When Gary Cahill felt that he had been fouled in the build-up to Swansea’s second goal a few weeks ago versus Chelsea – Leroy Fer bundling the England centre-back off the ball and finishing to give his side a 2-1 lead, before Diego Costa scored an acrobatic late equaliser – he boldly emerged after the match to show everyone the extent…
When the Italian jeweller and luxury goods brand Bulgari offered to renovate Rome’s world-famous Spanish Steps, the debt-ridden city bowed its head and offered a simple ‘Grazie’. It was meant to become one in a string, more like a pearl necklace of prestigious Roman monuments to be refurbished at the hands of the fashion sector, after the Colosseum was cleaned thanks…
Scene: The Ash Wood of Malvern For I was a gaunt, grave councillor Being in all things wise, and very old, But I have put aside this folly and the cold That old age weareth for a cloak. I was quite strong — at least they said so — The young men at the sword-play; But I have put aside…
Best known as the serial adulterer who obtained a super-injunction over one of his affairs, then tried to sue Twitter users for inevitably breaking it, and as the footballer who refereed Manchester United matches for more than two decades, Ryan Giggs continues to believe that the world – and especially the media – bends to his every whim. An unscrupulous cheat…
Marx Halle was once the site of Vienna’s cattle market, its floors trampled by hooves and the hectoring footsteps of bartering butchers and farmers, while cows mooed in busy protest against their impending slaughter. Today the Neu Marx area in the Austrian capital’s 3rd district is full of thriving media and tech startups, and the old wrought-iron Marx Halle, in…
In the Russian city of Yakutsk, capital of the Sakha Republic, where temperatures average a bitter −34 °C in the depths of winter, Vladimir Putin spent last week canvassing support and wrestling the local snow man. For on Sunday Russia held legislative elections, placing at stake all 450 seats in the State Duma, and although President Putin is not a member of any…
Are you of ruddy complexion, barely nourished on a diet of chips, cheese, and gravy and spag bol, and genetically determined to bald prematurely, your body ageing at a rate that skips stops? Is your favourite pastime boxing with friends in the kitchen? Do you sometimes feel unduly amorous towards the old? None of that matters, it’s all distractions merely, but…
“Good men and true in this house who dwell, To a stranger bouchal I pray you tell: Is the priest at home, or may he be seen? I would speak a word with Father Green.” “The Priest’s at home, boy, and may be seen; ‘Tis easy speaking with Father Green. But you must wait till I go and see If…
It was early, early in the spring, The birds did whistle and sweetly sing, Changing their notes from tree to tree, And the song they sang was Old Ireland free. It was early, early in the night, The yeoman cavalry gave me a fright; The yeoman cavalry was my downfall And taken was I by Lord Cornwall. ‘Twas in the…
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Should any woman feel obliged to learn how to twirl spaghetti into a spoon, just so she might impress the family of the man who she is steadily falling in love with? This question lies at the heart of Brooklyn, which tells of the immigration of a young Irish lass at the beginning of the 1950s, a blossoming romance with…
