BY PETER BROOK More than just a cooker, our Aga—known in the family as ‘Aggie’—is a cast-iron monument to the reliable comforts of home. It is the 90-year-old engine room of our kitchen, and the undisputed heavyweight champion of multi-tasking, often combining cooking with warming up young, wet lambs; drying anything from washing to damp hounds; keeping those same hounds warm and cosy at night; … Continue reading The Aga Can
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Alexa’s answer to what to do with people with verbal diarrhoea is not worth repeating. It is far too politically correct and polite. I have a contact who calls me every day ‘on the off chance’ I might pick up. I know that picking up means sacrificing at least 45 minutes to them. I could be working, writing a chapter of a … Continue reading Cacoethes Loquendi
BY JAMES BEMBRIDGE At 5 pm on Wednesday, March 15, 2017, Isobel Weber died much as she lived: dressed in high fashion, sipping champagne and surrounded by no one. Turn the clock back two years, and I’m sitting with her in the Kronenhalle restaurant, Zurich, struggling to make sense of what she’s saying. Her lips are moving, but they’ve just had about 5 vials of … Continue reading Hollow Fillers
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Dear Truth, Last week I spent many hours looking for You in town. I had lost you. I was tired – of lifts and escalators, and overpowered by the sickly-sweet smell of perfume – when I left Selfridges. You seemed nowhere to be found. To escape the shallow like-seeking Instagram selfies and general hubbub of Oxford Street – its endless slalom between … Continue reading Dear Truth
