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Wednesday

Calla Jones Corner

Why is French hospital food so bad?

This summer has been the hottest on record where I live in Burgundy. It could have been disastrous for the grapes as temperatures reached nearly 40°C. Luckily, most of the vineyards in the Côte d’Or were able to move les vendanges to mid-August instead of early September, when they were expecting to harvest. Apparently, it will be a good year nevertheless. I moved to the little village of Meursault eight years ago in October, to help with grandchildren. My daughter Annabelle works for Domaine Roulot and her husband is winemaker for Domaine de Montille. They were busy harvesting the grapes that autumn. Not any more – most vignerons here, and

Colin Freeman

Why the young worship folk horror

Built in the 1840s, St Giles’s Church in Camberwell bills itself as south-east London’s ‘most stunning Neo-Gothic performance venue’. A niche category, admittedly, but when it comes to hosting events, it’s certainly a broad church. Downstairs, the crypt serves as one of south London’s best jazz clubs. Upstairs, in between services, weddings and funerals, the pews often double as cinema seats, with a film screen erected in the chancel. Jesus Christ Superstar, perhaps? Conclave maybe, with a trigger warning about papal scheming? Far from it. The latest offering was the 1973 horror classic The Wicker Man, all about the remote Scottish island that rejects God’s message. Some 250 people packed

Nigel Jones

The Stuarts were our worst monarchs

This year marked the 400th anniversary of the death of King James I of England (James VI in Scotland), the first monarch of the generally disastrous Stuart dynasty. By no means forgotten by historians, the anniversary was marked by no fewer than three heavyweight biographies, and headlines devoted to the King in the Times and the Telegraph. James’s son Charles I lost both a civil war and his head; his grandson Charles II presided over the plague, the Great Fire of London, and saw his fleet towed away by the Dutch; his second grandson James II lost the throne entirely and fled into exile. But in spite of this dismal

Tuesday

David Shipley

Can Labour’s Sentencing Bill save the justice system?

Keir Starmer has been battling to avert disaster in Britain’s prisons since he became Prime Minister. The jails crisis isn’t his fault – he inherited a mess – but his government’s handling of it has been far from reassuring. The Sentencing Bill, which arrives in the Commons this afternoon, is being billed as the medicine the justice system needs. Will it work? It’s a shame the Lord Chancellor didn’t go a little further After fifteen months of trying to stop jails running out of space, Labour’s Sentencing Bill is expected to introduce earned earlier release, a presumption against short prison sentences, and a huge expansion of community sentences and tagging.

Zak Asgard

It’s impossible to escape the cult of Ikea

Visiting Ikea is one of life’s inevitabilities. There’s an Ikea on every inhabited continent, 487 across 63 countries. But Ikea is more than a furniture retailer. Ikea is an idea, an abstraction, a way of life. No other shop has captured the hearts and minds of the public in quite the same way, at least not in the UK. Argos is a fate worse than purgatory; Woolworths has gone to the great retailer in the sky; John Lewis is for the Chelsea tractor drivers among us; WH Smith is only bearable when you’re at an airport, and their drinks taste like they’ve been stored in lukewarm bathwater; and Curry’s is

Arabella Byrne

The rise of the godless godparent

I realised that the whole thing had become absurd when I was squeezed in by a female vicar for photos around the font of an Anglican church. There we were, all six godparents grinning back at the camera as the baby was held aloft (screaming) by its proud parents. But out of the six godparents assembled, only two of us had been baptised and confirmed in the Christian faith, leaving four godparents out. Not really godparents at all, then. Witnesses or mentors perhaps, but not godparents. In our increasingly secular age, the distinction bears recognising. If you don’t believe in God, this isn’t going to work. You can be lots

Druin Burch

Why September feels like the true new year

Gardens are past their best, large spiders are appearing indoors, chill mornings herald coming mists, the days are not so long, and adverts have replaced barbecues with ‘back to school’ offers. Elderberries have turned a purple that fades into black, and soon will drop and stain the ground. The daily commute remains relatively quiet for another few days but summer, and the summer holidays, are coming to an end. For many of us, September feels more like a new year than January, long after our days of school and study. The cold days of January are much like each other; but at the end of August there is a palpable

Monday

G.V. Chappell

No England flags, please – we’re Cornish

There’s been a lot of talk recently about flags, especially English ones. The start of the Women’s Rugby World Cup – a good excuse to bring out the bunting – has coincided with a renewed interest in proclaiming national identity. Some might see it as an outpouring of patriotic pride, while others view it as a far-right provocation. But whether it’s ‘Operation Raise the Colours’ or roundabouts painted red and white (although some bright spark in Birmingham managed to paint a Danish flag by mistake), if the sight of a cross of St George sends you into a panic, I have a suggestion: head to Cornwall. If my recent experience

Alec Marsh

The Mediterranean summer holiday is broken

For more than 60 years it has been an annual fixture for thousands of us, a birthright enjoyed and embraced by the children of modern, pleasure-seeking, throw-away Britain. Precisely when it happened, I couldn’t say, but at some point in the 1950s or 1960s, the trains radiating from the metropolis to the coastal resorts of Clacton-on-Sea, Southend-on-Sea, Bournemouth, Frinton, Brighton and beyond stopped heaving with Londoners. In their place a whole series of new, hitherto unfamiliar resorts zoomed into the national consciousness, heralded by the tang of aviation fuel and the promise of neverending heat and chilled cerveza. Benidorm, Alicante, Tenerife, Torremolinos and Lanzarote were the new Clactons, Margates and