An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
There has always been something really rather magnificent about Chartwell, Winston Churchill’s beloved country home in the Weald of Kent. Sure, it’s no Blenheim or Chatsworth; in fact – say it quietly – from certain vantage points this redbrick Tudor house is verging on unremarkable. It’s even, at a pinch, conceivably the sort of place
How do you drink a £37,000 whisky? That’s what I’m wondering as I make my way to Speyside to try the Glenrothes estate’s latest release, the Glenrothes 51. I don’t mean physically; I assume they’re going to pour it into an appropriately expensive glass for me, and I haven’t yet met a whisky I don’t
I’m of the opinion that an overriding interest in ‘porn’ of any kind (I love the way we use the affectionate diminutive about something which ruins so many lives – like calling him ‘Fred’ West) isn’t especially good for the long-term happiness of people. But of course some sorts are worse than others. At the top, you’d
Newmarket trainer Harry Eustace is a master at targeting his best horses at big races. If there were those who did not know it before this year’s Royal Ascot, they certainly knew it afterwards. He landed two winners at the five-day meeting from his relatively-small string: Docklands (put up at 25-1 in this blog) at
I am not sure about the protocol for arguing with a royal essay, but at the possible cost of my head I will respectfully disagree with the Princess of Wales’s call for parents to ban smartphones from family mealtimes, written with Professor Robert Waldinger of Harvard Medical School. ‘Our smartphones, tablets and computers have become
For the past decade I’ve been in a toxic relationship. Sure, there were red flags – most of them on the dashboard – but it was love, or at least lust, on my part. My Land Rover seduced me with its size and strength, its rugged interior, how safe it made me feel when I
I am, like a strain of Withnail, in the John Lewis café by mistake. I meant to review the new Jamie Oliver café and cooking school on the third floor of John Lewis Oxford Street, but they have run out of food beyond pink cake. We have no choice but to go upwards to the
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
