Badrutt’s Palace hotel: a history January 27, 2013 THE INCEPTION of winter tourism to the Alps is attributed to one man – Johannes Badrutt. A hotelier of the late 19th century, Badrutt bet a group of English summer alpine tourists that they would love the winter sunshine of St Moritz as much as the summer meadows. They did. He opened the grande dame [...]
Ben Fogle: everything I’ve done has built up to swimming the Atlantic January 27, 2013 I’M SERIOUSLY afraid of heights and I’m not the best swimmer,” Ben Fogle says as I catch up with him over the phone just after he landed in New York before jetting off to Buenos Aires. But scared isn’t exactly the first word that springs into mind when you think of the 39 year-old father [...]
Lincoln is no ordinary biopic January 24, 2013 FILM LINCOLN Cert 12A **** Entitled simply “Lincoln”, directed by Steven Spielberg and with a score by John Williams, you could be forgiven for expecting a slick, grandiose epic. A small town mid-Westerner who educated himself, struck out on his own, became a lawyer and eventually President, Abraham Lincoln’s life is tailor made for the [...]
Zero Dark Thirty surpasses even Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker January 24, 2013 FILM ZERO DARK THIRTY Cert 12A **** Zero Dark Thirty is military jargon for the precise time, 12.30am, when US Navy SEALs first set foot in Usama bin Laden’s (“UBL”) hideout. It is also the name of director Kathryn Bigelow’s latest collaboration with screenwriter Mark Boal (they are the Oscar winning duo of Hurt Locker [...]
A darkly comic take on Kafka January 24, 2013 THEATRE THE METAMORPHOSIS Hammersmith Lyric **** FRANZ KAFKA’s The Metamorphosis, in which protagonist Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning to discover he has turned into an “Ungeziefer” (usually translated as “beetle”) has variously been interpreted as the most harrowing of autobiographies, a comment on the alienation of modernity and, perhaps most profoundly, the best literary [...]
The best estate car on the market January 22, 2013 Driving a rear-wheel drive car in the snow and ice is the only time any self-respecting petrol-head might wish for front-wheel drive. It’s also when the traction control warning light is at its most comforting. So it was for us, skating our way out of a snowed-in car park on the M2 services, running and [...]
Car talk January 22, 2013 Happy 100th Birthday Aston Martin As part of its centenary celebrations, Aston Martin airlifted a Vanquish super car – 1,000ft above the ground – onto the helipad of Dubai’s iconic Burj Al Arab Hotel last week, ensuring excellent photographic opportunities. Aston Martin was founded 100 years ago in London’s Henniker Mews on 15 January 1913. [...]
Bread as a matter of course January 21, 2013 RESTAURANT GAIL’S KITCHEN 11-13 Bayley Street, Bedford Square, WC1B 3HD Tel: 020 7323 9694 FOOD *** SERVICE **** ATMOSPHERE **** Cost for two with wine: £65 GAIL’S Bakery, the well-known artisan chain, is the brainchild of Tom Molnar and Ran Avidan. Their focus has always been on producing traditional handmade-quality bread and this mantra has [...]
Catch game birds before they fly January 21, 2013 Head chef, Paternoster Chop House Blame IT on TV schedules stuffed with period dramas like Agatha Christie and Downton Abbey, but every winter, I always end up feeling nostalgic about everything that is quintessentially British. Watching the upper crust engaged in their traditional pastime of shooting game birds reminds me that there’s only a few [...]
The split personality grape that will get you through the winter January 21, 2013 [email protected] It is January. It is bitterly cold, Christmas has cost a fortune, the chap next to you on the train is hacking viruses all over you, it’s dark outside and you know it is going to get dark again at 4pm. Happy times. In these circumstances there is only one wine I turn to, [...]