Vesper 30,212 Posted July 22 Share Posted July 22 RIP🕯️ Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath frontman and icon of British heavy metal, dies aged 76 https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jul/22/ozzy-osbourne-black-sabbath-frontman-and-icon-of-british-heavy-metal-dies-aged-76 The singer, who later became famous on reality TV show The Osbournes, dies less than three weeks after retirement concert Ozzy Osbourne, whose gleeful “Prince of Darkness” image made him one of the most iconic rock frontmen of all time, has died aged 76. A statement from the Osbourne family reads: “It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning. He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect our family privacy at this time.” No cause of death was given, though Osbourne had experienced various forms of ill health in recent years. Osbourne was one of the most notorious figures in rock: an innovator whose eerie wail helped usher in heavy metal, a showman who once bit the head off a bat on stage, an addict whose substance abuse led him to attempt to murder his wife, and latterly, a reality TV star much loved for his bemusement at family life on The Osbournes. His death comes less than three weeks after his retirement from performance. On 5 July, Osbourne reunited with his original bandmates in the pioneering group Black Sabbath for the first time since 2005, for Back to the Beginning: an all-star farewell concert featuring some of the biggest names in metal. “I’ve been laid up for six years, and you’ve got no idea how I feel,” he told the crowd that night, referring to extensive health issues including a form of Parkinson’s and numerous surgeries on his spine. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.” He was born John Michael Osbourne in Aston, Birmingham, in 1948, the son of a pair of factory workers. He had a tough upbringing. As well as living in relative poverty, aged 11 he was repeatedly sexually abused by two boys: “It was terrible … It seemed to go on for ever,” he told the Mirror in 2003. He was also jailed for burglary: “I was no good at that. Fucking useless,” he admitted in 2014. This industrial working-class environment fed into the sound of Osbourne’s defining musical project, Black Sabbath, whose heavy sound revolutionised British rock music. “We wanted to put how we thought about the world at the time,” the band’s bassist, Geezer Butler, said in 2017. “We didn’t want to write happy pop songs. We gave that industrial feeling to it.” snip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vesper 30,212 Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 The SL Guide To Marylebone Minutes from Oxford Street and home to some our favourite brands and independent boutiques, there are many reasons why Marylebone remains one of London’s most popular shopping and dining destinations. Offering a picturesque setting full of period architecture and green spaces, here are the places to stay, see and shop… https://slman.com/culture/best-restaurants-marylebone WHERE TO EAT & DRINK Marylebone has always been a great place to eat. But a flurry of recent openings from some of the best restaurant groups in the capital has cemented its status. A couple of years ago, St John opened its third site on Marylebone Lane. Like the original, expect the same white-washed walls and nose-to-tail dining experience. We like to book a table at the window and watch the world go by with a glass of manzanilla as we order deep-dried rarebit (which comes with a bottle of Lea & Perrins on the side), middle white belly and anchovies, and a plate of made-to-order madeleines to take away. Earlier this year, Claude Bosi’s buzzy Lyonnaise bouchon Josephine launched an offshoot in a gorgeous space in Marylebone. Make sure to order the white asparagus and mousseline sauce; delicate cheese ravioli with parsley; and black leg chicken with morels, followed by the showstopping banana split. The team behind the ever-popular Zephyr and Bottarga launched Nina earlier this year to even more acclaim. In Marylebone, the team has turned its attention to Italy, with emphasis on the joys of communal dining and the laboured simplicity of Italian cooking. Expect a raw menu with crudo, carpaccio and tartare, plus an excellent selection of pasta – think beef shin fazzoletti in red wine sauce; spaghetti in a rich, tomato sauce with stracciatella; and bottarga linguine served under a mound of bluefin tuna tartare. Finally, Angela Hartnett is opening her fourth Café Murano on Dorset Street at the end of this month. As well as old favourites like the above, there are some essential newer names to know. Top of that list is Lita. The intimate Marylebone bistro – headed up by chef Luke Ahearne – was recently awarded its first Michelin star. Dishes celebrate bold, seasonal flavours with a contemporary edge – think bucatini cacio e pepe with sourdough pangrattato; mafaldine with pistachio pesto and smoked burrata; and Cornish pollock with Jerusalem artichoke and roast chicken butter. New for summer there’s a lovely sun-dappled terrace that complements the restaurant’s gorgeous interiors. Then there’s AngloThai. After years of residencies, John and Desiree Chantarasak finally opened a bricks-and-mortar restaurant at the end of last year. The Marylebone restaurant took just three months to win a Michelin star – standout dishes include lion’s mane mushroom and sunflower seed satay; monkfish jungle curry with holy basil; and hogget massaman and black fig. Make sure to book a table at Noreen too. This new Middle Eastern restaurant offers a refined take on mezzes and fire-licked meats. It’s headed up by Mehdi Hani, the former chef at Em Sherif at Harrods and The Dorchester, who draws from his Syrian/Lebanese heritage to serve up the likes of hummus shortrib and cardamon milk buns with whipped butter and date molasses. Cavita Noreen A year ago, Andre Balazs’s Chiltern Firehouse would have been top of this list. Balazs’s third site after Chateau Marmont in Hollywood and the Mercer hotel in NYC, the celebrity hotspot sadly suffered