An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
So we won’t be watching the Boat Race next year on the BBC, but on Channel 4. Never again will we hear the likes of John Snagge commentating on the fogbound 1949 race: ‘I can’t see who’s in the lead but it’s either Oxford or Cambridge.’ It’s a funny thing the Boat Race: an eccentric
Back in the days when politicians were real flesh and blood rather than social media pushovers, I sat down with the then-chancellor Kenneth Clarke for a BBC interview. ‘Live or pre-record, Robin?’ he asked as we were mic’d up. I have long relished his reply when I confirmed it was the latter: ‘Pity. I always
The State of California v. OJ Simpson, Oscar Wilde v. the Marquess of Queensberry, Galileo before the Inquisition… now our age will be able to add its own entry to the annals of famed legal proceedings. Because Paddington is suing Spitting Image. It is the barmiest news story of late against fierce competition. The Telegraph
Please, make it stop. No sooner had I dug out my Barbour for the wet and windy winter months than I saw another of the brand’s distressing collaborations, this time with fashion designer Sir Paul Smith. Sir Paul, luvvie fashion grandee and founder of the eponymous line that began as a Nottingham-based shirt outfit in
As we all know, only the best friends can deliver bad personal news. And so it was for me about six months ago, over a seafood lunch, that one of my closest pals gave me the ghastly tidings. My friend had just stayed in my small but fabulously located London flat for a fortnight, while
When I found out about the death of Dame Jilly Cooper while waiting for a train, I said, out loud, ‘Oh no!’ with such vehemence that several of the commuters around me shuffled away, clearly frightened by their proximity to a madman. Cooper’s death at the age of 88 – a good innings, but also
Time was, posting anything negative about Taylor Swift would be personally dangerous, given the famous passion, obsessiveness and sheer numbers of the Swiftie fandom. In recent years, the great and the good have also piled into Swiftiedom. Her 2024 Eras tour was a must-attend photo opp for royals, senators and prime ministers’ wives (recall Victoria
There’s good reason oak leaves have long been incorporated into German military decorations like the Iron Cross. The oak tree is the tree of Germany – its leaves standing for strength, courage and tradition – something I witnessed while hiking from Berlin to Erfurt through the former communist lands of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik. Traversing
As a woman in my early thirties, it is my God-given right – arguably my duty – to have an opinion when Taylor Swift releases an album. And it’s a role that I’ve always performed without compunction. But on this occasion – the release of album 12, The Life of a Showgirl, my ability to get
The mood music around pubs lately has felt as if it were being played by the band on RMS Titanic while the industry goes down with the loss of all hands. Even before the body blow of the pandemic, people were generally drinking less, and more of what they did drink was from supermarkets. Then the
Most of the time cheating is frowned upon, but a quarter of all driving tests in Britain are now taken in automatic cars and apparently that’s fine. The trend is only set to continue, too, as more and more people pretend to care about the environment to take advantage of this loophole and obtain a
The venerable magazine GQ, or Gentlemen’s Quarterly, has issued some 125 diktats about what it takes to be a gentleman in this world of Zoom calls and equality. GQ is, however, no longer quarterly, and some might say it hasn’t been read by gentlemen for some time. Ought we, then, to listen to it? Many of its ‘expert’ pronouncements
Is there a more obnoxious introduction in 21st-century Britain than the words ‘I’m a runner’? ‘I’m a runner,’ followed by the gulp of a protein shake or (shudder) the announcement of a 5k personal best. ‘I’m a runner,’ from a wheezing wannabe in carbon-plated trainers: ‘The shoes Kelvin Kiptum wore when he broke the marathon world
My colleague seemed surprised that I replied ‘no’ when asked if I was sad at the news that G-A-Y bar – a staple of Soho for decades – was closing. A more intelligent answer would be that the closure of any ‘gay space’ is sad, but the truth is this is not somewhere that many
