Telegraph Magazine

CALLED TO THE SPA

Fancy a break at a health retreat that costs £25 a day (full board with all your treatments thrown in)? In deepest Tajikistan, your dream could come true. Photographer Jo Kearney takes a trip

TOO FEW COOKS

Many of us have embraced kitchen shortcuts from ready meals to pre-seasoned meat. It’s understandable given our busy lives, says Eleanor Steafel, but we may live to regret the death of cooking from scratch

MY SATURDAY

6am My wife Georgie and I have two young kids [Bellatrix, nine, and Fox, four] so unfortunately things kick off early in our house. We also have two Labradors, Biggles and Algy. 7.30am Early mornings are spent hanging around the kitchen. We live in...

CHOCS AWAY

As you tucked into your Quality Street over Christmas, little did you know that chocolate’s key ingredient, cocoa, is in crisis. As prices soar, manufacturers search for alternatives.

THE STAR MAN ON A MISSION

David Bowie’s final years were as wildly productive as they were tragically premature. An extract from a new book reveals how his creativity – and audacity – endured even as he came to terms with his failing health, and said cryptic goodbyes to his...

2025

Widespread cyberspace riots; lucrative asteroid mining; 40-minute shuttle rides from London to Bangalore; microchips implanted in us containing all of our banking information; a gel put in space to slow down intergalactic junk. 2025, eh? Quite a...

HOT TOPIC

Recycling our household waste is now second nature. But what actually happens to it? Much of it is never repurposed but is burnt by polluting, foreign-owned incinerators. Martin Fletcher reports

FAST FORWARD

Gearing up for the last Grand Prix of the season, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff sits down with Jessamy Calkin to discuss love and marriage, losing Lewis and the future of Formula One – new rules and all

‘MY SAVIOUR’

With NHS waiting lists for mental health services leaving people in need stranded, some Brits are seeking treatment further afield. Lauren Sherriff visits a £10,000-a-month clinic in Thailand

WHAT JACKIE DID NEXT

Motor racing legend Sir Jackie Stewart talks to Tom Cary about the cruel dementia afflicting his beloved wife, and why he’s bringing together expert scientists and F1 innovators to find a cure

UNREAL LIFE

Ruby Russell Pierce on sharing her childhood home with her grandad – a loving, funny man plagued by outlandish, terrifying dementia-induced hallucinations

London calling: Sunday morning flea market, Cheshire Street, c1970, by Ron Mccormick

BREXIT, BORIS…

Marina Wheeler – barrister, EU expert, unlikely Leave supporter and former wife of Boris Johnson – is better placed than most to assess Britain’s complex relationship with Europe. Having written a new book that suggests a way out of present dysfunction...

IN THE NET

Four million fishing boats now work the seas, but much of what they catch is thrown back in, unlikely to survive. Rose George on the scandal of “by-catch”

Private lives: Latrelle D, 17, Syracuse, New York, 1990

AN UNBROKEN MAN

After 491 days in brutal captivity, Hamas hostage Eli Sharabi was released, only to find that the wife and children he’d longed to reunite with had been killed. Allison Pearson hears his story of grief and survival

FAMILY JUSTICE

Debra Tate’s life changed for ever when her sister Sharon was murdered by the Manson Family. She tells Chris Campion about her mission to stop the killers being freed

STARMER’S TRUMP CARD?

Telegraph political editor Ben Riley-smith investigates the Trump-starmer dynamic and polls insiders’ opinions on the Prime Minister’s master plan to keep the US President on side

A FASHIONABLE LENS

From royalty to society ladies and Hollywood starlets, Cecil Beaton captured the great, good and beautiful of the 20th century. As a new exhibition of his work opens, Stephen Doig takes a look

Have we lost the plot?

Why reading has become too much like hard work

BYO pub quiz

1 Which is the only city in the UK whose name begins with the letter Y? 2 Which nursery rhyme sees the title character unable to give their dog a bone due to a cupboard being empty? 3 A leveret is the young of which mammal? 4 Vigdís Finnbogadóttir...

Roll models: players at East Ham Central Park Bowls Club,

Roll with it It’s Central Park, but not that Central Park… Overlooked by crows in the swaying treetops and surrounded by an 8ft-high privet hedge, a quiet game of bowls is being played on the patchy grass green. This is not Manhattan but London’s East...

