An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
Another year, another row about Stonehenge. A rather sad piece on the BBC News website describes how its lacklustre custodians, English Heritage, had to cancel a live feed of the sunrise on the day of the solstice due to unspecified ‘safety concerns’ when a few people were seen climbing over a low fence to access the
The Queen has never been one for a beach holiday, but as a young woman she loved spending time on the sun-dappled island of Malta. The then-Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip stayed on the island regularly just after the Second World War, the newly weds residing at the Villa Guardamangia from 1949 to 1951. They
Forget the sausage war; could the real Brexit battle be over streaming services? After all, surely even hardened Remainers will have been appalled by the European Commission’s plan to make it more difficult to stream British shows on the continent. Will it happen? Only time will tell. But here are eight shows that are a hit
There aren’t many veggie stews that can lay claim to being immortalised in popular culture. Fewer still that could then complain about being grossly misrepresented. But then ratatouille is no ordinary vegetable stew. Ratatouille is a Provençal dish, made by gently cooking aubergine, courgette, and red peppers, with a tomato sauce flavoured with onion, garlic
Lockdown affects us all in different ways. During New York’s first lockdown renowned art creative Shai Baitel, recently appointed artistic director of Modern Art Museum Shanghai (MAM), felt so starved of creative inspiration that he begged anyone he knew with access to an art gallery near his New York City home to let him visit
Will there be any new countries on the ‘green list’ when the latest revisions are announced tomorrow? Last time around there was expected to be some kind of relaxation – yet no countries were added to the green list. Instead, Portugal was removed and several countries were added to the red list. However, media minister
The debate over whether we will end up going back to the office five days a week is likely to rumble on for the coming years. Desperate employers worried that the genie is out of the bottle are battling with those of us who happen to get more done when we aren’t distracted by gossiping at the
In times of great uncertainty – and Eurovision humiliation aside, 2021 surely qualifies – many are tempted to examine ‘speculative fiction’ from the past, to understand the present. 1984 has had a good year, and seems much less dated than anything actually from 1984, such as Wham!, The Karate Kid or Roland Rat. Huxley’s Brave
The economist Friedrich von Hayek once likened the control of inflation to the act of trying to catch a tiger by its tail: an impossible task with savage consequences for our macro and personal finances. Judging by the most recent inflation statistics, the big cat is already out of the bag. So how can we
Back when the dinosaurs still thought they were the bees-knees, another little creature was gently making its way into the big wide world. And now, more than 150 million years later – having withstood at least one planetary-wide annihilation (the one that knocked T-Rex off his perch) – the humble oyster may be on the
When the government announced an extension of lockdown restrictions I was furious. Furious for political reasons. Furious for economic and libertarian reasons, but – if I’m completely honest – mainly furious because I had tickets to see The Shapeshifters to do a DJ set on Saturday 26th June. However, I have to admit that on
Last Tuesday, the great footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, captain of Portugal, removed two bottles of Coca-Cola from a table in front of him, and tens of millions of pounds of sponsorship money went down the plughole. Ronaldo was at a press conference for the Euro 2021 Championship, in which Coca-Cola had invested heavily – and, as
There are few aesthetic and literary pleasures that compare to browsing in a second-hand bookshop. While it is more or less a given what books will be found in a new bookshop, one of the chief joys of going second hand is that it’s entirely unpredictable what you’ll emerge with. Sometimes, the browser will leave
James Bond might have served as Aston Martin’s greatest ambassador for the best part of half a century, but the Prince of Wales isn’t far behind. He’s been an Aston man ever since mum and dad gave him a Seychelle Blue DB6 for his 21st in 1969, when a gallon of leaded four-star cost a
‘Should I pay in actual money, in-person, in the shop itself?’ I asked my husband incredulously the other day. Yes, he replied, sounding rather bored. Prior to the pandemic such an exchange would not have taken place. I would have simply gone to the shop with no thought of government restrictions to my personal liberties,
