An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
The Tory party has turned sharply against the idea of ever larger numbers going to university. The reasons for this are both economic and political, I say in the Times today. On the economic front, the taxpayer is bearing more of the cost of the expansion of higher education than expected — the government estimates that
Early summer crops have been delayed in many places this year, thanks to the brutal rain and cold that preceded the recent heat wave, but finally, we’re starting to see tiny tomatoes, baby figs, and the first perfectly formed pea pods bursting into life. Of course, when it comes to seasonal eating, you can argue
‘Freezing winter gave way to frosty spring, which in turn merged to chilly summer,’ was how Jessica Mitford recalled her Cotswolds childhood in her memoir, Hons and Rebels. Our inclement climes have rarely been as hard to bear as they have this year, with the unusually cold, grey spring — coupled with the prospect of
Everyone needs a holiday this year – and what could be more enjoyable than sunshine, alfresco adventures and delicious Tuscan cuisine in the company of friends and family? The birthplace of the Italian Renaissance, Florence is a city to wander in wonder and the perfect destination to celebrate newfound freedoms and grand reunions. Hotel Savoy,
How does the word ‘literally’ make you feel? For a lot of language-lovers, the answer will be somewhere between mildly irritated and fist-gnawingly furious. It’s the misuse of the word that most perturbs. It has a habit of lurking where it has no place to be, taking a perfectly acceptable (if conventional) metaphor and turning into nonsense.
Fluffy, cloud-like beds. Pristine, white robes. Rooms service. Hotels are open again for leisure stays, and we couldn’t be happier. For those in dire need of a night away, London has a whole slew of new picks. From a boutique bolthole tucked off Portobello Road in Notting Hill with only a handful of rooms to
The only car I have felt unsafe in is a Morgan. It was a sort of pink leather bath on wheels that screamed down the road while men over sixty waved at it. I was right to be nervous. The delivery man crashed it on the way home. A photograph of the crushed Morgan –
Musical fans will be hyped for the film release of Lin Manuel-Miranda’s In The Heights, set to land in cinemas here on 25 June (seven years after its UK stage premiere at the lovely Southwark Playhouse). Of course the Dominican smash is far from the first big musical to make its way to Hollywood. Here
With many people having taken up cycling during lockdown, the West Kernow Way is bound to prove popular this summer. A new initiative from Cycling UK, it’s one that I’m surprised hasn’t come sooner. This part of the world is awash with bridleways, cycle-able terrain and quiet backcountry roads suited to bikes. It’s also part of the
An iron is not your traditional cooking appliance. But then again nothing about TikTok cookery is traditional. TikTok users have grilled chicken with an iron, boiled meatballs in a percolator, and cooked steak in a toaster. And not only do they do these things, but they earn internet fame and sometimes create new livelihoods for
Prince William is a genius. In a single Instagram post, he hoisted focus back over the Atlantic from his prodigal brother, and it seems he and the Duchess of Cambridge have been trending on Twitter ever since. What was the post? He flexed his guns. We have all been there, at the gym where the
Whilst many Hollywood auteurs began their careers in television (John Frankenheimer, Arthur Penn, Steven, Sidney Lumet etc), the received wisdom in previous times was that a return to working in the medium signalled a career in serious decline. Lower budgets, shorter rehearsal times, often inferior casts and tight deadline-driven schedules meant that television was very
Put down the shaker, screw the cap back on the Campari, stop trying to figure out how to make those big clear ice cubes in your little home freezer; it’s time to give cocktail duties back to the professionals. After a tough year-or-so for the industry it’s basically the duty of every self-respecting cocktailian to
My trek along the entire length of Portugal began on a small boat with Captain Juan standing beside the outboard. Accompanied by five other rucksack-laden pilgrims who I met during an extended Camino de Santiago pilgrimage to escape UK lockdowns, we were crossing the Minho River that serves as the border between Spain and Portugal’s
