An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
If you want to feel scruffy, head to Seville, the outrageously attractive capital city of southern Spain’s Andalucia region. It’s not just the abundant exquisite architecture – the city has one of the largest historic ‘old towns’ in Europe, with every bar, café and restaurant looking tiptop – but also the sartorial elegance that abounds
The Last of Us may be remembered as the point when Hollywood’s approach to video game adaptations finally changed. In this, it’s as significant a creative development as Jon Favreau’s Iron Man was in creating a new formula for Marvel superhero movies. The series, which began on Sky Atlantic last week, is set 20 years after a
Irish trainer John ‘Shark’ Hanlon recently asked whether he was mad to think his horse Hewick could win the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup. Since the colourful Irishman has never had a runner in the Gold Cup and since the horse in question cost around £800, there was almost certainly a resounding reply from both sides
Gina Lollobrigida, who died this week at the age of 95, was known in the 1950s and thereafter for the kind of beauty which drove Italian men to self-destruction; and for performances in films which seemed to define a scrappy, energetic, self-possessed Italian womanhood. During her career, ‘La Lollo’ sculpted, took photographs, did a little journalism
If anyone knows how to do winter, it’s the Scandinavians. The concept of snuggling up with a steaming mug of something caffeinated and a buttery pastry is at the heart of their culture, from the Danish concept of hygge (cosiness – often involving sugar and carbs) to the Swedish ritual of fika (taking time for
The results are in and nature (i.e. God) wins again. A Bureau of Labour Statistics survey in the US has found that lumberjacks and farmers are the happiest, least stressed and most fulfilled workers, further proving that everything we need to be joyful and satisfied in this life is not man-made. Nor does it have
I always feel pulled toward citrus at the start of the year. Initially it was subconscious: I’d just find myself in the kitchen making a lemon drizzle cake. But now I actively plan my citrusy January. As Christmas recedes, I make notes of recipes that I’m craving, and almost all of them call for a
Scott’s, Richmond, is a fish, champagne and oyster bar, and a new branch of Scott’s, Mayfair. The original Scott’s was part of what became the Trocadero Centre. (Ian Fleming was a regular. He would take captured U-boat officers there to get them drunk and chatty. James Bond visited too.) It moved to Mount Street and
Something is happening here, and you do know what it is, don’t you Mr Jones? Stargazers – and even some more grounded folk – reckon it’s written in the heavens: that the team Eddie Jones was supposed to have been coaching will meet the team he will be coaching in the rugby world cup final
There is a lot to like about Diane Purkiss’s English Food. It’s a hefty thing, packed full of titbits to trot out down the pub, but also a serious consideration of how English food has changed over time, and of the perils of assuming there has ever been a golden age, or even a very
‘Pitiful.’ That’s the verdict of Damian Green MP, acting chair of the digital, culture, media and sport committee, on the payouts that streaming companies such as Spotify and Apple Music provide to musicians. An update to the group’s Economics of Music Streaming report, published on Friday, calls on the government to take a ‘proactive strategic
Over the past two generations, those with property in the UK have been unwittingly transformed from owners to investors. This makes no sense, and has led to a lot of baby boomers feeling smug and clever when in reality they’ve just been lucky. However, the effect has been lasting and means property owners are now
At the end of the Frasier theme song, its star Kelsey Grammer always sang the words: ‘Frasier has left the building!’ And when the show finished in 2004, it felt as if Frasier, Niles, Daphne, Martin, Roz and the rest had indeed left the building. In truth, the popular programme did not end in glory. Ever since Niles
Sirloin, rump, tomahawk, fillet, rib-eye. However it comes, is there any food that gets salivated over more than steak? Restaurant reviewers compete to outdo one another with their florid descriptions of the sensual delights of tucking into a particularly prime example. But then steak comes loaded with far more than a dollop of garlic butter
