The Last Supper: Musician and DJ Cerys Matthews tells us what she’d eat for her last meal on earth, including Ian Brown’s secret recipe October 4, 2019 When I was touring I used to keep a little journal about food, full of curiosities and surprises and things that make you smile. Like the fact people from Luxembourg call turkeys “schnuddelhong”, which translates as “snot hen”. Once you’ve heard that you can’t look at a turkey the same way. I collected all these [...]
The story of the world’s best beef: How Kobe conquered the globe October 2, 2019 Wedged between the Rokko mountain range and Osaka Bay, Kobe is the sixth largest city in Japan with more than a million and a half people. Its namesake beef doesn’t come from the city itself but from the surrounding farmland of Hyogo Prefecture where Kobe is the capital and the key port. As the story [...]
From sunken sculptures to rusting Soviet planes, Grenada is an island brimming with mystery October 2, 2019 There’s a human silhouette looming out of the depths. The waves above have churned up the sand below, and now the sediment coils above the seabed like a strange mist, like something out of a Stephen King novel. I pop my head above the surface to fill my lungs with as much air as they [...]
Why did the US Navy sink its own vessel off the coast of the Cayman Islands? September 27, 2019 The sound of whirring rotor blades carries across the bay. I’m staring at a framed photo of Tom Selleck inside the office of Cayman Island Helicopters, while its proprietor, Jerome Begot, readies the chopper. Jerome is a Frenchman who, inexplicably, flew in the US Air Force decades ago, and Magnum PI is his hero. After [...]
What is frankincense? And where does it come from? September 27, 2019 The sun is blazing and the air is hot, dry and dusty. Gazing out over the horizon, there’s nothing but parched, rocky land as far as the eye can see in any direction, except for the strange-looking trees that shoot up from the ground like gnarly, overgrown bushes. You wouldn’t think much could thrive here, [...]
70 years after the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four, we visit Orwell’s remote Scottish island home September 6, 2019 The Hebridean island of Jura has a particular fascination with 1984. Time seems to stand still here, like the early morning mist that lingers about the island’s rolling valleys. But that’s not to say that the small population obsesses over the goings on in Dallas, wears leg warmers, or puts up with Madonna’s Like a [...]
Could magic mushrooms fix your brain? We try Europe’s first legal psychedelic therapy retreat July 24, 2019 Ten of us sit in a semicircle around a makeshift altar. In front of us lies a small statue of Buddha, various rocks and crystals, some pine cones, a carved mushroom, a small chemists’ weighing scale, and a wooden bowl filled with psychedelic ‘truffles’. We’re in a lodge on the outskirts of Amsterdam overlooking woodland [...]
Phantom islands thought to exist for hundreds of years are being “undiscovered” July 24, 2019 On a voyage from Manila to Mexico in 1528, the Spanish captain Alavaro de Saaverda reported stopping off at a pair of islands a few thousand kilometres north of Papua New Guinea in the Philippine Sea. He named the islands Los Buenos Jardines, and wrote in his diary about the friendly natives he’d met there. [...]
Let there be colour: Rado’s range of watches made to Le Corbusier’s famous colour system are deliciously on trend July 24, 2019 Does your house have chic grey walls? Complementary saffron accents? Maybe a statement colour chair and tiled section? Chances are all of these shades have featured in Le Corbusier’s Architectural Polychromy. Because, as well as designing buildings, planning towns and being an all-round polymath, Le Corbusier developed a theory of colour. Corbu, as he was [...]
A mechanical wristwatch may be based on 19th-century principles – but that doesn’t mean it’s immune to innovation July 23, 2019 The idea of “new technology” in Swiss watchmaking seems rather oxymoronic – especially when you consider how much stock this rose-tinted industry places in heritage and hand craftsmanship. But as mechanical watches have reasserted themselves in recent decades, after near-decimation at the hands of quartz technology back in the 70s, the more forward-minded brands are [...]