TelevisionDespite an unprecedented crisis in home ownership, shows like Location, Location, Location and Grand Designs are seemingly neverending. Might they be to blame for skyrocketing prices?
Do you remember the timber cottage with panoramic views (Cornwall, 2014)? What about the Gaudí-esque “Barcelona pavilion” (West Sussex, 2015)? Or the historic water tower conversion (London, 2012)?
The first episode of Grand Designs – a TV show in which Kevin McCloud takes us inside architectural marvels that are often also expensive money pits – aired more than 20 years ago in 1999. Read More...
Top 10sFictionTop 10 books about cheatingFrom illicit James Salter to category-defying Jeanette Winterson, here are the best contemporary works about romantic infidelity
Why do we keep coming back to the adultery novel? What is it about infidelity that bears retelling across the centuries, especially now, when the ancient prohibitions against sex outside marriage have all but disappeared? These are questions I asked myself as I was writing Fire Sermon, the story of a married woman’s physical, intellectual and spiritual affair with a married poet. Read More...
A fine pickle … perfect growing conditions make Spreewald’s gherkins connoisseurs’ favourites. Photograph: AlamyA fine pickle … perfect growing conditions make Spreewald’s gherkins connoisseurs’ favourites. Photograph: AlamyThe foodie travellerGermany holidaysThis famous export from the forests of Brandenburg state, south-east of Berlin, is a legend among pickles
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, almost all of East Germany’s communist-era products disappeared into obscurity. One that did manage to survive is the legendary Spreewald gherkin. Read More...
