An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
As a keen follower of most sports, I like it when the ‘good guys’ do well. By the ‘good guys’, I mean the elite sportsmen (and women) who are humble about their achievements and who you feel you could enjoy a couple of pints with at the bar of your local pub. In racing, I
I recently had an encounter with Oliver Cromwell’s hat which, these days, rests on a bespoke hat-rest in the Cromwell Museum in Huntingdon. It’s an astonishing piece of craftsmanship being far wider than any normal hat at nearly three feet across. The perfectly horizontal brim is constructed from thick black felt and the central head-holding
Over the last decade, I have offered legal advice to thousands of students accused of cheating in their assessments. In university jargon, the term for cheating is ‘academic misconduct’. Although many assessments remain online after Covid, some have returned to the exam hall. There are still instances, therefore, of cheating à l’ancienne, with students writing
Another day closer to the general election and I’m at my daughter’s prep school in Oxfordshire. As has come to be the norm, I’m having a ‘VAT chat’ with a fellow mother. Of course, we’ve known about Labour’s plan for months. It will lead to a likely 20 per cent rise in private-school fees. Recently,
There was a wonderful old boy called John – Sir John – Wordie, who was a quintessential member of the establishment. A barrister, he spent much of his time defusing controversies before they had boiled over. In that enterprise, he never sought publicity, finding it much easier to dispense wise advice if no one knew
‘London has become a jungle, right? Anyone with anything nice risks having it taken.’ Bobby, the manager of one of Hatton Garden’s watch shops, does business in a windowless room as far from the street as possible, watched over by a thickset guard and a couple security cameras. ‘I’m a paranoid person,’ he says, and
In the past I would have been interested in crafting plausible excuses for unforgivable social behaviour such as failing to turn up to events to which you had RSVP’d, missing a netjet or having said something genuinely appalling. One example: circa 1999, the late Rt Hon Alan Clark MP wrote to Dear Mary. He asked
Sometimes, it’s not just bombs, viruses and elections that make you worry about the future of humanity. A recent survey, commissioned by the National Literacy Trust, reveals that fewer than one third of eight-to-18-year-olds enjoys writing as a hobby. If you’re thinking that I’m being wistful about fountain pens (‘whatever happened to ink blots?’) you’re
I’ve always loved Porto and need little excuse to visit. Not uncoincidentally, I’ve always loved port and need little excuse to drink it and so, invited to stay in this fine city and road-test its latest attraction, the ambitiously-monikered World of Wine, who was I to resist? There’s been a mixed reception to Wow locally.
When Rishi Sunak proposed national service for 18-year-olds as the first big idea of his election campaign, my initial thought was: absolutely, bring it on. But then I had a second thought, which was that if Sunak was trying to boost the Conservative vote, rather than the nation’s preparedness, his big idea probably wasn’t going
Like any bunch of ageing ex-hacks, those of us in the ‘Former Evening Standard Employees’ Facebook group are fond of reminiscing about the past. Occasionally, it’s at boozy reunions, when we recreate afternoon epics in the Elephant pub near the old Kensington office. More often, it’s when posting online RIPs to old colleagues who’ve passed
The latest painting to be attacked by an ovine climate protestor is Monet’s Poppies in Paris’s Musee D’Orsay. Thankfully, the initial reports that the painting was not protected by glass were inaccurate, and the alarming red rectangle – which at first glance looked as if the painting had been torn to the underlying canvas –
Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is the epitome of Hollywood masculinity. His on-screen magnetism and talk show couch affability have endeared him to millions. Now though, the Rock seems to be crumbling. Johnson first forged his identity in the testosterone-fuelled world of professional wrestling The Rock, who has referred to himself as ‘the hardest worker in
The famous Flyfishers’ Club, Britain’s oldest fly-fishing club, is the latest male bastion to have the fair sex banging at the door. Women feel they have been unjustly excluded throughout its 193-year history, and now they want in. Seeing as the Garrick has at last buckled to the demand to admit women, they say the
