By Liam Bird, June 2024 I’ll admit, I was slightly apprehensive. April’s early showers still had more than a hint of our recent and well past its welcome monsoon season about them, not to mention a heavy dose of hail stones on more than one occasion, and various Goodwood group’s social media posts cast tales of woe; predictions of potentially very muddy car parks, the fitting of towing eyes – just in case, you understand – plus the need for wellies, four-wheel drive, and being towed back to tarmac by tractor. Would the fields surrounding the Duke of Richmond’s racing circuit turn into somethin ..read more

By Helen Johnston, June 2024 Berlin will be making history this summer when Germany hosts the Euro football championship for the first time since reunification 34 years ago, with the final to be played at the capital city’s Olympiastadion. West Germany hosted the tournament back in 1988, a year before the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union crumbled. Today, Berlin is a vibrant and cosmopolitan capital city, busy preparing to welcome an invasion of some 1.5m football fans as one of ten host cities for the Euros which kick off on June 14. A giant goal has been erected in front of the historic ..read more

By Richard Jones, June 2024 A trip on board a Virgin Voyages party ship will change your mind about cruising. As we looked over a sea of flannel pyjamas, fluffy onesies, cosy robes, sparkling kimonos and silky nightshirts, any apprehension we had turning up in our cheap satin animal-design PJs faded away. It was our first evening on board Virgin Voyages’ Resilient Lady and it soon became clear that there is a sea change afoot in the cruise line industry. The vessel and its two sisters, Scarlet Lady and Valiant Lady, are the world’s leading adults-only ships, with a fourth, Brilliant Lady joini ..read more

By Alex and Steve Crabtree Well, summer is here – and whether the weather is kind or no-so-kind to us here in England can be anybody’s guess. We love walking and hiking.  It’s how we got together. We often take ourselves off for a few miles locally in the Calder Valley, West Yorkshire – or we go further afield.  North Yorkshire, the Lake District, the Cotswolds…we love getting our mileage in, and we try and follow one important rule: Dress for the walk, not for the weather. But, that said, the weather can play its part in how you need to gear up.  So we’ve put together a short l ..read more

By Steve Crabtree, June 2024 At last… it’s here. That time of year we Haligonians all wait for, and at 6pm on a coolish and breezy summer’s evening in Halifax, the Piece Hall opened its gates to their live music season once again. It’s one of the things I look forward to the most each summer. All these huge bands and artists heading to my tiny hometown of Halifax, and thousands turning out in their droves to make an evening, an afternoon or even a full day of it when it’s gig night. All our local independent bars and eateries are part and parcel of what a gig night at The Piece Hall is all abo ..read more

By Clare Jenkins, June 2024 Half a mile out of Hastings town centre, we suddenly found ourselves in India. Or, at least, in British Raj-era India. Hastings Art Gallery’s magnificent two-tiered Durbar Hall is all dark brown teak and Himalayan cedar, Moghul-style arches, screens and balconies, lit by golden stained-glass windows and a lantern roof. Built for the 1886 Indian and Colonial exhibition and intricately carved by two Punjabi craftsmen who came over to London specially, it was designed to replicate part of an Indian Palace. The then Prince of Wales – later Edward VII – used the top floo ..read more

By Kevin Pilley, June 2024 Standing inside a can of sardines, eating a bowl of bouillabaisse in the birthplace of bouillabaisse, drinking wine made by a former manager of Fulham FC and cruising the French fjords – here are just some of the excitements on offer when you visit Marseille and its coastline. The Nhow Hotel offers the photo opportunity inside a giant can. Nhows are “art and lifestyle hotels” which also means chairs made from old jeans and furniture which look like scorpions and giant question marks. You no longer book a hotel room, you reserve some unconventional, multi-faceted and ..read more

By Roger Crow, May 2024 I think we’re all agreed that Four Candles is one of the funniest TV sketches of all time. The Two Ronnies’ unforgettable rib-tickler, penned by Ronnie Barker, was first broadcast in 1976, and had been making millions chuckle ever since. Though in the alt-universe of Showstopper!, back in 1964, it was already a thing apparently. We’re in a BBC writers’ room where desperate writers attempt to come up with something funnier than said sketch, thanks to one member of the audience shouting out, “I’ve only got 10 candles.” It was a child’s 11th birthday recently, hence the ab ..read more

Director: George Miller Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Burke Certificate: 15 By Roger Crow Hard to believe nine years have gone by since George Miller gave us Mad Max: Fury Road, that Oscar-winning action spectacular which saw the eponymous hero as pretty much a co-star in his own movie. As terrific as Tom Hardy was as Max, the movie belonged to Charlize Theron as the one-armed truck-driving heroine Furiosa, who rebelled against the despotic Immortan Joe, and attempted to drive his assorted brides to safety across a post-apocalyptic landscape. Miller has never been a director to r ..read more

By Sue Dean, May 2024 An adrenaline-filled night of supernatural thrills and dark humour, so they say? Written by Danny Robins, the creator of the hit BBC podcast The Battersea Poltergeist and directed by Matthew Dunster and Isabel Marr, 2:22 A Ghost Story has been something of a theatrical whirlwind since opening in 2021. Employing an intriguing and original blend of comedy and horror, the play explores the clash between belief and scepticism as secrets emerge and the possibility of ghosts becomes increasingly real. The stage set is a masterclass in design. A big digital clock with bright red ..read more