Life

High life

High life | 16 May 2019

New York   This is my last week in the Bagel and I’m going to give it the old college try. Two weeks without booze, ciggies or ladies have made Taki a very dull boy. The next seven days — or rather nights — will decide. The Bagel, of course, is not what it used

Real life

Real life | 16 May 2019

‘When you are in a hole stop digging. Have you never heard that?’ I asked the builder boyfriend, as he slammed his spade into a pile of earth. I came home to find him in the cellar finishing some unfinished business. The last time we gave it a go — by which I mean gave

No sacred cows

Enough grousing about grouse moors

I was surprised to read the article by Ben Macdonald in last week’s Spectator urging Britain’s grouse moor owners to ‘rewild’ their estates. It argued that these Tory toffs had spent the past 100 years ‘destroying our natural heritage’, that the UK land under shoot management is an ‘economic desert’ that is ‘destroying both jobs

Sport

It’s the fans wot win it – so stop fleecing them

It is always possible to tell the difference between a bunch of Manchester City fans and auditions for the latest Dolce & Gabbana commercial. And in that uproarious packed stand at Brighton on Sunday, there were clearly quite a few folk who hadn’t gone without a meal for some time. But by golly we were

Dear Mary

Dear Mary | 16 May 2019

Q. I am a disabled man with a good brain and an independent bent. However, I need help to wash and dress, morning and night. My private carer is excellent in every way but one. He’s experienced, willing, caring, utterly reliable and trustworthy — but he’s also bossy and controlling. He insists on staying for

Food

Tantrums and tabbouleh

Ergon House is an epicurean boutique hotel in downtown Athens. (I quote the blurb — I never write ‘boutique’ willingly.) Did Pericles know that Athens had a downtown? I shall dispense with the politics, except to say that we should return the Parthenon friezes, for it’s lonely on the Acropolis, and only a fool would

Mind your language

Bolection

A pleasant menagerie of words grazes in the field of architectural mouldings (the projecting or incised bands that serve useful and aesthetic purposes): gadroon, astragal, larmier and rabbet, but none is chunkier or more mysterious than bolection. Bolection mouldings cover joints, especially between surfaces of different levels, such as round the panels of a door.