a fire in February 2025. It was an SL favourite for the ultimate weekend brunch: think ‘Flaming Benedicts’, which came with crispy potato cakes and jalapeño hollandaise; black truffle scrambled eggs; and lobster and crab omelettes. These days, if we’re after brunch, we’ll grab a elite sandwich from Paul Rothe & Son. Established in 1900, this family run deli and sandwich shop started out selling solely German produce but expanded to offer a range of European and British goods post-World War II. Today, the café-deli is known for its hearty, plate-filling sandwiches. We like to keep things simple with a door-stopping egg mayo with chives and anchovies on brown bread. The ever-excellent Kol is one of the most interesting fine-dining restaurants in the country. From Mexican chef Santiago Lastra, who now also has the more casual Fonda on Heddon Street, Kol underwent a refresh earlier this month. There’s now a new dessert and drinks experience where the lower-ground floor mezcal bar was, plus a five-course lunch menu (Wednesday-Friday), where guests can enjoy a condensed version of the classic Kol tasting menu. Fresh dishes for summer 2025 include strawberry taco with seaweed and pumpkin seed dip; and a reimagined chilomole with fermented chillis and ash oil. If you love Mexican food, also try Cavita by Adriana Cavita. Another spot with a great cocktail bar and mezcaleria in the basement, the bar showcases the best of Mexican mezcal and tequila, where guests can choose from various flights to try out different agave-based spirits. Lita Nina Marylebone has plenty of options if you’re in the mood for excellent South Asian food. Another award-winning eatery from the Sethi family (who also look after Gymkhana and Taiwanese dumpling house Bao, which also has a Marylebone spot), Hoppers is one of the best Sri Lankan restaurants in London, named after one of Sri Lanka’s popular dishes – egg-topped pancakes. Unlike the original Soho restaurant, Hoppers in St Christopher’s takes bookings for dinner, and offers four semi-private dining vaults for groups of eight. Try the ‘Taste of Hoppers’ sharing menu to avoid food FOMO and sample the kitchen’s highlights. Ravinder Bhogal launched pretty-in-pink Jikoni in 2016, drawing on her Kenyan and Indian heritage to fuse dishes from her travels and her childhood, and create a delicious hybrid menu. Combinations on offer include prawn toast scotch egg with banana ketchup and pickled cucumbers; scorched peaches with tofu, lime leaf gremolata and peanut brittle; Kesar mango and golden coin curry thali; and Ravinder’s famous banana cake with miso butterscotch, peanut brittle and Ovaltine kulfi. And finally, Trishna delivers a contemporary taste of Indian coastal cuisine, with a heavy focus on seafood. The informal and pared-back aesthetic of the interiors, offset with antique mirrors, marble tabletops and original wooden panelling, offers a neighbourhood atmosphere, with terrace doors that open onto Blandford Street, creating a semi al fresco ambience throughout the restaurant. Side note: if seafood is your thing, check out Greek fin-to-gill restaurant Kima, which offers a beautifully refined take on surf and turf. If Japanese food is more your thing, book a spot at Roketsu, which launched its first site in London a couple of years ago. The restaurant is made up of just ten seats at the counter, making this an intimate experience. Food is served in the traditional ‘Kaiseki’ style, a ten-course set menu that revolves around dashi. Each sitting lasts three hours and current menu highlights include Cornish ikejime seabass with lobster, yuzu and Japanese mustard; and Cornish crab with pear, air-dried onion, carrot, fennel, yuzu and dill. We also really rate Taka, which serves a small plate-led menu, focusing on hot and grilled dishes and sushi. Sharers include a yakitori omakase – a whole chicken broken down and grilled over hot coals to create a complete nose-to-tail eating experience. The selection of sushi focuses on quirky adaptations of long-standing favourites, such as kagoshima A5 wagyu sukiyaki with onsen eggs, and popcorn shrimp with daikon salad. Jikoni Wallace Collection From the outside, French-leaning wine bar Clarette looks like an old Tudor pub: picture black and white beams and stained glass. But within, the townhouse has had a thoroughly modern makeover – the seating is pink, there’s plenty of exposed brickwork and statement lighting abounds. For a proper pub experience, we love The Coach Maker’s Arms from Cubitt House – the group behind London institutions like The Princess Royal in Notting Hill, The Builder’s Arms in Chelsea and Mayfair’s The Barley Mow. The pub itself is a stunner, but we love to book a table in its pretty upstairs dining room for an elite Sunday lunch. For some old-school glamour, book a table at Fischer’s. Part of The Wolseley Group, it’s an informal neighbourhood café with a classic Viennese menu. The space is evocative of early 20th-century Vienna and is open for breakfast until late: the menu includes a huge choice of cured fish, salads, strudels, ice-cream coupes, hot chocolates and coffees with traditional tortes. Another tried-and-tested classic is Orrery, which has long combined high-end classic French cookery with a relaxed neighbourhood vibe. We love its smart floor-to-ceiling oval windows and its famously well-stocked cheese trolley. Our menu picks include saffron risotto croquettes with pesto, followed by turbot with braised cabbage, beurre blanc and oscietra caviar. Come summertime, you’ll find us on the plant-filled terrace. WHERE TO SHOP & VISIT The eastern half of Church Street is filled with antique shops – many of them run by dealers who started at Alfies Antique Market – and it’s now one of the best enclaves for antiques in London. For more than 40 years, Alfies has attracted serious collectors, interior designers and celebrities to its vast and varied collection of art, antiques, jewellery and fashion. Across four floors of one-offs and genuine treasures, it is one of the largest and longest-running arcades of its kind in the country – and