Negroni inflation is out of control
Forty years ago this Christmas I visited Hong Kong for the first time – a few days after the signing…
How to make chocolate salami
For as long as we’ve been serving food, we’ve been unable to resist a bit of culinary deception. Making one…
What carols owe to Martin Luther
It’s 500 years since Martin Luther, along with the preacher Paul Speratus, put together the first Protestant hymn book, the…
Carols are much weirder than we think
Why, my sharp-minded colleague Tom Utley once asked after a Telegraph Christmas Carol service, should anyone think God would abhor…
‘Judgment is the price of being creative’: Rory Sutherland and Rick Rubin in conversation
Rick Rubin is a legendary American record producer who co-founded Def Jam records, which helped popularise hip hop. He has…
Superb: Ruination, at the Linbury Theatre, reviewed
Ruination begins with an ironic prologue in which a choric figure warns the audience that what follows makes unlikely matter…
When will Ronald Reagan get the recognition he deserves?
Max Boot’s contention that Reagan was a lightweight pragmatist who played little part in reviving America or winning the Cold War is absurdly revisionist
Meet the king of comic opera
John Savournin has been busy. That comes with the territory for a classical singer – things often get a little…
Thomas Kyd may have delighted Elizabethan audiences, but he still wasn’t a patch on Shakespeare
Brian Vickers aims to ‘restore’ Kyd to greatness – but claiming too much on too little evidence does the playwright no favours
The rotten core of Credit Suisse
For scandal, sleaze, hubris and treachery, no financial institution has been a serial offender like the disgraced Swiss bank. Little wonder it was dubbed Credit Swizz or Debit Suisse
Vivid, noble and bouyant: AAM’s Messiah reviewed
More than a thousand musicians took part when Handel’s Messiah was performed in Westminster Abbey in May 1791. It wasn’t…
Sumptuous but musically unmemorable: Elton John’s The Devil Wears Prada musical reviewed
The Devil Wears Prada is a fairy tale about an aspiring female novelist, Andy, who receives a job offer from…
Why does James Baldwin matter so much now?
The rise of Queer Studies and Black Lives Matter has led to renewed interest in Baldwin – who was exasperated in life with being categorised by colour or as ‘gay’
Why didn’t I read the comments sooner?
I adhere to a pretty iron-clad rule: not only do I avoid the bumper cars of social media, but I…
Modern-day ghosts: Haunted Tales, by Adam Macqueen, reviewed
Dark, unsettling stories set mostly in the world of social media and panic rooms are, strikingly, as much about love as death – and how love is stronger
Nostalgia for the bustling high street is misplaced
Annie Gray is refreshingly unsentimental about the days when cooking for the family involved time-consuming visits to the butcher, the greengrocer and baker
Tirzah Garwood just isn’t as good as her husband Eric Ravilious
Tirzah Garwood, wife of the more famous Eric Ravilious, is having a well-deserved moment in the sun, benefiting from this…
‘Carried away by those Russians’ – the dreadful fate of Queen Victoria’s granddaughters
The queen’s repeated warnings to Alix and Ella of the danger of marrying Russians were ignored, and both Princesses of Hesse would die appalling deaths at the hands of revolutionaries
