London, music, art, culture, history, social justice
Interview with Meik Wiking, the dude who invented HYGGE (kinda)
Interviewed Meik Wiking, invented or hygge, about his new book.
Jeff Goldblum can make you fall in love with jazz
Our review of the iconic actor’s new lounge record
It’s a delicious irony, really; the very qualities everybody loves about Jeff Goldblum are the exact same qualities most people can’t abide about jazz.
Urbanity. Sophistication. Intelligence. Turtlenecks. Oversized specs. A polished, patrician brand of sexiness – like copping a feel with your old professor, at a wine tasting.
Well, wouldn’t you know, turns out old Jeffy is a dab hand at jazz piano. He’s been tickling the ivories at his favour...
London's favourite fictional characters vs the housing market
Spoiler: It's looking bleak for our heroes...
I add kisses to all my emails and texts – is that sexually inappropriate?
Etiquette can be a minefield sometimes.
Which is precisely why society has handy little conventions to guide us – essentially so we don’t need to think for ourselves.
Meeting someone new in a business context? Shake hands!
A person you barely know sneezes? Say ‘bless you!’
Somebody is behind you at the supermarket checkout? Quick, grab one of those divider thingies!
These laws are ancient and immutable as the cosmos.
But the age of electronic communications has created a bewildering jungle of...
Rich Pickings: Wilderness Festival Report
Grace Jones, First Aid Kit and Benedict Cumberbatch delight at this well-to-do Oxfordshire shindig.
The portly geezer navigating his refreshment trolley along Friday’s packed 14:22 service out of Paddington summed it up best:
‘Wilderness is the Waitrose of festivals.’
Quite so. Our Cotswold-bound train was crammed with toothsome Fulham fillies necking G&Ts in First Class. Even as he inched along the standing-room-only-basic-bitch part where I was wedged, this rotund trolley-philosopher made a...
Live Report: Electric Castle Festival 2017
Cards on the table – I revel in the palpable envy of the many, many people I tell ‘I’m off to a festival in a 15th century Transylvanian castle this summer.’
Try saying it out loud. Feels great. But beyond the vampire vibes, was Electric Castle actually any good?
In spite of its ravishingly ripe-for-bragging setting, the line up wasn’t especially promising. I happen to love alt-J, recall Franz Ferdinand fondly, and decide I may as well see House Of Pain live because fuck it. Electro jollies c...
Weird workouts: reach new heights with high altitude cycling
Weird workouts: reach new heights with high altitud...
Here’s why I’m glad I started going to the gym in my thirties
Until recently I prided myself on having a normal, healthy contempt for people who go to the gym.
Something about their smugness, their vanity, their high tolerance for brainless repetition and useless physical labour never sat well with me.
But all that changed a few months ago.
Previously I’d always stayed active and kept trim – as much as possible anyway – through a self-tailored workout regime; a groundbreaking low-impact fusion of skintness, cycling and, um, let’s call it ‘partying’.
Whi...
Age is no barrier: the veteran stars of Masters athletics
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The world of Masters athletics contains all the drama of regular sporting competition, with the additional compelling feature that the athletes are aged from 35 to over 100. But who are these doughty stars of the track, who keep competing long after most of us have stashed our trainers under the spare bed for good?
Lesley Chaplin
The bright-eyed track star from Atlanta, Georgia, has enjoyed a flat out astonishing 2018 so far, breaking no fewe...
This is what Monopoly-board London would look like in 2016
In the ’30s the makers of Monopoly picked 22 iconic London streets for their board. Eighty years later our city looks rather different, so we've come up w...
Meet the lady bosses of the Brighton food scene
Our lovely hippy city by the seaside is globally renowned for its openness, progressive values and tolerance.
So for International Women’s Day (March 8) we thought it would be cool to catch up with some of the ladies currently making waves in different sectors of the Brighton food and drink scene.
Here come the girls…
About six years ago, after late-night drinking around a friend’s kitchen table, I went for a bit of a run on the seafront.
Well I say run – more of a slow hungover jog. It occur...
25 things you didn't know about the tube
London’s beloved tube is the oldest and most iconic subterranean transport system in the world. Andy Hill minds the gap as he reveals its hidden history...
16 creepy London stories to get you in the mood for Halloween
16 creepy London stories to get you in the mood for...