An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
If you’re looking for an alternative to Christmas cake (or an addition to it), then panforte is the bake for you. Sufficiently similar to our traditional Christmas cake in its flavours of Medieval spice, dried fruit and candied citrus that it can’t fail to evoke the Christmas spirit, it is still entirely distinctive. Panforte is
Want to treat an avid crime fiction reader to a book or two this Christmas? Or simply want to do a bit of literary self-gifting? From a beguiling South Korean mystery to a grizzly serial killer procedural, here are six new novels to consider. Lemon by Kwon Yeo-sun People Like Them by Samira Sedira This
This week, the southern counties of England were treated to the rare sight of November snow. The beauty of tla (Inuit for snow) is that it can render the most prosaic locale picturesque. Snow is an impossible element to control of course – especially in the movies, but the fake stuff is usually on hand for when
Anyone who doubts that the fiscal response to the pandemic has stoked inflation needs to look at the latest figures from the Nationwide on the housing market. Yet again they confirm that the deepest recession in modern history has been accompanied by a boom in house prices. Moreover, the inflation does not seem to have
People are always disproportionately impressed by hasselback potatoes. Disproportionately because they are one of the easiest potato-based sides to make: just a few knife cuts, and tossed in some olive oil. They don’t require the par-boiling or roughing up of roast potatoes, and are less fragile than the simply boiled variety. As well as being
From Gordon Ramsay to James Corden, predicting which Brits will make a splash in Hollywood has long been a fool’s errand – even in the Netflix era. After all, what’s the latest British export to conquer the greatest entertainment market on earth? The Great British Bake Off. Well, almost. Like Cary Grant (born in Bristol
The number of different mince pies available in 2021 is staggering – more mince pies, frankly, than you could shake a stick at. And with all of them boasting about their vine-ripened fruits, their rich pastry, and the myriad boozed, how do you navigate the groaning supermarket shelves? We’ve tasted and tested until we had
The pale honey-coloured Georgian terraces and elegantly colonnaded streets of Bath have seen a busy year. In the summer the crew for the Netflix Regency romance Bridgerton flew into town to film the second season of the hit series, whilst in October the Grand Parade was transformed into a winter wonderland for the forthcoming Warner
Chardonnay has fallen dramatically out of favour. It’s passé, old hat and, well, just that little bit naff. I’m referring, of course, to the girls name, twenty years ago, which was briefly in vogue in certain circles. Indeed, in 2003 – thanks to the popularity of Chardonnay Lane-Pascoe, a character in the ITV seriesFootballers’ Wives –
It’s well documented how excited, or horrified, food enthusiasts are by the Salt Baes of this world – gold coated Japanese steaks certainly look good on social media. But a nice potato? Some bright, green leaves? The frilliest mushrooms or a plump bulb of fennel? We don’t often hear praise for the more humbler kitchen
Like a lot of things it began with the cleaners. You may be old enough to remember when there were actual cleaners in offices before they all vanished about 20 years ago. In fact they didn’t disappear, they just got outsourced. That usually meant that nothing much got cleaned especially anymore, but bins were changed
The bad news for video game fans – and the parents or grandparents of same – as Christmas approaches is that our old friend ‘supply chain issues’ means that the latest consoles – the PS5 and the XBox Series X – are going to be tricky to get your hands on. Best hope that Santa drops
What’s up with Kirsten Dunst and Benedict Cumberbatch? It’s rumoured that the pair refused to speak to each other on the set of their new movie, The Power of the Dog, because Cumberbatch had embraced ‘method acting’ and his character hated her character. To protect the truth of his interpretation, he deliberately snubbed his co-star
There are all sorts of things we’re prepared to do once December rears its head, that we’d absolutely turn our noses up at in a less festive month: back to back parties, kitsch decorations, adding spices to anything that stands still long enough, engaging with relatives we normally avoid. And there are certain foods and
