An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
Gone Girl star and former Spectator contributor Rosamund Pike steps into the shoes of a con artist in Netflix’s new original, I Care A Lot. Just like serial killers, swindlers and hustlers have long held a fascination for film-makers and audiences alike – not least during the golden age of Hollywood. If you appreciate a
The news that cricket is returning to Channel 4 for the forthcoming series between India and England has been greeted with relief by cricket fans and absolute mystification by everyone else. In 2005, after the greatest Ashes series any of us will ever see, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) signed a long-term deal
Rarely has the public imagination been so injected with the notion of a drug as the way out. AstraZeneca, Pfizer, BioNtech; these names have seeped into our discourse with such ease that it seems hard to imagine the shadowy time before them when vaccines were something routinely administered to children and the elderly. A time
Now, in an anxious time, I have an SUV, and this is apt. There is something very comforting about an SUV if it’s yours (though less so if it isn’t). They are designed to dominate any landscape they can fit inside and, if that is a hollow fantasy of control it doesn’t feel like one
At the moment, there are two costume dramas that everyone is watching, namely Bridgerton and The Great. If you’re a fan of the former, then you’re in good company; it seems to be the Netflix streaming show du jour and millions are enjoying its soap operatic storylines. However, The Great is the real thing, if
If last year was the one where people started to notice the beauty of the wildlife right on the doorstep during lockdown, this should be the one where we start to get to know some of the best wild places in our own country, rather than presuming that all that is rare and interesting can
Are we there yet? No, not a child on a long drive (remember those?) but me every day of last week as I struggled to stay strong towards the closing stages of Dry January. Yes – finally we are there: the sunlit uplands of 1 February. Having spent the best part of a month dry, it’s fair
It can’t be easy, holding down a place in the Manchester United and England teams while also serving as de facto Deputy Prime Minister. But Marcus Rashford seems to be managing it. After the footballer’s high profile campaigns on free school meals and homelessness, we look at some of the other sports stars who swapped the pitch
The office, as we once knew it, is dead. Zoom has killed it; the digital genie is out of the lamp. What most of us didn’t realise before Covid – back in April 2020 – was that the closure of offices was final and that the daily commute may well be confined to the history books.
When I first heard the expression ‘cocaine hippo,’ my initial thoughts were that it must either be a reference to some sort of industrial scale drug mule operation, or that someone was being rude about Mitch McConnell. In fact, the origins of the cocaine hippo aren’t far from the former, but are even more outlandish
‘May you live in interesting times’. So the Chinese curse goes, and we undeniably live in interesting times, alas. But that doesn’t mean the past has lost any of its allure; indeed, quite the opposite. Right now, it’s just the tonic we need. If you found history dull at school, being merely an endless parade of
It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to remake a film that is already considered a peerless masterpiece. Netflix was roundly trashed for attempting it with Rebecca. ‘Superficial and slapdash’ was the New Yorker’s verdict (one of the kinder ones): ‘somewhere between a lukewarm retread of Hitchcock’s original and a glossy Instagram feed’. As for
The furore in the US over the rocketing shares of previously written off companies such as GameStop, Blackberry, AMC Entertainment and Macy’s (the ‘Reddit Revolt’) has introduced stock market trading terms to the general public, with some folks newly opining (with a patina of assumed knowledge) about ‘hedge funds’, ‘penny shares’, ‘junk bonds’ ‘short-selling’ and
‘Many’s the long night I’ve dreamed of cheese–toasted, mostly’: such is the power, the appeal of cheese on toast that when Ben Gunn is found, having been marooned on the eponymous island for three years, his longing for cheese on toast is one of his first statements. When I find myself considering the possibility of
On the one year anniversary of the arrival of the Covid virus in the UK, the government has introduced strict quarantine measures to stop the virus arriving again. The shock discovery that the virus mutates in other countries, as well as our own, has prompted the government to incarcerate travellers as they step off their
