An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
It feels, pleasingly, like a scene from a cerebral James Bond film, or perhaps an episode of Slow Horses. I am in a shadowy corner of a plush, buzzy Soho members’ bar. A mild December twilight is falling over London. Across the table from me sits an old acquaintance, a senior English barrister, greying, quietly handsome, in
Food courts appear to be everywhere in London at the moment and, for reasons too boring to go into here, I found myself at three of them across the capital in the space of four days last week. (Yes, before you ask, I am beginning to question my life choices as a result.) Not that
The demoralising decline in the office dress code is long established. Nowadays, stockbrokers and estate agents are the only workers reliably in a suit and tie. For everyone else it’s chinos and knitwear – on a good day. But welcome news is afoot: among a growing legion of men, especially young men, there’s a revival
At some point during this Advent season and the coming of Christmas, you will log on to your computer, and you will see somebody smugly opining that ‘actually Christmas is a pagan festival’. This person will not know anything about pagans, bar some fuzzy ideas about equinoxes (always with the equinoxes) and sacrifice. The reasons
Bring back brothels! It’s not your typical political slogan, but Marine Le Pen’s National Rally has launched a campaign to reopen and regulate France’s brothels for the benefit of sex workers. In an interview last week Jean-Philippe Tanguy, one of Le Pen’s senior MPs, said his party would table a bill to reopen the brothels
Whenever I hear the phrase ‘holiday of a lifetime’, I cringe. Same with ‘dream job’. You know they’re both going to disappoint. How can they not? Expectations have been allowed to build and build, way beyond the ability of reality to deliver. And even if your new job does make you happy for a while,
Sometime in mid-October, my husband and I begin our annual deliberation: should we host a village Christmas drinks party? The conversation is almost invariably instigated by my charming husband who, mindful of all the invitations we have shamefully yet to reciprocate, feels that we ‘ought to do it this year, at least’. Almost invariably, I am the voice of dissent. The arguments I give against are motivated
Back in the early 1990s, I was a teenage visitor to an array of dilapidated Victorian cow sheds masquerading as third and fourth division football grounds as I supported my team, Wrexham FC, on their travels. There were still many pre-Hillsborough fences in place, some of which (most notably in the away end at Crewe
Strong course form is always a major plus for horses contesting races at Cheltenham, whether it is at the Festival in March or any other meeting at the track. The trouble when evaluating the merits of the runners in the tomorrow’s big race, The Support the Hunt Family Fund December Gold Cup Handicap Chase, (1.50
Like Ebenezer Scrooge, we are all visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past. At this time of year, people and events that have gone before feel closer at hand – both the personal and the historical. One of the main ways we experience this is through our tradition of Christmas carols. A recent YouGov survey
‘Do you have any more shoes? I need as many as you can find for my daughters.’ I had just made my first sale on the second-hand marketplace Vinted and, already, here was a message from a new customer wanting more. Delighted, I scrambled around and managed to locate more than a dozen pairs of
‘On BBC 2 last Monday,’ noted the Sunday Telegraph’s TV critic Trevor Grove in February 1979, ‘the return of Fawlty Towers was immediately followed by a programme about faulty towers.’ He went on: This was odd, but on close examination turned out to be without significance. After all, what connection could there possibly be between
London has become the best place in the world to eat out. Of course, there are a thousand other cities with marvellous food, but for organic vitality, ethnic variety and nose-to-tail creativity, London is unmatched. New York and Paris are parochial by comparison. Two new books locate the source of this revolution of taste and
‘Dearly beloved friends and family, well, what a year it’s been! Where to start?! The big event for us – aside from nurturing our preternaturally gifted children and enjoying multiple holidays in exotic locations – was the “K” for Rupert in the King’s Birthday Honours list. Mingling with the Beckhams at Buck House after the
