TRAVEL NOTES June 10, 2012 Extreme dining, Belgian style Join the trend for “extreme dining” with a meal at a table suspended 50 metres above the ground. The Brussels version of Dinner in the Sky is running throughout June, giving 22 diners at a time the chance to enjoy gourmet food and champagne while suspended near sites such as the [...]
Upgrade your next adventure June 10, 2012 FROM the cool and cutting-edge design scene in Copenhagen to the hypnotic charm of Cairo’s bustling markets; if you fancy exploring a new city, country or continent, now is the time to get that great escape on track. A world of adventure awaits, but you could benefit from a host of added extras by taking [...]
Antigone is astute but star disappoints June 8, 2012 THEATRE ANTIGONE The National Theatre | By Steve Dinneen *** Christopher Eccleston is theatre gold – the kind of name guaranteed to sell out a run. He has certainly chosen a cracker in Antigone: an expertly crafted play that’s as politically astute as it is deftly choreographed. Unfortunately – and surprisingly, given his excellent track [...]
The Innkeepers is a bog-standard horror outing but Woody Allen film fascinates June 7, 2012 FILM THE INNKEEPERS Cert 15 | By Natasha Culzac ** AN EMPTY, rustic, provincial hotel is the setting for Ti West’s latest indie horror flick, The Innkeepers. New England’s The Yankee Pedlar Inn, which is said to harbour paranormal forces in real life as well as fiction, is closing down – presumably customers grew tired [...]
Fifty shades of blockbuster success June 7, 2012 BOOKS FIFTY SHADES OF GREY By EL James (Arrow) An urgent message reached me last week as I was heading to the airport for a Jubilee weekend trip to Israel: “Bring four copies of Fifty Shades of Grey pretty please.” It came from a 34 year old friend in Tel Aviv who, along with three [...]
VOTE FOR THE WORLD’S BEST WATCH June 7, 2012 City A.M. is partnering with the luxury magazine for watch lovers, 00/24 WatchWorld, to identify the most impressive new wristwatch. Watch-loving readers are invited to go online and pick their favourite from all the models nominated for this year’s 00/24 WatchWorld Watch of the Year awards. Voters will themselves be entered into a prize draw [...]
Ray Bradbury, 1920-2012 America’s master of dark fantasy June 7, 2012 THE author of modern classics including Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles Ray Bradbury died this Tuesday aged 91, but his work will endure. Few can match Bradbury’s gift for employing fantastic settings to such thought-provoking and often horrifying effect. A master of the short story, his best works draw the reader in with a [...]
House price rise 0.5pc in May June 7, 2012 House prices rose by 0.5 per cent in May, rebounding from a 2.3 per cent decline in April, but prices were still slightly lower on the year, figures from mortgage lender Halifax showed on Thursday. The Halifax house price index showed house prices were 0.1 per cent down in the three months to May compared [...]
Nintendo’s Wii U is an E3 hit June 6, 2012 The world’s biggest gaming event, E3, is well underway in LA – and it is Nintendo that has everyone talking. It showed off, for the first time, a working version of its new Wii U, a baffling tablet/console hybrid that promises to put a new spin on gaming. And it needs to: the Japanese company [...]
E3 gives some reasons to be very cheerful June 6, 2012 Rumours of the death of console gaming have been greatly exaggerated. Popular wisdom holds that the explosion of smartphones will eventually sound the death knell for the traditional games machine. With Nintendo and Sony both struggling, and Microsoft diversifying its Xbox into a cross platform behemoth that will do everything from playing music to loading [...]