Pasta proficiency from Italy, noodle knowledge from Thailand, dumpling education from Georgia, taco tips from Mexico. We might have lost something in the intimacy, the sociability, the hands-on help when it comes to virtual cooking courses, but what we have gained is access to culinary masters from ardour the world, encompassing an extraordinary diversity of
Just how did Rishi Sunak think it would play when he thanked ‘mums everywhere’ for ‘juggling childcare and work’ in the Commons on Tuesday? Grateful thanks? A few more #dishyrishi plaudits and calls for him to be the next PM? The Chancellor’s vote of thanks for the nation’s mothers in response to a question about
As Mark Twain didn’t quite say, there are only three certain things in life: death, taxes and yet another government-backed bung for the housing market. The latest instalment is the 2021 to 2023 Help to Buy scheme, which carries on the theme of offering subsidised loans to first-time buyers – and only first-time buyers. Here’s
Analog motion, the brand behind the incredibly popular AM1+, are back with their latest model, the AMX Stealth. The company — so I’m told enthusiastically by their CEO — claims to have had a rethink, and wants to now ‘focus on making products that people love’. This surprised me, since their AM1+, reviewed last year,
In New York society, you’re nobody until somebody hates you. By which maxim Jared and Ivanka Kushner will be extremely high-profile indeed. Expelled from the White House after four years, President Trump’s shoe-designer turned special advisor daughter and her real-estate mogul husband find themselves in need of a job and, perhaps more pressingly, somewhere to
As the success of The Serpent and The Pembrokeshire Murders shows, many of us remain oddly fascinated by serial killers. But for all its popularity, the serial killer format can be tricky to get right – with many coming across as distasteful, clichéd or overly sensationalised. Here are eight recent shows – both dramas and documentaries
As culture and politics become ever more polarised, it’s tempting to retreat into the reassuring hum of our own echo chambers and positive feedback loops. But this reluctance to engage with ‘the other side’ can only corrode civil discourse. As regular readers of The Spectator will know, listening to opposing views in good faith allows
Where is England’s ‘valley of the kings’? You’d be forgiven for not knowing. The Anglo-Saxon monarchs buried there are, like much of the rest of that period, little more than a footnote in the crash course in history you get at school. When the Romans headed home in the fourth century, it’s often thought that
Is the Auschwitz museum suitable for children? I pondered that question on a visit accompanied by a plane load of secondary school teachers, organised by The Holocaust Educational Trust. The Holocaust was first included on the UK’s National Curriculum in 1991 and the Trust charters aeroplanes for a professional development course for UK teachers, taking them to Auschwitz and
Alas, the latest instalment of Bond has been pushed back yet again to the autumn of 2021. So what are die hard 007 fans to do for nine months while their patience is tested by Covid delays yet again? A tipple from Bond’s drinks cabinet might be just the thing to help the months pass. Although No Time to
Covid isn’t the only thing to have developed a dangerous strain in the UK; pessimism has also mutated and is on the rise. BBC news recently reported in horrified tones that the economy had contracted 2.6 per cent in November, barely mentioning the fact that this was largely down to the nation being in lockdown. I don’t know
How do you enjoy a socially distanced kiss on screen? Come to that, how do you film a socially distanced murder? And, between takes, can robots carry out COVID testing? These are just some of the perplexing issues that actors, writers and directors on film and TV sets have been grappling with of late. Hollywood
This February 14th might be the one night of Lockdown 3.0 when it’s no hardship to have to stay at home. Who really wants to go to a restaurant on Valentine’s Day, full of couples who never usually speak to one other? The food is invariably as naff as a Forever Friends foil balloon; everything
When’s the last time you wore a tie? Was it yesterday? Are you wearing one now? Somehow I doubt it. After all, why should you, sitting there in your home office or spare bedroom, or sitting room? Of course there was a time, if you’re a male reader, that you would have worn one every
