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Saturday

James Innes-Smith

The death of masculinity

The Duchess of Sussex says she wants her father/son themed children’s book The Bench ‘to depict another side of masculinity — one grounded in connection, emotion, and softness.’ This assumes of course that men aren’t already connected, emotional and soft, which, as a touchy-feely kind of bloke I find a little off.  Imagine if I had written a children’s book about a mother/daughter relationship (that could never happen, of course) and then announced that I wanted to depict ‘another side of femininity – one grounded in connection, emotion, and softness.’ The outrage would probably be threefold – I’d almost certainly be harangued for presuming to understand the unique relationship between

Friday

Hugh Thomson

When will Stonehenge’s lockdown end?

Another year, another row about Stonehenge. A rather sad piece on the BBC News website describes how its lacklustre custodians, English Heritage, had to cancel a live feed of the sunrise on the day of the solstice due to unspecified ‘safety concerns’ when a few people were seen climbing over a low fence to access the stones. More than 200,000 people around the world had tuned in to the live stream ‘but ended up watching pre-recorded footage of the stones until the feed returned at around 5am, showing largely cloudy skies’. Oh dear. But then disappointment has been hanging over our most famous prehistoric monument like a cloud for over a

Will Gore

Malta: why the Queen’s cherished island is worth a visit

The Queen has never been one for a beach holiday, but as a young woman she loved spending time on the sun-dappled island of Malta. The then-Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip stayed on the island regularly just after the Second World War, the newly weds residing at the Villa Guardamangia from 1949 to 1951. They enjoyed being near the sea, visiting the racetrack and being out of the public eye. The Queen is even said to have visited a hairdresser for the first time there. Viewers of The Crown will be familiar with this period, which the Queen and Prince Philip reportedly described as one of the happiest times in

Robert Jackman

The British shows beloved by Europeans

Forget the sausage war; could the real Brexit battle be over streaming services? After all, surely even hardened Remainers will have been appalled by the European Commission’s plan to make it more difficult to stream British shows on the continent. Will it happen? Only time will tell. But here are eight shows that are a hit on the continent and that European viewers will really miss: Chernobyl Sky Atlantic/Now TV Keenly watched pretty much everywhere, Sky’s superlative disaster drama is amongst the biggest British televisual exports to the EU (another accolade to add to its various Baftas, Emmys and Golden Globes). What’s more, Chernobyl is one drama that really went out of

Olivia Potts Olivia Potts

Ratatouille: a versatile Provençal one-pot

There aren’t many veggie stews that can lay claim to being immortalised in popular culture. Fewer still that could then complain about being grossly misrepresented. But then ratatouille is no ordinary vegetable stew. Ratatouille is a Provençal dish, made by gently cooking aubergine, courgette, and red peppers, with a tomato sauce flavoured with onion, garlic and herbs. It is, in many ways, extremely simple. But for all its simplicity, it remains the subject of confusion. If you watch Pixar’s Ratatouille, you will see the terrifying food critic, Anton Ego, reduced to a Proustian state of rapture when served what we are told is ratatouille, making him recall his childhood and

Thursday

Sarah Bridge

From Bob Dylan to Zaha Hadid: how new artistic director Shai Baitel is shaking up the Modern Art Museum Shanghai

Lockdown affects us all in different ways. During New York’s first lockdown renowned art creative Shai Baitel, recently appointed artistic director of Modern Art Museum Shanghai (MAM), felt so starved of creative inspiration that he begged anyone he knew with access to an art gallery near his New York City home to let him visit – just him, socially distanced – just so he could get his artistic fillip. ‘Everything was shut down from mid-March and by mid-May I started calling friends of mine who were owners and directors of galleries, asking them just to open for me so I could go and see the art,’ he says. ‘No-one else

Wednesday

James Max

Where to find value in Surrey

The debate over whether we will end up going back to the office five days a week is likely to rumble on for the coming years. Desperate employers worried that the genie is out of the bottle are battling with those of us who happen to get more done when we aren’t distracted by gossiping at the water cooler. And it’s not just anecdotal either. According to research undertaken by Close Brothers, 39 per cent of Londoners are thinking of moving to achieve a better quality of life. So where should you move if lifestyle is driving your decision? Surrey has often been touted in times gone by as the first county

