An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
Christmas is coming – but if the geese are getting fat, the turkeys aren’t terribly happy, cooped up indoors on account of avian flu. Around half of the free-range birds produced for Christmas in the UK have been culled or died due to the illness, according to the British Poultry Council – and for those
Finding Cambridge’s ugly side isn’t easy, but a walking tour of the city promises to show you it. Uncomfortable Cambridge, which bills itself as the ‘perfect introductory tour’ of the city, suggests tourists are wrong to think this is a place of beauty. Rather, Cambridge is a place we should be ashamed of – or
From the moment Elon Musk suggested buying Twitter, users began threatening to leave – and the Tesla kingpin’s erratic behaviour since he took over hasn’t exactly helped his case, with thousands of workers laid off and hundreds more resigning. The MIT Technology Review estimates that more than a million Twitter users have jumped ship since
If you had to choose an obvious place to look for clues about what will happen in the coming year, it probably wouldn’t be the lush, green, watery tropic wilderness of Mount Borradaile, West Arnhemland, in the Northern Territory, Australia, hard by the sizzling blue reaches of the Arafura Sea. For a start, this lost,
The Coral Welsh Grand National is my favourite jumps race of the whole season, largely because I have enjoyed a good record in the race over the years. You need a strong stayer, a good jumper and a well-handicapped horse to win the race. Usually, you want a mud-lover too but that’s not guaranteed this time around because of the lack of
The faded splendour of 1980s Margate is the backdrop for Sam Mendes’s new film Empire of Light, starring Olivia Colman and Colin Firth. Coming to UK cinemas on 9 January, it’s about a romance in the north Kent seaside town and the revival of a striking 1930s cinema with a distinctive brick ‘fin’ tower. Renamed
Though I love words, I don’t generally get on other people’s cases about them as I don’t expect everyone to have my almost parasexual attachment to the English language. I’ve suffered silently through the flagrant misuse of ‘epic’ and ‘awesome‘ and numerous moronic reference to food as ‘orgasmic’ and ‘artisanal’ featuring ‘curated table-scapes’. If you’re
I love a good cookbook. In an age where endless variations on any recipe are no more than a few clicks away on the internet, there is still a certain magic to buying, or receiving, a physical, curated collection. Cookbooks can teach you something in a way that individual online recipes can’t. Whether exploring a
‘This dish is very you,’ my husband says, as I serve up 650g of melted, boozy cheese to the two of us for a weekday lunch, alongside a teetering pile of bread cubes. He is, I’m afraid, right: it really is my favourite kind of eating. There’s nothing better than a communal pot in the
In early 2020 my family and I were due to fly home from visiting a friend in Oman when the plane encountered a technical problem. We returned to departures and were rebooked on to a flight the following day. British Airways then sent us to a very decent hotel, where we were given rooms and
Mriya lives at the end of Old Brompton Road where South Kensington turns into Earl’s Court and, as if by some alchemy, becomes interesting. It is a Ukrainian restaurant, but something more touching too: a memorial and a retreat. It opened in August, in the sixth month of Putin’s war. Twelve of its 15 staff
Canapés are one of life’s delights and surprises – surprises because drinks party invitations usually give nothing away. Perhaps because ‘nibbles’ is such a hideous word, or perhaps just because of invitation convention, hosts tend simply to put ‘Drinks, 6.30 to 8.30’ on the Paperless Post card. So you arrive with no idea whether you’re
No disrespect to the hotel industry: staying in a hotel room, especially when there is someone nice with you, can be exciting and sexy. Staying in a hotel room on your own, though, can be exceedingly sad, boring and unsexy. Unfortunately, I’ve experienced more of the latter type of hotel stopover (a squalid hotel room
Ferrets at Buckingham Palace, swearing at Wimbledon and the real-life incident that inspired Del Boy’s fall through the bar – it can only mean that our trivia tour of London’s postcode areas has reached SW…
Once again estate agents have been named among the least-trustworthy people in Britain, rated in the public consciousness somewhere between politicians and journalists (ouch). Less than a third of people believe agents tell the truth, according to the annual Veracity Index from market research firm Ipsos Mori, which tracks consumer trust in particular professions – less
