Innholdsfortegnelse for December 3, 2025 i Country Life

Future Publishing Ltd, 121–141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, London W2 6JR 0330 390 6591; www.countrylife.co.uk ONE of the loveliest of collective nouns is surely the ‘murmuration’ of starlings. The word evokes that gentle, rhythmic beating of wings, rising and falling in waves as the birds in their thousands twist and dive, swooping as one into a dense black cloud that shapeshifts into fire-breathing dragons and leaping porpoise against the dying orange light of a winter sun. Winter’s myriad avian delights are much underrated, as Britain, particularly the eastern side of the country, enjoys the southerly move of thousands of birds from freezing Arctic, Siberian and Scandinavian climes as they search for more clement temperatures and the bounty of hedgerow, field and beach. The coiffed, Teddy-boy waxwing, the Latin name of which…

Is smoking back? LISTEN to the media (not me, mind) and you’d be forgiven for thinking that young people are a bunch of mopes, who refuse to drink, go dancing or have sex and are ruining British nightlife for all. Rejoice, then, for the tide is turning. A recent book by Norwegian sociologist Willy Pedersen argues that binge drinking in one’s youth can improve career prospects. People have taken note: The Hart in Marylebone, W1, is rammed every night. Although there’s something to be said for correlation over causation—those who can afford a £7 pint have likely had a leg up in other parts of life—this hasn’t stopped columnists from extolling the virtues of hard living. ‘My generation,’ wrote former British Vogue editrix Alexandra Schulman in the Mail on Sunday…

The Bank of England, Threadneedle Street, London EC2 IN the garden of Owletts, Kent, stand two Corinthian capitals conjoined as a bird bath. They form an architectural trophy from the old Bank of England that Sir Herbert Baker, the owner of Owletts, largely rebuilt in a campaign of work that began a century ago this year. Baker’s Bank (Fig 1) is the most prominent of all the numerous City financial institutions that were rehoused on a vastly bigger scale in the 1920s. Rather than enhancing his reputation, however, the project has stained it. That is because few architectural historians have been able to forgive the fact that the building he altered was the outstanding masterpiece of the Regency architect Sir John Soane. Baker’s work, therefore, has been added to a…

HUMANS have long been concerned with vetting the company they keep. It’s woven into our nature by well-worn, oft-cautionary adages: a rotten apple can spoil the barrel, the Devil you know is better than the one you don’t and someone who chooses to lie down with dogs can expect to wake up with fleas. Indulgence and curiosity compel us to bend these rules and, in the case of dogs and sleeping arrangements, in a very literal sense. For Devonshire author Callie Coles, no line is drawn between the dog house and family home. With a trio of whippets, a brace of terriers, a dachshund and a labradoodle among their eight-strong pack, nowhere is off limits to anyone with four legs—including the children’s ponies, who wander freely in the house. ‘At…

Shop of the month Lala Books, 4a, Grove Lane, SE5 LALA BOOKS, an independent bookstore and coffee bar operating from a light-filled Victorian shopfront, opened last spring on Grove Lane in Camberwell. The one-room shop sells a carefully edited selection of about 2,000 titles. ‘Mainly literary fiction,’ says Danielle Moylan, the owner, ‘but we have a really great selection of poetry, philosophy and children’s books, as well as books on political, sex and gender issues.’ Outside the shop, a handful of café tables is arranged on the pavement, where customers can take their books and hot drinks. Current bestsellers include Harriet Armstrong’s To Rest Our Minds and Bodies (‘one of my favourites of this year,’ says Ms Moylan), Olga Tokarczuk’s House of Day, House of Night and Arundhati Roy’s recent…

OF the many small consolations of winter, the sight of a tall, elegant, frost-painted perennial kale catching the early light and the flavour of the shredded leaves pushed around a pan with olive oil, chilli and garlic are hard to beat. I sow familiar kales (Brassica oleracea var. acephala) every year—most are hardy biennials, grown as annuals—and, to go with these, I plant an increasing number of perennial kales, such as Daubenton’s kale (Brassica oleracea var. ramosa ‘Daubenton’). The leaves and flowerheads of both are wonderful to eat and, once established, the perennials offer year-round deliciousness, as well as adding structure and presence to the garden, which I particularly appreciate through the coolest months. Perennial kales were once more commonly grown, but increasing curiosity in edible perennials means more varieties…

PROBABLY no professional gundog trainer would want to admit it, but, when it comes to working breeds, I tend to think you either get lucky or you don’t. Sure, there are middling dogs and, sure, they can be made better, but the countryside is full of totally useless labradors and spaniels; equally, there are some superb workers who have seemingly had all the right ingredients since puppyhood. During my late teens, I worked for Charlie Thorburn, an indefatigable gundog trainer in Fife. In some ways, it was the making of me. Charlie is a man who has put the hours in and he has a brilliant international business to show for it. When I catch up with him these days, he’s often at an airport in the US with two…

Knit for victory FOLLOWING the picture you recently printed of a knitted miniature parish church (Letters, November 12), I thought you might be interested to see these wonderful knitted scenes of life on the Home Front during the Second World War, which we came across in Sherborne Abbey, Dorset, last weekend. They are part of a touring exhibition called ‘Britain at War’, and I believe they will be on the move around the country again next year should your readers wish to see them. Lucy Battersby, London Poetry in motion I WAS interested in Charlotte Lloyd Webber’s choice of favourite painting and Michael Prodger’s comments (My favourite painting, November 19). One thing I would like to add is that Picasso’s Family of Saltimbanques was the inspiration for Rainer Maria Rilke’s…

‘When I was very young, living in a little village in the woods, a friend went to New York and sent me a post-card of The Dream. I took two pieces of timber, framed it top and bottom and hung it by my bed. Then, when I started to work abroad, first in Milan, then Zurich and London, I always brought with me this little postcard. When you are on your own, sometimes you lie awake at night thinking, but this always had the power to make me fall asleep happy. I was gobsmacked to discover that Rousseau had never left France–the animals, the flowers were the fruit of his imagination, but he made you think of a place of Paradise; it was so calming. Fast forward 20 years, the…

IN a meeting with his London publisher in 1944, shortly before the release of Animal Farm, George Orwell—born Eric Blair, a former colonial policeman who had become a trenchant left-wing social commentator—revealed he had begun work on a new novel. Progress was slow and he swapped bombed-out London for the Scottish island of Jura, where he holed up in a remote house overlooking the Kintyre peninsula. He was able to finish a ‘ghastly mess’ of a first draft, but paid the price with his health, ending up in hospital with tuberculosis. Originally titled The Last Man in Europe, the novel he eventually completed told the story of Winston Smith, an official in a totalitarian state’s Ministry of Truth who begins to chafe against the harsh regime, with gruesome consequences. Nineteen…

KINDNESS is the cause of the robin’s red breast in one traditional story, in which robins in the stable at Bethlehem fanned the flames of a fire to warm the baby in the manger and, in doing so, scorched their feathers. For the most part, British birds of Christmas owe their festive associations to more local customs, including culinary traditions. Perennially popular, The Twelve Days of Christmas, sung by children and carollers, keeps a place in our hearts for partridges and turtle doves, associated with devotion and loving friendship—despite the unlikelihood of town-dwelling urban revellers encountering either of these birds. Other native birds have come to symbolise Christmas on account of their visibility in December’s cold, wet landscapes; the magic of this time of year makes it all possible. Seeing…

ARE you in tune with your gut? This is one of those touchy-feely sorts of questions that has my children rolling their eyes in boredom as their mother bangs on about her microbiome at the same time as trying to feed them kefir. The reason I ask is that I have just spent five days on a gut-health retreat and, touchy-feely or not, I think it is an important subject—particularly for men, who tend not to be quite as gut conscious as perhaps they should be. The location of my retreat was Goodwood, the West Sussex seat of the Duke and Duchess of Richmond—a surprising revelation, perhaps, for those who normally associate Goodwood with the more indulgent pursuits of horse and motor-racing. The current Duchess, however, is an ardent advocate…

IN 1656, a young history painter turned his brush in a new direction. Leaving behind religion and mythology, he imagined a brothel scene: under the beady eye of an aged madam, a soldier is about to drop a coin in the palm of a young prostitute, his other hand on her breast, as another man, possibly wearing the painter’s own face, smiles out of the canvas. The Procuress was the first ‘contemporary’ picture by Johannes Vermeer, who would go on to make his name with serene, but enigmatic scenes of everyday life in the 17th-century Netherlands. ‘Vermeer took the conventions in vogue and reinterpreted them in his own quiet, delicate key’ Vermeer was born in Delft before October 31, 1632, the only son of innkeepers Reynier Janszoon Vos (later Vermeer)…