‘I don’t know how you do it with three.’ I am at a child’s birthday party, working out how many Wotsits it is acceptable for me, an adult, to take. It is 10.13 a.m. and these Wotsits will be my breakfast. Something had to give in the morning routine to get my son here on
Who would have thought it? After four Classic races this season on both sides of the Irish Sea, the score between the trainers from the two nations is… Britain 4, Ireland 0. After the Irish routed their British rivals at the Cheltenham festival and with the formidable strength of Aidan O’Brien Co Tipperary yard, that
I first heard it in the spring of 1999 from a bloke who was sitting behind me at a West Ham game. It concerned David Beckham and Victoria Adams of the Spice Girls, who were then on their way to becoming the UK’s most prominent celebrity couple. They were set to marry that summer – and
In each country where I have sued or defended a client, whether in England, France or the US, an often bitterly fought dispute ends peacefully. Given the brutal nature of our species, this could be considered surprising. For most of the 30,000 years we have roamed the planet, disputes have ended with one party killing
All my life I’ve wanted to take a narrow boat holiday down one of Britain’s canals but have never got round to it. There’s always been something easier and more pressing, perhaps even a touch more glamorous than a week spent floating around Britain – a trip to Andalusia, a city break, a train-ride round
We all have our quirks when it comes to cooking. I have clear mental blocks over what is and is not a complicated supper, many of which do not follow any kind of logic. I wouldn’t think twice about setting a sauce or ragu going early in the day, blipping gently, returning to it every
Faced with a field of 13 two-year-olds in the British Stallion Studs EBF Maiden Fillies Stakes at Goodwood last Saturday a friend and I agreed the best thing for our Placepot was to go with experience. Just three of the fillies had run before and sure enough two of those three, Jakarta and Royal Equerry,
Plodding up Wembley Way to the FA Cup Final at the weekend surrounded by a phalanx of well-refreshed Manchester United fans was not a savoury experience, but the game was something else. What was clear was how good United were, full of bite and high-throttle energy, ready to go for broke against the best team
Michael Prowse, proprietor and auctioneer at Pilton Auctions, is rummaging through boxes at the back of his office – which is in a warehouse, up a wooden ladder and underneath corrugated metal and plastic roofing. ‘I’ve got something horrendous here,’ Michael says, ‘but its on it’s way to the bin.’ I’ve asked him what the strangest
I am Cornish. Indeed I am so Cornish my sister lives about three miles from where my echt Cornish ancestors lived in the 13th century (near Falmouth), and my mum makes working-class Cornish recipes so obscurely Cornish most of the Cornish have barely heard of them (‘date and lemon pie’). As such, I am pretty
As predictably as the tides, as welcome as a pebble in your shoe, the bogus question of ‘who actually wrote Shakespeare’s plays?’ is in the news again. Jodi Picoult, the writer, thinks that Emilia Bassano (aka Aemilia Lanier), the daughter of a musician, must have had a hand in them, because, she says, Juliet is
As we are reaching 100mph, I can hear the muted sirens and see blue lights reflecting on gawping onlookers. I’m neither an officer, nor a criminal but I’m in the back of a police car on my way to an incident that apparently involves two men fighting in the middle of a road. I am
Can an older person like me ever really be friends with a young person? At one time I would have said yes, absolutely. Age has nothing to do with friendship. You either enjoy someone’s company or you don’t. End of story. But now I’m not so sure. My young friends in London are always having
It began after pint of beer on a Friday evening and a grudging realisation that, well, getting a little bit more active would be no bad thing. Before I knew it, I’d talked myself into doing a 60-mile cycle through the Essex countryside the following Sunday morning – part of an organised cycle race, charmingly called
I’m a highly insensitive person, which means that I’m rarely perturbed by aural excitement. I love public noise, the sound of the crowd. I would never want double-glazed windows – and I even like the sound of drills and construction because I enjoy living in a boomtown where lots of people want to be. The