Author Melanie Cantor lives in perhaps the most remarkable one-bed flat in North London. Located on the first floor of a Art deco-era mansion block in Brondesbury ParkStepping inside you are transported to the opulence of a Moroccan riad through the splendor of the stately palazzo. “It looks like a jewelry box,” says Cantor enthusiastically, … Read more
Eddie Wilson shakes his head in despair at the thought of Donald Trump becoming the next American president. “I’m too old to leave the country, so all I do is hide my head and shudder when I think about something like that,” he says. His state, Texas, may vote for Trump, but his city certainly … Read more
The ironic tragedy of Yosser Hughes, the chronically unemployed asphalt worker in Alan Bleasdale’s drama Boys From The Blackstuff, is that he screamed and wailed into a void. Nobody listened. His now legendary plea to anyone, anyone he met on the streets of Liverpool, to ‘suggest’ him a job went unheard and ignored. People, and … Read more
Chessboard fields stretch across gently rolling hills, tall church towers punctuate villages of honey-colored stone, and flower meadows decorate smoothly winding valleys. Stretching from Chipping Campden in the north to the outskirts of Bath in the south, the Cotswolds cover some 500 square miles of near-perfect rural England. The rural landscape reflects centuries of interplay … Read more
On May 8, 1956, Terence Rattigan stood outside the Royal Court Theater in London after the opening night of a revolutionary new drama. This was not one of his own plays, but a breakdown of the upstart generation: John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger. Or, as the veteran playwright bitterly put it: Look how different … Read more
“The Weddell Sea,” wrote historian Thomas R. Henry in 1950, “is, according to the testimony of all who have navigated its mountain-filled waters, the most treacherous and bleak region on earth.” These are the swirling, ship-crushing waters where Ernest Shackleton lost the Endurance. Common sense would therefore indicate that tourists can do well there – … Read more
‘I’m 39, earn £40,000 and had a modest upbringing. This is how I spend my money Send an email to participate in How I Spend My Money money@telegraph.co.uk. All our topics are genuine but anonymous. I have always been very frugal. Born from humble beginnings in a big northern city, I grew up to live … Read more
Breasts have been a focus in the culture wars of the past fifty years. I think of the second-wave feminists who ditched their bras in the 1970s, and the ongoing judgmental debates over breastfeeding, and the even more fraught and recent hostilities surrounding trans healthcare. Recent celebrations of feminine sensuality, reflected in things like #freethenip, … Read more
BBCSO/Brabbins, Barbican ★★★★☆ The centenary of Luigi Nono’s birth year is not being celebrated as widely this year as the radical Venetian composer deserves, although the challenges of such an undertaking are easy to understand. A few decades ago the BBC Symphony Orchestra might have devoted one of its famous annual monographic composers’ weekends to … Read more