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Wednesday

Jade Angeles Fitton

The weird world of regional auction houses

Michael Prowse, proprietor and auctioneer at Pilton Auctions, is rummaging through boxes at the back of his office – which is in a warehouse, up a wooden ladder and underneath corrugated metal and plastic roofing. ‘I’ve got something horrendous here,’ Michael says, ‘but its on it’s way to the bin.’ I’ve asked him what the strangest item he’s sold at auction is. He’s not sure, but he’s on a mission to find the strangest item he won’t sell. It appeared during one of Pilton Auctions routine house clearances.  I watched a man in his fifties arrive to collect half a dozen world war two German photo albums, which he put into

Sean Thomas

Sick of Cornwall? Visit Cornouaille

I am Cornish. Indeed I am so Cornish my sister lives about three miles from where my echt Cornish ancestors lived in the 13th century (near Falmouth), and my mum makes working-class Cornish recipes so obscurely Cornish most of the Cornish have barely heard of them (‘date and lemon pie’). As such, I am pretty fond of the place, and I like to go back as much as I can. Except in summer, when it’s crowded. And increasingly May. Or September. Or October. Or the rest of autumn. And Christmas, And Easter. And New Year. And any weekend at any time, ever. The impressively craggy Breton church is weirdly boring

Philip Womack

What drives the Shakespeare conspiracy theories?

As predictably as the tides, as welcome as a pebble in your shoe, the bogus question of ‘who actually wrote Shakespeare’s plays?’ is in the news again. Jodi Picoult, the writer, thinks that Emilia Bassano (aka Aemilia Lanier), the daughter of a musician, must have had a hand in them, because, she says, Juliet is 13 in Romeo and Juliet, and Bassano was forced to become a mistress at that exact age. This despite the fact that in the play Juliet isn’t forced to love Romeo, and that Bassano was in her late teens when she became Lord Hunsdon’s mistress. Not convinced? In Othello, Desdemona’s servant is called  – wait for it

Tuesday

Emily Prescott

My day with the Met police

As we are reaching 100mph, I can hear the muted sirens and see blue lights reflecting on gawping onlookers. I’m neither an officer, nor a criminal but I’m in the back of a police car on my way to an incident that apparently involves two men fighting in the middle of a road. I am a celebrity gossip columnist by trade so the only abusive men I deal with are usually the likes of Jeremy Clarkson (via Twitter) and lecherous millionaires (at 5 Hertford Street). I feel scared of what I’ll see when we arrive at the scene, but I have long been curious about the Met – whose misconduct

Cosmo Landesman

Is it weird I have young friends?

Can an older person like me ever really be friends with a young person? At one time I would have said yes, absolutely. Age has nothing to do with friendship. You either enjoy someone’s company or you don’t. End of story. But now I’m not so sure. My young friends in London are always having parties and I’m chuffed when they invite me. But my friend N takes great delight in teasing me. She says, ‘Don’t take it personally. You’re the token old guy. These days every party has to have at least one.’ It’s always assumed that an older man who has young female friends must be up to

Monday

Alec Marsh

I’m a middle-aged man in Lycra – and I’m proud

It began after pint of beer on a Friday evening and a grudging realisation that, well, getting a little bit more active would be no bad thing. Before I knew it, I’d talked myself into doing a 60-mile cycle through the Essex countryside the following Sunday morning – part of an organised cycle race, charmingly called the Tour de Tendring. Setting off from Harwich in a borrowed Lycra two-piece cycling outfit – looking like a human love handle mated with a mobility scooter – I set off at 8.30 a.m., pedalling into the unknown. What would give up first, my knees, the gears on my rusty old, steel-framed Dawes Galaxy or my

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

What kind of city dweller complains about noise?

I’m a highly insensitive person, which means that I’m rarely perturbed by aural excitement. I love public noise, the sound of the crowd. I would never want double-glazed windows – and I even like the sound of drills and construction because I enjoy living in a boomtown where lots of people want to be. The only noise I don’t like is that of children screeching in restaurants, pubs and bars, but that’s because I don’t believe they should be there in the first place; I love noisy adults in restaurants, having the time of their lives. Little dogs barking in these places I don’t mind – but not big ones

Friday

Penworthy

Two bets at Haydock and one for France

Horses drawn high had a considerable advantage in the big sprint races at Haydock a year ago and I suspect it will be same again tomorrow, even though the going is much softer than 12 months ago. There could be a particular advantage for front runners if they claim the near-side rail early on and don’t go too fast in order to keep that advantageous position. There are other complicating factors, however, for punters, notably the ground which, as of this morning was ‘soft, heavy in places’. That’s almost certain to mean there will be several non runners between now and tomorrow afternoon, with horses that prefer good ground kept

Zoe Strimpel

Bridgerton’s big fantasy

Bridgerton is an American fantasy of ye olde England – right down to the absurd if enjoyably playful not-quite colour blind casting and its insinuation that Regency London was peopled with an equal number of Bame and white aristocrats. Even the casting of Queen Charlotte, played by half-Guyanese actress Golda Rosheuvel, is an allusion to the dubious speculation that the real Queen Charlotte had African heritage and was in fact a woman of colour.  So the unspoken final frontier of oppression is also the most debilitating: not being hot Bridgerton’s beloved first season saw an explosively sexy performance from its male lead, an antisocial Duke played by the gorgeous British-Zimbabwean

Graham Boynton

Facing death in the African bush

I travel to the African bush frequently, at least once a year. It takes my mind of British politics. The trips often involves watching predators hunting down their prey and then tearing the poor animals limb from limb. Red in tooth and claw, the African bushveld reminds me of the fragility and brevity of life and the ever-presence of death. My insignificant place on the planet was thus confirmed A week ago I was in the Botswana’s Okavango Delta, at the safari operator Natural Selection’s new North Island camp, when I suddenly found myself confronting my own mortality. I had gone to bed early after a pleasant meal in the camp’s mess

Wednesday