An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
In the past five years I’ve met many people who’ve had direct, sometimes horrific, experience of communist rule. But I was more excited about doing a recent interview than I had been about any of the previous ones. It was going to be with a nun in a convent in Lithuania. I had imagined the
The Lord Mayor’s Show is a mix of traditional buttoned-up pageantry and let-your-hair-down carnival. A bit like the state opening of parliament without all the MPs, and Notting Hill without the jerk chicken. I am a Freeman of The Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors, one of the ‘Great 12’ livery companies of the City of London. The Lord
Last Saturday was pure sunbathing weather. I mention this because a) I’m writing from the Falkland Islands, where such occurrences are not exactly regular, and b) I spent the whole beautiful day, with two or three dozen other volunteers, drilling through rock to stake out a couple of hundred 6ft metal figures. I even had
I’ve just given Elon Musk $8 a month to get a blue tick by my name on Twitter. The fact I haven’t been able to secure one of these ticks on merit like so many other nonentities has been a source of near-constant irritation for the past half decade, particularly given how much time I
Paul Weller releasing a collection of solo B-sides is cause for mild celebration. After all, the Jam were one of the great B-side bands. ‘Tales From The Riverbank’, ‘The Butterfly Collector’, ‘Liza Radley’ – all A-list songs, relegated to the subs’ bench. Remember the B-side? That bijou, creative safe space which didn’t merely permit but
The standard complaint of anyone doing a Christmas gift books guide is that the books aren’t up to much. I myself may have moaned to this effect in the past. But either they are getting better or my critical faculties are beginning to fail. I think it’s the former, but if I’m wrong don’t be
Do you ever think about the ground beneath your feet? I do. Having read a number of popular science books on this most precious of natural resources, I am now obsessed. So much has recently been discovered about the invaluable symbiotic relationships that form between microbes, fungi and plant roots in the soil that it
Golden pineapples, hotel rooms named after spies and the only curved piece of glass in the Gherkin – yes, it’s EC, the second in our series looking at the quirky history of London postcode areas. Step this way for some Square Mile trivia…
As ocean-going metaphors go, the news that a £1 billion cruise liner (usually charging £2,434.80 – love that 80! – for a nine-night jaunt, complete with a shopping mall, 14 jacuzzis, six swimming pools and the longest ‘dry-slide’ at sea) will host England’s Wags during the World Cup in Qatar could not have been more splashy. This is a
‘Isn’t Naples beautiful? I’ve always dreamt about it. I always wanted this city all for myself; I didn’t want to share it… I alone deserved it because of everything I lost and I would have done anything to get it.’ So says Ciro Di Marzio – nicknamed ‘the immortal’ because he has survived so much
‘I know,’ I said to my friend recently. ‘Let’s see a film!’ We booked the Everyman Kings Cross, the only cinema that happened to be showing what we wanted to watch at a convenient time and location. You might already be familiar with the Everyman concept. According to the chain, it’s ‘redefining cinema’ with an
George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, was bitten on the cheek by a mosquito some time in early March 1923. The bite became infected. By April he was running a high fever, had pneumonia in both lungs and his heart and respiratory systems were failing. He died in a Cairo hospital on
It’s hard to imagine how baffled the British public must have been by the arrival of David Bowie on to TV screens in the early 1970s. With his saffron hair, make-up and androgynous clothes, superficially he looked like a rejection of everything his post-war south London childhood had taught him. One of the most pivotal
Farewell, Truss’s twisty lectern. Last week in Downing Street Rishi Sunak used one with a straight column. If he follows recent Tory tradition, he’ll have one made to his own design, paid for by the party (£2,000-£4,000 a pop) and loaned to the government. Each lectern (from the Latin legere, ‘to read’) has sent a message.
Among people of a conservative disposition, it’s long been accepted that the Equality Act needs to be repealed. This legislation, passed in 2010 in the dying days of Gordon Brown’s premiership, was designed to embed Labour’s egalitarian ideology into the fabric of the British state, yet none of Brown’s successors have done anything about it.
