Spectator Life

Not only are the supermarkets running out of bread, bananas and bog roll, the wine is taking a pounding too. And if you want anything delivered, well, good luck with that. Early May is probably the soonest you’ll get a slot. Let us wine lovers thank heavens, then, that the independents are showing true Blitz spirit and are delivering across the UK every day during these strange times. Tom Ashworth of Yapp Bros tells me that they’re up 200 per cent on this week last year and are busier in the warehouse than they were at Christmas.

I’ve spent the last few days wondering whether it is frivolous to give you a cake recipe at a time like this. But I’ve finally come to the conclusion that, actually, it’s probably more important than ever. Baking is a source of comfort and joy, both for those doing the baking, and for the recipients, and to willfully lose something like that when we face uncertainty and challenges, when many of our other sources of comfort and joy have been at least temporarily restricted, is sad. Having a simple cake recipe up your sleeve is reassuring – a taste of normality. I’ve gone for a cake which relies on store cupboard staples, one which you might recognise from school dinners: raspberry and coconut traybake.

We live in interesting times. Given the recent government guidance on not leaving the house for unnecessary reasons, the run on supermarkets, the advice to avoid restaurants and pubs, we’re all looking at food preparation rather differently. Whether you are quarantined because you’re symptomatic, self-isolating because you’re vulnerable, or social distancing to protect those who are at high risk, there are ways to inject flavour and interest without having every possible ingredient or convenience at our fingertips. This is not the reboot of Ready Steady Cook we were all hoping for, but with so few things within our control, being able to handle ingredients and turn them into something wonderful is reassuring and hopeful.

The coronavirus lockdown means we’re under strict orders from the Prime Minister not to head down to our local for a pint and to avoid social get togethers wherever possible. So why not start a new trend and share a digital drink with your friends? Here’s how to pull it off: 1. Get online Google Hangouts is great for group video calls, as is Zoom (free for the first 45 minutes) or, if you have access to it through work, Microsoft Teams. New app Houseparty is also a popular choice with young people and has been picking up users very quickly since lockdown was announced. Simply agree a time, send out the invites and off you go.

From serious sci-fi to spoofs in space, here are films and TV to watch on Netflix if you’re after some futuristic entertainment… Annihilation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89OP78l9oF0 One of Netflix’s in-house productions, Annihilation sees Natalie Portman play a biologist leading a rescue mission into a mysterious zone on the US coastland known as The Shimmer. It’s an area hit by a meteorite that is expanding and doing bizarre stuff to any living things that come into its orbit. What unfolds is a tense and imaginative sci-fi adventure that chucks plenty of other genres and film references into the mix.

Gomorrah (Sky) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4QORgagblU Life in the Naples Mafia (the Camorra) is nasty, brutish, short – and nothing like Goodfellas. Even when you’ve made your millions from the drugs trade, there’s nothing to spend it on save your fleet of armoured 4 x 4s and your gilded cage in some bleak, rundown suburb which it’s never safe to leave because you’ll only end up arrested or shot. Spoiler alert: almost everyone dies over the four seasons of this mesmerisingly bleak, moodily soundtracked, fabulously compulsive drama.

I was at a straight forward shooting weekend up in North Yorkshire in early January. During elevenses, passions around Brexit and the general election were fiery even before the sloe gin had kicked in. From the estate owner to the gamekeepers and beaters, they all said the same thing, “we saw it coming”. They poured scorn on some MPs who had returned their seat, from both sides of the political divide. Most fascinatingly, they all agreed on something one of them said, “well we have Rishi Sunak as our MP and he is terrific.” I’ll take their word for it.

With the spring almost upon us, now’s a great time to up your fitness game. Whether you’re in training for a race or sticking to a new year fitness drive, it makes sense to track your progress and keep reminding yourself of how well you’re doing. Mentally, it can be hard to keep at it, so why not employ a bit of tech to help you along the way? Along with their generally more featured and app led cousins smartwatches, these pieces of technology have come a long way in recent years, and with ever evolving health technology, they’re only likely to get more sophisticated and better tuned to your needs. What kind of fitness tracker is for me?

Oxford and Cambridge have gone to great lengths over the last few years to increase the number of admissions of state-school educated students at undergraduate level – to varying degrees of success. As Robin Harman reported in Spectator Life recently, there’s still a worrying disparity between the number of offers made to disadvantaged pupils and the take-up of those offers, even though the number of offers made has risen steadily.

As this year’s Oscar-winning films continue their box office reign, it’s salutary to remember that some excellent films have been honoured over the years. Even as many have faded from memory (Crash, anyone?), some of the award-winners that can be found on Netflix represent the very best in contemporary cinema. Here are some of our favourites. The Silence Of The Lambs (1991) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6Mm8Sbe__o Jonathan Demme’s psychological thriller was the last (to date) film to win the ‘big five’ at the Oscars – Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay.

The epicentre of coronavirus – now more correctly called COVID-19 – remains in mainland China, and concerns about a global pandemic occurring have fortunately not been realised although in this fast-changing story this still remains a possibility in the coming weeks. The first death in Europe was recently reported in France, with nine documented cases in the UK. The advice from Public Health England if you have been in Wuhan or the Hubei Province in the last 14 days is that you should stay indoors and avoid contact with other people, like you would for flu, even if you do not have any symptoms. If you develop symptoms, call NHS 111 and inform them of your recent travel to the city.

With South Korean film Parasite taking home the Best Picture gong at this year’s Oscars, it’s clear that foreign language films and series are having a bit of a moment. Keen to polish your language skills whilst devouring a good box-set at the same time – or just looking to sound more cultured at your next dinner party? Either way, you won’t regret getting stuck into these subtitled Netflix dramas: Fauda https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2rm_4e3iYQ Following hot on the heels of Homeland (which also began life in Israel), Israeli terorrism thriller Fauda – which means ‘chaos’ in Arabic – has been a bit of a global smash for Netflix.