If you are a horse racing fan but have never been to Longchamp racecourse to watch the Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, rectify that at some point and enjoy a long weekend in Paris at the same time. The course, set on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne, is delightful, the crowds for
I was at a party recently where a self-important woman looked disdainfully at my proffered hand before limply shaking it as if it were a wet dishcloth crawling with E. coli. After briefly touching my fingers, her lip curled as she demanded to know who I was and what I did for a living. It
Almost anywhere you go in Cardigan Bay – that bite out of West Wales which runs a hundred miles along the Irish Sea – the spirit of Dylan Thomas seems to go with you. The Swansea-born poet may only have lived in Cardiganshire intermittently, fleeing the bohemian bedlam of Fitzrovia during the second world war,
There are a handful of elements that make me nervous about tackling particular classic recipes. First, if it’s a dish that I didn’t grow up with and can’t speak to personally; secondly, if it’s a dish that a lot of other people did grow up with, and feel very strongly about. Thirdly, if it requires
It smells, very badly. And even after decades of complaints, it seems Parisians still consider themselves too chic to pick up after their dogs. Taxis are a nightmare. The traffic makes central London seem like a village in Ireland. Uber drivers park as far away as possible from the designated pick-up point, fail to answer
The long-awaited sequel to the documentary (or ‘rockumentary’) Spinal Tap, which told the story of a failing British rock band’s disastrous American tour, opened this month to decidedly mixed reviews. Robbie Collin in the Daily Telegraph advised us to dial down our expectations to -11 (ho ho) for The End Continues, which sees the band
I used to think I wasn’t attractive enough to drive a Ferrari. I still think that, but you reach an age, like Lester Burnham in American Beauty, when you don’t care any more, and in that despair you can pull off anything. I am now exactly that age: the same age as the man driving
For a long time it was handy dinner party fact that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One (2010) briefly filmed at my late grandparents’ house, and appeared as Hermione Granger’s house in the film. Even this required extensive exposure of my grandparents to Warner Brothers’ lawyers, the film crew and, of course, to
Goodness, isn’t there something a bit hoary about the notion that members of the Metropolitan Police may have to declare if they’re Freemasons? The idea has come up recently in the context of discussion on ‘declarable associations’ – those organisations you’re obliged to admit to belonging to if you’re a London copper. A spokesman for
Recently I’ve been bombarded with emails from people who apparently are keen to promote or market one or other of my children’s books. A few appear to have actually read a book of mine and to know the name of the characters, others clearly haven’t. What they all have in common is that the book
The name can’t help but invite mockery. When Sainsbury’s launched its ‘Taste the Difference’ range 25 years ago this autumn, I wasn’t alone in noting that the phrase almost begged for a question mark at the end. But the British public are (mostly) more concerned with dinner than with sarcasm. The Taste the Difference range
It’s relatively common, I find, when opening a newly purchased second-hand book for the first time, for something to fall from its pages. Most likely this will be a branded bookmark or printed stocklisting paper from the dealer who sold it. But it’s not unusual to find something more interesting, something belonging to the book’s
The thing that really fascinates me about solitude is the need to talk about it. The contradiction seems lost on people. ‘I must tell you about the silent retreat I’ve just been on.’ ‘It was so nice to just sit with my thoughts for a bit.’ Solitude is the new wild swimming: if you don’t talk about it,
I’m driving a dirt road in the wilds of central Sardinia. And I mean what I say by ‘wilds’. This rugged region in the sunburned Supramonte mountains was called ‘Barbagia’ by Cicero – i.e. ‘land of the barbarians’ – as even the Romans never quite managed to subdue it. Centuries later it became famous for
Early in 2020, inquiries for our speech-writing services were arriving in their droves. From Westminster to Washington, weddings to wine tastings, people needed our help. We cancelled our weekends and prepared for life without a mortgage. Covid gave us our weekends back. And all the other days. Yet when parties and events returned, a significant
