Proud to be British. Read more from journalists who champion our culture, history and values. |  | We all know that this time of year tends to be a non-stop smorgasbord of festive booze, calorie-laden picky bits and vast tubs of Quality Street. Let’s not forget the mountainous cheeseboard. It’s Christmas after all, we reason, tucking in. But for me, a self-confessed greedy person, festive overindulgence, and subsequent damage to the waistline, fills me with dread.
It’s not about being a killjoy, but employing tiny tricks from clinical psychologists and neuroscientists that actually make a big difference. Unusual examples include using heavier cutlery, scenting the room with citrus and listening to mellow music while you eat (the quicker the beat the faster you’ll consume).
The secret lies in a discipline called neurogastronomy, which explains how flavour perception and food presentation affect our brain, making us feel fuller earlier, so that we eat fewer calories.
What’s not to like about trying a fun experiment that won’t leave you feeling deprived? Read on for nine top tricks we can all use to stop going over-the-top on the festive snacking.
Continue reading ➤ | The best culture of 2025 – and what to enjoy this Christmas  | Ben Lawrence | What were your cultural highlights of 2025? Did you rejoice in the return of Renée Zellweger as Bridget Jones, and did you shout at the screen as dear Kate Garraway got it wrong (again) in Celebrity Traitors? Or perhaps you were bowled over by this year’s Booker winner – the magnificent, morally probing Flesh by David Szalay.
Our critics have spent the year consuming films, TV, music, exhibitions, opera, theatre, dance and books in order to guide you through the best of what the past 12 months had to offer, and have now unveiled their ultimate lists.
We may sometimes think that things ain’t what they used to be, but any calendar year that included sublime sitcom Amandaland, one of the most extraordinary new operas in living memory (Festen) and possibly the best-ever staging of Much Ado About Nothing (with Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell) can’t be bad.
There are also the stinkers, of course, and you can see what we critically mauled – from an eco-conscious horror at Tate Modern to Kim Kardashian’s crime against television drama.
As for my own recommendation, I decree that you leave the house on Boxing Day as Marty Supreme hits cinemas. This drama, very loosely based on the rackety life of table-tennis champion Marty Reisman, stars Timothée Chalamet (who, incidentally, turns 30 over the festive period) and features a scene involving a malevolent-looking hound and a grubby bathtub that you will never forget. Thrilling, horrifying, and sometimes very funny, Marty Supreme is the perfect antidote to post-Christmas lethargy. Killer soundtrack, too.
The 10 best albums of 2025 – and the three worst ➤
The greatest books of 2025 ➤
The 10 best theatre shows of 2025 – and three turkeys ➤
Robbie Collin’s 10 favourite films of the year (and the three worst) ➤
To stay ahead of the best film, music, theatre and more in 2026, sign up to our weekly Culture newsletter. | | Janet Daley After the end of the Cold War, everything from medicine to the arts is being politicised Continue reading ➤ Jake Wallis Simons If we don’t defend our open society now, there will soon be nothing left to defend Continue reading ➤ Camilla Tominey If I never heard a Christmas song again, I would die happy Continue reading ➤ | Join the debate. Share your thoughts with our journalists and your fellow readers. | | Australia celebrate after winning the third Test in Adelaide, sealing the series victory | “It sucks,” said Ben Stokes, the crestfallen England captain. His dream of being one of the “lucky few” England captains to take the Ashes urn home from Australia had evaporated in just 11 days. So much hope, so little output.
England resisted bravely on the final day in Adelaide, but were utterly outplayed by Australia across the first three days, with bat, ball and perhaps most starkly in the field. Marnus Labsuchagne took another exceptional catch to dismiss Will Jacks and ended the faintest England hopes of a miracle.
Now, with Bazball on the canvas and two games still to play, the inquest begins.
