An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
So, is it farewell to the Friends Cat Grooming Car playset with Kitten, and the Disney Princess Ariel, Belle and Cinderella set? And what about Olivia’s Electric Car toy, Eco Education Playset? Or the Ninjago Legacy Fire Dragon Attack? Or the City Great Vehicles Refuse Truck? Lego, you may have gathered, is to eliminate gender
When the famously gloomy British winter starts to tighten its icy grip and spirits begin to wane, a tangible reminder that the sun will shine again always provides a fillip. And I find watching David Niven in the 1958 film Bonjour Tristesse usually does the trick. The movie version of Francoise Sagan’s famous novel about a
According to the latest forecast from estate agents Hamptons, a second wave of property demand could keep house prices rising by up to 3.4 per cent a year between 2022 and 2024. Now that the pandemic is moving into our rear-view mirror, it seems many buyers are still plotting a move from the city. If you’re not
As soon as he had beaten Deontay Wilder last weekend, Tyson Fury gave thanks “to my Lord and savior Jesus Christ”. He said that he was going to pray for his fallen opponent. He has said that when he was recovering from depression and mental illness he “couldn’t do it on [his] own” and got down
Our collective Covid hangover includes facing the inevitable influx of pandemic novels. Following a cameo in Ali Smith’s Orwell Prize–winning Summer and Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You, the pandemic takes centre stage this autumn in titles including Sarah Hall’s Burntcoat and Sarah Moss’s The Fell. Across the Atlantic, authors including Gary Shteyngart and
Getting a takeaway doesn’t quite mean what it used to. The choice used to be between a pizza, ‘an Indian’ or ‘a Chinese’, and was reserved as a Friday night treat, to be eaten out the box while flopped on the sofa watching Cilla Black’s Blind Date. Nowadays one is as likely to order a
The news that Russia has beaten Tom Cruise and NASA in the latest bout of the space race – by sending actress Yulia Peresild and director Klim Shipenko to the International Space Station to film a movie – almost certainly heralds a pointless new low in cinema. Just like the difference between erotica and pornography,
According to recent reports, we might be looking down the sharp end of a turkey-less Christmas. Kate Martin of the Traditional Farm Fresh Turkey Association has warned that a lack of European farmhands means that Britain could be facing a turkey shortage this December. Turkeys have been synonymous with British Christmas dinners since the Victorian
If No Time to Die and the inevitable 007 re-runs on ITV haven’t already sated your appetite for Bond-style espionage thrills, there’s a veritable smorgasbord of spy movies available to assuage your hunger. Some of the actors who portrayed Bond also essayed secret agents of a different stripe, with Sean Connery (The Russia House), Pierce
It’s not terribly surprising that the apple Charlotte is often mistakenly attributed to French chef Marie Antoine Carême; the so-called first celebrity chef is credited with inventing everything from the chef’s tall toque hat to the taxonomic arrangement of sauces, via creating an entirely new system of dining and service. Some of these have more
The last 18 months saw the closure of many old favourites from the London dining scene, which makes the efforts of those willing to roll the dice on a new opening all the more admirable. Here’s where you should snap up a table in the coming months: Kudu Grill – Nunhead Kudu Collective, the small group
Every few days some celebrity ninny will call for the scrapping of marijuana laws, saying that it will take the drug out of the hands of criminal gangs. And all kinds of conservative-minded people will gravely nod their heads at the idea. But those looking to condone cannabis use through the law should think about the consequences of such a
I sat next to a man at dinner who told me I was nosey. Perhaps he was right, although I saw it as being curious. When a conversation consists of weather patterns, I like to throw in a personal question. That way I learn something more interesting about that individual other than his views on
With its elaborate castellated pediment, arched and oriel bay widows, three round towers and snowy-white stucco façade, Hunter’s Lodge, in affluent Belsize Park, is anything but your average North West London home. Throw into the mix 500 years of history, the untimely demise of a British prime minister, scandalous royal shindigs and a recent, lavish
