How the modern world is changing grave stone design forever April 10, 2025 Death is the only thing surer than taxes. But how we’re remembered is a strange and sometimes controversial business. Ralph Jones meets the people rewriting the rules, one grave stone at a time Stonemason Neil Luxton once agreed to use comic sans on a grave. Once was enough – he has refused ever since. Luxton, [...]
Life on the edge: A deep dive into the crazy world of Margate April 10, 2025 Five years ago, some dilapidated public urinals in a park in Margate were sold at auction by the council to a private bidder for £11,000. The shabby little structure is barely visible from the path, a graffitied block hidden behind shrubs with weeds winding through the roof and floor. The original glazed urinals are exposed [...]
It takes a village: Do we need to rethink our attitude to old age? April 10, 2025 We’re living for longer than ever but the boom in the elderly population is a social and political time-bomb. Could ‘later life’ communities like Auriens be the answer to the old age crisis, asks Steve Dinneen I enter a grand lobby, all lofty ceilings, marquetry floors and art deco fittings. An effusive concierge in a natty [...]
What does Raoul Moat play Manhunt say about men in 2025? April 9, 2025 Angry, isolated and dangerous men are very much in the cultural zeitgeist and, in Raoul Moat, visionary writer-director Robert Icke has chosen one of the angriest, most isolated and demonstrably dangerous men in recent memory as the subject of his new play. Manhunt – very loosely based on the 2016 true crime book You Could [...]
Aboard the real Orient Express train from Europe to the East April 9, 2025 It has always irked me that trains billed as the Orient Express, like the Venice-Simplon-Orient-Express, only go as far as Istanbul. Why evoke the romance of the Orient only to end the journey at the edge of Europe? It’s a disappointment, but more gallingly for anyone passionate about long-distance train travel, it’s also a missed [...]
Aston Martin Valhalla spec secrets: How to configure a hypercar April 9, 2025 Growing up in the 1980s, we had a choice of four television channels – or just three before Channel 4 first aired in 1982. If you didn’t like what was on, you had to read a book, kick a football around the garden or watch some paint dry. Today, there are hundreds of TV channels [...]
The City Break: holiday like a royal in the New Forest April 8, 2025 For this week’s City Break, Justine Gosling goes to the most-loved national park in the south Once a royal hunting ground for William the Conqueror, the New Forest National Park is the UK’s most visited, and among the smallest and most accessible of the UK’s national parks. Stretching over 380 km sq across Hampshire and [...]
The White Lotus Season 3 finale sucked: Here’s why April 8, 2025 The White Lotus Season 3 is over. In this spoiler-heavy take, Steve Dinneen laments an ending that went awry. The final episode of The White Lotus Season 3 pulled off the dubious trick of ending with both a bang and a whimper. It’s been a rollercoaster: the season opened to a fairly tepid reaction – [...]
Naked Wines picks: three delicious bottles for World Earth Day April 8, 2025 In Libby’s Naked Wines diary this week, it’s the top picks for World Earth Day On 22 April we celebrate Earth Day so I have sought out some wines that are going above and beyond to make this world a better place – and are tasty drops, too. Naked Wines bottles of the week Silverhand [...]
The Last Supper: Gordon Warnecke on the perfect jerk chicken April 7, 2025 Star of 1980s movie My Beautiful Laundrette, Gordon Warnecke tells us what he would eat for his last meal on earth My mum wasn’t a very good cook. My first memories of food are of her making quite traditional British stuff. She came over from Guyana in South America, where she was the youngest of five siblings – [...]