8-9 October
Radio
Sixty years ago, when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev moved nuclear warheads to Cuba, some of the most perilous weeks in world history ensued. But there are two reasons why the situation with Russia today is “even more dangerous”, says Max Hastings on the BBC’s Jeremy Vine Show.
Zeitgeist
When Kate Moss unveiled her new wellness brand, says Kara Kennedy in The Spectator, my first reaction was: “great, another cool girl who’s been swallowed up into the mundane world of green shakes and yoga”. This is a woman who once bragged that her beauty regime consisted of “three Cs and one V”: cigarettes, champagne, coffee and vodka. I don’t blame Kate herself: her face cream costs £95, and her sacred mist – “whatever that is” – is priced at £120. “If there are people out there naive enough to buy all this then power to her.” I just feel it’s a rather sad testament to how boring our society has become.
Comment
When my mum visited me in east London, says James Marriott in The Times, all she kept saying was: “Everyone here’s so young.” On holiday in the Lake District two weeks later, I was thinking the opposite: “Everyone was so old.” This may seem obvious – of course the young prefer “bustling” cities and the old like “restful” countryside. But it’s amazing how new a development this is. “As recently as 1991, villages and cities had the same mix of ages.” Now all 10 of England’s largest cities are experiencing “an exodus of the elderly”, with young people “heading in the other direction”. It’s the same within communities: the decline of social clubs, local sports teams, churches and pubs has left few places where “young and old mingle socially”.
There was once a time when venturing south of the Thames “would bring a Chelsea girl out in hives”, says Tatler. But nowadays, the “deep, deep south” – Peckham, Camberwell, Brixton and the like – is the “new epicentre of London’s elite”. Westminster types no longer plot in Mayfair’s member’s clubs, but in the “bougie gastropubs of Greenwich”, home to the new PM and Chancellor. A “younger, edgier crowd” prefer Peckham: Bellenden Road, with its “toff-filled restaurants” like Artusi and The Begging Bowl, now far surpasses King’s Road. Expect the same ambience in Brixton, where your neighbours would include both acting royalty (Joanna Lumley) and real royalty (Prince Fritzi von Preussen, a descendant of Kaiser Wilhelm II). Suitably cool pastimes include dancing to techno at Phonox nightclub and catching stand-up sets at the Cavendish Arms, or, to locals, “the Cav”.
After losing more than $200bn over the pandemic, airlines are doing whatever they can to lure back business- and first-class passengers, says Kitty Drake in the FT. “Food has become a kind of weapon.” Emirates recently launched a “bottomless caviar” service, and on Singapore Airlines, first-class passengers can enjoy lobster thermidor while snuggled up in a double bed. In-flight chefs must sign non-disclosure agreements before cooking some special meals. At a recent demonstration in Paris, I was fed dishes including “yuzu sponge and a tiny French crêpe stuffed with whipped cream”. The only clue it was plane food was that it remained “eerily still” – when I shook the plate, nothing budged. “Every meal was turbulence proof.”
Staying young
The White House’s “most famous intern”, Monica Lewinsky, recently confided she has five therapists, says Esther Walker in the I newspaper. These include a trauma therapist, an “energy guy”, and someone specialising in body-focused somatic work. “I can’t help but worry about the expense.” Monica must spend all the time she is not with her therapists “earning money in order to pay her therapists”. Just like we’ve insisted on importing “culture wars, turmeric lattes and Peloton” from America, so too with therapy. The number of registered counsellors in the UK has doubled in a decade; we’re obsessed with “therapy-speak” about working on “our boundaries” and “unresolved traumas”.
Books
The newly published diaries of the late actor Alan Rickman confirm he was “powered by real intelligence, wry cynicism and a keen bullshit detector”, says Anna Leszkiewicz in The New Statesman. Each entry is short: usually a few lines relating the day’s events, “with a sly observation or an exasperated aside thrown in”. Many recount a lifestyle with touches of turn-of-the-millennium glamour: dancing with Emma Thompson, chatting with Kate Moss at gallery openings, and drinking champagne on his way to Glyndebourne. (“Little Olde England still determinedly putting out its collapsible chairs,” he wrote. “I kept thinking ‘someone with a machine gun will appear any minute’.”)
Inside politics
“Overthrowing your leaders is addictive,” says Jonn Elledge in The New Statesman. Just look at the Roman Empire. The Praetorian Guard assassinated one “incompetent young emperor” in AD 222, the army another in AD 235. This set a bloody trend: in half a century, the empire ran through about 26 leaders, “only one fewer than the number who ruled in the previous 262 years”. The people who really held power, the military, had suddenly realised that they could “make or break emperors pretty much at will”. If they didn’t like one, they’d kill him and appoint another.
This Grade B listed former vicarage is nestled in the rolling hills of the Scottish borders, near the small hamlet of Bentpath. It has five bedrooms – as well as an airy loft with space for two more – and traditional features including timber floorboards, large sash windows, and a period fireplace. The home sits within 1.25 acres of gardens, complete with an orchard, summer house and vegetable patch. Carlisle station is a 40-minute drive away, with direct trains to London taking three-and-a-half hours. £895,000.
This Grade II listed home sits just minutes from Peckham’s bustling Bellenden Road. It has three bedrooms, a spectacular library, and a garden with a large studio at its centre. The house retains plenty of original features, including tall sash windows which bathe the living room in light, as well as multiple marble fireplaces. Peckham Rye station is a two-minute walk. £2.55m.
