Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 review: A dramatic escalation in the war on noise August 28, 2019 Things have quieted down, if you’ll excuse the pun, in the field of noise-cancelling headphones. At the top of the unchanging pack sit Sony’s MDR-1000XM3, Sennheiser’s PXC 550 and the ageing champion, the Bose QuietComfort 35. Once seen adorning the crowns of every other commuter, the QC35’s long reign as London’s preferred method of blocking [...]
Wolfenstein: Youngblood review – a bonkers but thrilling co-op experiment August 28, 2019 Platform: PS4 (tested), XBO, PC Five years ago, Wolfenstein: The New Order took a gloriously silly, decades old game about shooting Nazis and turned it into a gloriously silly, throughly modern game about shooting Nazis. It married lightning-quick gunplay with a pulpy, sci-fi yarn about monstrous mechanical Panzerhunds and fascist moon bases, while somehow making [...]
Glass half full: Optimists outlive pessimists, study finds August 27, 2019 Viewing the glass as half full may be the secret to a longer life, according to a US study that found a positive correlation between levels of optimism and longevity. Conducted by Boston University School of Medicine, the study found that optimists not only live longer in general but have a better chance than pessimists [...]
Shifting stamp duty burden would hurt first-time buyers August 23, 2019 It was an interesting idea – and sounded great for first-time buyers. On Saturday, Sajid Javid appeared to be considering switching the cost of stamp duty land tax (SDLT) from the buyer to the seller in England and Northern Ireland. On Sunday, in a tweet, he made it clear that he did not support the [...]
Property of the week: Celeb-spot in this historic Abbey Road church August 23, 2019 If you are looking for a home with an interesting history, you could do a lot worse than this penthouse apartment in St John’’s Wood. Not only does the flat sit within a converted, grade II-listed baptist church, but it is also located directly across the street from Abbey Road Studios where the Beatles recorded [...]
Here’s where you should buy a home for access to the best London schools August 23, 2019 As the summer holidays draw to a close and parents prepare their children for another academic year, would-be property buyers who have a young family – or are planning to start one – might be prompted to weigh up their options when it comes to local schools. For lots of families this means considering a [...]
The Doctor at the Almeida review: Robert Icke signs off with a masterful medical ethics drama August 22, 2019 Robert Icke approaches a classic play the way a mechanic might approach a motor, breaking it down to its constituent pieces, working out what makes it tick, and then replacing half of it with gleaming new parts. This approach paid dubious dividends in his largely hellish revision of Ibsen’s The Wild Duck last year, but [...]
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark film review: Joyously grisly but too scary for young fans August 22, 2019 Retro is very much in vogue, especially when it comes to horror. Following the spate of nostalgic Stephen King revivals and the success of Netflix’s Stranger Things, it would be easy to write off Scary Stories as just another algorithmically-generated, mild-horror cash grab. But that would be doing it a disservice: it’s a soulful tour [...]
Once Upon A time In Hollywood review: Another classic from Quentin Tarantino August 15, 2019 Even in a summer dominated by Disney, the 9th film from Quentin Tarantino demands attention. The promise of the Pulp Fiction director’s take on The Manson Family has resulted in the biggest opening weekend ever for a Tarantino film, giving a small flicker of hope to anyone who sees a cinematic future beyond remakes and [...]
Brainiac Live review: Anarchic science stunts for kids who are really into loud noises August 15, 2019 Sky One’s Brainiac television show feels like it aired approximately one hundred years ago, in the foreign land that is the years 2003 to 2008. Fronted by Top Gear man Richard Hammond, and then later by the excellent Vic Reeves, it was a vehicle for pop-science tomfoolery and explosive hijinkery which deftly walked the intellectual [...]