A WING AND A PRAYER

The annual census of the swan population on the River Thames is a tradition that has been going on for centuries. We meet the King’s Swan Marker to find out why Swan Upping is more than just a ceremony

Adrian Edmondson takes on Alien

FAST FORWARD

The dream of London to New York in less than five hours didn’t die with Concorde’s fatal crash 25 years ago. John Arlidge meets Blake Scholl, the man on course to bring back supersonic commercial air travel

OH, DANNY BOY

With a Bafta for Mr Bigstuff ,new fans among “lords and earls” thanks to Rivals, and a football star for a son-in-law (“I love him more than my daughter does”), Danny Dyer has a lot to smile about, as he tells Ed Cumming

FOR BETTER OR WORSE

Martin Frizell, husband of TV presenter Fiona Phillips, talks to Camilla Tominey about watching his wife slip away on the tide of early-onset Alzheimer’s: “I am living with grief on a daily basis”

NOT MAKING A KILLING

As Jeremy Clarkson has highlighted, cuts in subsidies to local abattoirs mean not only closures devastating to farmers but animals cruelly travelling long distances before slaughter. By Emily Retter

WINNING FORMULA

Damon Hill on coming to terms with losing his dad, living with anxiety, and the impact of driving ambition on every generation of his family. Tom Cary talks to the nice guy of motor racing

GAME FOR A LAUGH

Professional tennis can come across as a serious – some might say slightly snobby – business. But comedian Josh Berry is shaking things up with his volley of impressions. Ed Cumming meets him

A BURNING ISSUE

This year has already seen more wildfires in the UK than ever before. As temperatures rise and a hot, dry summer is predicted, can our beleaguered firefighters keep ahead of the flames? By Martin Fletcher

CHILD CARE

When her baby daughter was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder, Mina Holland was in despair. Now, Vida is thriving – after her little brother gave her the ultimate gift, as Holland tells Jessamy Calkin

FOLLOWERS OF FASHION

You may not have heard of Lucy Owen, but her clients create the content that stylish women consult before getting dressed in the morning. Laura Craik meets the woman with designs on our wardrobes

RURAL IDYLL?

Jeremy Clarkson talks to Ed Cumming about the ups and downs of life on the farm, what would happen if he ruled the country – and why, after decades of TV “caricature”, we’re now seeing the “real” him

GOOD LIFE

The last time a fleet of so-called “little ships” crossed the Channel was in 2015 for the 75th anniversary of the evacuation of Dunkirk

ROYAL WATCH

Manhattan media queen Tina Brown talks to Ed Cumming about Harry and Meghan’s disastrous decisions and Donald Trump’s shock and awe politics

Taking shelter in a London Underground station during the air raids of the Blitz in 1940

MODEL MALES

Put down the stale check shirt. Stephen Doig meets the designers behind four refreshingly different yet thoroughly wearable menswear labels to know

BABY FACE

They look and smell like newborns, but they don’t make a sound… Baby dolls for adults are increasingly in demand. Melissa Twigg meets the women who love them

GOOD LIFE

Woven with love: the Horenski Mavkas in their intricately handmade kikimora suits, captured by photographer Alena Grom

POWER DRESSING

The patriarchs behind the biggest names in fashion are preparing to hand over the reins to the next generation. Melissa Twigg looks into the lines of succession

REALLY WILD

As four lynx were recently caught roaming the Scottish Highlands, Boudicca Fox-leonard asks why the laws on owning exotic animals are so lenient

CUTTING HEDGE

Having dedicated his life to the almost-lost art of hedgelaying, Paul Lamb travels from county to county plying his trade. And, he argues, this kind of care for our countryside is what we need to preserve it for the future

EAT UP

Sorry Jamie, Nigella et al, the new stars – and status symbols – of the food world are cult brands selling anything from anchovies to beans, says Clare Finney

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

IN COD WE TRUST

The Norwegian island of Røst may be remote but its 500 inhabitants are so proud of its fishy business that they wrote an opera about it. Andrew Eames visits

FAMILY MATTERS

Seventy years after her grandmother, Ruth Ellis, killed her abusive partner and became the last woman executed in the UK, Laura Enston describes the reverberations of Ellis’s life, and death, down the generations

GET A ROOM

‘Lots of people come for sex, but it’s not the principal reason.’ So the founder of Dayuse, an app to match clients with hotel rooms by the hour, tells Eleanor Steafel

100 YEARS OF PROTEST

A groundbreaking new exhibition, curated by awardwinning filmmaker and artist Steve Mcqueen, reframes the history of protest in Britain. He talks to Guy Kelly about the power of mass demonstration, the political potential of photography, and why this...