Jeremy Clarkson’s latest TV venture, Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon Prime Video, sees the petrolhead learning to manage his 1,000 acre Cotswolds farm. Anyone dreaming of their own rural idyll might want to consider one of these beautiful farmhouses. For artists – Folliotts Farmhouse Currently owned by a ceramicist and artist, Patricia Low, this Grade II-listed farmhouse
As Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark prepare themselves to fulfil many a little boys dream and become real life astronauts on rocket-ship New Shepard, here’s a look at space flight in the movies. No doubt part of the fun for Jeff will be tweaking the noses of fellow space rival billionaires Elon Musk and Richard Branson. Unless
During the 2018 World Cup, Gareth Southgate turned to a British institution to help get the lads into semis shape, the Royal Marines. It was hailed retrospectively as the key to the advanced-stage success. Now that England have soundly beaten their undoers of said World Cup last weekend, we can begin looking for sensible reasons
I don’t know about you, but I find that many of the things I enjoy eating most in the summer, those things I crave when the weather is blazing hot or just plain muggy, still require some level of cooking. Those chilled soups, or sticky ribs, or even ice creams still mean standing over a
As a sommelier who has worked for Copenhagen’s Noma and Per Se in New York and set up the two Michelin-starred restaurant Kitchen Table in 2012, I’m more than a little discerning when it comes to wine. Britain may be a relative newcomer to wine making but its offerings are gaining more attention from oenophiles as time goes on, especially in
If you’d like some idea of how Scotland’s long-awaited return to an international football tournament is going, consider this: it took less than an hour of play before the image of goalkeeper David Marshall leaping, despairingly, into his own net in a doomed effort to stop the Czech Republic’s Patrik Schick scoring a goal from
HP Sauce is a glorious thing. The French may have their five, gastronomic Mother Sauces but we in this sceptered isle have HP and that’s what counts. Because nobody wants a pool of hollandaise with their Full English. It first appeared on our dining tables in the late nineteenth century and has since grown to
‘Like a sea beast fished up from the depths, or a diver too suddenly hoisted, my veins threatened to burst from the fall in pressure. I had great anxiety and no means of relieving it […] And then it was that the Muse of Painting came to my rescue – out of charity and out
Ah Italia! Land of gelato, Vespas and frescoes – I’ve pined for the place so many times over the last year that it’s difficult to know which I love more: Italy itself or the idea of Italy. The joy of travel is always sparked in part by imagination: the anticipation of a place before you arrive; the
Love it or loath it, London’s 10-storey-high ‘sky’ pool, suspended 114m above the Nine Elms made a splash this month. Images of swimmers dipping their toes in the 25m water-filled bridge between two blocks of luxury flats ignited a social media furore; would-be swimmers were disappointed to discover the residents-only rule, and equally furious that
When the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge arrived at Holyrood House to watch a drive-in screening of the Disney film Cruella with NHS staff last month, the Daily Telegraph reported that the couple ‘paid tribute to the late Duke of Edinburgh’ by travelling in one of his ‘beloved’ Land Rovers – which, as any Landy
There comes a point in every metropolitan potentate’s journey from London to Edinburgh, when he or she looks up from their laptop in First Class and gazes from the window of the train. At this point, they suddenly realise that whatever’s been absorbing their interest for the last hour or two, is completely irrelevant. Chances
There’s a little fact about Frank Skinner that you might have heard before. That before his big television break, the future comic and Three Lions scribe had a rather different vocation: as an English teacher in an FE college. Throughout his time in the spotlight, it’s been one of those things that gets brought up
John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place (2018) and its sequel, released this month, ratchets up the tension, as the hapless Abbott family once again silently contend with homicidal creatures possessing hypersensitive hearing who will strike at the smallest of noises. As the new film hits our screens, you’ll be able to hear a pin drop in cinemas everywhere.