Peugeot 308 GTi review
There’s more choice than ever in the hot hatchback class – alongside this new Peugeot 308 GTi, Renaultsport’s Megane 275 Trophy has been released, Honda massaged 306bhp out of the new Civic Type R and Ford will break new ground…
New Range Rover Evoque SE Tech 2016
If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. That’s certainly the philosophy Land Rover has applied to the new Evoque. Only now, almost five years since the baby Range Rover was first launched, has the brand decided to update it. But…
Audi Q7 e-tron 2015 review
This is the plug-in hybrid Audi Q7 e-tron. Everyone’s at it: from pioneers Nissan to latecomers like Volvo, almost every manufacturer has an electric or hybrid model in its range. It comes as no surprise, then, that Audi’s e-tron family…
Ford F-150 Raptor 2017
Truck enthusiasts and journalist alike have long swooned over the Ford F-150 Raptor. Introduced in 2010, the Raptor proved Ford could make a Baja trophy truck and sell it to the average Joe. First equipped with the old 5.4-liter V-8…
On oat flour and elephant garlic
While not coeliac, I am wheat-/gluten-sensitive, yet I can tolerate porridge oats. Having lived in Australia for many years, I enjoyed oat bread, but can’t find it here. I’d bake my own if I could only get oat flour and…
Making fresh pasta is a rite of passage
Leo Tolstoy thought it was good for the soul to make your own shoes. As a result he spent his later years hobbling around with terrible corns. Some things are better left to the experts. For most people, pasta falls…
Do ‘superfoods’ really exist?
In the early 1990s, a cookbook called Superfoods appeared in the bookshops. It was co-written by the alternative medicine practitioner, Michael Van Straten, who is one of a handful of people said to have coined what has become one of…
A well-done steak isn’t a food choice: it’s a crime
Ido so love animals, especially dead, sliced up and roasted ones, their very life blood oozing out of them to the rim of my plate; the colour of conker on the outside, of velvet plush within. Stop wrinkling your nose…
The secret of the Mediterranean diet? There is no secret
Whoop-de-doo, researchers at King’s College London and the University of California claim to have identified the “secret” underpinning the oft-quoted healthfulness of the Mediterranean diet. From their lab tests on mice (not just any old mice, genetically modified ones) they…
Eat more anchovies, herring and sardines to save the ocean’s fish stocks
Cut back on tuna and salmon and load your plate instead with herring and sardines if you want to help save the world’s fish. So says the scientist who led the most comprehensive analysis ever carried out of fish stocks…
Summer prawn salad
This is a lovely fresh, crunchy salad with a hint of spice. You can substitute the prawns with crayfish meat, which is delicious and sweet, and should be cheaper too. Good delis and fishmongers stock it: opt for fresh UK-caught…
Make your own bacon
Buying bacon’s a lottery. There’s no telling the quality of pork that went into it, or the quantity of water added to bulk it out. If you want something that’s guaranteed to please, you’ll have to make it yourself. Start…
How to eat a persimmon
Our fruit bowls are becoming more adventurous. Having embraced the kiwi, the mango and the pomegranate we are now, it seems, passionate about persimmons. Supermarkets including Asda reported sales of the yellowy-orange, usually tomato-shaped fruits more than doubled last year…
Cornish blue: the greatest of cheese
General de Gaulle is famously said to have remarked of France “How can you govern a country that produces 246 varieties of cheeses?” The same can probably be said of Britain these days, and one of those cheeses, Cornish blue,…
Homemade yoghurt: something for the live-culture vultures
Yoghurt. We get through masses of it in our house. In fact, most things I cook for my children go well with yoghurt – breakfast, lunch or dinner. There’s the blob of fruity yoghurt my six-year-old likes to perch on…
Should I give a four-month-old baby solids?