Tinker tailor: this season’s trousers with a difference

The quickest, easiest way to look like a fashion insider? Embrace the Quietly Interesting Trouser, says Tamara Abraham Every now and then, a look comes along that can seduce even the most trend-averse dresser. A stealth trend, if you will, that has a...

BREAD WINNERS

Bagels originated in Poland’s Jewish communities and have long been a New York institution. But did you know that producing those authentic shiny, chewy circles of joy involves hours of highly skilled labour by specialist artisans, many of whom are of...

SPAWN TO BE WILD

'I t’s going! It’s going!’ someone shouts. We hurry up a short flight of steps to an illuminated aquarium tank hidden behind a blackout curtain. There we witness the start of what my host, Dr Jamie Craggs, calls ‘the magic’, and it is a strikingly...

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT

Imagine if Clarkson’s Farm was on Long Island, not the Cotswolds golden triangle, run not by Jeremy Clarkson but a celebrated Italian actor and feminist who speaks three languages, has an impeccable heritage and earned a master’s in animal behaviour...

My Saturday

The Olympic hero, 66, on greasy spoons, musical singalongs and being competitive with his kids 6am I live in Hove so I’m up early to get to London for a class at the gym I own. No coffee, no breakfast, I just splash water on my face and get in the...

December has

n what has been a grim 12 months, this provided us with a whiff of hope. Al-assad and his monstrous regime were toppled in Syria and Notre-dame cathedral gloriously reopened after five years. As for the other 11 months… The Prince of Wales said that...

THE BRAY BUNCH

The donkey’s always had a starring role at Christmas, but what about the rest of the year? Having once been used to carry heavy loads on dusty roads and excited children up and down beaches, what now for the underrated equine? From the chosen few...

THE BEST DRESSED OF 2024

This best-dressed list was a hotly contested debate among The Telegraph’s fashion editors. We decided from the beginning that it shouldn’t just feature those whose style shouted loudest this year – yes, Sienna Miller looked sensational in all her boho...

LUCKY CHARMS

efore an exclusive new toy cake was launched with Harrods, one Friday in early November, Olivia Fortescue had been happy with her cherry plushie collection. She owned four – or five, if the velveteen cherry garnish on Fortescue’s Marin Chocolate...

CHRISTMAS ON A PLATE

While Mark Hix fixes brunch, Diana Henry serves up spectacular sweets, and Victoria Moore loads up the drinks trolley. Matthew Ryle adds a French twist to the main event, and William Sitwell trades trad for modern, snack-wise. Finally, Ed Cumming...

BRAND IT LIKE BECKHAM

On the dozen or more occasions I’ve interviewed Victoria Beckham, she’s never been late, a rare quality in fashion and celebrity. Maybe it’s the discipline of the inner child performer (she studied dance at Laine Theatre Arts college in Surrey in her...

A MOST COVETABLE LIFESTYLE

Is it true that Kim Kardashian juices your celery?’ It’s got to be one of the most absurd questions I’ve ever asked an interviewee – with the added layer of sounding like a euphemism – and Richard Christiansen nearly chokes on his coffee. ‘She did get...

Michael Ball My Saturday

The singer and Radio 2 DJ, 62, on sporting surprises, reality TV obsessions and OTT canine greetings 8.30am I down a glass of water and go out with Danny and Wilbur, my Tibetan terriers. You get to know everyone through dog walking – I get the local...

My Saturday

The novelist and former politician, 84, on writing, and watching old movies at his clifftop hideaway 5am At my age, to still get six or seven hours’ sleep is unusual. So I’m very lucky. 6am I’m at my desk in my writing room, which is built into a...

FACE TO FACE WITH THE PAST

Alfons and Adrie Kennis have devoted their lives to bringing us face to face with ancient relatives, creating models of men and women tens or even hundreds of thousands of years old – with sometimes controversial results. They talk to Lauren Shirreff...

JEAN THERAPY

Rare is the person without an item of denim in their wardrobe. Whether that’s a Primark jacket, some well-loved Levi’s or a pair of £1,550 Balenciaga jeans will depend on your age, taste and income. Whoever you are, you’re one of the estimated 80 per...

BUOYANT BUSINESS

Even as the sinking of the luxury yacht Bayesian in August – killing seven people – is being investigated, at the boat world’s biggest jamboree, the priciest vessels remain very much in demand. Just don’t ask where the emergency exit is, says Matthew...