is well worth a post-lunch peruse. Orrery There’s a reason Daunt Books tote bags are spotted all over the capital. With five shops in London and one in Oxford, it’s the place to go to for a traditional book buying experience – and we’re a fan of its beautiful Marylebone site, which is always full of people taking Insta snaps of its interiors. If you’re not sure what to buy, check out its subscription service, which sends subscribers a new title every month, according to their tastes. If your idea of a great Saturday is browsing delis and food markets, pay Green Valley a visit. Established in 1986, it’s London’s largest and best-stocked Lebanese and Middle Eastern food hall (ideal if you’ve got an Ottolenghi book to be broken in). Starting out as a small shop on the same premises, it’s now grown to become a real treasure trove of ingredients and cookware. There are countless fashion stores along Marylebone High Street. One of the area’s best independent boutiques is Kj’s Laundry, which focuses on niche, under-the-radar brands and is known for introducing new and exciting labels to the UK: think Ulla Johnson, Hope-Sthlm, Humanoid and Filippa K alongside cult favourites such as Samantha Sung, Sessun, Xirena and Masscob. We also really rate Mouki Mou on Chiltern Street, which stocks lesser-known brands mainly from Japan and the US. For menswear, look no further than Trunk Clothiers, the Chiltern Street boutique which carefully curates the very best fashion from Japan, the US and further afield. When you’ve exhausted the shops, make sure to leave time for a quick visit to the Wallace Collection. Tucked behind Oxford Street, this 18th-century townhouse contains an impressive selection of paintings, sculpture, furniture and porcelain – all shown against a backdrop of beautiful original interiors. Filled with natural light and dotted with trees and sculptures, the Wallace restaurant offers al fresco-style dining protected from both the elements and the crowds of the West End, and it’s a great spot for afternoon tea or a light lunch. Treehouse Hotel WHERE TO SLEEP Discreetly occupying a Grade II-listed townhouse on Upper Berkeley Street, Henry’s Townhouse was once owned by Jane Austen’s brother. It is widely thought that Jane’s visits to Henry in London were of great value, for it was through his support that her work was published. A design collaboration between owners Jane and Steven Collins and the award-winning Russell Sage Studio, Henry’s is an intelligent and glamorous re-imagining of the Regency period, featuring an array of carefully chosen colour palettes, abundant fabrics and beautiful furnishings – think modern four-poster beds, roll-top baths and antiques and artwork that tell a story. In all, there are seven lovely bedrooms, along with a reading room – where complimentary aperitifs are served each evening – plus the Carriage Snug, where guests can mix up a cocktail and play backgammon. Downstairs, you’ll find the kitchen and pantry, where we had one of the best breakfasts we can remember. Best of all, the townhouse is run almost like a lovely family home, with someone on hand to look after you as much or as little as you like. The BoTree opened its doors in September and fast established itself as a West End hotspot. The first opening from luxury group Place III Hotels, there are 199 chicly colourful rooms including 30 suites, all offering different views of London. The Soho Suites (with views over Henrietta Place and Welbeck Street) have spacious separate living areas and free-standing baths and all come with Jo Loves toiletries and Jasper Conran Wedgewood tea sets. Tao Group Hospitality (the same group behind Hakkasan and Yauatcha) is behind the hotel’s food and drink. Its signature restaurant Lavo serves elegant Italian dishes in a sophisticated but relaxed dining room – make sure to order the tagliatelle al limone infused with marjoram, sweet butter and kaluga caviar. As well as newer hotels, Marylebone is home to some impressive mainstays. One of the oldest railway hotels in London, The Landmark London is a magnificent five-star hotel and has remained an icon for over 120 years. With 300 bedrooms and 51 suites, the hotel has some impressive restaurants: a stunning eight-storey glass atrium is home to the Winter Garden, which serves a modern European menu and a popular afternoon tea. The Mirror Bar is a great spot for late-night drinks and the hotel spa features a huge health club, treatment rooms and 15m chlorine-free indoor swimming pool. Opened in 1865 as Europe’s first ‘grand hotel’, The Langham underwent an extensive transformation a few years back, and now offers a selection of luxurious guestrooms and suites. Best of all, its bars and restaurants include the award-winning Palm Court, Artesian Bar and the Wigmore, all overseen by Michel Roux Jr. Elsewhere, its Chuan Spa Body + Soul is London’s first luxury hotel spa to incorporate the ancient principles of traditional Chinese medicine into its signature treatments. Henry’s Townhouse The BoTree Like the original in Clerkenwell, Zetter Townhouse in Marylebone is an independent boutique hotel full of personality. On Seymour Street, the 24-bedroom Georgian townhouse and cocktail lounge offers non-guests a great selection of cocktails and small plates in atmospheric, antiques-laden Seymour’s Parlour, so this is well worth bookmarking even if you don’t need a bed for the night. Thought you had to leave London to find an idyllic treehouse getaway? Not so. All rooms at Treehouse Hotel are perched high in the city skyline and feature big bay windows that look out to some of London’s most iconic landmarks. The Backyard coffee/wine bar feels just like a real treehouse thanks to the exposed wood décor, while the rooftop Nest bar offers 360° views of the city. Think cocktails, swing seats and DJs working the decks – all from a luxe treehouse fort. If you want to stay right in the centre of Marylebone Village, book a room at The Marylebone, which is a short walk from Oxford Street, Bond Street and Mayfair. Like the group’s other properties – The Bloomsbury and The Kensington – the hotel’s stylishly designed guest rooms and suites offer modern, art-filled spaces. Our pick would be one of its impressive rooftop terrace suites. The 249-bedroom Nobu Hotel London Portman Square sits on a prominent corner of Marylebone. Like other Nobu properties, the hotel showcases traditional Japanese architectural details and offers a high-end but relaxed stay. Naturally, there’s also a Nobu restaurant – which serves all Nobu Matsuhisa’s culinary classics – plus a pretty bar and impressive outdoor terrace. On a more affordable end of the scale, The Prince Akatori is another Japan-led hotel in Marybone. Expect gorgeously stripped-back interiors and excellent nightcaps in its Malt Room. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vesper 30,212 Posted July 26 Share Posted July 26 Bonnie Blue: 1,000 men and the worrying normalisation of porn Bonnie Blue, 26, is the Gen Z Brit who earned £1.5 million a month posting footage online of her having sex with multiple men, with controversial stunts targeting university students. Janice Turner meets the most notorious woman on the internet https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/sex-relationships/article/bonnie-blue-interview-1000-men-normalisation-porn-dd6rcq8gq Tia Billinger, aka Bonnie Blue: “It’s going to be difficult when I’m ready to date again, because of what I do” TOM JACKSON FOR THE TIMES MAGAZINE If you’ve never heard of Bonnie Blue, ask your teenage kids, the guys down the pub, your female colleagues. In fact, anyone with a social media account. They may respond with disgust or lurid fascination, but I guarantee they’ll have an opinion on this outwardly ordinary 26-year-old from Derbyshire, who claims that on January 11, within a 12-hour period, she had sex with 1,057 men. This purported world record — one that goes undocumented by Guinness — begs many questions. How did she do it, given that’s 41 seconds per man not including changeovers? What was the physical toll? What childhood trauma led her to relish such gross public degradation? Because let’s be clear, what Bonnie Blue does is by most standards extreme: in videos her small, slight, naked body is passed like a toy between multiple men who take turns penetrating her mouth and vagina, often at the same time. She kneels attending to a whole circle of penises, working manically in rotation like a music hall plate-spinner. Occasionally the men slap or choke or urinate on her: sometimes she gags and retches or looks overwhelmed by this sexual feeding frenzy. Unlike most porn stars, she doesn’t bother to fake orgasms: she is there not to receive but to provide pleasure for men who conclude by ejaculating on her face. From a social media post in January @BONNIE_BLUE_XOX/INSTAGRAM And yet Bonnie Blue — now the subject of a Channel 4 documentary — is mainstream. You don’t need Pornhub to watch her: you can scroll unexpurgated clips of her “events” on X. Meanwhile, on Instagram and TikTok she posts nonstop wholesome scenes from her life: Bonnie with her fluffy dog; on a beach in a bikini; hungover eating lunch. The notion is she’s a normal girl who simply loves doing porn, and not just with other professionals. If you are a man, any man, “barely legal or barely breathing”, just turn up, join a queue and she’ll do you, although her preference is for 18-year-old virgins recruited at college freshers events. (A clip of one mother turning up to drag her son home went viral: “Where’s your coat?” she demands furiously. But it’s too late; he’s already had his go.) Bonnie is where the influencer economy meets the porn industry: horny teen boys get free sex with a famous girl in exchange for filming content that she monetises to earn millions. Her queue of men has been compared to strangers recruited online to rape a drugged Gisèle Pelicot, but I’m reminded too of lines you see outside any Instagram-famous shop or café: screwing Bonnie is about sex, but also participating in a craze. Is Bonnie, as she insists, an “empowered” woman, the ultimate expression of female bodily autonomy? Andrew Tate has described her as “the perfect end result of feminism”, and certainly “sex-positive” feminism has long valorised sex work, which must make Bonnie, coolly getting rich on gangbangs, a modern Emmeline Pankhurst or Germaine Greer. In any case, the results of our global experiment in exposing children to pornography before their first kiss is now here in human form. From Tia to Bonnie Her real name is Tia Billinger and we speak at the Times offices, where someone has booked us a glass-fronted room in the newsroom, meaning a constant stream of curious journalists flows by. She wears a pink Balmain minidress chosen by her Italian stylist, Ermes, but otherwise she looks like any nice, well-groomed twentysomething: luxuriant hair, shaped brows, natural make-up and nails, an athletic 5ft 3in figure, no boob job or tattoos or piercings, sweet face, veneered smile, grey-blue eyes with a fiercely direct gaze, which her right-hand man and videographer, Josh, calls her “death stare”. I felt I was interviewing two people. Tia, the bright, funny, polite northern girl who loves her family, crafting, pets and Netflix, is occasionally possessed by lewd, crude Bonnie. Beyond our room is a Sunday Times leaving do. “Does he want a farewell blow job?” she asks. Er, I think it’s a woman. She grew up in Draycott, a village between Derby and Nottingham, the sort of place, she says, “where your parents are neighbours with people they went to school with, and they live two minutes down the road from their parents. Which is nice, but it’s as if you can’t leave.” Her father was a welder who repaired railway tracks, working long hours often away from home. Her mother stayed home looking after Tia and her sister, then worked as a childminder, shop assistant and nursing home carer. It was a warm, close, loving childhood. Tia and her sister were crazy about dancing, taking nine classes a week of tap, ballet and freestyle, and in 2015 they took part in the British street dance championships. School bored her, but she thought about becoming a midwife until she saw that after four years’ training she’d be on £21,000. She was already earning that aged 16 by teaching dance and working in Poundstretcher. So she dropped out of A-levels, “not because I didn’t have a good work ethic. Quite the opposite; I wanted to work. I was hungry. I wanted to earn money. University would only have slowed my life down.” • Why you should watch sex scenes with your children So she worked in recruitment, “a glamorised call-centre sales job” placing finance assistants and accountants mainly within the NHS. She did that from 7.30am to 6pm for five years. “I felt like my life got so serious so quickly. My friends were still talking about missing homework while I was thinking, ‘I need to find a finance director for Derby Hospital.’ ” Articulate and engaging, she was good at her job and it brought material success: by 19 she drove a Mercedes C-class. She’d met her boyfriend, Ollie, a private-school boy, at a New Year’s Eve party when she was 15. They bought a house and were saving for a lavish wedding. Yet Tia was still deeply dissatisfied. “I kept thinking, ‘Is that all there is?’ The desire to leave your home town is quite strong, isn’t it?” In older friends she saw her life mapped out: a kitchen extension, one nice holiday a year, 20 days’ leave, yearning for Fridays to come around. She wondered if a baby would help, but she wasn’t pregnant after 18 months of trying and tests revealed it would be hard for her to conceive. So once lockdown ended, she and Ollie, an estate agent, sold their house and cars, had a register office wedding in February 2022 and moved to Australia’s Gold Coast. Here material things mattered less, “because when you open your back doors, you’ve got the most beautiful beach and you get a cheap lilo from the corner shop”. A planned gap year turned into two. Then family and friends told her it was time to find a job. “They said, ‘You’ve had the best two years of your life.’ And that sentence was the biggest wake-up call, because I thought, yes, they were good years, but surely can’t be the best of my whole life.” Tia created her Bonnie Blue alter ego when she began performing in front of a camera online TOM JACKSON FOR THE TIMES MAGAZINE ‘My first time as a cam girl, I was so nervous’ Resuming the nine-to-five filled her with dread and she’d noticed on TikTok “women, all different shapes and sizes and backgrounds, were getting extra money doing camming online”. Cam girls talk with and perform for men online. The first five minutes are free, and the trick is to lure a man into a virtual private room where he will pay per minute to watch you strip or perform sexual acts. “The first call, I was so nervous,” she says. “But I thought, worst case, I’ll slam the laptop shut and never mention it again. But instantly I enjoyed it, and I was good at it. It’s just sales, really.” Her alter ego, “Bonnie Blue”, was born, and Tia used skills acquired in recruitment to stand out from thousands of other cam girls. She knew how to work out exactly what a man wanted: “You ask them very open questions, so they fill in the gaps for you.” She kept a second laptop off-camera where she could google unfamiliar sexual practices. “One guy asked for SPH. I had to look it up. It’s small penis humiliation. Then I went, ‘Oh, your penis is so small. It’s pathetic. It looks like an AA battery.’ Some men love that, but I’d no idea.” Soon she was camming for hours, pulling in good money. I ask how Ollie felt and she says he encouraged her, “though he didn’t pimp me out”. In Australia she’d put on weight, lost her dancer’s body, felt self-conscious, especially as the Gold Coast was a hive of glamorous influencers. “I became really insecure. I’d cover up my body, cancel trips.” Having hundreds of strangers telling her she was beautiful raised her self-confidence. She insists her work wasn’t why Ollie returned to England and they are now divorcing. “We just grew apart.” After he left, Tia/Bonnie became a “full-service” escort. She recalls the first time she had sex for money. “I was nervous. I thought he might ask for a refund. It was a guy in his thirties with two kids and a missus. He booked a hotel. I remember saying to him, ‘OK, tell me what you like, what you enjoy.’ And he’s like, ‘Look, I just want sex. I’ve got to go in 20 minutes.’ It lasted about five or six. He hopped in the shower and left. I had the biggest smile on my face and £500.” • Porn, consent and body positivity: How to talk to your teens about sex She also joined OnlyFans, the British-owned subscription platform that, although it hosts content providers from chefs to celebrities, is chiefly known for porn. Then she applied her sales brain to climbing its rankings. She’d heard about Schoolies, a celebration at the end of Australian high-school exams, and went there to distribute business cards with a QR code to her OnlyFans page. She claims she was only musing whether to sleep with the boys when the Daily Mail ran a story calling her a sexual predator. So she leant into the publicity and offered herself free to 18-year-olds who would consent to be filmed, and then posted their brief encounters online. Her subscriber base soared. She had, it seems, invented a revolutionary category of sex work: the porn star who breaks through a laptop screen into a teenage boy’s life. Holding a sign saying “Bonk me and let me film it” (made by her mother), she slept with 150 18-year-olds at Nottingham University freshers week and 122 during US spring break in Mexico. The resulting outcry about her seducing and deflowering “barely legal” boys led to her being banned from Airbnb, Tinder, Hinge, Australia (for visa breaches), Fiji and Nottingham Forest’s City Ground stadium, where she’d advertised her location to fans. “But men,” she points out, “have made porn content with schoolgirls since day one. Sexy schoolgirls pretending they don’t want it, then two minutes later they’re bent over the desk. No one has ever caused an uproar about that. So why can’t I do a schoolboy?” She has a point. “Teen” is porn’s most