An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
As MPs and peers vacated the Houses of Parliament for their summer holidays last week, we take a look at five homes for sale with political links. Where Pitt stopped A bronze plaque on the front of Pitt House, a grand Georgian property in Bath, informs visitors of its famous former resident. William Pitt the
The long-delayed 2020 Olympic Games finally kicked off on July 23 in Tokyo. Events are being held without spectators after a spike in coronavirus cases locally. Even so, the breathtaking feats of athletic prowess will be enough to inspire many people to get off their sofas and into the great outdoors. Here are the best
Have you got what it takes to go ‘wild swimming’? No, not so much the hardiness or the love of sinking your feet into the boggy bottom of a lake or feeling something brush against your ankle that could be a fish, a plant or something more sinister. Have you got the right kit? Outdoor
The NHS App is playing a vital role in keeping us safe. It monitors those around us and identifies potential risk. We are alerted to the danger, given the right advice, and then compelled to take immediate action. It would be a pity if this multi-billion pound investment wasn’t utilised to its full potential to protect
I have an ambivalent attitude to sushi. It has become, on the one hand, one of the favoured foods of the joyless ‘clean eating’ and perpetually-dieting brigade. On the other, sushi is as delicious as it is healthy; filling but not heavy; dainty but not pretentious. No need to feel abashed then about being a
The postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics have not been without controversy. After being delayed for a year, a survey commissioned in May by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper revealed that 83 per cent of those polled were not in favour of the event going ahead in 2021, as COVID-19 cases soared and vaccine rates remained low. One
I’m standing in a farmyard in Somerset, drinking in the clear country air, soaking up the summer sunshine and marvelling at the lovely view. However this view is rather different from the sort of thing you tend to see on most farms. I’m here to see some modern art, stuff my face and enjoy a
I don’t know about you, but my brain has felt like soup for the last week. If I were to see you in real life, I would probably say to you ‘My brain feels like soup; does yours?’ and then ten minutes later I’d ask the same question, because my brain is soup and I
Before she became associated more with tragedy than comedy, there was a joke which went: ‘What’s Amy Winehouse’s favourite tube station?..High Barnet’. Not the best joke admittedly and one that required a degree of knowledge of rhyming slang – but it did anchor the beehived chanteuse and the borough she came from together in the
If the prospect of keeping an eye on transport secretary Grant Shapps’s Twitter feed doesn’t fill you with much joy, there’s only one option for a holiday this year: a staycation. So where is the best place in Britain to find good weather? Of course, no holiday in the UK can be guaranteed to be
In 1983 Cambridge academic W.G. Runciman, reviewing Peter York and Ann Barr’s The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook, described the work as an ‘anthropological survey’ in the mould of such distinguished scholars as Malinowski and Veblen. Veblen’s late-nineteenth century The Theory of the Leisure Class was, Runciman explains, an ‘earnest social-Darwinian exercise in the analysis and
Croatia is officially on the green list! With speedy, direct flights to Dubrovnik (running under three hours from many UK destinations), plus plenty of sought-after sunshine, this jewel of the Adriatic just became the hottest destination to visit this summer. Here’s our guide to the top places to stay… Lopud 1483 The little-known island of Lopud may
Britain isn’t a country geared up to deal with extreme heat. We lack cool spaces to retreat to; our homes and gardens are often better suited to rainy winters than the hot, balmy summers we associate with the med. But with an extreme heat weather warning issued by the Met Office and with large parts
Over the past 16 months, many things in our society have changed: we stayed at home, we baked, we zoomed, we tutted at people enjoying green spaces, we seamlessly slid ‘lockdown’, ‘pandemic’ and ‘social distancing’ into our vocabularies. But one thing that has stayed absolutely, stubbornly, admirably the same is the British public’s dedication to
Are we witnessing the slow death of manly gardening? A new government initiative urges us that for the sake of bees and pollinators we should leave the mower in the shed and let our lawns turn into savannahs. Some thirty councils are signed up. King’s College Cambridge has turned its lawn into a wild flower
With the emphasis on staying on home turf this summer rather than enduring the risks and administrative tribulations of holidaying ‘overseas’, many of us are heading out in search of parts of the country that we previously never bothered trying to discover. And what better way to find pastures new than by motorcycle? That’s the
We are in the midst of a camping boom. Faced with travel restrictions and uncertainties around jetting off into the sun, taking your family out for a few nights under canvas is an increasingly attractive prospect, and the wealth and depth of the British landscape lends itself well to a stay under the stars. Of course,
The word Powys is not filled with onomatopoeic potential and, to the English ear at least, doesn’t conjure up a particular image. And yet the region has a dizzying lineage, one that stretches back to antiquity. In the fifth century, the Romans scarcely off the stage, Powys was ruled one of the last kings of the
We have all become rather used to socialising outside. Thanks to the pandemic, for perhaps the first time in our national history, al fresco dining has become the norm well outside of the summer months. We shivered under wraps for the last nine months only to finally be allowed to socialise indoors once more just
In one sense, a madeleine is simply a small cake. In fact, it’s an extremely classic cake, made with the genoise method. But there’s more to a madeleine than that: the proportions of madeleines, their miniature nature and scalloped shape, mean that they have a perfect contrast between their slightly sticky, almost crisp outside, and
To some, the sight of Prince George wearing a suit and tie at Wembley on Sunday night was simply too much. The Mum mob on Twitter roared ‘Who dresses a child like that?’ presumably hoping that the future King would be wearing a football shirt and shorts like the rest of the child population lined
When Sir Richard Branson blasted off into space on Sunday he broke – or rather established – several important records. While he wasn’t the first billionaire to go into space – the extra-terrestrial ten-digit honours belong to Hungarian-born Microsoft Office software magnate Charles Simonyi, who went up to space on a Russian rocket in 2007
‘Have you got any advice?’ my friend calls to ask, ahead of going to pick up their pandemic puppy. ‘Well, um, as first-time dog owners, I’d say steer clear of spaniels and poodles… but it’s a bit late for that, ha!’ ‘Ha,’ she says, thinking I’m joking and off they go to fetch their cute,
‘I actually know the moment I became known. It was at the Cannes Film Festival, when they showed ‘The Virgin Spring.’ I walked into that theatre as one person, and I walked out as another.’ – The late Max von Sydow After last year’s pandemic washout, 2021’s Cannes Film Festival is a bumper event, with a
Is it any surprise that research carried out by the corporation for its annual report found that more than a quarter of men feel that the BBC ‘no longer reflects people like me’? In a concerted effort to redress gender imbalance men are gradually being airbrushed out. Across much of the BBC men have become something
Some say it not only looks like something you might be encouraged to down in order to soothe an irritating cough, it tastes like it, too. But that hasn’t stopped the Negroni – the vibrant concoction composed of Campari, red vermouth and gin – being adopted as the drink of choice among the more chic
We may be a small nation geographically, but what we lack in size we more than make up for in diversity and range of landscape to explore. With restrictions on travel meaning the UK is our best bet now when it comes to getting away, why not try some of Britain’s most stunning accessible walks? It’s
A giant chess board appeals in much the same way as a giant cake. Rationally, one realises that the size doesn’t affect the essence of the thing. But the inner child knows that the jumbo version is just more fun. So I’m excited that a game of ‘human chess’, in which actors take the place
Before its elevation to the undeniably slim Green List, the isolated windswept, wave-lashed archipelago of volcanic rock in the North Atlantic Ocean known as the Faroe Islands was not on many people’s radars. With direct flights from the UK recommencing on July 1, no doubt its popularity will surge in the coming months. Even before