See how the day’s play unfolded here ➤
Read the comment piece by Sir Geoffrey Boycott: Bazball has failed and Brendon McCullum must go ➤ | | Landlords Sharon and Adrian Black both feel betrayed by the Labour Government | | Both Adrian Black and his wife Sharon have been Labour voters all their lives. However, neither can escape the feeling they have been betrayed by a party that promised to support them. The couple, who run a village pub in Hartlip, Kent, are far from alone. Publicans across the country are staring down the barrel of extraordinary tax rises from next year – after Rachel Reeves’s Budget left them exposed to an unprecedented surge in business rates. Continue reading ➤ | | | “I am bringing those high prices down and bringing them down very fast,” Donald Trump claimed in his surprise televised address to the US this week. But Americans are not convinced. The affordability squeeze is hitting low-income workers hard, and is increasingly choking the middle classes too. Continue reading ➤ | | | Pia Modha, managing director of The Christmas Decorators. Credit: Ian Skelton | | How much is too much to spend on festive decorations? £100, £200, £12,000? Welcome to the Christmas parties of the ultra-wealthy, where no expense is spared. Be it on a Scottish island, in the Alps or a small London home, meet the planners who build the world’s most exclusive winter wonderlands. Continue reading ➤ | | | Angela Hartnett in her restaurant, Murano | | As she launches her first supermarket range, Michelin-starred chef Angela Hartnett, a protege of Gordon Ramsay, talks to Claire Allfree about how she feels we’ve lost resilience when it comes to work. “I wouldn’t call in sick if I had a cold, or insist on going to hospital if I cut my finger,” she says. She’s also clear-sighted about how Labour doesn’t understand hospitality: “If a restaurant closes they don’t care if the space is filled by a chain.” Continue reading ➤ | | Everyone is wrong about: Speed limits Every week, one of our writers takes an unfashionable position, either defending a subject that’s been unfairly maligned or criticising something that most people love.  | Guy Kelly | We all need to slow down and relax. That is my principle credo in life, and never more so than in a car. Yet almost every day, from red-faced opinion columnists, disgruntled older people I interview, and especially the irate drivers of cars tailgating me, I hear the opposite: we all need to get a move on.
It is said most often in relation to London. But friends, what is the hurry? What is the issue? You’ll meet yourselves coming back, at this rate. Sir Sadiq Khan – and please, do not forget he’s a knight of the realm – has decreed that 20mph is the best speed limit, and he is right. It is by far the most elegant, chic pace at which to drive a tonne of metal and glass. It should be the case everywhere.
“But it’s so frustrating!” Actually, if I may provide a counterpoint: it is not. It is stately. It is sedate. It is safe. Very little can go wrong at 20mph, which I believe might be the point. The only reason you find it frustrating is that your car has the potential to go faster.
The solution to that tipping point is obvious. All cars should have their speedometers capped at 20mph – like golf carts, or the little vehicles at Legoland. Because there is no earthly reason for non-emergency vehicles to be fast. “My whip can do 0-60mph in 4.2 seconds and has a top speed of 140mph,” some petrolhead will tell you. Yeah, and that’s useful on the way to Aldi, is it? Speeding is embarrassing. Don’t be embarrassing.
So let’s put a lid on the madness and level the playing field. Twenty is plenty. Foot to the floor, you’re not getting more, soz. Pedal to the metal, that’s enough for now, petal. Tortoise or hare, you’ll get there when you get there.
I will concede that this might get annoying on motorways. But on that score, might I recommend... trains? Fantastic. See you at our destination.
Do you agree with Guy? Send your replies here, and the best of the bunch will feature in a future edition of From the Editor PM, for which you can sign up here.
Please confirm in your reply that you are happy to be featured and that we have your permission to use your name. | | From a humble hair bow to treasures from the souk, here the fashion team reveal the one 2025 style investment that’s worked best for their wardrobes. Continue reading ➤ Below are two more articles that I hope will improve your weekend: | | Antony Price was one of the brightest lights of British fashion in the 1970s and 1980s and made his name working with some of the biggest pop stars of the day, writes Chris Maume, Deputy Obituaries Editor.  | He was what Bryan Ferry called Roxy Music’s “silent member”, dressing the band and designing the album covers, became a close friend and collaborator with David Bowie and put Duran Duran in pastel suits for their quintessentially-Eighties Rio video.
Many of his dresses were literally sculpted, strips of internal plastic webbing cinching the torso into the desired shape, but Price was unapologetic: “There are certain people who want to star, like peacocks on parade, and they get a sexual buzz out of the pain, counteracted by the visual pleasure of being gasped at.”
He created the lace wedding dress for Jerry Hall’s Hindu “wedding” to Mick Jagger, and designed made-to-measure clothes for a long list of high-profile clients, such as Paula Yates’s eye-popping transparent lace dress for the 1994 Brit Awards.
In the 1990s he began designing bespoke pieces for Camilla Parker-Bowles, as she was then known, including outfits for the US tour she undertook in 2005 after assuming the title of Duchess of Cornwall.
Last month, after a long absence from the catwalk, he returned in triumph in a collaboration with the 16Arlington brand: the headlines were hogged by his black velvet “revenge dress” worn by the singer Lily Allen.
Read the full obituary here ➤ | | Find as many words as you can in today’s Panagram, including the nine-letter solution. Visit Telegraph Puzzles to play a range of head-scratching games, including PlusWord, Sorted, and Quick, Mini or Cryptic Crosswords.
Yesterday’s Panagram was SNOWFLAKE. Come back tomorrow for the solution to today’s puzzle. | | Thank you for reading. Allister Heath, Sunday Telegraph Editor
P.S. Please share your thoughts on the newsletter here. | |
.png){kind=icon}
.jpg )
.jpg)
.jpg )
.jpg )
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire