With a single dessert and just two glasses of wine our bill was kept in check - but the effort of doing so was not much fun
Babbo
Film
This is a film with beautiful performances and a visual style that urges you towards reflection
Bright Star
Theatre
Although the first half of Kwei-Armah’s production is pacy, funny and intelligent, the energy level then drops off
Seize The Day
I loved this film from start to finish. Take the girlfriend, tell your mum - I'd see it again tomorrow and will buy the dvd.
I saw this last night and can't remember the last time I was so moved in the theatre.
I have been to many of London's so-called best Japanese restaurants and none have been as good as the food that I've had at Aqua Kyoto
London,
30.10.09
The London Jazz Festival swings into town next month - it's time to learn to love the J-word. Richard Godwin takes you from A to Z
09.10.09
Drunks, whores and death stalk the songs of the great Belgian singer. It was love on first listen, says Marc Almond.
07.10.09
The devil, as ever, is in the detail. And the devil, I am coming to believe, was born between 1946 and 1964, fully returns the Rolling Stones'...
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05.10.09
'And he follows that check with a right uppercut ...' Richard Godwin looks at chessboxing, where you can be both master of the board and king of the...
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30.09.09
Among the delights of the London Transport Museum's forthcoming Suburbia exhibition is a 1930s poster suggesting a journey to the northern reaches of...
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16.09.09
The Greyhound bus service has just made its first run between Victoria and Southampton. Pausing only to grab his guitar, incurable road romantic...
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07.09.09
Among the many curious delights of the British Library's extraordinary audio archive of world and traditional music is a haunting field recording of...
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04.09.09
Jay-Z and Beyoncé were unlikely faces in the crowd at a gig of psychedelic rockers Grizzly Bear this week — now the rap king is spreading the word...
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30.07.09
Nuno Mendes is easily the most ambitious chef to invite strangers into his abode.
29.07.09
Is Spotify ruining music? I ask as a music fan — the very person this revolutionary website is supposed to benefit.
22.07.09
The spa at Oxford’s ‘Ritz’ is a special lair of blameless self-indulgence — but other features fail to live up to its legendary reputation
17.07.09
Nico meets Björk is hardly mosh-pit music — but eerie sounds and childlike vocals make Swedish act Fever Ray the most talked about on the festival...
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08.07.09
The French may be fond of telling the English how much better they are at various activities: cooking, painting, lovemaking... but the Englishman...
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08.07.09
Knitwear doyenne Rosita Missoni has brought a dash of fashionista colour to old Edinburgh, as well as an impressive attention to detail
01.07.09
They are the same age, left university at the same time and their tastes in books and music overlap but there the similarities end. Former soldier...
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29.06.09
Retrospect is a fine thing. Back in the Britpop era — a time of Stella Artois and Loaded magazine, Kangol hats and Gareth Southgate, the closest my...
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08.06.09
Arty bars are attracting life-drawing sessions. What could be more uplifting?
13.05.09
Not only has Edward Gardner, ENO's 34-year-old music director, scored another hit with Peter Grimes this week - he's leading a cultural revolution
28.04.09
"My first pop concert" is a rite of passage that, to judge by our fellow Jubilee line passengers on Sunday night, all crop tops and Hula Hoops,...
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