From the 1870s, soccer’s insular ‘home’ unions had simply played among each other. Incredibly, England did not invite a foreign nation over here for a game for fully 50 years after they’d first played Scotland in 1871. Even after beating plucky little Belgium by 6–1 at Highbury in March 1923, the haughty English were not
Dear Mary… Q. As an elderly art-lover, I was thrilled to be invited to the private views of exhibitions by both Julian Barrow and his brother Andrew. Alas, I see these take place on the very same night next week and, as I am now nearly 90 and practically bedridden, I really cannot risk the
Many of us, not being regular purchasers of the sturgeon’s eggs, will be unaware of the gravity of the caviar crisis. I have only just learnt that the population of the beluga sturgeon, which produces the best-quality caviar and lives mostly in the Caspian Sea, has suffered a 90 per cent decline in the past
Since its launch in 1989, Land-Rover’s popular Discovery has demonstrated that critical issues for motoring correspondents, such as handling and reliability, count for little when it comes to looks, comfort, usability and aspirations. Actually, that’s a little hard on the dear old Disco of that era. The V8 petrol version performed well and, although the
The one-off splendours of Pakistan’s captain Inzamam-ul-Haq offer a spicy tang to England’s first post-Ashes Test match which begins today in his hometown of Multan. The contrast with that soft-showered, gold-leaved autumn evening of hurrahs at the Oval seven weeks ago will be immense. Ancient Multan pitches its wicket on the very edge of the
Dear Mary… Q. My wife and I have an old and dear friend who lives abroad. She divorced her husband some years ago and lives alone. We are both very fond of her and are usually delighted to see her whenever she is in England. My wife has a timeshare in the Lakes which we
Having cruelly blackwashed the combined British Isles Lions tourists just four months ago, New Zealand’s athletic young rugby sadists are back in the old country intent on inflicting further pain with a Grand Slam against the four ‘home’ nations on successive weekends, beginning today in a defiantly hyped-up Cardiff. It is a centenary show: on
Dear Mary… Q. You suggest (22 October) that scrap suppers be served on site following private views in art galleries. May I suggest the very same practice might well reverse the decline in numbers of young people attending classical concerts? For friendless, new to London perhaps, but unpushy lovers of classical music, it would surely
These days the most conspicuous presence on the gritty streets of King’s Cross is not call girls and crack dealers but buttercup-yellow huddles of hard hats. Through the clouds of cement dust you can just about make out signs explaining that the hat-wearers are ‘considerate constructors’, motto: ‘Improving the image of construction’. This attempt at
‘Most of us are asleep most of the time,’ says Jamie Oliver in the new Sainsbury’s television commercial, possibly recorded before he went off to Italy with a film crew and production team for his much-needed break from the cameras. ‘Even when we shop we are sleep-shopping,’ he continues, ‘filling our trolleys with exactly the
There is a poignant sale next Wednesday at Bonhams auction house in Chester. Under the hammer is due a skip of spiritually priceless mementoes — shirts, boots, medals — belonging to the Hungarian Ferenc Puskas, one of soccer’s immortals. His family need the money to help pay the 78-year-old’s round-the-clock medical care in his Budapest
Dear Mary… Q. I have recently inherited a beautiful tapestry from an uncle of whom I was particularly fond, and who, I believe, was rather fond of me. While my cousin — who is shortly to move into her late father’s house — is happy to respect his wishes and let me have the tapestry,
There died last month the doyen of British motoring writers, an idiosyncratic, eloquent, deeply informed, erudite enthusiast: L.J.K. Setright. A bearded patrician, elegant and opinionated, intolerant of fools, mysterious and forbidding, his detestation of speed limits was as passionate as his fondness for strong Sobranie cigarettes (he died at 74). His style varied from the
If the English Premiership’s round-ball autumn has been imbued with a generally browned-off languor, it has at least been far more civil than the bad-blooded rancour of their ‘oval’ cousins. The Rugby Football Union spits more viperishly by the week at what it perceives as the derisive impertinence of the leading clubs. This month marks
Dear Mary… Q. I am an artist and will shortly be showing my latest works in a one-man show. I beg your advice on how I can circumvent the social difficulty which blights many private views — namely, what to do about having something to eat after the show? Clearly a two-tier system of those
Quaintly, you could say that what the BBC in its heyday used to call ‘this great summer of sport’ finally ends this weekend in Shanghai. It may be two weeks until we adjust the clocks to signal the closing-in of winter, but 2005’s summer calendar snaps shut tomorrow with the running of the final round
Dear Mary… Q. Your child of not super-rich parents (8 October) needs to be aware that, if his parents hand ownership of their house to him, for the transfer to be valid for tax purposes they would then have to pay a full rent to him, and they might not want or be able to
The newly released Zagat survey has just named the top ten most popular London restaurants and put Wagamama, a cheap noodle bar restaurant, at number one. So how come I’ve never been? Especially when you consider there are now 50 of them worldwide, 24 of which are in London, and a new one appears to
You don’t often see a large turbot these days. My guess is that the big ones, like most of the lobsters and crabs caught in our waters, go to Spain or France. The specimen which I saw in Paris earlier this year was being cut into fat steaks for sale at 90 euros per kilo,
Seeking to persuade Mrs Oakley to wager a bottle of Ledaig single malt on which of three wet sheep will be first up a windy escarpment tends to be as close as you get to racing when holidaying on the Isle of Mull. But one of the great blessings of the sport is its depth