The HTC U Ultra is a 5.7-inch phablet with a dedicated notification screen and a whole lot of power February 15, 2017 HTC says that the design of its new phone is inspired by water. And to be fair, it does look wet and shiny, like a boy in a Hockney painting emerging from a swimming pool, skin glistening in the California sunlight. The U Ultra’s all-glass, all-the-time aesthetic gives it a slick and glossy style that [...]
I went to Hollywood and, following a brief and unaccountable sense of impending doom, found it to be lovely February 10, 2017 "Look, there’s Angelyne." Our tour guide to the stars pointed to a woman in the lane next to us riding a hot pink Corvette. She looked pale and ageless, like hummus that had been moulded into the shape of a sad Dolly Parton. Her cloud of yellow hair was puffed out like a big candyfloss, [...]
The Robots exhibition at the Science Museum is a fascinating (and a little creepy) history of human-like automata February 9, 2017 Greeting you when you first enter the Robots exhibition at the Science Museum is an animatronic baby, pinned like some prized insect to a wall of pulsing lights. Commissioned especially for the exhibition and built by a special effects company, the mechanical baby repeats a series of pre-programmed animations, sneezing and wavings its arms and [...]
Huawei Mate 9 review: The latest Huawei flagship fills the phablet gap left behind by Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 February 8, 2017 Having had its reputation scuttled by the exploding Galaxy Note 7 – a phone that’s now as welcome on an aeroplane plane as a wet fart – Samsung has left a slightly singed gap in the phablet market. Men and women with very large hands who need giant telephones to make them feel momentarily normal [...]
Pizza and pasta restaurants continue to flourish in the capital, here are some of the top new openings February 7, 2017 Dough-nt settle for anything than the best pizza and pasta. 1. Hai Cenato 2 Sir Simon Milton Square, SW1E 5DJ Victoria’s new Nova development is now open, housing over a dozen restaurants, including Hai Cenato, an Italian from globetrotting chef Jason Atherton. The Pollen Street Social and Berners Tavern owner will serve up a wide [...]
This curious series of matchbook prints pays homage to a lost Japanese advertising artform February 6, 2017 Today, the chances are you don’t even own a box of matches, let alone appreciate the lost artform that used to adorn them. But in the early to mid-20th century, Japanese advertisers created tiny wonders of graphic art on these pocket-sized canvases. As urban centres began to proliferate and the population was drawn away from [...]
I didn’t cry when my own father died but I will mourn the end of the Resident Evil franchise of terrible films February 2, 2017 There’s a point early on in Resident Evil: The Final Chapter – around the time when Milla Jovovich is riding along a motorway in her zombie-proof battle tank – where the film reaches critical levels of schlock, a sort of self-aware tipping point after which the rest of this mad ordeal makes a strange kind [...]
The Volt Infinity ebike pairs world class cycling hardware with electric motor technology February 1, 2017 There are probably far worse problems, but riding around on electric bikes has thoroughly ruined regular pushbikes for me. It now seems an insurmountable hardship to have to use my own muscles and gears to propel a bike forwards, like some sort of caveman. Not feeling the familiar ghostly push of an electric motor as [...]
Som Saa review: Very likely to be the best Thai food in London January 31, 2017 A plucky Peckham-pop-up turned permanent E1 resident, Som Saa is a Thai restaurant specialising in creative regional dishes from the country’s north-eastern province. Enjoy sweet and sour comfort food from the grill or masterful curries so hot you’ll walk away feeling like you’ve just been punched in the face. In a nice way. WHERE? 43A [...]
Sing is an utterly charmless and joke-free comedy about some singing animals January 26, 2017 Matthew McConaughey voices a koala in this charmless children’s film about animals singing covers of pop songs. There really isn’t a whole lot more to unpack. Just farmyard karaoke cut with a thin plot about a theatre going out of business. No allegory, no fable, subtext nor message to decipher beyond “a pig in a [...]