Of all the money we’ve spent on our barn conversion since we moved in 13 years ago, the wood-burner we installed in our living room trumps bathrooms, oak flooring and even a beautiful garden room extension as our best investment. At £2,000, the neat cast-iron stove was worth every penny – and never more so
Christmas shopping has its challenges at the best of times. Oxford Street crowds and high street tat; Black Friday generating more excitement than a White Christmas. And this year will, for many, be more challenging than ever. Who needs the Grinch when the cost-of-living monster threatens to steal Christmas? When looking to keep down the
What difference does the internet make? Critics blame it for a range of ills, from social collapse and child abuse to obesity. So shouldn’t we greet with some caution and even sadness the recent announcement that Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite broadband is to reach tiny Pitcairn Island in the Pacific Ocean, home to the handful
December is here and it’s going to be murder out there from now until the new year. Spectactor Life writers explain how to get through it – from swerving bores and turning down invitations to lining your stomach and crashing with panache… Swerve bores Celia Walden When trying to escape the party bore, pick an
As the end of term approaches parents may be wondering what to buy their child’s teacher for Christmas. It’s the season of goodwill, after all. It’s also a golden opportunity to win a way to Sir or Miss’s heart, so they’ll continue to take good care of little Olivia or Oliver in the new year.
This week, in homes across the land, there is one guarantee: somewhere, someone will be watching one of the Indiana Jones films, and it’ll likely be the first or the third in the series. Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade are little less than perfect seasonal comfort food: witty, exciting, stuffed full of indelible
I’m bad at Christmas. I hate turkey, wrapping presents and the idea of forced, planned fun. My family – mostly – shares the same view. Extra shifts are picked up and presents are sent with time to spare to avoid actually having to see each other. Fortunately, even if I’m no fan of Christmas itself,
Welcome one and all to this new weekly column on horse racing. The industry is facing some challenging times – low prize money, small fields, rising costs for trainers/owners, a lack of cohesive leadership and more. But it is not all doom and gloom and Penworthy – the name derives from a character in P.G.
Prior to kick-off, Fifa declared the World Cup in Qatar to be ‘a fully carbon-neutral event’, triggering enough spluttering, snorting and involuntary cackles to feed an entire wind farm. Seven giant brand-new stadiums, open-air air-conditioning in the desert, goodness knows how many long-haul flights in and out, and an armada of cruise ships to store
The British playwright Somerset Maugham once said that ‘to eat well in England you should eat breakfast three times a day’. I think he meant it as a jibe, but we should take it as a compliment. Our breakfast is as powerfully evocative of England as any part of our cultural heritage. In The Lion
Ambling through the Christkindlmarkt, Munich’s biggest Christmas market, feeling distinctly tipsy after my third (or maybe my fourth?) mug of Glühwein, I experienced a strange sensation, something I hadn’t felt in ages. For the first time in a long while, I realised I was feeling rather festive. Back in Britain, I’m the archetypal Christmas grouch –
It’s getting hard to escape low emission zones. In Birmingham, Oxford and Bristol – and pretty soon the whole of London – unless your vehicle is squeaky clean, you are going to have to pay every day that you drive. London–based readers probably know by now of Transport for London’s plans to expand its £12.50-a-day
If you think your life is stressful it’s good to reflect on what poor René Artois went through each week in ’Allo ’Allo!, the 1980s BBC sitcom set during the German occupation of France. RAF pilots hidden in his mother-in-law’s cupboard upstairs, German officers in the café downstairs, Herr Otto Flick of the Gestapo likely
Most football fans have had their attention riveted on Qatar for the past couple of weeks, but for those of us who support Queens Park Rangers there’s been an unwelcome distraction at home. Our manager Michael Beale, who’s only been in charge for 21 league games, announced on Monday that he’s leaving us for Rangers,