London’s best places to buy a pied-a-terre: Thinking of selling up for a landing pad in the city? Here are the best locations March 10, 2017 For those disenchanted Londoners considering a move to the country, but afraid of spending half their lives on commuter trains, buying a pied-à-terre could be the solution. For a fraction of the price that you would sell a family home in London, hard-working city executives can hole up close to the office during the week, [...]
The American Dream: Pop to the Present charts a wavering course through pop art history March 9, 2017 This giant, twelve-room exhibition of half a century’s worth of American pop art gets the genre’s money shot out of the way pretty sharpish. A familiar multicolour Marilyn stares you down on the way in, a psychedelic Warholian hydra looming over the entrance hall. She introduces an exhibition that attempts to trace some artistic line [...]
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead review: Daniel Radcliffe shines in this absurdist and tragicomic Shakespearean send-up March 9, 2017 Those who hate Shakespeare’s most famous play will rejoice in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, two and a half hours dedicated to tearing up his two most pointless characters and their part in arguably his biggest plot hole. Equally, those who love a bit of Bard will be intrigued to see the story entirely from [...]
Hit Makers by Derek Thompson: Read this book if you want to learn how to write March 9, 2017 I have a confession to make: I don’t like reading books about consumer culture. I often find the subject slight, the writing bland and the overall effort insubstantial. But I read Hit Makers by Derek Thompson. Thompson, a senior editor at The Atlantic, is a distinct voice in liberal American journalism, and Hit Makers, his [...]
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild review – Nintendo’s latest is the greatest game they’ve made since 1990-something March 8, 2017 A very long time ago indeed, in the ancient year of 1986, there existed a NES game called The Legend of Zelda. It was like nothing else at the time, a sprawling and freeform fantasy adventure that thrust you into an open world with little guidance, and left you to figure out how everything worked. [...]
Mnky Hse review: This Latin American restaurant in Mayfair makes up for its missing vowels with sparky flavours March 7, 2017 A darkly gaudy Latin American restaurant and bar spread over two floors in the heart of Mayfair. Generous sharing plates, piled high with spicy meats and citrus sauces, are theatrically placed on bark and earthenware pots. Dimly lit with a bassy soundtrack, Mnky Hse is an expansive watering hole behind a discreet facade, and takes [...]
Mark Hix says you should borrow some sugar beet from a friendly farmer March 7, 2017 Why don't we regard sugar beet as a vegetable like swede or turnips or parsnips or even its close relative the beetroot? It is commonly grown as a rotation crop in conjunction with wheat, barley and pulses, used to return organic matter into the soil and prevent the build-up of disease. It’s grown in some [...]
Most entertainment is consumed online through access services and is not owned outright March 7, 2017 Britons now spend almost 80 per cent of their total expenditure on entertainment online and are increasingly consuming it via access services such as Spotify and mobile apps like Pokemon Go. Data from the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), which represents retailers and digital services offering music, video and games, shows that 27.6 per cent of [...]
Land Rover Discovery review: The king of SUVs is back and it’s better than ever March 6, 2017 Land Rover started the current SUV craze. Back in 1989, it launched a model that was more road-oriented than the Sherpa-like Defender, and more affordable than the old-money Range Rover. The Discovery was born and the world was stopped in its muddy tracks. Typically, Land Rover then rested on its laurels. Since that original, there’s [...]
The world-famous ski resorts of Vail and Breckenridge are enjoying huge investment. We head up into the Rockies to investigate March 3, 2017 So famous are the Back Bowls of Vail in the skiing world that, this being America, you would expect them to be trademarked. To anyone who loves the rush of downhill skiing, these giant geological saucers 3.5 kilometres up the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, are the Holy Grail of winter sports. In size and scale [...]