Simon Evans Simon Evans

What Sci Fi novels can teach us about uncertainty

In times of great uncertainty – and Eurovision humiliation aside, 2021 surely qualifies – many are tempted to examine ‘speculative fiction’ from the past, to understand the present. 1984 has had a good year, and seems much less dated than anything actually from 1984, such as Wham!, The Karate Kid or Roland Rat. Huxley’s Brave New World is now the standard rebuttal to Orwell – with Forster’s The Machine Stops, in at least a respectable third place. But what of the pulpier end of the market? Those privately educated literary figures were not the only ones peering into the future before The Last War and it can be illuminating to

Alec Marsh

Why the British should eat more oysters

Back when the dinosaurs still thought they were the bees-knees, another little creature was gently making its way into the big wide world. And now, more than 150 million years later – having withstood at least one planetary-wide annihilation (the one that knocked T-Rex off his perch) – the humble oyster may be on the cusp of making history itself. That’s because this simple bivalve mollusc, cultivated on our shores since Roman times, really could help save the planet, albeit this time from an annihilation of man’s own making. And here’s how: as most of are aware, we humans face two enormous challenges over the next 30 years: first, we

Tuesday

Geoff Norcott Geoff Norcott

The problem with ‘just’ another four weeks

When the government announced an extension of lockdown restrictions I was furious. Furious for political reasons. Furious for economic and libertarian reasons, but – if I’m completely honest – mainly furious because I had tickets to see The Shapeshifters to do a DJ set on Saturday 26th June. However, I have to admit that on the recent occasions I have been out in busy places it’s taken me a while to get my social ‘sea-legs’ back. When the moment came I wasn’t fully match-fit for the chaotic demands of a city centre boozer. Just like a football team preparing for a tournament, I should’ve eased back into it, with a

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Why do footballers equate health with virtue?

Last Tuesday, the great footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, captain of Portugal, removed two bottles of Coca-Cola from a table in front of him, and tens of millions of pounds of sponsorship money went down the plughole. Ronaldo was at a press conference for the Euro 2021 Championship, in which Coca-Cola had invested heavily – and, as it turned out, pointlessly. It took Ronaldo just seven seconds to make his point: that regular Coca-Cola is stuffed with sugar and if you drink too much of it, or any sugary soft drink, you’d better book an appointment at the diabetes clinic now. Having hidden the fizzy drinks, Ronaldo held up a bottle of

Alexander Larman

The joy of second hand books

There are few aesthetic and literary pleasures that compare to browsing in a second-hand bookshop. While it is more or less a given what books will be found in a new bookshop, one of the chief joys of going second hand is that it’s entirely unpredictable what you’ll emerge with. Sometimes, the browser will leave empty-handed, but more often than not – and I speak from personal experience here – ‘a quick look’ will turn into the purchase of a dozen interesting volumes and a solid half an hour’s perusal. Yet the industry, once so much part of every town and city, has been existentially threatened by the growth of

Monday

Simon de Burton

Inside Prince Charles’s wine-powered Aston Martin

James Bond might have served as Aston Martin’s greatest ambassador for the best part of half a century, but the Prince of Wales isn’t far behind. He’s been an Aston man ever since mum and dad gave him a Seychelle Blue DB6 for his 21st in 1969, when a gallon of leaded four-star cost a reasonable six shillings and tuppence. He still owns the MKII ‘Volante’ (that’s Aston-speak for convertible) and allowed the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to use it as their post-wedding ‘getaway vehicle,’ complete with cringe-worthy ‘JU5T WED’ fake registration and droll ‘L’ plates with hearts in each corner. Just four years after acquiring the DB6, the

