A few months ago in Primrose Hill, I overheard a woman from the Camden New Journal, the local paper, asking in a café about rumours of a Gail’s opening in the famously anti-chain neighbourhood. Just a few weeks previously, there had been uproar in Walthamstow about a new branch – an unpleasant alliance of the
When I saw that Jocelyn Wildenstein, aka the Bride of (art dealer Alec) Wildenstein, had died at the age of 84, I began compulsively flicking through the widely-shared galleries of horror photos depicting the three-decade plastic surgery odyssey for which she was known. But the picture that struck me most – more, even, than the
With quiet, sinister inevitability, the health and safety edifice has been marching through the festive season, capturing new terrain. Arguably the most powerful cultural force in Britain today, a new target has been seized: the weather. Suddenly, the warnings issued by the Met Office – whose weather forecasting service rarely seems reliable – are taken
Being a woman walking on the street at night, especially on your own, is still scary. No matter that we live in an age of progressiveness and equal rights, of post #MeToo vigilance: the threat of violence by men against women under cover of darkness remains elemental and real. Lights on a quiet street are
James Joyce called Guinness ‘the wine of Ireland’. Now it feels a bit more like the Coca-Cola of alcohol – as much brash branding as beer. Once, it merely had an ugly logo and the rowdy promise of Emerald Isle hedonism which – I confess I have often thought – is crafted to appeal to
This week, the Groucho Club in Soho had its licence suspended by Westminster Council after a request from the Metropolitan police, who are investigating a ‘serious criminal offence’ said to have taken place on its grounds. Beyond ‘serious’, the crime has yet to be specified. But one thing is certain: the Groucho has gone down
Going to restaurants used to be fun. So much so that in the first two booze-sloshed decades of the 21st century, restaurants were the key setting for most of my social activity. My friends and I, living in pretty nasty rented rooms, spent our disposable income on two or three meals out a week, where
For the kind of people who think London ought to be all Farrow and Ball-coated quaintness and whiffs of Dickensianism, Canary Wharf is a rude assault, an obnoxious jungle of the anti-quaint. It is also, to many, an embarrassing paean to a moment that only the 1980s could have produced: one of gauche capitalistic, deregulatory
It is tempting, confronted with the news that British Airways is to swap out lunch on long-haul flights leaving between 8.30am and 11.29am in favour of a ‘Great British Brunch’, to conclude that flying has simply gone to the dogs. The cost-cutting move, which applies to business and First Class passengers, has raised many an
Old or young, fat or thin, body-positive or body-embarrassed, man or woman, everyone with money seems to be on a weight-loss drug: Wegovy, Mounjaro or Ozempic (which although a diabetes drug, is so often used off label for weight loss that there have been supply shortages). In the past couple of weeks alone, two freewheeling
In the showy harbourside enclave of Sandbanks, in Dorset, properties regularly go for upward of £7 million; one bungalow there recently sold for £13 million. Footballers and screen stars call it home. But there are two things money can’t buy when it comes to Sandbanks: sunshine and style. It’s a desperately cramped, traffic-ridden place Estate agents
Sunday lunch is a bit like the Edinburgh festival. People make a big thing of it, it’s considered a British treasure, and I am meant to book it, go to it, and like it. But I don’t. If Edinburgh is forever associated in my mind with glowering edifices of grim dark stone, hostile chilly sun
Spain is busy with an image update. Thanks to a host of savvy media stories, we’re now supposed to think of Spain not just in terms of package holidays, sangria, and Catholicism but also as chic, romantic, stylishly left-wing – the macho anti-fascism of Hemingway’s Spain updated for the #MeToo age – and devastatingly cutesy.
The Starmers were supposed to have the moral high ground – at least according to Labour eschatology – and yet we read of their grubby relationship mega-donor Waheed Alli. Alli was given a security pass to 10 Downing Street in return for his money. During the election, he lent Team Keir the use of his
Few will mourn the demise of TGI Fridays, whose parent company collapsed into administration this week. The restaurant chain’s 87 branches in the UK have been put up for sale. Only a fool would think they could turn around TGIs’ fortunes. The truth is that the British obsession with American food, and specifically American diners,
Both horribly familiar and wonderfully shocking, this body-horror film written and directed by Coralie Fargeat does a very traditional thing – turning the scramble for youth and beauty into a monster of immeasurable disgust and immorality – in a huge way. There is nothing minimal or restrained or overly clever here; nothing of the nuance
When Black Lives Matter created the figure of the Karen, it was a sign of that movement’s darker, bullying qualities. What exactly was wrong with a white middle-aged woman who asked to speak to the manager when things were unsatisfactory? The answer seemed to be in the white part and the woman part, and perhaps
I was nine. It was Florence, in mid-July. My parents bravely led my younger brother and me through a day of sweaty sight-seeing. We had just been up and down the Duomo and were cooling ourselves with ice cream in an adjacent square when there was a hideous bang. At first, we thought it was
Over the years, I have spent a pretty penny on therapy. I have also spent a lot of money in Waitrose, of which there is a big branch that I like to call a ‘flagship’, very close to my flat. Of the two, therapy and Waitrose, it is probably Waitrose that has provided the most
I am never allowed to forget that at my fourth birthday party I made clear my expectation to my mother and the gathered guests that I expected to win all the games. The logic was clear and to my mind (still) fair: it was my birthday and so I should win. When this wasn’t passed
