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Tuesday

Nigel Jones

I’m one of the new wave of stroke victims

The NHS has warned of a staggering 55 per cent rise in strokes among healthy middle-aged people in the last two decades. Sir Stephen Powis, medical director of the NHS, offered no explanation for what he calls an ‘alarming’ increase, beyond the standard advice to take more exercise, eat carefully, and avoid smoking and excessive alcohol consumption. The figures on which Sir Stephen bases his alert are truly startling: 12,533 people in their 50s suffered strokes in Britain last year, up from just 8,033 in 2005, while 19,421 people in their 60s were stricken – compared to just 13,650 in 2005. I have a personal interest in these statistics. Two

Monday

Mark Nayler

Can you ever be fluent in a foreign language?

A couple of weeks ago, at one of my local bars in Antequera, a waiter asked me something as he served our glasses of wine. I didn’t catch it, so I asked him to repeat what he’d said. After the third time, I still hadn’t understood and clearly wasn’t going to. This guy has a thick Andalusian accent and sprays out about a thousand syllables per minute, but we usually communicate without problems. Two Spanish girlfriends also taught me a lot, and that’s definitely the most fun way to learn a language There’s also a local character, we call him ‘Gummy’, who roams the streets asking for cigarettes or change.

Marianna Hunt

Can Beaujolais take on Burgundy?

You could say the British were to blame. The dramatic rise and subsequent fall of Beaujolais has its roots in the early 1970s, when Sunday Times wine correspondent Allan Hall laid down a challenge for his readers. The first to go to Beaujolais, in eastern France, and bring him back a bottle of that year’s just-pressed wine (known as Beaujolais nouveau) would win a bottle of champagne.  Readers rose to the challenge, enlisting cars, trucks, private jets and even parachutes and an elephant as they rushed to be first. The Beaujolais Run became an annual institution, and local vignerons frantically planted new vines to meet demand. In 1985 the French government decided

Michael Henderson

So long, Bob Dylan

‘We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.’ Bob Dylan took his leave of our shores last week at the Royal Albert Hall, with 5,000 people cheering him on a victory lap. Dylan is 83 and too frail to stand unsupported for long. He occasionally needs notes for his lyrics, but he will never surrender. I’m a performer, he seemed to say throughout every minute of the hour and 40 minutes he was on stage, and performers perform. I’m a performer, he seemed to say throughout every minute of the hour and 40 minutes he was on stage, and performers perform It’s fairly clear we won’t see him again.

Friday

Penworthy

Two more bets for Cheltenham’s November meeting

Cheltenham’s three-day November meeting, starting today, will take place on much faster ground that normal and so anticipate plenty of non-runners if, as expected, there is very little rain over the weekend. This is usually a meeting at which soft-ground horses have their preferred conditions but that’s definitely not the case this time. The big race tomorrow is the Paddy Power Gold Cup (2.20 p.m.), a handicap chase over two miles four furlongs that has attracted a field of 15 runners. I had expected to put up Ga Law who I backed at tasty prices to win this very race two years ago. However, his odds have contracted all week

Ameer Kotecha

The Swedish model: Ikea’s restaurant puts others to shame

Ikea has opened its first high-street restaurant in the UK. There’s not a flat-pack in sight – but a hotdog is 85p and a children’s pasta dish with tomato sauce (plus soft drink and piece of fruit) is 95p. A nine-piece full English will set you back £3.75, while a serving of their famous meatballs (with mash, peas, cream sauce and lingonberry jam) is £5.50. Vegetarians are amply catered for. It’s open 12 hours a day (and that may be extended further to enable dinner). There’s free wifi and somewhere to charge your phone. Even better, there is no music. It’s not pretending to be anything it isn’t. And in

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

Hotels are good for the soul

I love hotels. Growing up, my family never stayed in them (we were poor but we were honest, M’Lud). Instead we went to Butlin’s, sharing a tiny ‘chalet’, or we stayed at bed and breakfasts; private lodgings where you got exactly those two things but had to be out and about during the daylight hours – come hell, high water or hailstones. For those too young to have experienced them, a B&B is basically the exact opposite of an Airbnb, where you’re allowed to stay in every single moment of every day you’ve hired it for, if that’s what turns you on. I’ve only stayed in one Airbnb, which was

Sean Thomas

Why Britain needs Shinto

Ise, Japan They say of Japan that if you come here for a week, you want to write a novel about Japan. After a year, maybe a few essays. After a decade, a page. It is one of those countries which seems to get simultaneously more fascinating and opaque. Possessing an ancient monarchy is like having a Gothic cathedral in your back garden So it is for me, on this, my first trip to Japan in 30 years (I lived in Kyoto in the mid-1990s). This time around I have been doing prep by reading the early history of Shinto, the ‘state religion’ of Japan, an animist creed which sees

Wednesday

Arabella Byrne

The anti-smoking drugs don’t work

Ten years ago, I decided that I should stop smoking. Before this decision, I had never given it a second thought. ‘Want to step outside for another? Yes please.’ Who cared about the wind blowing in from the Urals as we huddled around a lighter? Not I. Had I been ready to quit now, a new directive from the NHS, announced by Health Secretary Wes Streeting yesterday, offers smokers a free pill, varenicline, which notionally works by ‘binding to receptors in the brain to stop people craving or enjoying nicotine’. The decision to offer pills is part of the ‘prevention is better than cure’ narrative also being rolled out to