Mulled Wine Ingredients: 10 cloves Zest and juice of 2 oranges 100-150g caster sugar depending on desired sweetness 25g dried cranberries 100g whole blanched almonds 700ml red wine 500ml ruby port 300ml vodka 10 cardamom pods 2 small cinnamon sticks How to Make Mulled Wine: Pre-heat the oven to 200°c / gas mark 6 and boil up your kettle. Place the blanched almonds into a … Continue reading Mulled Wine Recipe
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN I have a confession to make. Even though I joyously agreed to be one of the founder writers of Country Squire Magazine, I’ve spent most of my life as something of a plastic exurbanite in the Surrey villages stockbroker belt, where the hedges are perfectly trimmed, Barbours are mere fashion accessories, tractors get polished to a patina and paddocks are mowed in aesthetically-pleasing stripes. … Continue reading Confession of a Plastic Exurbanite
BY SAM WHITE A recent Giles Fraser article in the Guardian, Assimilation Threatens the Existence of Other Cultures, asserts that wherever you might choose to live, you should feel no obligation to assimilate into the wider culture. He states: I admire the resilience of a community that seeks to maintain its distinctiveness and recognises, quite rightly, that assimilation into the broader culture would mean the … Continue reading Giles Fraser’s Low Expectations
BY PHILIP DANTÈS I have been distracted of late: hours pass; conversations drift like smoke from denuded cigarettes; I have not been myself. True, my mind is prone to wander. Employers despair at my lack of concentration, lovers at my lack of constancy. I do not mean to disappoint, but I often do. That is the curious thing. Instead of roaming where they please, my … Continue reading Jay Gatsby
INTERVIEWEE: ATMA SINGH Q: What role did you have when you worked in City Hall in London? Atma: I was lead Policy Adviser to the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, on Asian Affairs in the Mayor’s Office. In addition, I had responsibility for faith matters. Q: Why were you recruited? Atma: I had predicted the rise of Asian superpowers in China and India when all … Continue reading Livingstone Staff Celebrated 9/11
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN To the annoyance of my minders, I stand amongst a crowd of passengers in the bus park next to Nkrumah Circle, in the smoke-filled heart of Ghana’s capital city, Accra. With vehicles buzzing overhead on a fly-over and stationary ones hooting horns in a jam on the road below, it is not easy to hear or be heard. A huge man in … Continue reading Ghana’s Golden Generation
Dear Readers, This year Christmas will land barely two months after our launch. Nonetheless, we feel obliged as squires and squiresses to offer you some sort of a Christmas Competition and a must-win prize. So, first to The Prize: it’s 20 litres of Devon Red Cider from Sandford Orchards in Crediton. “Bags of fruit and a truly satisfying cider bite delivered in a genuinely quaffable and light balanced … Continue reading Country Squire Christmas Competition
BY ANNA BOWEN You may or may not have read Country Life‘s article; a guide to being a modern day gentleman. The list of attributes includes things like being able to ride a horse and sail a boat, alongside other examples of what that magazine deems chivalrous behaviour. My father took two lessons from school; the ability to polish shoes (thanks cadets) and a brief knowledge … Continue reading How To Be A Country Gentleman
BY ANNA BOWEN Ball season is upon us so here’s a handy list… Down a shot for every one that you spot! 1 The Little Princess Allowed at the ball as a very special treat. Wears a sparkly dress and throws a tantrum because she’s not given a glass of wine on arrival. Spills profiteroles over said dress. Papa is very concerned about the years … Continue reading 10 People You Meet at Hunt Balls
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN In a recent interview with Italian journalist Eugenio Scalfari (after past indiscretions Scalfari’s reporting is generally not to be trusted), Pope Francis was said to have uttered the following words: “It has been said many times and my response has always been that, if anything, it is the Communists who think like Christians.” Whether the Pope said these words or not, his … Continue reading Stop Hijacking Jesus, Progressives!
EDITORIAL When we came up with the idea of Country Squire Magazine, someone asked what the expected audience might be. Someone in the room was cautious and hoped that maybe we could get five hundred users per day. There was someone a bit braver who mentioned one thousand was possible. “Noooo!” shouted a perennial optimist at the back of the room, “we’ll fill a football … Continue reading Thanks, Dear Readers
BY ALEXIA JAMES Most people get fat at some point in their lives. Many women get fat during and after pregnancy (yup, me too) and it takes one hell of a lot of hours on the cross trainer to shed those pounds, lose those jowls, tighten that butt and somehow squeeze back into your pre-pregnancy clothes. Some people are happy living with fat. Others hate … Continue reading The Art of Being Fat
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN David Sole’s Scotland’s 1990 Calcutta Cup defeat of the Auld Enemy before a partisan crowd at Murrayfield Park in Edinburgh was agonising for all Englishmen to watch. Since then, there have been skirmishes won (and a few lost) but none hurt the English so much as that gut-buster of a defeat. I was studying A-Level History at the time and struggled to keep up with … Continue reading What is Scottish?
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN There are some things in life that are obvious. You drop litter – you pick it up. You bump into someone in the street – you apologise. You see someone being bullied – you jump to their aid. Let’s call these actions instances of civilised pragmatism. In general, Brits are a decent and empathetic bunch. We’re civilised and we’re no-nonsense pragmatic. We … Continue reading A Time for Change
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Throughout History power has been shaped by the Crowd. Whether the Bolshevik hordes or Wat Tyler’s Peasants’ Revolt, when the masses marched and massed in sufficient numbers in valuable locations they succeeded in altering the status quo. Often their countrymen would not hear about changes affecting them because of the actions of the Crowd until many days or weeks later; when historic news … Continue reading The Crowd is Dead
BY ANASTASIA CHOO There is a stereotypical image of GP surgery receptionists being grim faced, fire-breathing dragons. They often score poorly in NHS Patient Surveys. Patients complain that they find doctors’ receptionists obstructive, incompetent and unfriendly. In a recent Cancer Research UK survey based on 2000 patients, 4 out of 10 said they did not like being asked too many probing questions by non-clinical staff … Continue reading Fire Breathing Dragons
BY MIKE TOWERS Whether Hillary Clinton wins or not on Tuesday, it seems evident that the Democratic Party see her now as merely a get-over-the-line candidate. Whether it’s failing health or one of many brewing scandals that does for her, she hardly appears to have the necessary wind in her sails to last more than part of one term as President. This would leave her … Continue reading Rock & Hard Place – The Clintons
