Southampton, Long Island They’ve honed the skill of attracting attention by building some of the largest and ugliest houses this side of the Russian-owned Riviera ones, yet the luminous little village still retains signs of a bygone civilised era. A few grand houses built a long time ago are proof that not all Americans are
The mouse has been eating his way through the medicine cabinet to the extent that I am really quite frightened of confronting him. I opened the cupboard above the sink to find an entire blister pack of paracetamol, several sachets of Solpadeine and some 400mg ibuprofen nibbled away. Also scoffed were two packs of antihistamine,
Laikipia The principal of the local polytechnic was waiting for me in the kitchen. Frequently in the kitchen there is a chief or a surveyor, or geese, or the cats Omar and Bernini, the dogs Jock, Sasi and Potatoes, foundling lambs or calves gambolling about hoping for milk, or stockmen with news of a sick
I’m pretty easygoing when it comes to most aspects of cooking. I don’t think there’s much to be gained from being dogmatic or dictatorial. It’s just supper, at the end of the day. There are, as they say, many ways to skin a rabbit. And cooking is supposed to be about joy; it’s not an
Last month I went to Lord Frost’s superb lecture for the Global Warming Policy Foundation about the harm net zero will do to the British economy. He pointed out that the government is completely unrealistic about the economic cost of the policy, which former energy minister Chris Skidmore claimed last year could boost GDP by
If you couldn’t watch the Europa League final between Sevilla and Roma, then you should count yourself fortunate. It was a nasty, bitter and forgettable excursion, blighted by fouls and time-wasting, that should make anyone connected with it ashamed, apart from the doughty English referee Anthony Taylor, who had a fairly good game. But for
Q. I spent day two of the Lord’s Test Match last week in the Grandstand. Shortly after play began, the adjacent seats were occupied. He, largely silent, was innocuous. She, of unpleasingly shrill-toned voice, wittered on inanely at high volume, barely pausing for breath, until they left late on. Destined to sit next to someone
The restaurant 2 Fore Street lives on Mousehole harbour, near gift shops: the post office and general store have closed, leaving a glut of blankets and ice cream, the remnants of Cornish drama. It’s a truism that Mousehole is hollowed out – tourism changes a place, and no one knows that better than Mousehole. Eating
‘I know the antidote to toxicity,’ my husband shouted, waving a copy of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, even though there was nobody to shout down. Toxicity has become a fashionable word, particularly since the resignation of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister. Toxic is to poisonous what erotic is to sexual: an elevated term. Over
(after Mallarmé) Those zeroes, foam, that clear line echoes but a glass’s rim as, far away, there plunge slim sirens into sea-blue wine; we voyage, O my diverse friends, I upright on the stern whilst you, at the sharp prow, turn brows to lightning, tides, winters. A fine intoxication compels me to raise this toast,
In order to seeRilke closed his eyesMonique Saint Hélier said.In order to speak he employedthe costly services of silence.How illness surprised them alllying in wait in dark hedgerows.When death stepped into the roada slender white figure, a strangerasking for directions to the community.Then some form that thrives unseenand is only imagined, changes directionfrom that place
Sure, which serious wannabe poet hasn’t? I mean,that Keatsian/Chattertonian quit-while-you’re-aheadvibe is a persistent buzz and trope — think Dean,Hendrix, Joplin or Jim — but let’s face it, once dead that’s that, it won’t matter how perfect a cadaveryou bequeath to the world since worms and fireare immune to beauty so, these days, no, I’d ratherbe
