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Friday

John Sturgis

Glastonbury and the problems of youth

On Sunday, I was in deepest Wales, listening to birdsong, braying donkeys and a demented cockerel, but instead of getting away from it all I was staring at three different laptops all clicked to the same link: the Glastonbury ticket sale countdown clock. This was the fifth year in which my daughter has sought tickets and, determined not to fail once again, she had arranged a military-style operation, recruiting a small army of volunteers, including me, to be online on the stroke of 9 a.m. in the hope that one of us would get lucky. The other five people she was planning to go with had all done the same.

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Should we worry about Ozempic?

History has taught us to be shy of miracle drugs. But that hasn’t stopped weight-loss drugs being eagerly promoted by fans such as Boris Johnson, and even touted by Keir Starmer as a possible means of getting people back into the workforce. In the US, according to a survey by polling firm KFF earlier this year, one in eight adults has already taken a weight-loss drug. Grand claims have been made. Could RFK Jnr be right in suggesting that weight-loss drugs are causing more harm than they are worth? A trial of 17,600 overweight adults suffering from heart disease – sponsored by the manufacturer of Ozempic, Novo Nordisk – found

Wednesday

Mark Solomons

The fall of Match of the Day

Match of the Day is looking for a new presenter now that Gary Lineker is leaving after 25 years. The truth is, it really doesn’t matter who replaces him, whether they’re male or female, a former player or nepo baby like Roman Kemp. That’s because Match of the Day really doesn’t matter to a vast majority of football fans any more. There will be those who lament the fact that, as seems likely, MotD will get a female presenter. But does it really matter? The viewing figures, recently lauded by St Gary as ‘amazing’, are around the four million mark. This is out of a football-mad population of around 60

Robin Ashenden

Blackpool is cheap, tacky and wonderful

Arriving in Blackpool by train is just as I’d always dreamed. At the Pleasure Beach station, I disembarked right by the roller coasters, which rear up like Welsh hills beside you and, with the seagulls, welcome you with shrieking riders and clattering wheels. There are vast coasters in wood and metal weaving in and out of each other. Curvaceous and sprawling, they’re Gina Lollobrigida in steel. I’ve wanted to visit Blackpool for years. Spending my early childhood near Clacton-on-Sea, I got used to the delights of a tacky seaside town, and Blackpool is surely the mother of them all – even if it’s a mother with too much blusher and

Kit Delamain

Why am I banned from buying a tuna knife?

My brother went to Japan recently, and I asked him to buy me a knife. As anyone who has entered the bowels of a restaurant knows, Japanese blades are highly sought after. I had to decide between an 18cm utility knife or a metre-long Maguro bōchō. The carbon steel of the latter can fillet a 500-pound tuna in a single cut. In Japan, it is wielded by two highly skilled fish butchers, and it usually comes with a wooden scabbard as protection for the blade – and anyone standing near it. The Maguro bōchō was created purely in a culinary capacity, not as a weapon of war Boringly, I opted

Tuesday

Julie Bindel

Why would anyone choose an induction hob?

In a letter to Katie Morley, consumer champion for the Telegraph, CK from London explained that her £4,000 Smeg hob doesn’t work with her Le Creuset pans. She said she was ‘furious’ because she had renovated her kitchen and had a marble worktop cut to fit it. ‘Given the price tag, I expected it to work like a dream, but instead I am having some significant performance issues with it… I feel very badly let down, and I may have to report this to trading standards’. Induction is a bit like using an Aga but worse, because at least Agas can look attractive Why would anyone choose an induction hob over

Nigel Jones

I’m one of the new wave of stroke victims

The NHS has warned of a staggering 55 per cent rise in strokes among healthy middle-aged people in the last two decades. Sir Stephen Powis, medical director of the NHS, offered no explanation for what he calls an ‘alarming’ increase, beyond the standard advice to take more exercise, eat carefully, and avoid smoking and excessive alcohol consumption. The figures on which Sir Stephen bases his alert are truly startling: 12,533 people in their 50s suffered strokes in Britain last year, up from just 8,033 in 2005, while 19,421 people in their 60s were stricken – compared to just 13,650 in 2005. I have a personal interest in these statistics. Two

Monday

Mark Nayler

Can you ever be fluent in a foreign language?

A couple of weeks ago, at one of my local bars in Antequera, a waiter asked me something as he served our glasses of wine. I didn’t catch it, so I asked him to repeat what he’d said. After the third time, I still hadn’t understood and clearly wasn’t going to. This guy has a thick Andalusian accent and sprays out about a thousand syllables per minute, but we usually communicate without problems. Two Spanish girlfriends also taught me a lot, and that’s definitely the most fun way to learn a language There’s also a local character, we call him ‘Gummy’, who roams the streets asking for cigarettes or change.

Marianna Hunt

Can Beaujolais take on Burgundy?

You could say the British were to blame. The dramatic rise and subsequent fall of Beaujolais has its roots in the early 1970s, when Sunday Times wine correspondent Allan Hall laid down a challenge for his readers. The first to go to Beaujolais, in eastern France, and bring him back a bottle of that year’s just-pressed wine (known as Beaujolais nouveau) would win a bottle of champagne.  Readers rose to the challenge, enlisting cars, trucks, private jets and even parachutes and an elephant as they rushed to be first. The Beaujolais Run became an annual institution, and local vignerons frantically planted new vines to meet demand. In 1985 the French government decided

Michael Henderson

So long, Bob Dylan

‘We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.’ Bob Dylan took his leave of our shores last week at the Royal Albert Hall, with 5,000 people cheering him on a victory lap. Dylan is 83 and too frail to stand unsupported for long. He occasionally needs notes for his lyrics, but he will never surrender. I’m a performer, he seemed to say throughout every minute of the hour and 40 minutes he was on stage, and performers perform. I’m a performer, he seemed to say throughout every minute of the hour and 40 minutes he was on stage, and performers perform It’s fairly clear we won’t see him again.

Friday

Penworthy

Two more bets for Cheltenham’s November meeting

Cheltenham’s three-day November meeting, starting today, will take place on much faster ground that normal and so anticipate plenty of non-runners if, as expected, there is very little rain over the weekend. This is usually a meeting at which soft-ground horses have their preferred conditions but that’s definitely not the case this time. The big race tomorrow is the Paddy Power Gold Cup (2.20 p.m.), a handicap chase over two miles four furlongs that has attracted a field of 15 runners. I had expected to put up Ga Law who I backed at tasty prices to win this very race two years ago. However, his odds have contracted all week