An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
There is no finer sight in spring than a blossom tree. Planting one is, to my mind, a public service, as it will cheer generations of people plodding down your street, both with the blooms that appear on its branches, and with the confetti of petals thrown along the pavement. In the next few weeks,
‘A notion at which we had but guessed.’ So said the poet Paul Muldoon recently, publicising Paul McCartney’s forthcoming book The Lyrics, an autobiograpy-through-the-songs based on conversations between the ex-Beatle and Muldoon. The notion in question was the one that ‘McCartney is a major literary figure who draws upon, and extends, the long tradition of
Finally, at long last, it seems we can start thinking about summer holidays – maybe even a short Easter break, if the Covid numbers keep coming down. However booking anything overseas still looks like a tricky prospect, so this year I’ll be renewing my acquaintance with the Great British Seaside. Like a lot of people
Fancy a more sophisticated slice of entertainment to lighten up the last few weekends of lockdown? Here’s our pick of the best foreign language films you might not have seen yet: Minari, Amazon (to rent) The extremely moving Minari triggered a bit of a debate when it was first nominated for Best Foreign Film at this
The gin and tonic is a beautiful thing. Refreshing, anti-malarial, and fixable by even the least confident home bartenders. However, malaria rates are at an all-time low in the UK and over-reliance on old favourites is a sure-fire route to monotony and disenchantment. There’s a whole wide world of ways to knock back gin so
Many of us have been watching in awe at the profound impact that Meghan and Harry’s Oprah interview has had on the fight against endemic injustice. There has been an outpouring of empathy for the Duchess’s suffering at the hands of the British. Not only has she had to live through the public spectacle of a
We are lucky to live in an age of domestic culinary convenience: whatever your heart desires, there’s an appliance, gizmo or specific spoon for it. Want to make cakes in the shape of a shoe? Not a problem. Need twenty different ways to crush garlic? Your needs can be met. Looking for a boiled egg,
House sales have always been among the things that the major auctioneers do best, especially when those sales involve dispersing collections amassed by ‘great’ families that have spent generations living in equally ‘great’ properties. In the halcyon years they happened on site, the viewing days giving the local proleteriat what might have been a once-in-a-lifetime
If your genetic code survived the Pleistocene epoch, and prospered sufficiently that you find yourself reading this, I feel I ought to warn you that you are in great danger. For though the woolly marmoset and sabre-toothed sloth may be extinct, a new apex predator has emerged: human beings, or more specifically, other human beings.
Bookings for summer staycations have boomed since Boris Johnson said that domestic holidays would be possible from as early as April 12. There has been no mention yet of when overseas travel restrictions may be lifted, so it is looking like a very British summer. But a staycation doesn’t have to mean sitting in a dreary
What’s so endearing about Henry? It’s been the question on everybody’s lips since he spectacularly photobombed the unveiling of the new Downing Street press room. The friendly faced vacuum cleaner still manages to compete with the likes of Dyson forty years after he was first created. Made in Chard, Somerset, with his bowler hat shaped ‘cap’
Until the mid 19th Century, most of us believed that we had a soul. It was what separated us from the animals. This belief could be modified to accommodate slavery, Malthusian economics and to allow dogs into Heaven, but the principle was pretty stable. A hundred years later, thanks largely to Darwin, and innovations such
One of the few positives to have come out of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the remarkable speed at which vaccines have been developed and rolled out in months, rather than the many years that was the previous norm. Their effectiveness is being increasingly proved as more people are vaccinated, and they appear to be
It’s Lent, and you know what that means? Fish, that’s what. Once, the point of the whole fast and abstinence thing was to eschew meat, which meant eating fish instead. Indeed, the fish-fasting association was so important for the fishing industry that when the Reformation came, much Catholic practice was jettisoned, but not the obligation
He might now be one of the most powerful men in global media, but I find whenever I see a photograph of Nick Clegg, Orwell’s quote about everyone getting the face they deserve by 50 comes to mind. Now 54, the remnants of the boyish idealist are still just about there, but the eyes to
St Patrick’s Day is coming. Which means people all over the world will be repeating that thing they’ve heard about the pints being better in Dublin, claiming that they’ve read Portrait of the Artist, and championing Irish family connections through some obscure branch of the family tree. When it comes to refreshments on the day
The first thing that Dr Tim Hands, headmaster of Winchester College, would like to clear up is his school’s world-famous motto, ‘Manners maketh man’. Whenever a Wykehamist makes the papers, this ancient phrase is wheeled out, referring to his (in)decent manners. But this isn’t quite right, says Hands. Two pieces of stained glass — one
It’s Mother’s Day and, once again, I muse on how little some friends really know one. I never expect anything in a friendship that I can’t return – hence I do not look for loyalty or kindness – but the only area in which I am ceaselessly short-changed is in the business of being seen
It began with a sourdough starter. Then we dabbled with home delivery cocktails. This time round, I watched The Dig and bought a Fair Isle tank top and a blouse with a big collar to wear for Zoom calls. Then, when my husband’s company announced they’d be hiring remotely, we embraced the biggest lockdown cliché
Mindfulness makes you smug. And not just mindfulness; a whole raft of alternative spiritual practices such as chakra cleansing and past life regressions feed a sense of superiority over normal mortals. That’s the finding of research from Radboud University in Nijmegen in the Netherlands involving some 3,700 people. The leader of the research, Professor Roos
The world is obsessed with clutter. Today, untidiness is seen as a moral failure and messy people are cast as incontinent reprobates lacking in all self-discipline. In his new book, Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life, Jordan Peterson tells readers that cleaning up their homes and offices is nothing less than a ‘moral obligation’.
There is something intrinsic to the British novel-writing tradition of a good espionage story. From its beginnings in the early twentieth century with Rudyard Kipling and Erskine Childers through to the thoroughly contemporary likes of Mick Herron and Charles Cumming, there is apparently no shortage of gripping, witty and brilliantly executed spy tales, all of
Every weekend Spectator Life brings you doses of topical trivia – facts, figures and anecdotes inspired by the current week’s dates in history … 13 March Earl Grey (born 1764). The Prime Minister gave his name to the tea. It was specially blended for him by a Chinese mandarin to suit the water in Northumberland, where the
Forget statues: the latest victims of the colonialism culture war are racist plants. Ah yes, those menacing snowdrops with their overly white petals and dangerous daffodils. As Mr Steerpike reports, Kew Gardens has entered the fray with a promise to ‘decolonise’ its collections. Presumably the next step is for its sister site in Sussex to
Fortunes shift quickly in Chinese cyberspace. On March 1, Chloé Zhao, the Beijing-born film director, was the ‘pride of China’, according to the Chinese Communist Party’s The Global Times. Zhao had just won the best director Golden Globe for her film Nomadland, becoming the first Asian woman in history to win the award, and only
It seems at first an unlikely ingredient for global domination – particularly if, like me, you first encountered it as an unappetising squidge at the centre of a badly-made seventies moussaka. While the actual aubergine – the palpable purple signature ingredient from said retro Greek bake – remains a relatively minor player in the western
I don’t often find myself longing for the industrial rigours of a factory when I’m baking in my kitchen at home. But as I patted the squiggle of fig paste with wet hands, corralling it into a rough sausage shape I thought ruefully of Charles Roser of Philadelphia and his patent for a fig roll
Last summer, we joined the sharp-elbowed ‘exodus’ that saw demand for places at independent schools increase by up to 30 per cent. We were guilty, according to the Observer, of creating ‘an even larger divide between affluent and disadvantaged pupils’. Not to be out (middle) classed, we went one better, enrolling our 15-year-old daughter as
Oxford and Cambridge have released figures showing how many offers they gave to pupils from various schools last year. We have combined the figures in this table below. It shows how well state grammars and sixth-form colleges now compete with Britain’s finest independent schools. Over the years, both universities have roughly doubled the proportion of