It’s 500 years since Martin Luther, along with the preacher Paul Speratus, put together the first Protestant hymn book, the Achtliederbuch, literally the ‘book with eight songs’. Collections of liturgical chants and songs had existed before, but they had never been meant for the congregation – just for choirs. Luther believed collective sung worship in
There are not many phrases that offend me more than ‘pigs in blankets’. The correct name for this dish is, of course, kilted sausages. In fact, the bacon-wrapped cocktail sausage has many incorrect names: the Irish go with kilted soldiers while the Germans call them Bernese sausages. The Americans for some reason wrap hotdogs in
Smithfield has been the beating heart of London’s meat industry for more than 800 years. Located at the middle point of Farringdon, Barbican and St Paul’s, the capital’s only remaining wholesale meat market has survived bombings and fire, public criticism and a waning butchery industry; it has been pulled down and rebuilt, and adapted to
Babycham, the drink you perhaps last sipped while tapping the ash from a black Sobranie as Sade played on the jukebox, is coming back. Launched in 1953 by Francis Showering of the Somerset cider family, it was aimed at giving women something to drink in the pub other than a port and lemon. Demand for
‘Le Beaujolais nouveau est arrivé!’ If that phrase means anything to you, you’re likely of a vintage that remembers pre-Clarkson Top Gear. Growing up in the 1980s, you couldn’t miss adverts for the Beaujolais Run – an annual race to be the first to bring the new wine back to England. People would rush over
Ask young people today if they know that they can dial a number to hear the time and you would probably be met with blank stares. Why would you pay to phone a speaking clock when the time is right there in front of you on your watch or phone screen? However, if you were
Bonfire night is more about burning Catholics than haute cuisine and it shows. I’ve always felt for Catholic friends at this time of year, but I am a Jew, and I am told I am oversensitive. It’s also three decades since I made £150 doing ‘Penny for the Guy’ on Hampstead High Street. The last
Among the many options available for Halloween costumes and decorations these days, from witches to zombies, from mummies to serial killers, there is one traditional Halloween character you are unlikely to see: fairies. But in Irish and Scottish folklore, which provides the basis for modern Halloween traditions, fairies were central to this festival. In Scotland,
If there’s one thing to bring out your inner Herod, it’s the twee tendency in younger children’s books. It’s at its worst in the depiction of pirates. Ten Little Pirates shows them cute; The Pirates Next Door as rambunctious; Never Mess with a Pirate Princess as egalitarian; Pirates Love Underpants as… oh stop it. It
Sometimes it’s the only word that will do. Every journalist at Max Verstappen’s press conference last month understood him perfectly when he said his car was ‘fucked’, the adjective chosen not to convey mechanical failings but rather Verstappen’s emotions. But the Formula 1 authorities were displeased, and the driver has been punished. Perhaps the FIA
The other day, clearing out boxes, I stumbled on a sheaf of invitations from childhood. Decorated with trains and fairies, they are very similar to those my children still (just about) receive today, except there’s usually a Thelwell pony instead of Elsa from Frozen. The handwritten addresses, the names of the houses and streets (Bluebell
Earlier this month, the fortunate folk of Frankfurt were entertained by the 11th annual tram-drivers competition, with entries from 26 teams representing 20 countries across Europe. This is as crazy as it sounds, a kind of Olympiad for trams. How do trams compete, given they are not exactly flexible in terms of where they can
For the first 50 years of the corked bottle, there was no easy way to get into it. The combination of cork and a strong glass bottle came together around 1630 but the first mention of a device to open the bloody thing wasn’t until 1681. Cavalier get-togethers must have resembled the teenage parties I
I recently estimated that, in my smoking life so far and at the age of 29, I have rolled 87,600 cigarettes. The calculation went as follows. Roughly 30 a day for the past six years, maybe 15 a day for four years before that. I attempted to make a reduction for eight months I spent
The final straw was seeing Jeremy Hunt wearing one shortly before the summer recess – and not just when riding his bicycle. He was actually walking down the street with the thing strapped to his back. Yes, of course, it is practical, but the now ubiquitous mini-backpack is so hideous that it belongs in the
The tasting menu has fallen from fashion, and this is good. They are a curio – a window to the chef’s soul – and they have always incited more pity in me than awe. They draw the chef’s subconscious on the plate, and it isn’t always palatable; or, rather, it is too complex for joy.
We’d been told it would be a ‘brat’ summer, characterised by its inventor, the singer Charli XCX, as ‘a pack of cigs, a Bic lighter and a strappy white top with no bra’. It hasn’t worked out like that for me, so I was glad to discover a counter-culture valuing matches over throwaway lighters. Young
At the former Chiswick Works in west London, I recently celebrated the Routemaster’s 70th birthday. I owe my existence to this majestic mode of transport. My mum was a conductress on a Routemaster – the No. 16 – which cut a merry swathe from Cricklewood to Victoria, right through the centre of London. My dad, like
White, lacy cow parsley frothing along the roadside is a familiar sight during the British summer. But 2024 is the first year I can remember when it’s been superseded by the retina-scorching yellow of ragwort. Whether you consider common ragwort (Senecio jacobaea) the ‘yellow peril’ or a precious wildflower crucial to biodiversity depends on whether
‘I just love Venn diagrams,’ Kamala Harris said in 2022. ‘It’s just something about those three circles, the analysis about where there is the intersection, right?’ Venn diagrams have graduated from school textbooks to a genre of internet meme. After Joe Biden announced he wouldn’t seek a second presidential term, Harris’s team tweeted a picture
