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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

Nigel Jones

The lost thrill of the thriller

I will not be joining in the praise heaped on the current Sky remake of Frederick Forsyth’s classic thriller The Day of the Jackal. Apart from the fact that the series’ star Eddie Redmayne – who plays the Jackal, an ice-cold hitman – is about as menacing as a field mouse, the new Jackal is very much a woke version of the story, complete with a far-right German Chancellor who is one of the Jackal’s victims. Eddie Redmayne’s Jackal is about as menacing as a field mouse Forsyth himself, a solidly right-wing Tory, seems to share my lukewarm opinion of the new adaptation of his masterpiece. He damned Redmayne with

Zoe Strimpel

Canary Wharf is better than ever

For the kind of people who think London ought to be all Farrow and Ball-coated quaintness and whiffs of Dickensianism, Canary Wharf is a rude assault, an obnoxious jungle of the anti-quaint. It is also, to many, an embarrassing paean to a moment that only the 1980s could have produced: one of gauche capitalistic, deregulatory optimism soused in international finance. One Canada Square, the frontispiece of the development and once Britain’s tallest skyscraper, is named in honour of the Toronto-based property developer who bought the project in 1988 (and a few years later went bankrupt). I found myself dazzled anew, less by capitalistic intensity and more by mystery Canary Wharf,

Tuesday

James Maker

Today’s oldies don’t envy the young

Next year, I will be 65. At 65, one leaves the plateau of middle age and enters the foothills of senescence. For some, it’s an uneventful milestone marked by tidying up some herbaceous borders or experimenting with pesto; others yield to mortal panic and max out their credit card on something wildly impractical. On reaching this jubilee, an acquaintance of mine dyed his hair jet black. This is inadvisable because rather than restoring the appearance of youth and vigour, one emerges from the bathroom looking haunted, like a persecuted homosexual solicitor in a Dirk Bogarde film. . There is no shortage of stories of those who suddenly foreswore all earthly

Ameer Kotecha

All hail the microwave!

Marco Pierre White may have earned a reputation as the tousle-haired kitchen bad boy who once made Gordon Ramsay cry, but these days he spends his mornings rather more quietly, enjoying his kippers. Yet in his retirement, he can still cause controversy. He recently told a podcast how he cooks his kippers. ‘On a plate, paint it with butter, wrap in cling film, in the microwave, two to two and a half minutes.’ A microwave? Really, Marco?! Yes. As far as kippers go, his reasoning is spot on. ‘Most people put them under the grill, which intensifies the salt’. Meanwhile, boiling them – jugged kippers – washes away the flavour.

Lucy Denyer

Helping veterans find their next mission

Last month, Keir Starmer made an announcement that sounded full of governmental largesse. From henceforth, the Prime Minister said, ex-servicemen would be exempt from local connection tests for social housing for ever, guaranteeing them a roof over their heads. ‘The military is a brilliant mechanism for social mobility… but it can be difficult to continue that upward trajectory when you leave’ Leaving aside the fact that the announcement did nothing to actually increase the amount of social housing available, or that the lack of housing generally means an ever-widening gap between civilian and military life, why would someone leaving the service need access to social housing for ever? Perhaps because

Monday

Philip Womack

Oxford University and the abuse of titles

Those casting their eye over the candidate list for the chancellorship of Oxford University might be forgiven for believing that social mobility has drastically reduced, returning to Trollopean quantities of languid toffs taking part in public life. Competing for the honour are Lord Peter Mandelson and Lord William Hague, both, you might think, the younger sons of Dukes; alongside them is Baroness Jan Royall, who I presume is the unmarried daughter of a European aristo. Lady Eilish Angiolini, remarkably, is correctly so, as she is a Lady of the Thistle, though not an Earl’s daughter: this usage, like haggis, is an anomaly of the Scots. The only commoner on the

Alec Marsh

York is Britain’s Florence

Have you been to York? Have you sauntered along its narrow, meandering medieval streets, with their peculiar names – such as Swinegate, Lendal, Ogleforth, or Fossgate – that evoke a pre-modern age? Have you strolled up Museum Street, passing medieval walls and imposing crenellated stone gateways – known as bars for some reason, where severed heads were once displayed on spikes? Have you turned a corner in this city and suddenly found yourself confronting the enormous west façade of York Minster, soaring above you? York is magnificent, as magnificent as any medieval city in Christendom Because if you have, then you will know something about this great city – something

Julie Bindel

A beginner’s guide to Hungarian food and drink

The first time I tried the well-known Hungarian wine Tokaj, which I bought from an eastern European delicatessen in London, I was so taken with it that it quickly became a verb – and the expression ‘I was a bit Tokaj’d last night’ stuck. But I soon realised that there are so many wonderful versions of this wine that you will find one to suit every occasion, and a match for pretty much anything you eat. Options include bone dry, light as a feather, sweet, robust, and tannin-rich red. And I’m lucky enough to be drinking the dry variety here in Budapest. It has just a hint of honey, making

Friday

Penworthy

Two bets at Wincanton

The unusually dry autumn means it makes sense to favour horses with a preference for good ground when it comes to the racing at Wincanton and Aintree tomorrow. Field sizes continue to be smaller than usual because many trainers do not want to risk injuring their charges on quick ground at the start of the season. ALL THE GLORY is a likeable sort who will get her favoured conditions when she makes her seasonal debut in the BetMGM Richard Barber Memorial Mares’ Handicap Hurdle at Wincanton (1.45 p.m.). She was impressive when she destroyed a decent 17-runner field at Newbury in March and, although her three subsequent runs were moderate,

Zak Asgard

Welcome to the buffet of broken dreams

We can thank Herbert ‘Herb’ Cobb McDonald for the modern-day all-you-can-eat buffet. Herb first introduced Las Vegas – and later the world – to this gastronomical abomination in 1946. The Buckaroo Buffet cost one dollar and promised ‘every possible variety of hot and cold entrees to appease the howling coyote in your innards’. The coyote of my innards has never been appeased by an all-you-can-eat buffet. On my last visit it was starved. Back at the table, the food smelt grey. I thought about all of the nice places I could have visited with £23 If John Hick can find God on a double-decker bus in Hull, I can find

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

I am addicted to Rolls-Royce

Rolls-Royce calls the Cullinan Series II, the new version of its 2018 ‘high-sided vehicle’ (read SUV), its ‘most capable’ motorcar. That is an understatement. Rolls-Royces can be understated because they are bespoke and, as such, they are what you want them to be. You are dropping the price of a house on a motorcar, after all – the parallels with sexual longing are obvious, if under-disclosed. For every hot pink, or blush pink, Phantom with an interior ceiling lit up as your late dog’s face or horoscope – they can do this – there is an inky Ghost impersonating Bette Davis’s black silk dress in All About Eve. That’s my

Mark Nayler

All Souls is the SAS of academia

‘What sort of book might Satan write?’ ‘Why do people watch horror films?’ ‘Should we give up hope?’ These were three of the questions faced earlier this year by candidates seeking admission to All Souls College, Oxford, Britain’s most elite academic institution. Founded by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry Chichele, and King Henry VI in 1438, the college takes its name from All Souls’ Day on 2 November, the occasion on which Christians around the world pray for the faithful departed (in Mexico it’s called Día de Muertos, or the Day of the Dead). All Souls’s most eccentric tradition is the ‘Mallard Song’, sung twice a year in remembrance of

Wednesday