Why the cocktail knit is your hero piece this party season
Fashion comes up with some gems, doesn’t it? Cocktail knits sound like something out of a 1950s edition of Harper’s, or the forthcoming Downton Abbey extravaganza. When…
Seven easy ways to glam up your workwear for Christmas parties
Model wears a waistcoat, £65, & Other Stories; recycled nylon skirt, £787, NYNNE; leather bag, £1,000, Loewe If in doubt go for black. Choose pieces with texture…
Russia’s richest man opens mammoth modern art centre despite Putin’s crackdown on artists
The 225,000 sq ft space, sheltered by a soaring glass roof, houses a vast exhibition space, a cinema, a concert hall, workshops for artists with hi-tech equipment,…
Macron accused of putting ‘deals’ before human rights with visit to Saudi Arabia
French President Emmanuel Macron was accused of putting politics before human rights over the weekend as he became the first major western leader to visit Saudi Arabia…
Eric Zemmour supporters gather in Paris for campaign launch
Thousands of supporters of French Right-wing presidential candidate Eric Zemmour gathered at a stadium outside Paris on Sunday to kick off his first official campaign rally, with police on…
No Christmas celebrations for last three Christians in Syrian village
The exodus of Middle Eastern Christians from ancestral homelands is no recent phenomenon. During the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Assyrian refugees fleeing persecution in Anatolia were…
CNN fires Chris Cuomo for helping brother fight sexual harassment claims
“He’s my brother. And if I can help my brother, I do. If he wants me to hear something, I will. If he wants me to weigh…
Jeffrey Epstein victim asks if ex-staff knew more than they disclosed at Ghislaine Maxwell trial
Mr Alessi told Palm Beach police in 2005 as part of their investigation into Epstein that he had as many as three massages a day, and that…
Russia ‘plans military offensive against Ukraine in the new year’
“The plans involve extensive movement of 100 battalion tactical groups with an estimated 175,000 personnel, along with armour, artillery and equipment.” This assessment was based partly on…
Indonesia volcano: Deadly eruption buries entire villages in ash
Many of those who were burnt had thought the hot mud flow was flooding so stayed in their villages, said Lumajang Public Order Agency spokesman Adi Hendro. …
My favourite port is the perfect foil for a far stinkier Stilton
There’s a smattering of bottles of Quinta do Noval Late Bottled Vintage port from 2010 that might flare the nostril of a well-tuned hyperosmiac (if that is…
The bohemian Mexican city than can rival Ibiza
Shopping is hungry work. Fortunately, San Miguel is a gastronomical dream. Long topping local restaurant charts is the ultra-romantic Moxi at Hotel Matilda (hotelmatilda.com). Created by famed…
Heather Small: ‘I got held by Russian immigration and carried out of a club in Ibiza’
I felt at home in Ghana I went for the 2019 Year of Return when they invited the diaspora to come home. I’d never been to west…
Joints, pints and Irish parties: the truth behind The Waterboys’ ‘escape from fame’
Room to Roam is no orthodox trad album. According to Scott, it was an attempt to create The Waterboys’ very own version of The Beatles’ kaleidoscopic opus,…
Gentleman Overboard: a Hollywood-blacklisted author’s lost masterpiece
The difference between life and death can be no more than a spot of grease. Either it is in the wrong place or you are. One can…
The secrets of running the real Downton Abbey
Today’s custodians live in a modest house a few feet from Highclere’s back door, but stay in the castle frequently. It’s a big house, with around 300…
What’s on TV tonight: new BBC drama You Don’t Know Me, the return of The Great and the Doctor Who finale
Vienna BloodBBC Two, 9pmAfter a relatively formulaic first series full of fringe pleasures, the Viennese policier based on the novels of Frank Tallis returns in much the…
‘Lenient’ sentence for Arthur Labinjo-Hughes’ abusers to be reviewed
“My view is simple on this. We need to get to the bottom of how this happened and we need to ensure those who have failed him…
Chorister, 12, becomes a bishop – but only for 45 minutes
Henry VIII put a stop to the practice of appointing child bishops in 1541, declaring it a distraction from proper church business. Salisbury Cathedral revived the practice…
How the forgotten 1919-21 pogroms established the systematic murders that led to the Holocaust
Waking up from the nightmare of the Great War, many clung to the hope that it would mark a turning point in human history. A terrible lesson…
Sunset Swing by Ray Celestin, review: a fitting finale to this hard-boiled, jazzy crime series
Here ends one of the finest achievements of recent crime fiction, Ray Celestin’s City Blues Quartet. The first book, The Axeman’s Jazz, introduced us to black Pinkerton…
What if Charles I’s popular sister had replaced him?
One of the “what if?” questions often posed by historians asks what would have happened if Henry, Prince of Wales, had not died in 1612, at the…
James MacMillan’s Christmas Oratorio, review: a major contribution to the religious repertory
Premiered in Amsterdam in January this year, without an audience but broadcast on radio, James MacMillan’s big new choral and orchestral work was widely welcomed as one…
Happy Mondays and James, review: lairy hedonism and questing spirituality from two very different 90s bands
In their pomp three decades ago, Happy Mondays would probably just have been emerging from bed at 7.30pm – the hour at which they took the stage…
Why Pentecostalism is taking over the world
So how did all this start? Hardy takes us back to the American Midwest in the early 20th century, painting a picture reminiscent of the “Prophets’ Corner”…