Southampton, Long Island These are peripatetic times for the poor little Greek boy, up to the Hamptons for some sun-seeking among Wasp types, and then down to the nation’s capital for the memorial service of that wonderful humorist P.J. O’Rourke. By all means take the following with a grain of salt, but even 800 million
‘But you look so well!’ How many times have I heard that lately. Kindly meant by most, but for a few it’s outrageous, after all they have heard or read about my health, and they feel cheated of the mushrooms growing out of the side of my head that they’d been hoping for. Either way
If I could ban one question ever being asked of me again it would be: ‘Are you on WhatsApp?’ I don’t know how many times I’ve answered this in the negative, 57,983 times at least, but the question just never stops being asked. Nobody wants to use even a fraction of a penny of the
One of the perils of being a recipe writer is that people regularly ask me why I bother making things from scratch, because ‘You can buy that in the supermarket’. Now, let’s put aside the obvious question – do they think I’m not aware of supermarkets? – and engage with the issue. I love supermarket
For Christmas Caroline bought me a ‘Deluxe Gift Experience’ at Chapel Down, the UK’s leading winery. I say ‘me’, but it was actually a present for her too since it was a ‘couples’ package. For £490 we got a private tour of the vineyard, a wine–tasting session, dinner for two in the Chapel Down restaurant,
Q. As a mildly famous professional cook, I agreed to judge a children’s cake-baking competition at the summer fête of the tiny village I have just moved to. Subsequent conversations have worried me as I have learnt that the parents of these under-tens are taking the competition very seriously. It’s clear that the awarding of
It was an extraordinary weekend. The various spectacles had something for all tastes: pageantry on Horse Guards; solemnity in St Paul’s; the street party of all street parties on the Mall. And there was also food for thought. What does this tell us about the monarchy, and about Britain? I discussed it with a French
Turkey has told the UN it wants to be called Türkiye. Even when it is written in capitals, it would still like the little dot over the i, thank you, as İ. Exports will now bear the label ‘Made in Türkiye’ instead of ‘Made in Turkey’. Turkey is of course a name for a delicious
In summer, when light’s fled, narcotic scents are poured out from ten thousand blooms; we doze with shut eyes but ears which only half-close, immured by sleep of a strange transparence. Soft shadows and the stars subtler, less bright; vague radiance tints that eternal hall, and the sweet pale dawn, awaiting her call, seems
for Gail McConnell I How much of what we scribble down survives – Sappho’s miraculous bits and pieces, Dialect words for kitchen utensils, See-through dresses, moonbeams – somebody At a busy street corner advising Where to shop for chickpeas and mascara. II Let blank spaces between parentheses Be annotated thus by me and
‘It is vital that we see a return to face-to-face meetings to foster the dynamic collaboration that creates breakthrough ideas.’ All true, I’m sure. But what you’re describing here isn’t an office: it’s a pub. The same goes for ‘team-bonding’. Placing a lot of people in an open-plan office doesn’t really form a close-knit team
In the absence on her Platinum Jubilee of Her Majesty, such an avid Derby attender in the past, and following the death just days before of the legendary Lester Piggott, it could have been a low-key, insignificant Derby. Instead, a truly impressive victory for the favourite, Desert Crown, turned it into a different kind of