Every generation, and individual, has to rediscover the arguments for free speech for themselves. Some people learn from major incidents. Some when the censors come for someone close to them, or an opinion that they hold. Others come to believe in free speech because they realise that while being offended on occasion might be terrible, it is nowhere near as terrible as any system designed to make being offended impossible. Fortunately there are short-cuts to finding the best defences of free speech. The English language provides an especially rich tradition on which to draw. From many centuries of literature allow me to list just four works: two classic, two modern.

“Do not waste a single vertebra,” says Major General Paul Nanson CBE, in Stand Up Straight, his book of life lessons from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, where he serves as Commandant. With a career in the British Army spanning more than 30 years, Nanson is no patchouli-scented shaman. His Sandhurst hacks have seen him through The Troubles, the Gulf War, the Bosnian War, the Iraq War, and the war in Afghanistan. So I reckon he’s reasonably well qualified to dish out advice. “I’m a great believer in healthy body, healthy mind. If you’re physically fit, you’ll be more mentally fit,” says Nanson, who takes his morning run as an opportunity to reflect.

1917, the World War One epic that has picked up 10 Oscar nominations (including for Best Picture and Best Director for Sam Mendes), is currently going great guns in cinema. If it has put you in the mood for more war on screen, then fire up Netflix, where there are plenty of military flicks to pick from. Jarhead https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aBP-c28_1M 1917 is not Sam Mendes’s first foray onto the battlefield. Jarhead, released in 2005, was an adaptation of a memoir written by US marine Anthony Swofford about his experience of serving in the first Iraq war – the resulting film is a different kind of war movie in which the longueurs of conflict are brought to the fore.

I don’t like one-use kitchen gadgets. Well, that’s not true, I do like them actually. I love them. I am drawn to them in those little catalogues that come through the door, brimming with plastic and promise, like a magpie. But my small kitchen doesn’t love them. My overflowing drawers and crowded worktops don’t love them. After ditching my garlic peeler and my egg poacher, my milk frother and my (ahem) hot dog slicer, I have made a pact with myself that any utensil or equipment I bring into the kitchen has to do some heavy-lifting. No single-purpose gadgets shall darken my door any longer. But there is one exception: my waffle maker. I feel hypocritical, I do, but I can’t give up my waffle maker.

Lords, Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages: the moment you’ve been waiting for has finally arrived. Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex, are calling time on their membership of the royal family, deciding to live a financially independent existence, and flying off into the sunset for the snowy wilds of Canada, to live among the trees and elk, beavers and bobcats, presumably to get involved in the fur trade, or logging business, in order to support themselves. Of course, they’ll be doing nothing of the sort.

These days we political anoraks can usually get more than our fill of drama – and laughs – from the real world. Just look at what’s happening in Westminster – not to mention the White House. But what if you’re still craving more? Here’s our list of the best Netflix choices, including documentaries, dramas and comedies, for political obsessives. Mitt Through intimate access to Romney and his family on the campaign trail, Mitt seeks to present a more rounded picture of the man who failed to defeat Barack Obama in 2012. And the picture that emerges is a quietly moving one: a man of charm and kindness who never quite understood his own failure to bond with middle America.

Nuraphone headphones From £9/month, Nuraphone I confess – the idea of buying headphones on a subscription plan is daunting. But one 60-minute session with these headphones and you’ll understand why people are raving about them. A fun ‘pairing’ session configures the headphones to your personal heading tastes (I can’t emphasise how cool this was) – before letting you flick between your ‘personal profile’ and neutral audio. Having tried these headphones out, it’s hard to go back to listening to music the normal way again. A must-buy for the music-lover in your life. Larq self-cleaning water bottle From £78 from Larq The market for cool-looking, hip water bottles is fairly saturated right now (excuse the pun).

This review is part two of a two part series on picking the right bike for the city-dweller’s electric commute This bike came into being thanks to a terrible London commute. One of the founders of AnalogMotion saw his daily trip to work go from five minutes up in Scotland to an hour when he moved to the capital. And, rather than shrug his shoulders and pack himself onto yet another tube train, he set up this East London electric bike company after raising £350,000 on Kickstarter. The lookIt’s a bike so good-looking I took it out for coffee The AnalogMotion is a stunning bike – so much so that people asked to take pictures of it when I rode it to and from work.

Jordan Peterson has spent much of the past few years eloquently torpedoing all that the liberal progressives hold dear, and he’s not done yet. Citing a profound health transformation, the bolshy Canadian psychologist is now piling into the opinion-saturated arena of diet, and the vegans aren’t happy. But Peterson’s latest revelation is not about culture wars or the eroding of free speech. This is about his own mental health, which has at times been unspeakably grim. Controversial as ever, Peterson is now claiming to have beaten away his regimen of antidepressants through the excessive consumption of a rather more rudimentary substance: meat.

‘There, that’s what we want to see,’ shouts our captain, pointing. My head flings back as the Zodiac flies through the open water towards a plume of ocean spray. Metres from our boat, there’s a breach, then a tail slap and more spray. Two giant humpback whales. ‘Meet Flip and Flop,’ the captain announces smugly. Flip and Flop glide only inches away, dwarfing our boat. They perform to wails and applause from a grateful audience. I am in awe and keep my camera tucked firmly in my bag — I want to enjoy every moment. The spectacle lasts for 40 minutes or so before we bid farewell and head back to shore. Peggy's Point I’m on a road trip through Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, two of the three provinces that make up The Maritimes.