to remember when there were actual cleaners in offices before they all vanished about 20 years ago. In fact they didn’t disappear, they just got outsourced. That usually meant that nothing much got cleaned especially anymore, but bins were changed at night by unseen hands – the invisible Morlocks in fluorescent bibs, wearing the last person’s name-badge. Now there are plans for us to outsource our offices altogether. In this case it might make sense: after all, if it’s not your core business, why bother? You’re better off leaving it to the experts. Of course,

The bad news for video game fans – and the parents or grandparents of same – as Christmas approaches is that our old friend ‘supply chain issues’ means that the latest consoles – the PS5 and the XBox Series X – are going to be tricky to get your hands on. Best hope that Santa drops a bumper sack of the elusive components they need down the industrial chimneys of the Sony and Microsoft manufacturing plants. The good news, though, is that 2021 has bought a goodly crop of new games to play in the consoles you already have; or to download onto your PC via Steam. First off, whoohoo! There’s

There are all sorts of things we’re prepared to do once December rears its head, that we’d absolutely turn our noses up at in a less festive month: back to back parties, kitsch decorations, adding spices to anything that stands still long enough, engaging with relatives we normally avoid. And there are certain foods and drinks which would seem bizarre at any other time of the year, but we heartily embrace once there’s some tinsel swinging around, and chief among them is eggnog. Perhaps it is its rich, indulgent nature that means we only countenance it around Christmas, its spiced nature, or simply its surprisingly high alcohol content. Essentially a

Should homebuyers have to pay a higher rate of stamp duty if the property they are buying has a low energy rating? After all, motorists already pay a higher rate of road tax if they are buying a new car with high fuel consumption. The stamp duty idea has been advanced by a trade body called the Energy Efficiency Infrastructure Group, which takes the example of a two bedroom end-of-terrace property with an agreed sale price of £250,000. At present, the buyers would pay stamp duty of £2500 (or zero if they were first time buyers). Under the new system they would pay £847 if the property had an energy

When designer, poet, novelist and social activist William Morris told members of a Birmingham arts society in 1880 to ‘have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful,’ he unwittingly inspired legions of modern-day home influencers. Marie Kondo exhorts her acolytes to only own things that ‘spark joy’, minimalist Joshua Becker leads the way in radical decluttering, and Netflix star duo’s The Home Edit tames unruly celebrity spaces. But Morris, widely credited as the godfather of the Arts and Crafts movement, did it arguably more eloquently than anyone else. In fact, Morris’s own home, the Thames-side Red House, which he co-designed

Everyone should have a catering trick to easily host a large party. As Jeffrey Archer once told me, while pointing out Oxford landmarks as if it were his university rather than mine, he was famous for his legendary Shepherd’s pie and Krug champagne Christmas soirées. I have my own party formula: ‘Bagels and Booze’. I am passionate about East London bagels. So is everyone these days. It is perhaps the result of influence from across the Pond, bringing New York cool to our doughy daily sustenance. As a family we’ve been frequenting Brick Lane Beigel Bake for over 25 years. I was too young to comprehend much of London’s geography

In the latest James Bond movie, which passes for the National soul – though I think Roald Dahl was closer to nailing it – a Toyota Land Cruiser Prado wins a fight with a Land Rover Defender in Norway. Or rather two Land Rover Defenders. Out they bounce from forest to stream and back to forest. Kiss-kiss, bang-bang, snort, rattle. I long to know what conversations marketing executives have with the Bond franchise. Do you pay to have your car win a fight with a commercial rival? And, if your car doesn’t win, can at least it be beaten by a minimum of two cars, and one of them not

Every year there are more of them; more extravagant, more utterly pointless. I refer to Advent calendars, which used once to be rather a quaint German thing: a way of counting down the days of Advent by opening little windows on a cardboard, paper or wooden Nativity or winter scene to reveal some pointer to Christmas until the pictures culminated in the arrival of baby Jesus – or the worship of the shepherds at the crib – on 25 December. It was the sense of anticipation, opening the windows one at a time which represented the point of Advent, which is a waiting time, until finally we get the big