I have always been a bit of a stew-pusher; it tends to be my answer to any of life’s dilemmas, culinary or otherwise. Friends coming round? Stew. Cold and dark outside? Stew. Feeling sad? Stew. To be honest, it doesn’t matter whether or not the weather demands it, I am always in the mood for
October plays host to one of my very favourite jamborees across the entire spectrum of the arts, namely the London Film Festival. One of the myriad joys of an arts festival is the tantalising opportunity it offers to deviate from our cultural strait and narrow and try something out of the ordinary. We can rest easy
James Herriot’s story about a country vet, with scene-stealing backdrops and a coterie of country characters first instilled the Yorkshire Dales into the popular imagination back in 1972. The beauty of Yorkshire wasn’t lost on Herriot, whose real name was Alf Wright: ‘At times it seemed unfair that I should be paid for my work,’ he
For decades we have been told that it’s all our fault; that the reason many of us don’t manage to lose weight is a lack of willpower. But there’s a bigger cause behind our failure to shift the pounds and it’s certainly not due to floundering commitment. It’s down to a part of the brain called the
African politicians often have a playful turn of phrase. The former president of Zambia, Levy Mwanawasa, was dubbed ‘the cabbage’ by his political opponents. There is nothing to suggest that the founding president of Malawi, Hastings Banda, was called ‘the kidney bean’ by the political opposition but he could’ve been. For banda/bhanda is the word
When I was young, I watched a television show about a man who, possessed of the spirit of greed, ate gold and died. I recognised hubris then, and I recognise it now. In a country filled with foodbanks people are hungry to eat gold, which is, in food standard circles at least, called something less
Denis Villeneuve’s eagerly awaited remake of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi novel Dune features a host of barons, dukes, and princes living under a Galactic Emperor. In his dystopia, Herbert depicts a highly stratified society of competing guilds, noble houses, human computer schools (‘Mentats’) and religious cults, with a Padishah Emperor playing them off against each other to retain
It would be interesting to see what people would have turned up in had the Bond premiere not been of the Royal variety with a black-tie dress code. Perhaps Daniel Craig in Yeezys or Lea Seydoux all Parisian chic in a pair of jeans and sweatshirt, we can but wonder. It is a relief that
The tragic case of Gabrielle Petito attracted international interest for various reasons: the mystery of her disappearance, the double mystery of her boyfriend disappearing and, perhaps most significantly, the fact that the pair had been traveling together and documenting their journey on social media. People had an almost proprietorial interest in the case. Somehow, it
‘Casseroles,’ Julia Child wrote to her long-term penpal Avi DeVotos, ‘I even hate the name, as it always implies to me some god awful mess.’ On this, Julia and I are in full agreement: I have a real problem with the word ‘casserole’. And ‘stew’ for that matter. Both of them sound so unappetising, so
Two years ago I tried to become a lorry driver. Everyone told me it wasn’t the right time, and I should have done it five years ago. ‘It’s a mug’s game now,’ they said. ‘You’ll be sitting around waiting for a job.’ Still, everything I ever did was five years past its prime – buying
So, the stamp duty holiday has finally come to an end, as the tapered reduction in discounts expires. Now it’s just a case of catching the flight home, getting the dog back from the kennels and watching as the tan fades. And, as with a fortnight in concrete hotel in Benidorm, it is time to
Something’s in the air in Hollywood. It’s the whiff of A-list celebs who’ve given up washing. Jake Gyllenhaal recently revealed that, ‘more and more I find bathing to be less and less necessary.’ Cryptically, he added, ‘we naturally clean ourselves,’ without explaining how he keeps himself smelling of roses while avoiding soap and water. Hollywood’s
Do you ever catch yourself thinking, ‘You know, I need to spend less time in the real world and more on the internet’? If so, Mark Zuckerberg has good news for you! The Facebook founder is promoting the development of the ‘metaverse’ – a virtual reality world, or virtual reality worlds, that would allow us
I’m not quite sure what the average age of Spectator readers is, but for many a pink floating pig is their abiding memory of Battersea Power Station. Since 1983, when it stopped producing energy, there have been many unfulfilled promises and dreams for the building. I went inside it back then and it was immense.