Everybody knows that cats like to knead and nuzzle, but the perpetual internet furore over their purported cuteness has often masked an uncomfortable truth: as a HuffPo article once dared to mention, ‘Cats Love Boobs And Here’s Proof’. Bobcats are twice as large as their domesticated cousins, and boy are they rough! With their pointed, black-tipped ears and ruffs of hair…
Citing a tight budget and the need to buy books, stools, art supplies, and enough ale so that the caretaker does not want over Christmas, a Catholic primary in Worcester has taken the barely precedented step of charging parents £1 to watch their children in the school nativity. And whether it is the cold leaving people at a loose end in front…
Tuning into the second series of Planet Earth for the sake of its wondrous small-screen lustre, the purview is soon apt to take a murky turn. For David Attenborough, venerable narrator, would have us all back to the dark ages through his incessant endeavour to make us protect and preserve. The mere thought of in anyway protecting the environment is anathema to…
In some of the opening scenes of the second series of the acclaimed nature documentary Planet Earth, David Attenborough unfolds fondly upon the relatively quick reaction of an island-dwelling pygmy three-toed sloth. Our humble sloth is hearing from someplace in the distance the enticing call of a prospective mate. Separated by deep water, the red-blooded sloth drops from his branch and…
Whether you consider the John Lewis Christmas advert to be one of the most eagerly anticipated aspects of any calendar, never mind just the festive – the annual wintery short filling you up like a cup of creamy cocoa and just like your favourite pair of slippers, leaving your tingling toes all cosy and warm – or whether the whole thing…
With their tendency to paint or to at least contemplate painting out in the open, their thick and hurried brushstrokes, vivid use of colour, and nuanced portrayals of mutable light, still today the canvases of the French Impressionists appear unusually sensitive, hearty and graceful, vibrant and fresh. Yet beauty is not only in the eye of the beholder, but also…
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At the end of the seventh season of The Great British Bake Off, it wasn’t just the scones and quiches of losing finalists Jane and Andrew which were hastily thrown into the trash. The grand finale might have reached a record average audience of 14 million, but many more pounds was the cost of all the baking equipment tossed away…
We can pontificate on a history of Swedish police drama extending all the way back to Martin Beck in the late 1960s, and to the first iteration in the early 1990s of Kurt Wallander, lovingly portrayed by Rolf Lassgård. We can rush into headlong chatter about the contemporary wave of what has variously been described as ‘Scandi Crime’ and ‘Nordic Noir’….
There are few shows these days which seem to inspire a nation, and none in the United Kingdom nearly as successful as The Great British Bake Off. In 2015, the top five most-watched television broadcasts of the year were all Bake Off episodes, with the season six series finale winning a whopping 15.16 million viewers as Nadiya Hussain’s iced buns brought…
