Notes on…
Asterix and the sheer brilliance of his creators
A sterix, te amamus! For those not lucky enough to learn their Latin from the dazzling René Goscinny and Albert…
Nothing quite beats a British beach
‘May I take a picture of your snake?’ I asked the tattooed man with a python around his neck, regretting…
Shirtmaker Simone Abbarchi
The Premio Rezzori literary prize — held every May in Florence — is named after the Austrian writer Gregor von…
Welcome to Matlock Bath, the ‘Switzerland of Derbyshire’
Revisiting cherished childhood memories can be dispiriting; everything appears diminished and one leaves questioning the nature of perception. Were we…
In praise of Chelsea Green, a London oasis
Splats of calves’ liver in a puddle of blood; rabbits, headless, stretched and stripped of fur; and plucked poussins, nestling…
University Challenge
One programme that still shines out as a beacon of intellectual rigour among the sea of dross on television is…
The highs – and occasional lows – of long-distance walking
Long-distance walking is all the rage these days. There are all-nighters staged by charities, for instance the annual MoonWalk in…
Southend-on-Sea has long been a running joke – until now
Standing at the end of Britain’s longest pier, on a cold and misty morning, looking out across the Thames Estuary,…
Monet painted London not brick-by-brick, but light-by-shade
The Savoy was too sumptuous, complained Claude Monet, returning to the hotel in 1904. His rooms — one for sleeping,…
The joy of evensong
When Palestrina wrote his Mass settings and motets, or J.S. Bach his cantatas and passions, they could not have imagined…
Notes on… Lord Byron in Venice
‘I want to see Venice, and the Alps, and Parmesan cheeses.’ So wrote Lord Byron in 1814, some two years…
The Katherine Mansfield House
One of the more surprising attractions of Wellington, New Zealand’s small but perfectly formed capital city, is what might be…
Why Evelyn Waugh, Lewis Carroll and the Romans loved Otmoor
‘Don’t sit down too long my duck, you might be doing nothing,’ reads the inscription memorialising Barbara Joan Austin (4…
Majestic Vienna makes a point of selling the right kind of celebrity
Two things always strike me when I visit Vienna. The first is how easterly the city lies. This was more…
Marx in Trier
‘Trier hates you,’ reads the graffiti outside the Karl-Marx-Wohnhaus in Trier. Actually, that’s a bit unfair. Trier doesn’t hate Marx,…
Abbaye Saint-Michel, a little corner of England that’s forever France
‘A little corner of England which is for ever France, irreclaimably French.’ That is how the Catholic priest Monsignor Ronald…
Playful, adorable – and with a real nose for trouble: In praise of the beagle
Harvey’s finest moment, he would tell you, was the chicken kiev. I’d just made the garlic butter and inserted it…
The salty charms of Leigh-on-Sea
I have fallen in love with the c2c, a whisker of a train that is never delayed. It operates between…
Padel power! But will this crazy new sport ever be a hit?
When we arrived, we discovered that our villa had a padel court. Few of us had seen one before and…
Britain’s real-life canals are as mystical and marvellous as Philip Pullman’s books
Philip Pullman’s latest missal, La Belle Sauvage, once again features the boat-dwelling Gyptians. Rough and honourable, they emerge from the…
Spending 23 hours in economy class will cure anyone’s wanderlust
For some reason, I decided to go to the other side of the world for Christmas. I may never do…
Why smoked salmon doesn’t taste anything like it should
I’m just about old enough to remember when smoked salmon was a rare treat. Then, around 1986 or 1987, suddenly…
The truth about The Watford Gap
In a shallow dip between two unremarkable Northamptonshire hills you will find a road, a motorway, a railway and a…
Forget temples and tea – Sri Lanka is all about its birds
Standing in sweaty silence for an hour on a precipitous sliver of muddy footpath above a waterfall may not be…
The English countryside on two wheels is like the best kind of poem
No seat belts. No airbags. Just air, and coming at you as fast as you like. Motorcycling shouldn’t be allowed,…
