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Friday

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

Mary Sue, I hate you!

Christmas means different things to different people; for Mary Sue, it will be yet another excuse to queen it over her friends. Her Christmas pudding will have been made from scratch, her carefully curated tree decorations will tell myriad stories of a perfect home life, her tasteful National Trust Christmas cards will have been sent out on 1 December. To queen it over her acquaintances, enemies and admirers, rather – for Mary Sues have no friends. They’re far too awful. Do you know a Mary Sue – a self-adoring paragon of virtue who can only ever admit to faults which are actually boasts in disguise? Mary Sues are ‘perfectionists’ or

Emma Wells

Inside the fading beauty of Crowland Manor

Ceramicist Sophie Wilson’s Christmas decorations at her Lincolnshire manor house are calmingly analogue. For her, there are no flashing lights, tawdry tinsel or store-bought baubles.   ‘I love to have bare trees around, and always have a huge one in the main kitchen, big enough so I can tilt my head back and gaze up at it,’ she says. ‘The tree in the playroom, though, will be on just the right side of horrible, festooned with two decades’ worth of my children’s art projects and the old fairy, with the rolling eye – all the things that flood me with memory.’  ‘Every room in the home is full of the

Wednesday

Ross Clark Ross Clark

What to expect from the housing market in 2024

The housing market indices have stabilised, started rising even. So is that it? Is the great housing market crash over, before it had had a chance even to begin? Not according to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). Buried in its latest Economic and Fiscal Outlook report is a prediction that the slump is far from over. Average prices, it forecasts, will fall by 4.7 per cent in 2024 and will not return to their 2022 levels until 2027. Transactions, the OBR believes, will also plummet by a further 6.9 per cent next year. While that might not bother homeowners so much it certainly will affect estate agents, who live or die on

Sean Thomas

Ozempic has cured my alcoholism

Remember the lockdowns? I wish I didn’t, but I do. Especially that insanely grim third lockdown, the winter one, which went on and on and on and which bottomed out, for me, as I did my one allotted weekly walk along the Richmond riverside, in freezing horizontal drizzle. I made sure I had a thermos cup of mulled wine in my hand as I debated with my one permitted friend whether we were legally allowed to sit on a bench together. In the end, we decided best not and trudged further into the sleet. They may give you an extra chance of thyroid cancer – or not (though for me

Steve Morris

I miss Christmas in the old East End

My family is from Canning Town in London’s East End. One thing’s for sure, we never curated Christmas, never had it with bells on and we looked forward to the next one the moment it was over. There were essential elements: winkles on Christmas Eve, with my dad rather solemnly getting out the winkle pins. Strange little molluscs, Winkles. You go through all that work ‘winkling’ them out of their shells, add some vinegar and pepper and then they’re gone, barely touching the side of your mouth. Christmas Eve was the focus of the party. Front door open, everyone welcome Of course, there was always the traditional knees-up. The whole

Tuesday

William Cook

Nuremberg is the best and worst of Germany

On a snowy night in Nuremberg, a city that encapsulates the best and worst of Germany, a huge crowd has gathered in the ancient Marktplatz for the opening of the Christkindlesmarkt, Bavaria’s biggest Christmas market. Cradling mugs of steaming Glühwein, stamping our feet to keep out the cold, we’re all waiting for the Christkind (Christ Child) to appear on the balcony of the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady), an event that marks the start of Nuremberg’s Advent season. Five hundred years ago, Nuremberg was one of the biggest cities in Central Europe Turns out we have Martin Luther to thank for this quaint Teutonic custom. Before the Reformation, German children

Ben Sixsmith

On the death of my dog

It has been four months since my dog died and I still feel like something is missing when I open my front door. At first, I can’t quite work it out. Did I leave the heating on at work? Should I have gone to the shops? Am I in the wrong flat? No, what’s missing is the patter of paws, the inquisitive nose and the affectionate barrage of fur.  After your first dog, there’s a solid chance that you will never live doglessly again Lola was 14 when she died, which is old for any dog but especially for a German shepherd. She used to lie in the centre of the flat I shared with my

Monday

KJ Lamb

Feedback

‘And were your troubled minds seized by a) mighty dread; b) mild concern; c) neither?’

James Crowden

How the English invented champagne

Is champagne a wine region or a state of mind? The small bubbles have a way of getting into the bloodstream and the imagination, creating a slightly euphoric sensation which encourages pleasant chatter. But who put the sparkling genie in the bottle? Who pioneered the intricate process of secondary fermentation in a bottle strong enough to withstand six atmospheres of pressure and contains all those wonderful bubbles of CO2, about 20 million per bottle?  In France, it is claimed that it was Dom Perignon (1638-1715), ‘Come quickly. I am tasting the stars,’ he is supposed to have said. Very romantic, a convenient sales pitch. The only problem is that the

Robin Ashenden

Letting go of my mother’s house

My mother passed away last year and it fell to me to sort out her house. Returning from four years in Russia and the Caucasus, I moved into her Suffolk home to get it ready for selling. There was a huge amount to do. Alongside organising my mother’s headstone – no small or hasty business – there was an entire house and a life to sort through. This involved going through endless knick-knacks, glasses, crockery, clothes – and 15 or more rubble sacks of papers and old letters. The last was both cathartic and disconcerting. These are written relics of a life that existed before I came along, one that

Sunday

Henry Jeffreys

Six English sparklers to enjoy this Christmas

Before I started researching my book Vines in a Cold Climate, I had a particular image of English sparkling wine as consistent but rarely that exciting. It was all a bit formulaic, like big brand champagne but leaner. I am pleased to say that I could not have been more wrong as the wines now made all over southern England are incredibly diverse, offering a wide array of styles for every palate. If you’re spending between £25 and £50 then England actually offers, on the whole, much more interesting wines than Champagne. Here are six wines that show how different English sparkling wines can be. Westwell Wicken Foy NV (Westwell

Friday