An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
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
‘Be not solitary; be not idle,’ wrote Robert Burton in The Anatomy of Melancholy. Now, 400 years later, one bar is taking his instruction to heart and banning solo drinkers. An Altrincham venue which goes by the gloriously 1990s nightclub name of Alibi will only allow groups in after 9 p.m. Owner Carl Peters said
Elizabeth II was a god and a commodity: now she is gone it is time for posthumous exploitation. Lilibet’s is a restaurant named for her childhood nickname at 17 Bruton Street, Mayfair, on the site of the house where she was born. It was inevitable that Elizabeth II would eventually get a personal restaurant. Princess
Usually when my tweenage sons ask about relics from my 1990s adolescence – ‘What’s a landline?’ ‘What’s a phone book?’ – we’ll have a good laugh about these obsolete artefacts of the not-so-distant past. But last year when my ten-year-old asked about ‘Immigrant Song’, which he’d heard on the soundtrack to a Marvel movie, and
It was just a straightforward dinner in the bosom of the House of Lords, talking to members of the Jockey Club. What could possibly go wrong? When I rashly accepted with gay abandon the invitation to speak to them after dinner, I’d forgotten that I’d been quite punchy about the club over the past decade
There’s tetchy, and then there’s Ben Stokes ‘tetchy’ – pulling out his mic and stomping off cursing, or so I’m told, after Jonathan Agnew asked a disobliging question. Admittedly it’s hard not to feel some sympathy for Stokes, an inspirational leader on the pitch who had just seen his team skewered in two days in
It is estimated that, sometime in the past few months, the content on the internet produced by AI finally overtook content produced by the human mind. In other words, if you go online these days – from YouTube to X, from Facebook to TikTok to can-that-really-be-a-fetish.com – you are more likely than not to be
It is, England cricket fans must remember, only one match in a five-Test series. They began the Ashes needing to win three Tests and the requirement remains the same despite the humiliation in Perth. There is still a reason to get up at 4 a.m. tomorrow for the next game. Lightning need not strike twice,
If you’re fortunate enough to have been well-lunched at an establishment like the Ritz or 5 Hertford Street, your host may ask if you fancy a cigar. You would be forgiven for declining the opportunity to step out into the December chill. Say as much and a proud gleam may then enter your host’s eyes