Tom Cutler: I have a confession to make. That’s the thing with confessions, you have to make them; you can’t just take them off the shelf. But confession can be dangerous, resulting in severe injury to the owner-up and the recipient alike. Take the chap who, in a fit of bravado, admitted to his wife…
Steve Pittard: England slow bowler by day and gentleman thief by night, A.J. Raffles, is cricket’s most enduring fictional character. His exploits shocked late Victorian society, who found it unthinkable that a burglar might play cricket – a sport synonymous with ‘fair play’. A.J. resides in bachelor chambers at Albany (just off Piccadilly). He can…
Nathaniel Adams: You might be surprised by how well crickets pair with brie. Wrapped in a sushi roll, their carapaces’ pleasant crunch counterbalances the creamy squish of the cheese. I’m not a foodie – the only celebrity chef I admire is John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich. Yet there I was, munching away on exoskeletal…
Nathaniel Adams: There are placards, designed in a Charles Rennie Mackintosh Glasgow School-style font, placed near the entrances to Disneyland in Anaheim California, which read: “Warning: The Disneyland Resort contains chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.” The claim of a state with so many…
Hip-hop was invented by languid 1920s socialite Edith Sitwell, argues Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer. Hip-Hop, that much maligned and derided of cultural phenomena, officially turned 40 years old last summer. In August 1973, a chap called Clive played some records at a party in a recreation room on Sedgewick Avenue in the Bronx, to…
Emma Hughes: Nowadays, there really is no such thing as a free lunch. Working days are interminable, BlackBerrys keep their owners tethered to the office and professions that were once looked upon as a gentle form of day-care for the feckless and inept are tightly regulated. Even journalists, for whom a gruelling shift traditionally consisted…
G Robert Ogilvy, a North American citizen, unashamedly passes judgement on the manner in which the people of today clothe themselves. A few weeks ago I was sitting in my car in a parking lot outside a drugstore – I had just read a trend piece in the New York Times lifestyle section and found…
Steve Pittard: England’s ill-fated Ashes campaign featured an entourage worthy of a gangster rapper. Also, the team’s ridiculously detailed dietary nonsense – piri-piri breaded tofu with tomato salsa, if you please – equalled any precious pop diva’s riders. Yet nobody addressed the most elementary consideration of all… selecting players capable of growing a moustache. Captain…
Rev’d Oliver Harrison: Somewhere between the vulgarity of checking the time on one’s phone and the sheer pomposity of tugging out a pocketwatch’s gold chain lies the wristwatch. And of all the accoutrements a man might acquire, it is surely his watch that says most about him. Here I must confess to a penchant for…
Steve Pittard: Armchair sleuths tackling Cluedo this Christmas might be in for a shock. The traditional Hampshire country mansion has been bulldozed to make way for an Essex style gangster’s gaff. The library has gone, with an integrated garage in its stead. The biggest crime here is not Dr Black’s demise, but the wholesale killing…
William Smith, newly installed as Head Cutter at Douglas Hayward, incredibly finds the time to pen an instructive tract on overcoats. As the nights draw in and the weather turns, the annual ritual of retrieving heavy, woollen overcoats from their summer hideaways begins. The heady scent of mothballs brings a feeling of impending frosty days,…
Nathanial Adams: On 13th October 1898, the fourth Marquess of Anglesey died at the family seat of Plas Newydd, an estate won by the First Marquess for the price of one leg at Waterloo (his bloody trousers are still on exhibit there.) His heir, Henry Cyril Paget, was now the Fifth Marquess, newly-minted master of…