New Year resolutions: Products to help make 2015 fitter, healthier and more organized January 5, 2015 Another festive season draws to a close, another year begins, and with it comes the mass promise-making that takes place every January. Across the globe people are resolving to cut out chocolate, carbs, social media, cigarettes and take up great novels, another language, or jogging. Even those who profess to have made no resolutions harbour [...]
New Year weight loss holidays: These getaways prove the January detox doesn’t always have to be depressing January 4, 2015 Forget crash diets and spin-classes. From running in Tallinn to blissing out in Sri Lanka, this is how to work off that festive flubber in style. Overindulged this Christmas? Did making merry take its toll on your belly? These travel tips combine the nations’ favourite January past times, detoxing and booking holidays, so you can [...]
Car review: The new Land Rover Discovery Sport has everything you need for extreme winter driving December 22, 2014 There was a moment when I thought Land Rover had made a terrible misjudgement. Iceland in December. It was always likely to be cold, but the blizzard we hit driving from Reykjavik to our hotel was biting, with horizontal snow and visibility down to a few metres. The impenetrable darkness didn’t help matters, given we [...]
Not convinced? December 22, 2014 CHECK OUT THESE ALTERNATIVES… AUDI Q5 2.0 TDI QUATTRO S LINE 177PS PRICE: £36,560 0-62MPH: 9.0 secs TOP SPEED: 124mph CO2 G/KM: 159g/km MPG COMBINED: 47.1mpg THE VERDICT: DESIGN Four Stars PERFORMANCE Four Stars PRACTICALITY Three Stars VALUE FOR MONEY Four Stars BMW X3 xDrive20d M Sport PRICE: £38,650 0-62MPH: 8.1 secs TOP SPEED: 131mph CO2 G/KM: 141g/km [...]
Reach for the Isle of Skye for a bracing winter weekend away December 21, 2014 The island off the west coast of Scotland has a rugged charm during the colder months – and the food is first class. My heart is yearning to thee, O Skye! Dearest of Islands! There first the sunshine gladdened my eye, On the sea sparkling”. So wrote Scottish poet Alexander Nicolson about the largest [...]
48 hours in… Oslo December 21, 2014 WHERE TO STAY The 140-year-old Grand Hotel has an illustrious cultural history in the city. It hosts the annual Nobel Peace Prize ceremony and past live-in guests include playwright Henrik Ibsen and explorer Fridjof Nansen. grand.no WHERE TO GO Bask in the green surroundings of one of Norway’s most important heritage sites, the Akershus Fortress, [...]
Film review: The Theory of Everything December 19, 2014 Cert 12a | ★★★★☆ Hot on the heels of Benedict Cumberbatch’s turn as Alan Turing in the Imitation Game comes The Theory of Everything, another rendering of a brilliant mind, this time Stephen Hawking. The former felt at home with science and tally-ho patriotism but shied away prudishly from the intimate details that were so [...]
Film review: Birdman December 19, 2014 Cert 15 | ★★★★★ Until now, Alejandro González Iñárritu was a filmmaker with heft but little humour. His last two films, Babel and Biutiful, seemed to set a trend for po-faced films about metaphysical problems with portentous one-word titles. All the stranger to relate, then, that in Birdman he’s made one of the funniest and [...]
Film review: Big Eyes December 19, 2014 Cert 12a | ★★★★☆ The death of Tim Burton as a creative force has been greatly exaggerated. The hype surrounding Big Eyes is loaded with phrases like “return to form” and “best film in years”, which does a disservice to his last movie, the wonderful Frankenweenie, released in 2012. There’s no doubt, though, that [...]
Theatre review: City of Angels at the Donmar Warehouse December 19, 2014 Donmar Warehouse | ★★★★☆ Screenwriters get a famously rough ride in Hollywood. After giving birth to their characters and nurturing them into fully-grown, relatable beings, they hand them over to directors who chop, cut and abuse them like neglectful foster parents. In 1989, Larry Gelbart took the roiling resentment that had built up over years [...]