What to wear in the sea July 15, 2010 If you’re heading for the beach this summer, it doesn’t mean you have to look like a beach bum when you’re there. Those vast, baggy board shorts in garish patterns might be fine for a teenager but look perfectly ridiculous on grown men. If you’ve got the body for them, square-cut trunks are the way [...]
WATCHES WITH ELEGANCE, SIMPLICITY AND HISTORY July 15, 2010 IWC PORTUGUESE YACHT CLUB CHRONOGRAPH Perhaps now more than ever, clarity, simplicity and elegance are virtues in the world of watches. The chunky, look-at-me styles of the recent past have lost out to a cleaner, more sober aesthetic. Which is where IWC Schafhfausen comes in – if tastes have shifted, they’ve shifted to ground IWC [...]
Retro styles and honey tones for stylish specs July 15, 2010 RETRO is a big theme in fashionable glasses at the moment as well as in swimming trunks. Like so much else, it’s partly to do with the influence that Mad Men has had on men’s style, with thick rimmed, rounded glasses having a resurgence in both normal glasses and shades. One particular theme to emerge [...]
A thriller that’s a dream to behold July 15, 2010 Film INCEPTION Cert: 12A Timothy Barber AFTER a few years spent making Batman films, British director Christopher Nolan has returned with such an audacious mixing of sci-fi, film noir and heist movie elements that one easily puts aside the fact that its premise is utterly, completely nuts. Leonardo DiCaprio is a specialist at invading people’s [...]
ALSO OUT THIS WEEKEND ENTERTAINMENT July 15, 2010 FILM BLUEBEARD Austere French version of the classic medieval tale by auteur Claire Denis. THE CONCERT Another French drama, set in the world of classical music and orchestras. RAPT Yet another French film, this one a kidnap thriller. DVD GREEN ZONE Matt Damon stars in this Iraq war thriller from Bourne director Paul Greengrass. LOURDES [...]
The rising stars of London’s wine scene July 14, 2010 REMEMBER the old days, when you’d sit down in a posh restaurant and a scary-looking French man with a handlebar moustache would sidle over to you with a book the size of the bible? Well, times have changed, and a gaggle of young studs and studettes have taken over London’s best wine lists. Well under [...]
A very Moghul drama July 14, 2010 EMPIRE OF THE MOGHUL: BROTHERS AT WAR BY ALEX RUTHERFORD Headline £18.99 by Verity Pugh THE Moghul dynasty, which spanned the 16th to 18th centuries in South Asia, is in itself like a work of fiction. Its turbulent history is rich with tales of great emperors, passion, deceit and violence. Diana and Michael Preston (pen-name [...]
Is snubbing a colleague on holiday okay? July 14, 2010 DEAR VEXED: It turns out a close colleague and I have booked a week’s holiday in the same resort in France, each of us with a group of friends. She’s really keen to hang out when we’re there but all I want to do is forget work – plus, we’re not really close friends. What [...]
Little black book: the Wharf’s new hotspots July 14, 2010 CANARY Wharf may have gleaming skyscrapers but it hasn’t exactly led the way with high quality bars or top-end members clubs (and no, Brodies doesn’t count). Most serious financiers have stayed put in their own private dining rooms rather than venture to street level, unless a driver is eagerly waiting with a TomTom pre-programmed to [...]
£97,000 worth of fun July 13, 2010 THE reason that Aston Martin’s V8 Vantage is so well-loved is all to do with a little valve in the exhaust system. Around town and driving normally, the V8 Vantage delivers the usual Aston Martin contemplative serenity, but under full acceleration the V8 Vantage makes the most fantastically hellish noise as the valve opens up. [...]