Should homebuyers have to pay a higher rate of stamp duty if the property they are buying has a low energy rating? After all, motorists already pay a higher rate of road tax if they are buying a new car with high fuel consumption. The stamp duty idea has been advanced by a trade body
How cowardly of the BBC to axe Michael Vaughan from Test Match Special for the winter Ashes series on the basis of two words – ‘you lot’ – he might or might not have said more than twelve years ago. Is this really how the BBC wants to play this? Anyone can make accusations of
As if our beleaguered prime minister didn’t have enough to worry about, now comes another unhelpful headline. For on a mid-week trip to Islington’s most fashionable theatre, the Almeida, Boris Johnson had the misfortune to be spotted – well, snapped – by another audience member after he had temporarily removed his face-mask. For the tutting
I never realised Lanzarote was such a weird place. During an extended Camino de Santiago pilgrimage to escape UK lockdowns, various pilgrims I met urged me to visit the splendours of the Canary Islands as a natural sequel to the splendours of the Iberian Peninsula we traversed. But Lanzarote was rarely mentioned. As soon as
With all of our institutions now firmly under the iron fist of progressivism it was only a matter of time before social justice mission creep slipped under the doormat and into the home. You can only promulgate the idea that we live under a tyrannical patriarchy for so long before young people take notice and
When designer, poet, novelist and social activist William Morris told members of a Birmingham arts society in 1880 to ‘have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful,’ he unwittingly inspired legions of modern-day home influencers. Marie Kondo exhorts her acolytes to only own things that
Everyone should have a catering trick to easily host a large party. As Jeffrey Archer once told me, while pointing out Oxford landmarks as if it were his university rather than mine, he was famous for his legendary Shepherd’s pie and Krug champagne Christmas soirées. I have my own party formula: ‘Bagels and Booze’. I
There is something uniquely soul-destroying about British theme parks. The effusive, American cheer of Disney Land somehow fails to translate in Blighty where no amount of sugary pastel scenery, singing flowers and glockenspiel music can distract from the bad weather. Indeed, if Peppa Pig World really does embody ‘the power of UK creativity’, as Boris suggested in his CBI speech, we
In the latest James Bond movie, which passes for the National soul – though I think Roald Dahl was closer to nailing it – a Toyota Land Cruiser Prado wins a fight with a Land Rover Defender in Norway. Or rather two Land Rover Defenders. Out they bounce from forest to stream and back to
Every year there are more of them; more extravagant, more utterly pointless. I refer to Advent calendars, which used once to be rather a quaint German thing: a way of counting down the days of Advent by opening little windows on a cardboard, paper or wooden Nativity or winter scene to reveal some pointer to
It was never my intention to buy an eco-friendly home. However, when I purchased my house, two years ago, it had solar panels on the roof, insulation built into its walls, underfloor heating and a range of features designed to reduce energy consumption. Indeed, there’s no doubt that my energy bills have been lower. I
The Human League’s Don’t You Want Me, 40-years-old this month, is not merely great. It may be the greatest pop song ever. Pop is an open invitation. It creates, as Don’t You Want Me did in the bleak midwinter of 1981/82, a warm glow of collective experience. This is the wellspring of any profundity we
If you’re a lover of Pinot Noir and fine red burgundy you’re doubtless in a bit of a stew. You’re worried that although the about-to-be-launched 2020 vintage is an absolute cracker, the amount of Pinot produced was down by around 40 per cent and there ain’t going to be enough to go round. You’re also
Ageing screen siren Norma Desmond’s lament that ‘it’s the pictures that got small’ in Billy Wilder’s classic black comedy doesn’t appear to apply to the Hollywood stars of today, who only a decade or so ago saw acting on TV as the sign of a career in box office free fall. The warning signs were there
Nine months ago, after a decade spent in London, I moved to Lancashire. Although I’m a northerner born and bred, I’m from the northeast, between Newcastle and Sunderland, so this was new territory for me. Keen to assimilate, I was ready to get stuck into some of the dishes the area is famous for: Eccles
