Spectator Life

There’s always part of me that dreads the start of a ski holiday. Not because of the skiing (I adore that), but because of the journey. As a child it meant 16 hours in the middle seat jammed between brother and sister as we argued over who felt most car-sick. Nowadays it means faffy transfers and days off eaten up by travel. This year, I decided to try something different: why not make the journey part of the holiday? Rather than undertaking a mammoth day’s travel, I would split it up with a break – a city break to be precise. Austria immediately sprang to mind. Excellent skiing – naturally – and smaller than France and Italy (with more cultural caché than Switzerland), so resorts are bunched close to great cities. I considered the options and settled on Salzburg.

At this time of year, it is pancakes and hot cross buns that are meant to enjoy a moment in the spotlight. I shall not begrudge them that. But my heart really belongs to the crumpet. They are the epitome of the simple pleasure, and an economical choice in a cost-of-living crisis. There may have been much alarm about reports at the weekend that prices have more than doubled in the past year – but a six-pack of crumpets (sourdough no less) can still be had for 39p at Lidl or 42p at Aldi. It’s 90p if you want to go luxe with Warburtons. Never was so much breakfast cheer available to so many for so little. And it seems I'm not alone in feeling this way – sales of crumpets in the UK are up 10 per cent in the past 12 months.

I never made it to the end of Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin, which won four Baftas on Sunday and has been tipped for further success at the Oscars next month. Inisherin is a fictional place that apparently translates as 'Island Ireland'. I know it’s probably churlish of me, but, being Irish, I was turned off by the film’s maudlin sentimentality mixed with self-obsession, self-harm, child abuse, wanton violence, dead pets and suicidal ideation. It bothered me that the film trotted out as many Oirish stereotypes as were in Gone With the Wind, released in 1939. Let me list some of the most obvious of these at the outset.

The most recent additions to London's restaurant scene have plenty to offer – from Palestinian culinary history on a plate and a slice of the American East Coast to a tasting menu with a twist and ramen worth writing home about. Here's Spectator Life's guide to the best new openings to try now – and three more to look out for later in the year. Four to book now Akub, Notting Hill It's funny how comfort food doesn’t need to be familiar to be instantly recognisable. You may not have grown up eating Palestinian chicken musakhan, but when you taste Chef Fadi Kattan’s version there’s sense of home that’s unmistakable. The chicken is stripped from the bone, seasoned liberally with citrussy sumac and pressed into a dome of shatteringly thin bread.

The secret of any great sitcom is the delicate balance of sit and com. Mess the 'sit' bit up and you lose the 'com'. Del Boy without Nelson Mandela House is as unthinkable as Alan Partridge without his 'grief hole' (aka the Linton Travel Tavern), which is why both of these characters eventually came unstuck. Sending the Grace Brothers' employees on holiday to Costa Plonka in the 1977 Are You Being Served? feature-length comedy fell flat because, devoid of petty department store politics, the characters had no reason to exist – thus audiences felt cheated.  Remove tightly written characters from their uncomfortable surroundings and viewers stop caring.

Eggs have become an expensive purchase recently, as you’ve no doubt noticed, with supermarket prices in the UK rising by as much as 85 per cent in the past year. Here in America, the cost of a dozen now averages out at $3.29, an improvement on the $4.25 of two months back, but still well north of the $1.50 many consumers are used to. Globally, more than 140 million chickens have been killed by avian flu and related culling since October 2021 – including 48 million across Europe and the UK. As a result, we find ourselves in one of those periodic cycles where major media outlets loudly debate the merits of backyard chicken flocks. To borrow an observation from The Godfather: these things gotta happen every five years or so.

There are so many ways to express love in French that it's easy to make faux pas. My faux pas over the five decades I've been speaking French are legend – at least in the family. Best to keep them there. Most people know that ‘Je vous aime’ means ‘I love you’ and covers one or more people. If you say ‘Je t'aime’, the informal expression of love for one person, you've got to be careful. Especially in today's world where ‘hooking up’ is more common than rabbits breeding.  We speak a lot of Franglais in our family – we're creative and lazy when it comes to language. With bilingual grandchildren it’s inevitable. A few years back, one grandson came up with ‘On y go’ for ‘Allons-y’. We all prefer his version.

The Burgh Island Hotel lives on a tidal island in a deserted part of south Devon. The directions for visiting are very detailed. You drive along the deserted country road, and at a certain point – just before you lose mobile telephone reception – you must stop to telephone the hotel, and they tell you where to park your car on the mainland, and they will send the car across the beach and meet you in Bigbury-on-Sea. You drive on and eventually you see a brightly lit Art Deco palace under a cliff. It was built by a filmmaker called Archibald Nettlefold (Human Desires, The Hellcat), the heir to an engineering fortune. I think he was a very odd man. There is very little information about him, but he left this hotel, and there is probably an old monastery underneath it.

The romcom genre has a decidedly mixed record, often becoming a lazy way for stars to cash in on their popularity – with less than loveable results. Witness the career of Matthew McConaughey, which could have been described as ‘Death by romcom’ (Failure to Launch, The Wedding Planner, Fool’s Gold etc) until his 2011 comeback with Killer Joe. Gerard Butler also tried his hand with a slew of mediocre pictures (Playing for Keeps, The Bounty Hunter, The Ugly Truth etc), before reverting to action flicks. But once in a while, the chemistry is just right and everything falls into place. Here’s my pick of ten alternative romantic comedies that avoid the saccharine pitfalls that often blight the field. You People (2023) – Netflix https://www.youtube.com/watch?