When the burly honchos of the Rugby League World Cup gushed about taking the game to new heights, no one was actually thinking about the Golan Heights – but that’s where we are. What sounds like a fascinating quarter–final takes place on Friday (as I write) when the dominant team in global rugby league, Australia,
First comes disbelief that I have done something so extreme, followed by denial as I pick up my phone repeatedly to check it’s not just a bad dream. But no – it’s really happening. Panic segues into frustration; then, finally, I arrive at acceptance. For the next three hours I will not be able to
When Idi Amin’s voice crackled through the radio on 4 August 1972 with his fateful ultimatum, my family paid little notice, save for wondering briefly why a government announcement had interrupted the blaring Bollywood tunes. My father’s two sisters were getting married the next day (both tying the knot at the same time meant half
Picture the scene: it’s 8 p.m. on a Tuesday. You’re sitting on the sofa in the home of someone you barely know, gulping supermarket wine, making inane chitchat with friends of friends as you all put off the inevitable: discussing a book only a third of the women – always women – in the room
In his first interview since being reappointed, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly laid down some clear diplomatic water between his party and Labour – confirming that, unlike Keir Starmer, he would attend this winter’s Qatar World Cup. The Foreign Secretary won’t be alone. The Football Association expects that some 10,000 England fans will make the journey
From Fawlty Towers to Psycho, hotel horrors have long provided a rich seam of material for big screen and small. HBO’s The White Lotus, which returns to Sky Atlantic tonight for its second series, swept the board at last month’s Emmys, with ten wins in the limited series category for its sharp social satire set at an upmarket
He is completely bald but his eyebrows are grotesquely hirsute; his ears and chin are both weirdly elongated, as are his bony fingers; and as he creeps up the stairs towards the bedroom of a young woman in white, his hunched frame casts a sinister shadow. Count Orlok in Nosferatu is as instantly recognisable a cinematic figure
Three cheers for whoever came up with the title of the Duke of Sussex’s upcoming autobiography, Spare. It’s punchy – and it evokes a sense of sadness. Is this how Harry has always felt? Like a disposable spare part? The ‘heir and the spare’ describes the first in line to the throne and the ‘reserve’ monarch.
Under the sink. That’s where most of us will be keeping a stash of candles in case the lights go out this winter on account of an erratic electricity supply. There’s nothing worse than finding yourself in darkness and not remembering where you’ve left the candles and the matches. Be prepared. We’ve got out of
I stumbled upon it in one of the darkest corners of the internet: a Facebook parenting group. The mother’s intentions were pure, I tried to tell myself. But I couldn’t help feeling exasperated – and even a bit saddened – by her post: ‘I’m desperately looking for a Rubik’s cube tutor for my son,’ read
The British middle-classes are a predictable breed. We love nothing more than to take goods that were once prudent and pragmatic and give them a luxury edge. From the Mini Cooper, first marketed as an affordable car for the masses, to Land Rover Defenders that we have no intention of spoiling with mud, we like
The fifth series of Netflix’s The Crown will soon be upon us. Scripted, as ever, by Peter Morgan, the show will cover the travails of the royal family throughout the 1990s, spanning everything from the then Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s marital difficulties and eventual divorce to the rumours of Prince Philip conducting an affair with a
My day had started as it always does, with a near 40-mile round trip to school, then an hour’s walk in the pretty country park close to our home near Nottingham. As usual, I parked in the small car park and exchanged ‘good mornings’ and ‘beautiful weather, isn’t it?’ with the familiar faces I see
When Carrie Symonds first emerged as the paramour of Prime Minister Johnson, I liked what I saw. I admired her bravery in waiving her anonymity to reveal that, as a teenager, she had been targeted by the serial rapist John Worboys to campaign against his release from prison. And I appreciated her love of our