The Ear of the Beholder Huon Mallalieu (Thomas Del Mar, £25) IN 2010, the Bate Collection of Historical Musical Instruments in Oxford commissioned craftsmen to make working replicas of the instruments being played by devils in the depiction of Hell in Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, painted in 1490–1500. When played, they sounded horrible. The collection’s scholars were taken aback, but, as Huon Mallalieu observes in this ear-opening account of the relationship between painting and sound, they should not have been surprised. Medieval viewers would have had no difficulty in hearing in their imagination the instruments portrayed by Bosch and they understood that the music in Hell would be another form of torture. ‘This is a book that deserves to change the way we experience paintings’ The ideas in…

Quiz of the week 1) Who was appointed Commissioner for rebuilding the City of London after the Great Fire of 1666? 2) Name the German cipher device that was cracked by Alan Turing 3) What is commonly used to colour a Red Leicester cheese? 4) Which character in Colin Dann’s The Animals of Farthing Wood has a mate named Mirthful and a son called Mossy? 5) If Pinot Noir and Cinsault grapes are crossed to create a hybrid, which grape is the result? 1) Sir Christopher Wren 2) Enigma 3) Annatto 4) Mole 5) Pinotage. Riddle me this: The letter ‘d’ Riddle me this I appear in December, but not in any other month. What am I? Time to buy On this day… December 3, 1992 Neil Papworth, a 22-year-old…

THAT was the Budget, that was. The months of leaks and ‘guidance’ from the Treasury and No 10 threatened such extreme measures that it made the actual announcement last week seem a non-event. However, it did fulfil its party-political purpose: it has kept Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves in post at least until May. Only then will Labour’s probable dire local-election results produce a possible challenge. Labour MPs in general have heaved a collective sigh of relief, secure in the knowledge that this Budget won’t cause new fissures in the party. The left will applaud the abolition of the two-child limit on support—particularly as it’s paid for by a tax on the rich living in London—and the financial markets have been quietened by an approach more moderate than had…

Liberal values DAISY BELL stands beside a huge banner created in the 1840s on behalf of her ancestor, John Bell. He was twice elected without contest to Parliament as Liberal MP for his native Thirsk in 1841 and 1847. It’s likely that this banner was used in the second vote, when school provision was a matter of national debate. According to William Grainge, a local antiquarian writing in 1859, Bell ‘was a steady supporter of Lord Melbourne’s administration, and a constant advocate for general education, liberty of conscience, the press, and general reform; although opposed to vote by ballot, and the repeal of the corn laws’. The Bell family has been resident in the locality of Thirsk since at least the 16th century. The present manor house, which stands immediately…

THERE are rooms that people live in—and those that exist in some alternative dimension that can only be viewed in the pages of magazines and on Instagram. They owe their ethereal quality to the magic wand of a stylist: one well versed in the art of choosing camera angles that flatter the appearance of a space and shoving coffee cups, reading glasses and piles of laundry out of the frame. In their stead, they inject bunches of flowers, piles of arty books and plumped cushions and leave gleaming surfaces that give the impression that the daily has just exited stage left. There’s no denying that there are people who live in houses that are devoid of anything that detracts from the beauty of a space. It’s hard to know exactly…

As right as rain LONDON dazzles in the rain—words you probably weren’t expecting to read today, but it does. Far more so than any other major city in the world. Paris looks like a drab little stage set as soon as the clouds turn a threatening shade of grey. New York is made up of so much concrete that falling rainwater has nowhere to go and puddles around people’s ankles. Life in Sydney, Los Angeles and Seville comes to a complete halt when it rains—much as it does here when it snows or a leaf falls onto a train track. Imagine if Londoners refused to venture out of their homes every time the heavens decided to open. It’s not unusual to see people emerge from offices, shops and restaurants to…

Destination dining When the inaugural roll call of North America’s 50 Best Restaurants was revealed at the end of September, plenty were pleasantly surprised to spot Buzo Osteria Italiana in Bridgetown, Barbados, and plant-based Stush in the Bush, set on a regenerative farm in St Ann, Jamaica, on the list (numbers 41 and 49, respectively). Looking for a hotel nearby? The newly renovated and rebranded Colony Club (right), a Luxury Collection Resort, is a 20-minute drive from the former; the latter is an hour’s jaunt along the coast from Golden-Eye—still a hip haven, famed as the place where Ian Fleming dreamed up Bond. Book with Carrier (www.carrier.co.uk). Hidden treasures Anguilla is making headlines for two reasons: firstly, it now makes nearly as much revenue selling .ai domain names as it…

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