Mix it up: London cleans up at Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards July 21, 2015 The cocktail industry has come an awful long way in the last decade or so. Back in the day, I was tending bar part time in some of London’s best bars to pay my way through university. I was the last of dying breed: an amateur. Top bars and restaurants are now dominated by [...]
Working lunch in the City: Moroccan Sky Riad, Searcy’s, the Gherkin July 21, 2015 Our guide to the best places to eat during office hours in the City and Canary Wharf WHAT? A pop-up with emphasis on the “up”, Moroccan Sky Riad is the highest temporary restaurant in London, located at Searcy’s at the top of the Gherkin. A fine dining take on Moroccan cuisine, diners can look [...]
Car review: Honda’s Civic Type R could give most super-cars a run for their money July 20, 2015 If you want to get ahead in F1, don’t get a Honda. It’s rejoined the sport this season and is currently powering to its worst-ever year as part of the McLaren team. The drivers count themselves lucky to even finish a race and, when they do, they’re usually at the back. For now though, [...]
Not convinced? July 20, 2015 CHECK OUT THESE ALTERNATIVES… RENAULT SPORT MEGANE TROPHY PRICE: £28,930 0-62MPH: 6.0 secs TOP SPEED: 158mph CO2 G/KM: 174g/km MPG COMBINED: 25.4mpg THE VERDICT: DESIGN Two Stars PERFORMANCE Three Stars PRACTICALITY Three Stars VALUE FOR MONEY Two Stars SEAT LEON CUPRA 280 PRICE: £28,210 0-62MPH: 5.8 secs TOP SPEED: 155mph CO2 G/KM: 156g/km THE VERDICT: DESIGN Two Stars [...]
Meet Paul Lister, the Laird who wants to re-introduce bears, wolves and forests to the Scottish Highlands July 19, 2015 It says something about the wildness of Alladale that TV adventurer Bear Grylls chose a spot nearby to set up his Survival Academy. It’s a wild place: Paul Lister, the Laird of this Victorian hunting lodge in the Scottish Highlands, might even answer the baronial door wearing a wolf mask. It’s his self-deprecating joke; [...]
48 hours in… Belgrade July 19, 2015 WHERE TO STAY The city isn’t the prettiest in eastern Europe, but Hotel Moskva in the centre is beautiful inside and out. With a great restaurant and spa, it’s the most comfortable way of doing Belgrade. Visit hotelmoskva.rs, rooms start at €89 WHERE TO GO The National Museum of Serbia is the largest in the [...]
Theatre review: Constellations is a beautiful and sad play about life’s possibilities July 16, 2015 Trafalgar Studios | ★★★★☆ A disconcerting and comforting thought: everything that has ever happened, every permutation of what could possibly take place, is taking place now, forever, and stretched back infinitely into the past. It’s a point drummed softly but precisely home in Nick Payne’s thoughtful play Constellations, in which bee-keeper Roland and cosmologist Marianne [...]
Film review: True Story lacks direction July 16, 2015 Cert 15 | ★★☆☆☆ True Story takes a fascinating premise and does its best to drown it with clumsy story-telling and a lack of clear direction. The film, which really is based on a true story, begins with two men on opposite sides of the world introducing themselves as Michael Finkel from the New York [...]
Theatre review: The Mentalists is overblown and overstretched July 16, 2015 Wyndham’s Theatre | ★★☆☆☆ Long before the crowd-pleasing slapstick of One Man, Two Guv’nors, outrageous phone-hacking satire Great Britain and musical Made in Dagenham, there was The Mentalists. Playwright Richard Bean debuted this short play back in 2002 and now it’s back for a limited run. Only this time his success has ensured it’s in [...]
Film review: Self/less is slick but not memorable July 16, 2015 Cert 12A | ★★★☆☆ Immortality is rarely given a positive spin in Hollywood – from mopey vampires to haunted Wolverines, it appears living forever ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. The latest to tread this path is Tarsem Singh’s Self/Less, in which a dying businessman (Ben Kingsley) pays for a secret, expensive procedure to [...]