When should babies start solids? My first child was gobbling up runny baby cereal at three months. Two decades later (my child-bearing was spread out), the rules had changed to nil by mouth except breast milk until six months. Not…
Why eating more fruit and veg doesn’t always help you lose weight
Will eating more fruit and vegetables make me thin? Want to get thin? Eat more fruit and vegetables – they’re a low-calorie way of filling up, right? The health site WebMD has “eat more fruit and vegetables” as one of…
Why walking is good for you
Pilates, yoga and the classic treadmill get all the attention when it comes to popular ways to stay healthy. There is, however, a more unassuming workout that might not get the column inches, but has all the benefits: walking. Certified…
Text neck: how smartphones are damaging our spines
Are smartphones a pain in the neck? According to new research carried out by a US doctor, they are far worse – “text neck” is becoming an epidemic that could lead to permanent damage. The posture we adopt as we…
Vampire of the uplands
At first I thought it was a thorn from a rose. I ran my hand up the back of my calf and could feel it caught in my skin. Something small, sticking out, it could be flicked back and forth…
How to cure my allergy
It was an egg biryani that started it. I had spent Easter hooked up to an intravenous drip in India – after a curry turned out to be housing a potent strain of E coli – and left the hospital…
Eat, drink and be … healthy?
It is a bright, autumnal Tuscan morning. Woodsmoke rises poker-straight into the sky, the village church jangles the quarter-hours and green-cloaked hills wrap the horizon. I’m in the walled garden of my private villa – vine pergola to the right,…
Teeth problems are top reason for young children’s hospital admissions
The number one reason for primary-school-aged children being admitted to hospital is to have multiple teeth taken out, newly released figures show. The number of children aged from five to nine needing hospital treatment for dental problems rose by more…
Exercise is good … but it won’t help you lose weight, say doctors
Being dangerously overweight is all down to bad diet rather than a lack of exercise, according to a trio of doctors who have reopened the debate about whether food, sedentary lifestyles or both are responsible for the obesity epidemic. In…
Cocoa, fruit and tea can help keep heart healthy, study says
Substances found in cocoa, fruit and tea could help healthy people keep their heart and circulation in good working order as they get older, according to researchers in Germany. Healthy middle-aged people who consumed two flavanol drinks a day had…
Memory loss in old age breakthrough offers dementia hope, say researchers
Researchers may have found a way to slow down or prevent memory problems that arise in old age and which can become devastating in patients with dementia. The fresh hope comes from a series of studies in humans and mice…
Me and the muse: Kamasi Washington on his sources of inspiration
The saxophonist Kamasi Washington, 34, is a key figure in the Los Angeles jazz scene. As well as leading his own band, the Next Step, and collaborating with a variety of jazz musicians, he has worked with the likes of…
‘Philthy Animal’ Taylor – the man who invented thrash
If you want to know how important Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor was to the development of metal, go on to YouTube. There you’ll find a clip from 2011 of “the big four” – the four founders of thrash metal, Slayer,…
Watch extracts from the Scottish Ensemble and Andersson Dance’s Goldberg Variations
Goldberg Variations – tenary patterns for insomnia is a collaboration between Glasgow-based string orchestra Scottish Ensemble and Swedish-based contemporary dance company Andersson Dance. 11 musicians and five dancers have created a new interpretation of Bach’s keyboard work in which both…
Adele’s platinum-certified single Hello tops singles chart for third week
Adele’s record-breaking single Hello has spent three consecutive weeks at No 1 on the UK singles chart. Since its release on 23 October, Hello has become thefastest-selling single in the UK this year and broken the record for most downloads…
Rachel Platten tops the UK singles chart for the first time
Singer-songwriter Rachel Platten has scored her first ever UK No 1, topping the official singles chart with the track Fight Song. The power ballad first entered the top 100 at No 68 last week, and climbed 67 places this week,…
Rolling Stones to enter the studio this year, says Ronnie Wood
The Rolling Stones are to enter the studio before the year is out to begin work on their next album, according to guitarist Ronnie Wood. Keith Richards has been suggesting the group would begin work on their 23rd studio album…
Julia Holter review – magical mystery tour of classical, pop, jazz and all between
It’s not unusual for a singer-songwriter who performs under their own name, as Julia Holter does, to introduce the musicians in their backing band towards the end of a live set. It’s rare that they point to the sound man…
Amy Winehouse, my sister and addiction
Iremember where I was the day that Amy Winehouse died. I had run into a shop in Soho to buy a birthday present, when I heard an exchange between the girl at the till and her customer. “She died of…
Alicia Keys laments ‘heartless’ justice system in reform pitch to Congress
From time to time, celebrities visit Washington to join advocates in favor of a cause – often raising the profile of an issue by giving extra weight to an otherwise routine press conference or committee hearing. On Monday, the singer-songwriter…