Spectator Life

Spectator Life

An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.

The dos and don’ts of hosting friends

According to the Yale sociologist, Professor Nicholas Christakis, we are on the verge of a second Roaring Twenties. Just as the 1918 flu pandemic ushered in an era of excess, so too will Covid, as people ‘relentlessly seek out social interactions’. This could take the form, he believes, of lavish spending and ‘sexual licentiousness’. Or

Tanya Gold

The strange allure of off-road vehicles

The Duke of Edinburgh was carried to his tomb in a modified Land Rover, and this is apt. He walked away from a highspeed collision in Norfolk a few years ago because – and probably only because – he was driving a Land Rover Freelander. The Land Rover, which was intially the off-road Rover, is

Lunch like a Queen: royal picnic spots to sample this spring

Even before the news of the death of the Duke of Edinburgh was announced, Buckingham Palace had had to suspend ticket sales for visiting its gardens this summer, due to overwhelming demand. With the annual summer opening of the State rooms cancelled for the second year running due to the pandemic, the opportunity to picnic

Jonathan Miller

Why I regret buying an electric car

I bought an electric car and wish I hadn’t. It seemed a good idea at the time, albeit a costly way of proclaiming my environmental virtuousness. The car cost €44,000, less a €6,000 subsidy courtesy of French taxpayers, the overwhelming majority poorer than me. Fellow villagers are driving those 20-year-old diesel vans that look like

The enduring appeal of the Aga

A cooker is not just for cooking. That is the starting point to understanding the Aga. It is impractical, environmentally unfriendly, and expensive. Everyone – including the Aga’s most ardent devotees – knows that. And yet the Aga cooker next year will celebrate its centenary. Despite all the modern appliances that should long ago have

Why it’s time to smarten up again

Before H&M launched their new campaign of loungewear with Hector Bellerin, I confess I hadn’t heard of him. I am not aware of how many goals he has kicked or on behalf of whom. What I had noticed was the fact that the collection was what is more colloquially known as the tracksuit, but fairly

Harry Styles and the politics of cross dressing

If you are on social media, you have probably scrolled past a hundred photographs of Harry Styles’ Grammys performance last week. It was eccentric, quirky. And Styles donned his much-touted androgynous swagger.  The media and menswear magazines keep insisting that Styles’ fashion choices are groundbreaking and are setting the tone for a new generation of

The Mountbatten house sale is awash with history

House sales have always been among the things that the major auctioneers do best, especially when those sales involve dispersing collections amassed by ‘great’ families that have spent generations living in equally ‘great’ properties. In the halcyon years they happened on site, the viewing days giving the local proleteriat what might have been a once-in-a-lifetime

Joanna Rossiter

Why the British love Henry Hoover

What’s so endearing about Henry? It’s been the question on everybody’s lips since he spectacularly photobombed the unveiling of the new Downing Street press room. The friendly faced vacuum cleaner still manages to compete with the likes of Dyson forty years after he was first created. Made in Chard, Somerset, with his bowler hat shaped ‘cap’

The enduring appeal of the Vespa

On April 23, 1946, Enrico Piaggio filed a patent with the Ministry of Industry and Commerce for ‘a motorcycle of a rational complexity of organs and elements combined with a frame with mudguards and a casing covering the whole mechanical part’. In less formal terms, the machine in question was called a Vespa – and

Tanya Gold

Is it time to join the campervan craze?

The campervan is the ideal vehicle for a British spring (at present there is no foreign spring available). There are two extremes to consider. There is the original VW which looks like a fairy princess with big dewy headlamps for eyes. I was driven to Glastonbury in the old VW by a woman who looked like

A guide to parliamentary gadgets

After famously criticising Rishi Sunak for his ‘£180 Bluetooth coffee mug’ back in July last year, Labour’s Angela Rayner seems to have started something of a gadget war. On Monday she came under fire for claiming a pair of Apple AirPods on parliamentary expenses. It was then swiftly pointed out that Peter Bone has also splashed out on some tax-payer