I am a big fan of a tea break. I don’t mean afternoon tea or high tea (although I’m never going to say no to a finger sandwich or a tiny cake), and I don’t mean a mug of tea at my desk or standing up in the kitchen while I do something else. I
We laugh at how the Victorians put plaster fig leaves on nude statues; but when the annals of the strange new puritanism that has been sweeping the British Isles come to be written, then the latest debacle over Rex Whistler’s mural at the Tate must surely comprise a central chapter. As Macaulay once wrote, ‘We know
I would love to have been there at the original pitch meeting for Friends, ‘So yeah, it’s about a bunch of friends.’ Pitching The Office must have been similarly brusque, ‘It’s about some office workers working in an office.’ And The Simpsons? ‘Oh yeah, that’s the one about a family called… the Simpsons’. Like all
If, like me, you’ve watched every episode of the Great British Bake Off (twice), all the professional series, Junior Bake Off, and the celebrity charity episodes, you might need to look further afield for your next fix of television baking competitions. Fear not, because the GBBO franchise is wide-reaching: the format has been sold in
I have a recurring dream where a taxi is waiting outside to take me to the airport and my suitcase is empty. I’m not sure what a dream psychologist would make of this, but for someone who has 15 years’ experience in packing other people’s suitcases for work, this kind of dream is the stuff
I’ve bemoaned the ‘no Tories please’ line on dating profiles many a time. Closed-minded and over-used, it’s a banal way for university freshers to virtue signal their wokeness. It’s a phase many go through, and, more’s the pity, do not all grow out of. But as of late, a new, equally lacklustre profile-essential has emerged
When Julia Riley ran her Somerset home as a B&B prior to the Covid pandemic a few guests booked in not for her Tripadvisor-recommended breakfast or a peaceful night’s sleep, but because of the Georgian property’s literary connection. Coxley House is the former home of David Cornwell, better known as the spy novelist John le
So farewell then Arthur Beale, you were the last of the great chandler shops. You and I had little in common… This is how I imagine E.J. Thribb poem starting, and Private Eye’s Poetry Corner would do well to eulogise the passing of one of London’s most eccentric shops. It is to the credit of
On 24 May Bob Dylan turns 80 and that gives fans like me the perfect excuse to celebrate our love of the great man (not that we ever really need one, of course). As well as regularly listening to the records, I spend far more time than is probably healthy trawling YouTube for videos of Dylan
You might remember, back before Covid, when life was ‘normal’, at three o’clock on a Friday afternoon, the Volkswagens, Audis and Jaguars clogging up the pavements of Kensington, Parsons Green and Hammersmith would one by one nudge out, and make for the Great West Road, duly clotting the A4 like a fast-food addict’s aorta. To all
Yet again, Britain’s Eurovision entry has come last getting nul points from tout le monde. Yet again, politics is being blamed – but wrongly. The UK was simply outsung and outclassed by smaller countries who made more effort. Eurovision has always been a collision between politics, music and culture. Winners game that system, coming up
Fifty years ago, the food in Britain was comically terrible. The Wimpy Bar was the place for a date, fish and chips was the limit of takeaway and if you were lucky you might get a packet of crisps at the pub. Everything French was better. French bread. French cheese. French wine. French restaurants, bistros,
Oscar-winning director Barry Jenkins’ adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s 2016 novel The Underground Railroad is earning rave reviews. The 10-part Amazon Prime mini-series imagines an alternate history where the abolitionist route for escaped slaves prior to emancipation is an actual, physical subterranean railway. Incidentally, the fantastical railway trope is the chief feature of Netflix’s sci-fi show Snowpiercer (2020-),
I’m not sure what to say about Our Yorkshire Farm, a documentary on the utterly redeemed Channel 5, that doesn’t sound hyperbolic to the point of idolatry and slight nuttiness. If there is anything else in our culture that is as wholesome, pure and good as this, please tell me about it. Amid all the
This July will mark 60 years since the beginning of the chapter in our nation’s history known as the ‘Profumo scandal.’ It was this unhappy episode in which my mother Christine Sloane, formerly Christine Keeler, had a starring role, and is credited with the fall of Harold Macmillan’s government. The story of that affair is
