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I don’t often find myself longing for the industrial rigours of a factory when I’m baking in my kitchen at home. But as I patted the squiggle of fig paste with wet hands, corralling it into a rough sausage shape I thought ruefully of Charles Roser of Philadelphia and his patent for a fig roll machine. In the late nineteenth century, poor digestion was thought to be the cause of a number of wider ailments and, as with breakfast cereal, biscuits were seen as an aid to digestion – and figs, of course, were a particularly digestion-friendly fruit. Brought over from Britain to America, the fig roll tended to be

St Edward’s School, Oxford St Edward’s School has featured in these pages before, because of its North Wall performing arts centre which attracts (in ‘normal’ times) more than 20,000 public visitors a year to its exhibitions and performances. St Edward’s sets great store by being part of Oxford as a whole. ‘Beyond Teddies’ is the school’s community outreach programme, encompassing a community farm on school grounds where young people with learning disabilities and autism explore basic outdoor skills, marshalling the Oxford Half Marathon and visiting local care homes. Academically, the co-ed boarding and day school also thinks outside the box, with its pioneering ‘Pathways and Perspectives’ courses. These are continually

When Kazuo Ishiguro first appeared on the literary scene in the 1980s, his work was often described using terms such as ‘exquisite’, ‘refined’ and ‘understated’. The supposedly Japanese sensibility of this Surrey-raised writer was on full display in his fine second novel An Artist of the Floating World (1986), narrated by a retired artist called Masuji Ono. What was less clear to English critics, perhaps, was that Ishiguro’s Japan was the imagined one of his grandparents—alongside traces of filmmaker Yasujirō Ozu’s family dramas—rather than one strictly drawn from observation. This novel’s formal perfection also disguised a much darker tale of the artist’s complicity with wartime fascism. It ends on a

If you’re sick to death of Deliveroo, it’s time to take a look at the meat box. Forget vegan meats and plant-based pretenders. It’s dark and wet and we’re all stuck indoors — there’s no point making ourselves any more miserable. Steakhouses and brasseries have been moving their menus online and into cardboard boxes, with a bit of home prep involved to ensure it’s fresh on the plate. We’ve all got used to the idea that you can order anything over the internet — but there’s still something faintly thrilling in opening up an innocuous package and finding a Sunday roast staring back at you. And it seems bored Brits

Every weekend Spectator Life brings you doses of topical trivia – facts, figures and anecdotes inspired by the current week’s dates in history … 6 March In 1957 Ghana achieved independence from Britain. The country’s subsequent heroes have included Ferdie Ato Adoboe, who holds the world record for the fastest time to run 100 metres backwards (13.6 seconds). He has also held the world record for speed juggling a football, recording 141 touches in 30 seconds. 7 March Robert Harris (born 1957). The author prides himself on being able to put the cork back into an opened bottle of champagne. ‘The trick is to pinch the cork quickly before it’s had a