The unfair attack on Savile Row hero Pierre Lagrange

The Daily Mail has a new target – Pierre Lagrange. The enormously successful hedge funder has found himself in the cross hairs because he claimed money from Rishi Sunak’s furlough scheme for some of the staff at Huntsman – the All-Blacks of Savile Row tailors – which Pierre bought in 2013. As hit-jobs go, it is as

Princess Eugenie and the perilous business of baby names

Naming a child turns out to be one of the hardest things you can do. The secret to nailing it is to avoid choosing something outlandish or freakish at one extreme – but then sidestep the trap of settling on something profoundly mundane at the other. Unless you are a rock star or a tech

How to channel your inner karate kid

‘I don’t wear a headband. If you want to, you can!’ says karate World Champion Jordan Thomas. ‘Don’t disillusion me, Jordan!’ I bark, perhaps a little aggressively. I’ve watched three seasons of Cobra Kai in a week and I am all about a karate headband / floppy fringe combo. Kick-ass comedy drama Cobra Kai is

Tanya Gold

The joy of driving a superfluous SUV

Now, in an anxious time, I have an SUV, and this is apt. There is something very comforting about an SUV if it’s yours (though less so if it isn’t). They are designed to dominate any landscape they can fit inside and, if that is a hollow fantasy of control it doesn’t feel like one

The AMX Stealth: will this indie e-bike take off?

Analog motion, the brand behind the incredibly popular AM1+, are back with their latest model, the AMX Stealth. The company — so I’m told enthusiastically by their CEO — claims to have had a rethink, and wants to now ‘focus on making products that people love’. This surprised me, since their AM1+, reviewed last year,

It’s time to say adieu to the tie

When’s the last time you wore a tie? Was it yesterday? Are you wearing one now? Somehow I doubt it. After all, why should you, sitting there in your home office or spare bedroom, or sitting room?  Of course there was a time, if you’re a male reader, that you would have worn one every

The return of the cigar

Once mainly associated with portly, middle-aged men of a certain social standing, cigars – along with single malt whisky, fine wine, decent watches and interesting cars – have become part of the arsenal of interests that anyone who aspires to be a 21st century gentleman is almost required to hold dear.  But the current enthusiasm

The dos and don’ts of the inauguration outfit

Given recent events on the inauguration scaffolding, Jill Biden may do well to wear a bullet-proof vest to watch her husband become the 46th President of the United States and be done with it. But Inauguration Day calls for some serious sartorial politicking and it seems unlikely Dr B will want to miss out. Long

An intelligent, app-controlled e-bike: the Cowboy 3 reviewed

First things first, I should issue a disclaimer: I’m not a fan of bikes that have apps. It’s always struck me as odd that a lot of electric bike manufacturers make a big deal about making bikes more friendly for riders – and yet so many insist on adding additional tech that your average cyclist

The rise of the luxury camper van

Anyone who has recently tried to buy a second-hand van will know that they have become difficult to find at sensible money – so much so, in fact, that a leading British broadsheet recently felt moved to report on the boom in sales, citing one of the major ‘drivers’ being the increase in people turning

I love my Le Creuset dish – and I’m not alone

If you’re trying to determine someone’s class and the accent is hard to place, you could do worse than check the brand of their pans. Le Creuset has been a staple of upper-middle class British kitchens for years – the sort of Eurocentric brand that contains just a hint of francophile exoticism whilst conjuring up

8 things you didn’t know about Rishi Sunak

It wasn’t the easiest news to have to break, but he delivered it with the kindness and compassion of a favourite uncle explaining to his nephew that his hamster has passed away. Afterwards, we were left thinking, “Well, what is a 20.4 per cent slump in the economy between friends, anyway?” Even the announcement that

The best cycling accessories for your new commute

As the Prime Minister announces a new scheme where GPs can prescribe bikes to help combat obesity, there’s never been a better time to saddle up and cycle to work. Biking to the office avoids the need to compete for a metre-plus-squared of space filled with with Joe public’s recirculated air – a boon in