Uncategorized

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

Tuesday

John Sturgis

The royal love triangle that led to Montecito

Were The Duke and Duchess of Sussex to leave their mansion in Montecito, California, and head a couple of miles across town, to Toro Canyon, they would soon find themselves at the one-time home of a woman whose story they would find rather relatable. Because the former occupant once drove a wedge between the Prince of Wales and his younger brother, Prince Harry. Sound familiar? That former Montecito resident was Beryl Markham, a woman whose destructive involvement with the two English princes decades before Meghan was born bears one or two rather strange similarities with the Sussexes’s own story. The fact that Harry and Meghan chose to make their new

Paula Gahan

The new divide between first class and economy

As cabin crew for an international airline, I love working in first class. In the briefing room, when all the crew are scrambling to bag their favourite positions before the start of the flight, I make sure to insist I’m the first-class dolly for the day. Usually no one minds, as some people are averse to tending to the whims of the upper-class jet set. What they might not realise is, since the dawn of the Ozempic age, working in first class is now much, much easier. There’s barely anything to do. Why? Because nobody eats anymore. Remember that famous line from Kim Kardashian, ‘no one wants to work anymore’?