Alcoholics know that hell is denial, and there is plenty at Disneyland Paris in winter. This is a pleasure land risen from a field and everyone has after-party eyes, including the babies. The Disney hotels operate a predictable hierarchy: princesses at the top, Mexicans at the bottom. We, the Squeezed Middle, are at the Sequoia
Towards the end of the war, a young Guards officer met some Italian aristocrats. They had much in common. Robert Cecil was the heir to a marquessate. The Principe di Venosa’s daughter was married to an Italian marchese. Lifelong friendships have ensued down the recent generations. Nevertheless, the English family would be the first to
Our Santa Pants cocktail is one of our go-to holiday pours when hosting at this time of year. Made with our organic tequila and ginger beer, cranberry juice and fresh lime, it brings all the sparkle and cheer of the season. It is like Christmas in a glass. And while the world doesn’t need another
David Lammy’s proposal to do away with jury trials for all but the most serious offences has a consequence which hasn’t so far been aired in national debate. It could deprive me of the chance to bang up some evildoer. Whoops! Saying that probably won’t help me realise my ambition. I think it was the
When Columbus brought chilli back from the New World, the British were indifferent. Strange, really, when our taste for horseradish and mustard was keen, and when we later found a love for Marmite, stilton and Pickled Onion Monster Munch. A culture shaped by drizzle should have been an early adopter. Instead, that part of our
In Terence Rattigan’s 1948 play The Browning Version (filmed in 1951 starring Michael Redgrave), a public-school classics teacher called Arthur Crocker-Harris is appalled to discover that he is known to his pupils as ‘the Himmler of the Fifth’. According to the Guardian and the BBC, the Reform UK leader Nigel Farage was a fan of
With the average cost of a hotel room in London costing around £250 a night – and not showing any signs of getting lower, either – most might think that a stay in the capital is a rarefied activity. However, the news that the Zedwell group of budget-conscious hotels have opened a mega-budget establishment in
Like most freelance writers, I have a notepad full of jottings which come under the loose category of ‘Ideas I Probably Won’t Get Round To Doing As I Doubt Anyone Will Be Interested, They’re A Bit Rubbish Anyway And It Probably Wouldn’t Pay Much’. Around halfway down this list is a book provisionally entitled A
Every few years, an obituary for the Sloane Ranger appears. In 2015, the Telegraph proclaimed their death. In 2022, Peter York himself, co-author of The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook, wrote a devastating piece in the Oldie on the ‘End of the Sloane Age’. In it, he cast existential doubt on the species altogether: ‘By 2021, there seemed to be every possible shade of Sloane around in London. But were they really Sloanes at all? It looked
Once upon a time, post was delivered by a postman or postwoman. Over the past two centuries, this quaint initiative augmented a sense of community and invested early mornings with at least fleeting human contact. These days, decades after the slow demise of letter writing, a postman is now a rather recherché figure and, thanks
Westminster is filled not just with politicians, journalists and unemployed protestors, but with tourists. The data would suggest they are mainly Americans, French and Italians who come to see the monuments of central London, visit friends and family, and see how we’re faring after Brexit. They’re probably pretty worried when they see Westminster Bridge.
It’s that time of year when the cards landing on the doormat compete for the title of most fatuous. Will it be a reindeer spouting an obscenity, or a painterly robin perched on a frosted gatepost in snowy landscapes? Might it be a sanitised cartoon of a coach and four outside a snow-encrusted inn, bright
I met Ben Wallace for the first time the other day. He was pretty well the only minister who came out of Rishi Sunak’s government with his reputation enhanced. I had a humdinger hunt ball hangover from hell – quite appropriate, given that he is leading the campaign to save trail hunting. He, on the
Sam Thomas was a talented jockey – riding Denman to victory in the 2008 Cheltenham Gold Cup – but he is an even better trainer. His winning strike rate with his runners is phenomenal, and this doesn’t simply come from picking off low-quality races. Thomas is never happier than plundering decent prize money at the
The premium on a good tradesman remains extremely high. Is AI going to come and paint your walls or hang your pictures? No, and the unsung heroes of the AI age are still those who are good with their hands. Indeed OpenAI, the US industry giant, has urgently called for a massive ramping up in