An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
What does Monte Carlo conjure up? A glamorous casino where fortunes can be won and lost, but mostly lost? Men in evening dress at baccarat tables with beautiful women standing by? A tax haven for the glitzy rich on the Cote d’Azur? Fabulous Belle Epoque buildings? A refuge for Edwardian English invalids to escape the cold? Grace
Sometimes life disappoints you in interesting ways. I hated Giuliano da Empoli’s 2022 book The Wizard of the Kremlin, a fictional political thriller about the dawn of Putinism, with a shuddering passion. I had, therefore, been looking forward to despising the film version when it arrived in cinemas last month, too. Yet it turns out
Here we go again, or maybe not. The World Health Organization is reassuring us that the public health risk from hantavirus is low, after the outbreak on a cruise ship. Hantaviruses are a classic zoonosis: caught from animals. You have to inhale dust containing infected rodent droppings or – in the case of this Andean
“All art is propaganda,” wrote George Orwell, “but not all propaganda is art.” Upon this subtle distinction rests the success or failure of whatever art we see at the Venice Biennale. The Most Serene Republic’s exercise in art-world Olympics is propaganda by design. A garden of national pavilions – small buildings in various styles as
Only the most heartless fantasist would deny the life-saving role that therapy plays in helping people manage mental illness. Some people, of course, find it enjoyable or helpful for their own reasons and fair play to them. “You do you, babe,” as they say. But in the round, there is more wrong than right with
Lauren Sánchez Bezos, with her blown-out lip filler, understands fashion. She understands that, unlike the gatekeepers of painting and literature, fashion figureheads aren’t ashamed to dirty their hands by digging around in the money pot. It was only fitting, then, that Lauren and her husband Jeff Bezos sponsored this year’s Met Gala. Its theme was “Fashion
In 1951, when J.G. Ballard was 20, Pandora and the Flying Dutchman premiered in London. Directed by Albert Lewin and starring James Mason, Ava Gardner and a solid cast of English actors, it was filmed on the Catalan coast by Jack Cardiff in lush MGM color. Man Ray contributed designs based on the work of
As the first Americans of the season got out of their car I scrunched up my face and groaned. “They’re all like that, remember?” said the builder boyfriend. “What if the bed gives way?” I demanded. “How will they even fit in the bed?” The BB shrugged. “Who cares?” he said, with his usual sunny
The American dream is dying, according to the Times of London. To mark the US’s 250th anniversary, the paper commissioned YouGov to explore whether the country’s citizens still believe that if you “work hard and play by the rules” you will eventually be successful. Turns out, only 38 percent of the respondents think this applies
“I’ll swap you two of my rolls for three of your spogs.” That was the sort of thing you’d hear round the tuckshop in morning break when we schoolboys swapped and bartered our Liquorice Allsorts. We all had our favorites, spogs being the round pink or blue jelly buttons that had a coating of tiny
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna We were having dinner in the Osteria del Tempo Perso (the Hostelry of Lost Time). It is in the old city which in the 5th century was the last capital of the western Roman empire as, besieged by various types of barbarian, the final fall drew ever nearer. I was drinking again.
In recent years it’s become a hackneyed truism that Nordic nations have found the key to happiness. The Danes, who often take first place in global rankings for mental wellbeing, pride themselves on hygge, that feeling of coziness evoked by wrapping oneself in blankets and being surrounded by candles. The Swedes promote lagom, the concept
There are few things that look sadder than an abandoned sports field. I spent longer than I meant to sitting on a decaying bench looking out over the forest that was once the intended playing surface for the Stroitel Pripyat soccer club. The sky above was cerulean, cloudless and entirely still. The only life came from my hand-held Geiger counter which spluttered and crackled, telling me that
Contrary to what we redheads have been led to believe, we are not disappearing. Our numbers have increased in the past 10,000 years, according to a recent Harvard study. What’s more, researchers found, being ginger may actually be desirable as far as natural selection is concerned because “having red hair was beneficial 4,000 years ago.”