It’s every skier’s holiday nightmare. You turn up to the slopes and, instead of fresh white powder, you’re greeted by a mass of sludge slowly liquefying into green-brown mud. The Alps have had a torrid season, with higher-than-average temperatures and heavy rain forcing many resorts to close, sometimes within weeks of opening. For long stretches
One initially overlooked aspect of Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s ill-fated mini-Budget was the plan to restore VAT-free shopping for tourists. The scheme, which allowed non-EU visitors to claim back 20 per cent on their purchases, was scrapped in 2020 by then chancellor Rishi Sunak but looked set for a comeback. This was excellent news
Are you suffering from SMS? Smart meter stress, that is. When we decided recently to accept our energy provider’s offer to install a smart meter, I had no clue how anxiety-inducing the digital display on the little black monitor could be. Smart meters tell us (and our suppliers) how much energy we’re using, minute by minute. In theory they make life easier,
The pundits called it long ago: Avatar 2: The Way of Water was going to be a flop. They did allow that betting against the so-called ‘king of the world’ James Cameron was rash – after all, Titanic and the first Avatar film overcame almost hysterically negative buzz in order to become box office behemoths. But there were too many reasons
‘New year, new you’, or so they say. And as sure as eggs is eggs (particularly for the high protein advocates), new year’s resolutions for many will have revolved around the quest for a new body. I use the word ‘body’ specifically because our prevailing culture keeps finding new and alarming ways to reduce us
I love pasta bake more than is reasonable: I would struggle to name a dish that brings the same level of comfort even from first thought. From the moment I consider making one, I am already reassured: confident in the knowledge that it is a dish which will deliver everything that is required for culinary
Ground conditions at both Warwick and Kempton Park are likely to decide the winners of the two big weekend handicaps tomorrow. A month ago, clerks of the course and groundsmen up and down the country feared it might never rain again. Now it seems to pour almost every day and, as a result, it is
The Menu is a horror film about fine dining that revolves around a psychotic head chef (Ralph Fiennes) who runs a destination restaurant on an American island. The island is uninhabited apart from the chef and his staff, who pluck it for the most refined marine treats to serve the obnoxious clientele on a nightly
Hyperbole in estate agents’ brochures isn’t unusual – but when it comes to a write-up for Great Tangley Manor, which has gone on the market for £8.95 million, overkill is almost impossible. Believed to be the UK’s oldest continuously inhabited property – its Saxon foundations date from 1016 – the Grade I-listed moated manor house, in
The revelation that Prince Willy allegedly broke Prince Harold’s necklace in a fight shows how unshockable we’ve become when it comes to Harry and Meghan drama. Because my main question after this particular episode isn’t about press standards or dysfunction in the royal family – it’s ‘why was he wearing a necklace?’. When I was a child, my
As a millennial who spends a lot of time on social media, I assumed I was desensitised to adverts. I thought I was ad-blind, until I started being bombarded with posts asking me to donate my eggs. It was a post from the London Egg Bank which first caught my eye, offering a ‘freeze and
If you read only the title of Charlie Taverner’s book Street Food you could be forgiven for assuming it was an exploration of the stalls that line the trendier streets of our cities, offering bibimbap and bao, jerk chicken and jian bing. But the author’s focus predates brightly coloured gazebo hoardings and polystyrene packaging and
As I digest the news that Kiwi are ceasing the sale of its shoe polish in the UK, due to plummeting demand in the age of trainers, I find myself in mourning chiefly for the tin. What will the ritual of shoe-polishing feel like when it no longer starts with the thumb-against-index-finger rub of the
Europe’s ‘winter heatwave’ has left large parts of the Alps and Pyrenees bereft of snow over the past fortnight, causing grassy pistes and cancelled ski holidays. So where to go for a guaranteed winter wonderland? Well, Tromsø in Norway is 350km north of the Arctic Circle, so reliably snowy. In an average winter, it sees
In his memoir Spare, Prince Harry has revealed he ‘enhanced his calm’ during the birth of his son Archie in 2019 by taking ‘several slow, penetrating hits’ of the canister of laughing gas in his wife Meghan’s hospital room. He described how when a nurse returned and tried to give Meghan a dose for pain relief, there