Arabella Byrne

The rise of the retronym

‘Should I pay in actual money, in-person, in the shop itself?’ I asked my husband incredulously the other day. Yes, he replied, sounding rather bored. Prior to the pandemic such an exchange would not have taken place. I would have simply gone to the shop with no thought of government restrictions to my personal liberties, unmasked and care-free, and paid in good old-fashioned sovereigns. But this is 2021 and the pandemic has had such a profound effect on our linguistic habits that we are now forced to speak in a tangle of retronyms to get our point across. But what exactly are retronyms? Those expecting the linguistic form of a

Kate Youde

Clarkson’s Farm: where to live out the country dream

Jeremy Clarkson’s latest TV venture, Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon Prime Video, sees the petrolhead learning to manage his 1,000 acre Cotswolds farm. Anyone dreaming of their own rural idyll might want to consider one of these beautiful farmhouses. For artists – Folliotts Farmhouse Currently owned by a ceramicist and artist, Patricia Low, this Grade II-listed farmhouse would make an inspiring retreat for creative types seeking a slice of rural life without the responsibility of too much land. Set within about 0.4 acres in the hamlet of Tidpit near the Hampshire village of Martin, the 18th-century main four-bedroom home comes with a separate two-storey artist’s studio. This former granary houses a ground

Saturday

Stephen Arnell

10 films about space

As Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark prepare themselves to fulfil many a little boys dream and become real life astronauts on rocket-ship New Shepard, here’s a look at space flight in the movies. No doubt part of the fun for Jeff will be tweaking the noses of fellow space rival billionaires Elon Musk and Richard Branson. Unless one or both of the pesky duo steal a march on the Brothers Bezos before July 20th that is. I have tried to avoid the obvious choices: Gravity, Interstellar,  Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Passengers and Apollo 13 – all worthy of a watch – and introduce you to lesser known titles. Understandably, the rigours of space

Friday

Tom Chamberlin

In praise of Southgate’s suits

During the 2018 World Cup, Gareth Southgate turned to a British institution to help get the lads into semis shape, the Royal Marines. It was hailed retrospectively as the key to the advanced-stage success. Now that England have soundly beaten their undoers of said World Cup last weekend, we can begin looking for sensible reasons why. I think I have found it in tailoring. Gareth Southgate is by no means a dandy or natural aesthete. His sartorial dexterity Is achieved through some smart and unexpected twists (that Percival polo out of nowhere), which often catch us off-guard. He is someone who realises as England manager that his clothing will bear scrutiny. He

Olivia Potts Olivia Potts

Coconut ice: a no-bake treat made for the heat

I don’t know about you, but I find that many of the things I enjoy eating most in the summer, those things I crave when the weather is blazing hot or just plain muggy, still require some level of cooking. Those chilled soups, or sticky ribs, or even ice creams still mean standing over a hob or a barbecue or turning on the oven. Mostly, I embrace it: a hot means to a greedy end. As someone who finds relaxation in baking and cooking, I’m not big into no-bake dishes. I’m willing to turn the oven on if it means soft, baked fruit that I can chill and serve with

Sandia Chang

British vineyards that make you feel like you’re abroad

As a sommelier who has worked for Copenhagen’s Noma and Per Se in New York and set up the two Michelin-starred restaurant Kitchen Table in 2012, I’m more than a little discerning when it comes to wine. Britain may be a relative newcomer  to wine making but its offerings are gaining more attention from oenophiles as time goes on, especially in the field of sparkling wine. And the good news is you can now stay at many of Britain’s vineyards and try out the wines for yourself. Here are five to try: The Bathing House at Sharpham Wine Estate A romantic self-catering cottage straight out of the scenery in movies is surrounded by rows of vines that

Thursday

Benedict Spence

Euros 2021: can Scotland beat England?

If you’d like some idea of how Scotland’s long-awaited return to an international football tournament is going, consider this: it took less than an hour of play before the image of goalkeeper David Marshall leaping, despairingly, into his own net in a doomed effort to stop the Czech Republic’s Patrik Schick scoring a goal from the halfway line became a meme trending worldwide. Marshall can now be found soaring from the top rope of wrestling rings, swinging through the air like Spiderman, sprinting past Usain Bolt to win the 100 meters, and, of course, you can relive what is already the goal of the summer to the Titanic soundtrack.  There’s