“It won’t last,” my schoolfriend Albert told me, as we staggered down London’s Embankment one summer evening in 2018, a few pints into his birthday pub crawl. I wasn’t sure as to what he was referring. The evening twilight? His youthful good looks? Our ability to walk in a straight line? He expanded: “Harry and
MAX JONES: “What do you think of the Beatles as artists and people?” BOB DYLAN: “Oh, I think they’re the best. They’re artists and they’re people.” —Melody Maker, March 1965 For more than 60 years, people have been fascinated by the connections between Bob Dylan and the Beatles. All were born during World War Two.
The best time to visit Provence, I always advise when asked, is in the spring before the scorching heat and summer crowds. I have been spending time in the south of France since the early 1990s. Provence was fashionable in those days. Peter Mayle’s massively successful book, A Year in Provence, inspired thousands to pull up stakes
It is the early hours of the morning and an email drops into my inbox. Lacking any kind of willpower, I open it. Now I’m wide awake. Because this isn’t the usual PR slop that starts my days. It’s a tip-off. A big one. A reader has discovered something about a company and they are
Grade: C– Kanye? No, I can’t, quite. I will always quietly overlook the idiotic political sensibilities of the conformist millennial legions who comprise our pop charts – the keffiyeh-clad Hamas wannabes, the BLM halfwits, the greenies, the men-can-be-women wankpuffins – in order to let their music be judged on its own merits, free from boomer
HBO Max is the latest streaming channel trying to lure you into yet another of those subscription contracts you only remember having signed up for about three years later when you’re trying to work out why you are so skint. Its showpiece series is The Pitt which attracts ten million viewers per episode and has
It’s a great shame that Elsa Schiaparelli is less widely known than her rival Chanel. Perhaps that’s down to how difficult her name is to pronounce. Is it “shap,” “skap” or “skyap”? Tristram Hunt, director of the V&A, answers with a quip from Schiaparelli herself: “No one knows how to say it, but everyone knows
Princess Maria Carolina de Bourbon des Deux-Siciles isn’t a name that rolls off the tongue – but it’s now on the lips of every socialite and political pundit in France. The 22-year-old Italian aristocrat, who is the elder daughter of the Duke of Castro, was splashed across the cover of gossip magazine Paris Match last
AI is set to take over all cognitive tasks in the next few years. Your hard-won career as a paralegal, data analyst, radiologist, coder or novelist is about to be hacked out from under you. So far, so apocalyptic. But what about the jobs that are primarily embodied? Sous-chef, rehabilitation nurse, plumber, dog-trainer? These are expected to lag
Kanye “Ye” West has been barred from appearing at London’s Wireless Festival by dint of having his temporary visa withdrawn. The move has generally been met with approval, save by those disappointed fans of his music whose pre-ordered tickets will now be refunded. “Kanye West should never have been invited to headline Wireless,” said Prime
It’s the most talked about comeback in France since Charles de Gaulle came out of retirement in 1958. The general may have launched the Fifth Republic, but Céline Dion is limiting herself to ten evenings at the Paris La Défense Arena between September 12 and October 14. Dion is French Canadian, but the French have adopted her as their own, as they did
Two weeks before the 2024 presidential election, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tweeted that “the FDA’s war on public health is about to end.” He then listed a host of treatments, all of which he claimed had been “aggressively suppressed” by a corrupt Big Pharma system. Two Ps – psychedelics and peptides – featured on that
When so much contemporary art is riven with obscurity and angst, it is disorienting, at first, to encounter something as straightforwardly enjoyable as Hockney’s latest exhibition. Aged 88, the artist went out into his garden in Normandy with his iPad to make a visual diary of the year 2020. A hundred or so of the
Before moving to New York City, I had a particular vision of what my life as a writer in this fabled land of opportunity would look like. I’d wear sleek, black turtlenecks and skinny jeans. I’d go to diners and eat bagels. I’d defy the caloric calculus and stay svelte. I’d write at my window
Lying in bed with a swollen face, I decided that the best thing to do was nothing, so I ended up watching the Duchess of Sussex make smoothies. I don’t know why everyone is so mean about her Netflix show because it hit the spot for me. As I took to my bed after surgery