How Secret Garden Party outshines all other UK music festivals, including Glastonbury July 27, 2023 Die-hard festival fans pretend rain doesn’t ruin their fun – they pretend that they enjoy sliding around in mud – but when the cameras stop filming, we all know they retreat to huddle in embryonic balls in their tents like the rest of us miserable British campers. On Saturday, for a few hours, the incessant [...]
Beverly Hills, 9021: Oh! Checking into the Beverly Hills Hotel for its centenary year July 27, 2023 The Beverly Hills Hotel, aka The Pink Palace is still the place to be seen in Hollywood, says Siobhan Grogan. From celeb-spotting to relaxing, this is still a rare paradise at 100 years old Within a few short hours of arriving in Los Angeles, I’m sitting metres away from two of the most famous women [...]
Sinead O’Connor dead: Irish legend dies after long mental health battle July 26, 2023 The Irish singer Sinead O’Connor has died after a long battle with her mental health. O’Connor was 56 and will be remembered most fondly for her 1990 cover of Prince’s Nothing Compares 2 U. She retired from the music industry in 2021, having released 10 studio albums, with one more to come posthumously, called No [...]
Carmen Stevens on philanthropy, wine and South Africa July 26, 2023 The first black South African to study winemaking in South Africa, Carmen Stevens owns the first black-owned winery in the country and, aided by her partnership with Naked Wines in the UK, provides meals to 25,000 hungry school children in Stellenbosch each year through ‘Carmen’s Kids’. WHAT GOT YOU INTO WINE? Wine has a lot [...]
Secret cheese and wine pairings to amaze dinner party guests July 26, 2023 You will all, I assume, have yesterday been celebrating one of the highlights of the British calendar: National Cheese and Wine Day. Other than being an amazing excuse to eat loads of cheese and drink loads of wine, the day was also the perfect opportunity to ask my cheesemonger friend about the secrets behind the [...]
Taku Mayfair review: Strict omakase restaurant is a show-stopper July 26, 2023 Some restaurants hook and cook you before you even reach your seat. At Walthamstow’s SlowBurn you walk through a working jeans factory, passing industrial washing machines and stacks of denim en route to your table. Sessions Arts Club has you enter its grand former courthouse through what looks like the stone-hewn corridor of a castle, asking [...]
The Rosarium is Waterloo’s newest restaurant July 26, 2023 Waterloo Station isn’t typically somewhere you’d think to go for dinner, but a new restaurant just opened in the bowels of the station is rethinking the terminus in culinary terms. Go down the stairs opposite the sweeping main entrance past where the Eurostar used to be and a couple of hundred metres underneath the platforms [...]
Food promotions now make up 22.5 per cent of grocery sales – and it’s up a fifth from last year July 25, 2023 Promotions on food and other items now account for 22.5 per cent of grocery sales, as Brits continue to seek out bargains amid the cost of living crisis. The figure has risen from 20 per cent last year in the same period last year and is the highest over the past 12 months excluding Christmas and [...]
Qatar’s top Arabic wellness retreat offers loads that Western retreats don’t July 24, 2023 Could Middle Eastern wisdom be the answer to modern ill health? Lisa Kjellsson checks into Qatar’s royally appointed new wellness retreat to find out It’s not every day you come face to face with royalty, but at Qatar’s new uber-luxurious spa retreat, I’m shocked to see the queen sweep past with her small entourage, instantly [...]
The Seychelles holiday you need to book now July 24, 2023 The Seychelles is thriving. Adam Hay-Nicholls checks into a recent opening to find creative inspiration Seychellen luxury hotel Mango House will cause you to abandon your beach book and erect an easel. The charming staff have arranged for me not only a cold SeyBrew and towels, but a tray of acrylic paints. With the encouragement [...]