Knightsbridge is the only London Underground station with six consecutive consonants in its name, but this is not the only remarkable aspect of that borough. Once ejected from the tube station into the glittering lee of Harrods, one can be forgiven for thinking one has been accidentally teleported into a Hollywood film with a Christmas… … Keep Reading
Fans of classic film noir of the 1940s are in for a treat with Motherless Brooklyn. Production designer Beth Mickle has restyled New York as a gritty, chiaroscuro city where everyone casts long shadows and on every street corner there’s a cool jazz joint full of sharply dressed hep cats. Willem Dafoe’s character Paul Randolph,… … Keep Reading
Images of southern Spain, usually composed of matadors, barrels of sherry, women in flamenco dresses and orange trees wilting in the heat, do not commonly include tweed jackets. It’s rarely cold enough in Andalucia to don even a waistcoat, never mind a full tweed ensemble. Yet during the 1930s there emerged, from the royal and… … Keep Reading
When m’learned colleague invited me to join him for a Chinese meal, my first thought was – isn’t at least one of us a little old to be gorging on cut-price fodder ordered in a dank Soho basement by pointing at lurid pictures on a laminated menu, to an oriental chap who makes a virtue… … Keep Reading
“It is so difficult to make a neat job of killing people with whom one is not on friendly terms.” Such is the laconic lament uttered by Dennis Price in his guise as Louis Mazzini in Kind Hearts & Coronets, the Ealing Comedy Classic. Louis is the peerless peer (oft by his own hand) who… … Keep Reading
Issue 102 of The Chap celebrates the mad, the eccentric and the maverick artiste, commencing with a surreal conversation between actor Tony Pitts and comedian Vic Reeves. We also meet Dexys frontman Kevin Rowland, who discusses his long musical career and allows us a glimpse into his immense personal wardrobe. Maverick icons featured include Marilyn… … Keep Reading
The City of London doesn’t look much like the set of Blade Runner. It looks more like the set of a Charles Dickens adaptation that ran out of budget and left the builders behind. One of the few parts of the City that looks complete is the Leadenhall Building, around the corner from Leadenhall Market.… … Keep Reading
UMC (Universal Music Catalogue) is releasing the first-ever official soundtrack to the series Peaky Blinders, in a two-CD set spanning all five series, which will also be available as a 3-record vinyl release. Since the opening credits of the first series, using Nick Cave’s menacing Red Right Hand to set the sinister tone, music has… … Keep Reading
Borough Market came to everyone’s attention in the 1990s, when Jamie Oliver pointed out that British food is actually rather good, as long as you spend vast amounts of cash on each ingredient. The market continues to thrive, anachronistically at odds with the vast developments that have taken place around it in Southwark. The change… … Keep Reading
I still find the Eurostar really rather wonderful. You get on a train at St. Pancras and alight some two hours later at Le Gare Du Nord into a different world, where the attitudes, tastes, smells, people and culture are as different from London as sand is to salt. Undeniably, it is quite an anomalous… … Keep Reading
From the eleventh floor balcony of a hotel overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the horizon flashing with lightning, brassy wisps of Mariachi music wafting up from somewhere through the heat of the night, was the sense that we were definitely in Mexico. It had taken nearly 20 hours to reach this moment of Mexican awareness, though… … Keep Reading
Men’s grooming brand Urban Jack declares itself to be on a mission to improve men’s skincare. “Every day,” they tell us, “mens’ skin goes into battle with environmental factors, from exhaust fumes to the unpredictable British weather. Throw in a gym session, a park run and one too many late nights, and it’s little wonder… … Keep Reading