How our news reporter fell into the world of Dungeons & Dragons October 11, 2024 Our gnome bard was attempting to woo the lord of the manor when it happened. A banshee had exploded out of the floor, sending guards fleeing and instantly petrifying my pet direwolf. Our orc barbarian was drunk at the time, leaving him utterly useless, so it all fell on me to calm the banshee or, [...]
Property market 2025 predictions: Greener and healthier October 10, 2024 Predicting the prevailing winds in the super-prime property market can be a thankless task, given how it is at the behest of factors both national and international. Nevertheless, I have grabbed my crystal ball to make some predictions about the emerging and developing trends, from the continued rise in at home wellness to an ever-increasing [...]
Check out this house built from the ground up for ‘wellness’ October 10, 2024 Property of the week | Clarendon Road, Notting Hill | £8.25m | For sale through Middleton Advisors If there has been one trend that has defined the 2020s so far, it is the proliferation and penetration of ‘wellness’, that imprecise but ubiquitous term that covers everything from physical fitness to mental fortitude. Property developers have not [...]
Timestalker is the saucy, grizzly anti-romance British cinema needs October 10, 2024 Having spent much of her acting career in cult favourites such as TV comedy Garth Merenghi’s Dark Place and 2012 indie film Sightseers, Alice Lowe broke through as a director with her 2016 comedy slasher Prevenge. She follows up that success with her second directorial effort, high concept comedy Timestalker. She plays Agnes, a woman [...]
Salem’s Lot review: Dreary HBO Max vampire horror lacks bite October 10, 2024 The work of Stephen King has been adapted for TV and film consistently since the author began writing. Some result in classics – The Shawshank Redemption and IT – while other fail to capture the spirit of the story and are forgotten. The latest adaptation of King’s second novel, ‘Salem’s Lot, seems destined for the latter [...]
Transformers One is the best film in this franchise. Here’s why… October 10, 2024 For 17 years the Transformers franchise has proven bafflingly successful. The four Michael Bay-directed movies, spanning from 2007 to 2017, became a byword for shallow spectacle, while the prequels Bumblebee (2018) and Rise of The Beasts (2023) were at best a marginal improvement. The series now moves into animated territory with the star-studded family film [...]
Mire Lee at the Tate Modern is the Turbine Hall at its very best October 10, 2024 Wander into the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall and you will be met by the unsettling sight of what look like flayed, bloodied skins hanging from heavy industrial chains overhead. Dozens of them, all a sickly pink, each one stretched over rusting wires. As you progress through the hall you discover the source of these grotesque [...]
Ibai review: This Basque restaurant is one of the best of the year October 9, 2024 Creating a vibe is a tricky business. You can have the most beautiful dining room in the world and somehow end up with a tragic, inexplicable lack of vibes, even slipping into negative vibe territory, actively sucking the spirit out of your diners (see: Brasserie Zedel). On the other hand, you can have a brutalist [...]
Libby takes her favourite Naked Wines on the road. This week: Hide October 9, 2024 Rarely do I decline an invitation to Hide, the Michelin-starred restaurant overlooking Piccadilly and Green Park, but especially not when at the behest of David Baker, Founder of Hermitage Cognac, to “try something special”. In truth it seems unfair to call him merely a “Founder” of a brand, as Cognac is clearly his calling, his [...]
Why Panama is an undiscovered wonder for nature lovers October 9, 2024 I spot a cayman a couple of metres away on the umber riverbank. It is as still as a park bench, its jaws wide open. I’m not describing a Porsche Cayman with its bonnet up awaiting a recovery truck, I’m talking about a crocodile with a hungry look in its eyes. It surveys me with [...]