searched online category and even before the internet, Hustler magazine’s most popular offshoot was Barely Legal: magazines and movies featuring girls of 18 who looked far younger and were frequently shot in student dorms being “sexually initiated” by older men. Porn as sex education Porn directors preyed on damaged girls from troubled homes, many of whom were abused as children: they had conveniently lower sexual boundaries and no one to protect them. Today such girls are still likely to end up in prostitution or grim Pornhub clips. But Tia/Bonnie is adamant she has no tragic backstory, no abuse, no “daddy issues”. As does Lily Phillips, another OnlyFans girl from Derbyshire, the subject of a YouTube film about having sex with 100 men. (Tia, who worked with her, claims Lily copied her world record idea.) Lily Phillips, who made a YouTube film about having sex with 100 men CHRISTOPHER L PROCTOR Tia tells me she lost her virginity at 13, to a boy of 14, and first started watching porn at 12. Lily was only 11. For their generation, born in the late Nineties, entering adolescence when smartphones first became widely available, this was unexceptional. In fact, Tia sees porn as vital sex education: “It’s probably best sometimes they watch some to see how it’s done.” Porn is first consumed now on average at 13, although 15 per cent are just 10. The fallout from this is just filtering through: in 2022, figures showed that the majority of sexual crimes against minors — including rape, assault, indecent exposure and voyeurism — were committed by other children. Tia and Lily didn’t think anything abnormal happened to them because porn’s narrative that a girl’s role is to serve male needs is now utterly normal. In her videos, Bonnie tells men she wants to be their “slut”, their “cum rag”. The disgustingness is not an unfortunate consequence but part of the point: she displays with relish her eyes almost blinded by semen, the bedroom floor littered with hundreds of discarded condoms. She claims gangbangs are her sexual kink. “I tell men, ‘Throw me around, destroy me, spit on me, slap me … I want you to make a mess of me.’ ” I say such porn has made men think that choking women during sex — a sometimes lethal act — is normal. “If I went on a first date, I’d want him to choke me,” she says. “I just think when rougher sex is posted, whether that’s on Pornhub or OnlyFans, it should have a warning. Like when you watch Britain’s Got Talent and it says, ‘Don’t try this at home.’ ” Yet she rarely orgasms in her films “because I need to concentrate, and there’s too much going on. Making sure my hands are both moving, my mouth is busy, the next guy is coming in …” So your porn has nothing to do with female pleasure? “I get a lot of pleasure from men’s pleasure,” she says, “knowing it’s turning them on.” Photographed on social media with (fake) police as a publicity stunt @BONNIE_BLUE_XOX/INSTAGRAM ‘If you could earn £1 million a month, you’d get your bits out’ By January, Bonnie claimed to have 800,000 OnlyFans subscribers — a mixture of free and paid accounts — making her its top content creator and, since it takes 20 per cent of earnings, its biggest cash cow. In the Channel 4 documentary, her mother remarks that although shocked initially by her daughter’s career, “If you could earn £1 million a month, you’d change your morals and get your bits out.” Tia/Bonnie turned the outrage about her having sex with young fans into online rocket fuel. She baited the (mainly) women who denounced her, saying they were too lazy to have sex with their husbands. To critics who said she was putting feminism back 100 years, she replied it was stay-at-home mums, not a financially independent woman like her, who were socially regressive. Soon everyone was talking and tiktoking about her and she felt her profile was high enough for her biggest event to date: sleeping with 1,000 men. The insatiable woman is a mythic figure, a source of horror and disgust from Messalina, wife of the Roman emperor Claudius, who was said to slip out of her palace to bed dozens of men in brothels, to the Singaporean porn actress Annabel Chong, who in 1995 replicated Messalina’s feat. Hired by the porn director John T Bone, Chong staged what was dubbed “the world’s biggest gangbang” on a set made to look like a Roman orgy. Chong, who was only 22 and had been brutally gang-raped as a student in England, claimed to be challenging gender roles when, over the course of 10 hours, she had sex with 70 men a total of 251 times. This record was broken by various porn stars and had been held since 2004 by Lisa Sparks, who at the third annual world gangbang championship in Warsaw reportedly had sex with 919 men. Tia/Bonnie organised her attempt on the record like a military operation, hiring a house in Marylebone and 16 staff to process the queue. Advertising her location on Telegram and X, she told men “to bring your friends, your family and your neighbours”. Hundreds showed up to have their ID verified and to wait in a corridor for hours. Condoms were provided and blue balaclavas for those who wanted to hide their faces on film. A “fluffer” was employed to get them excited. Some men had a few minutes alone but most took part in vast group sessions. To count towards her tally, each man needed to penetrate her vagina at least momentarily. Why do men like gangbangs? “Some find it fun,” she says. “I’ve had groups of friends just having a laugh, high-fiving each other. I feel more confident that if one of those guys felt depressed, he could reach out to one of his friends because they’ve got an open relationship, a connection.” (I wonder why they can’t, maybe, go paintballing.) She has security because, “I get scared that if a guy comes on another guy by mistake, they’d be like, ‘Oh, you’re gay. Why have you done that?’ ” When Bonnie appeared with him on the Disruptors podcast, Andrew Tate said men who enjoy gangbangs are gay. “He thinks everything’s gay.” Appearing on the Disruptors podcast with Andrew Tate in June @BONNIE_BLUE_XOX/INSTAGRAM Speaking of the physical toll of her world record, Tia/Bonnie sounds like a marathon runner pushing her body to the max. She talks of staying hydrated and keeping up her blood sugar halfway through with a doughnut. “Eight hours in,” she says, “I started to sting, so I thought I’m going to use some lube, but that stung more.” Her jaw seized up, but she was more concerned with her sexual reputation than the pain. I ask if she’s ever turned down a man and she cites one with a fake ID and another who shamed other men for their small penises. “I told him instantly to get out.” But aren’t some men disgusting or smelly? She says she tastes more Lynx aftershave than unclean penis. Then she tells me something so disgusting I gag — that she was once expected to lick the anus of a porn star with huge piles. Oh Tia, I say, and she says brightly she’d do it for anyone. “Mostly they’re quite clean.” What about loving sex? “I’m taking a break,” she says. “Me and my ex were together for a very long time and I’m fine not being in a relationship. It’s going to be difficult when I’m ready to date, because of what I do.” But, she adds, “Some of the sex I have with people is loving, but it’s not boyfriend and girlfriend loving.” TOM JACKSON FOR THE TIMES MAGAZINE. STYLING: ERMES DE CRISTOFARO AND SUSIE LETHBRIDGE Too extreme for OnlyFans After she’d completed the 1,000-man gangbang and Josh was editing it to be sold to subscribers for an estimated £300,000, OnlyFans suddenly announced it would not host porn made with amateurs. Visa, which runs its online payment scheme, thought her material too extreme. Analysts have also noted that OnlyFans is preparing for an $8 billion (£6 billion) sale and didn’t wish to scare off buyers. So Bonnie hired 100 professional porn actors for another challenge. I sense she found this painful and unpleasant: the men were exceptionally well endowed and pounded her aggressively. But she needed new content to maintain her ranking. But then Bonnie announced another event: a human “petting zoo”. She would be tied up helplessly in a glass box, and people could do anything they liked to her while others watched. Some compared it to Marina Abramovic’s 1974 performance Rhythm 0, where the Serbian artist sat still before a table of 72 objects, including feathers, honey, a scalpel and a gun, which her audience could use on her. But Bonnie says she’d never heard of this, “and she gave them all these horrible sharp things — I was just going to have dildos and lube”. For OnlyFans the petting zoo was the limit: Bonnie was kicked off the site, cutting her income instantly from £1.5 million a month to zero. She quickly joined another platform, Fansly, where she has built up 30,000 subscribers. But she says OnlyFans then told her she could not upload her 1,000-men event, which she claims cost £100,000 to host, because the men’s consent forms don’t grant permission to other sites. So all her hard work is still in the can. The Andrew Tate podcast helped raise her profile, but also aligned her with a loathed misogynist who faces rape and human-trafficking charges, though he has denied acting unlawfully. So to keep relevant, to maintain her income, she is forced to create ever more extreme content. One option is to release a tape of her having anal sex, which, unusually for a porn star, she has never done. “That would probably get me £1 million.” (Lily Phillips is releasing hers too.) To feed online rage, she has just filmed a “sex education” lesson in a classroom with very young-looking OnlyFans creators dressed in school uniforms. All look nervous; none has ever had sex in public. The boys are flushed from taking Viagra. Bonnie talks on camera of these girls needing to be “stretched out” by men. She is adamant they’re all over 18 and are never forced to do anything that makes them uncomfortable. Nonetheless, I say, it feels like a shift from selling her own body to pimping out young people, who may not be as secure and mentally strong. I get the death stare. “I’m not their mum. I’m not there to guide them. I’m here to say, ‘Hey, this is a business opportunity.’ ” The youngsters are not paid but hope creating content with Bonnie will raise their OnlyFans ranking. But what, you wonder, will be their futures, now this material is online for ever? And what of hundreds of other girls — and boys — who will follow them into this rapacious industry? Or the millions who will view what Bonnie does as a template for their own sex lives? Posing for her Instagram feed @BONNIE_BLUE_XOX/INSTAGRAM A few days later when I ring Tia/Bonnie, she’s on a lilo in the south of France, planning her next move. She is far from Draycott and her parents’ relentless, decent toil. “Each day I wake up so excited. I can’t believe this is my life.” Yet no one believes she’s really happy. “They say to me, ‘You’re a suicide waiting to happen,’ ” she explains. Unlike Lily Phillips, who broke down after her 100-men gangbang, Bonnie insists you’ll never see her cry. But it feels like she’s painted herself into a corner: what will she have to endure to top her already extreme challenges? She’s stopped going out much, because she’s scared the barrage of online hate may manifest as real violence. With her toughness, drive, looks and engaging personality, Tia reminds me of the flinty young women who win The Apprentice. Given the right breaks she could have made it in business, say, or TV. Instead, she will always be Bonnie Blue, the Stakhanovite sex worker, the Ayn Rand of porn. 1,000 Men and Me: The Bonnie Blue Story is on Channel 4 on July 29 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vesper 30,212 Posted July 26 Share Posted July 26 TOPJAW - Best Curry in London: Where Chefs Eat We’ve interviewed 200 chefs, industry dons and our favourite celebs on the Best of London, we’ve totted up all the answers and these are the Top 5 best curries as voted for by them. Best Curry doesn’t mean Indian, we receive answers from all regions around the world where curry is a significant part of their cuisine. However, I guess the Top 5 list is a reflection of our affinity towards Indian cuisine. Which question shall we do next? 00:00 Brigadiers 03:48 Tayyabs 07:20 BiBi 11:17 Darjeeling Express 14:15 Gymkhana Thank you so much for watching - we love seeing your comments! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vesper 30,212 Posted July 27 Share Posted July 27 Nobody Else Talks Like This in America (Carolina Brogue) 🇺🇸 Today we’re heading to one of the most remote islands on the East Coast—Ocracoke, in North Carolina’s Outer Banks. We’ll meet up with an old-school local who still speaks the dying Ocracoke Brogue—a mix of English, Scottish, Irish, and a sprinkle of pirate. Only a few still speak it. This is an inside look at a vanishing culture and a way of life few will ever experience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vesper 30,212 Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 I left the UK for Lisbon – it’s 42 degrees and I am struggling to cope Everything revolves around the heat. You can’t touch playground equipment without risking a burn, and every errand becomes an endurance test https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/left-uk-for-lisbon-42-degrees-struggling-to-cope-3793856 It’s ingrained in British culture to complain about the weather: “It’s always raining”, “the sky’s so grey”, “why’s it so cold”. It’s one of the many reasons I moved to Portugal three years ago. I really wanted a sunnier, happier lifestyle for me, my partner, and our 10-year-old son. Portugal is one of the sunniest countries in Europe, averaging between 2,500 and 3,200 hours per year. Their relaxed culture and family friendliness also drew us to the country but nothing prepared us for the sweltering heatwave that we just experienced. I thought I had grown used to Portugal‘s summer rhythm – the slow mornings, the shimmering afternoons, the pinkish-purple glow at dusk. But this recent heatwave has pushed many of us beyond what feels manageable. It has been nothing short of an inferno. Imagine leaving your house in the morning and it’s already 30°C. Inland towns like Moura reached an eye‑watering 46.6°C a few days ago. At one point it reached 42°C in Lisbon according to the pharmacy signs displayed outside. When the city climbs past 40°C, which it has several times already this summer, life doesn’t just slow down – it rearranges itself entirely. Hannah says by mid-morning the pavements radiate enough heat to fry an egg (Photo: supplied) From the moment we wake up, everything revolves around the heat. Mornings start unnaturally early at around 6am, and it’s not only because it’s uncomfortable to sleep for a long time when it’s so hot. If I want a walk, a run, or even just a few minutes in the park with my son, it has to happen before 8am. By mid-morning, the sun is already intense, and by the afternoon, the pavements radiate enough heat to fry an egg. In all honesty, there’s nowhere truly cool to go unless you want to crowd into an air-conditioned shopping centre. Luckily for us, Lisbon is a relatively tree-lined city, so it’s not too hard to find refuge under some shade while sipping on a cold, icy cider at a kiosk. Read Next squareEXPATS Why it's getting even harder for Brits to become EU citizens Read More You can’t touch playground equipment without risking a burn, and every errand becomes a mini endurance test. Just going to the supermarket means strategic timing, frozen bottles of water in your bag, and a mental countdown until you can get back home and return yourself to the semi-darkness of shuttered windows and electric fans. Living without air conditioning, as many of us do in the older neighbourhoods of Lisbon, adds a layer of intensity. Our apartment traps heat like a brick oven, so we’ve adopted a system: blinds down by 10am, fans placed at every doorway, and cold compresses on standby in the fridge. My partner and I take turns keeping our son cool, spritzing his skin with water and encouraging him to eat cold fruit snacks with high water content such as melons, grapes and apples. Having a child during this level of heat brings its own unique challenge. You become hyper-aware of hydration, of skin exposure, of shade. I slather him in spray-on SPF 50, make sure he wears a hat and super light clothing when he goes out, and restrict playing outdoors to the first and last hours of the day. He loves playing basketball in our local park so our evening routine has shifted. Hannah: ‘The heatwave has made everything heavier – work, decisions, movement’ He now starts playing basketball after 8pm when the breeze finally starts to pick up and he finishes around 11pm several times a week. On cooler days, he wouldn’t typically be out that late. On the hot days when he doesn’t want to play basketball, we’ve made a ritual out of post-sunset walks and drinks from a local restaurant round the corner. When we’re lucky, there’s a small crosswind that filters through the streets, and for a moment, it’s like the city can breathe. But sleep is much harder – especially for me. My asthma is completely exacerbated even though it’s typically under control. I found myself having to use my S.O.S. inhaler a few times during the past couple of weeks because the heat felt suffocating. Read Next squarePORTUGAL Why Brits are now moving to Portugal instead of Spain Read More The heatwave has made everything heavier – work, decisions, movement. You think twice before planning anything, and question everything, even your sense of what’s “normal”. Because this isn’t normal. I’m from London and didn’t grow up in heat, but I know it’s not supposed to feel like this. Not days in a row where the air feels uncomfortably tight, and where the stone walls that usually keep Lisbon cool seem to sweat right beside me. I’ve found myself thinking more and more about climate change in the very real sense that this is probably our new normal. It’s hard to ignore the feeling that these extreme temperatures aren’t just a one-off event. This heatwave isn’t some random occurrence; it’s a symptom. Every time I read a headline about record-breaking temperatures across Europe, or wildfires, it hits me: things are shifting. And living through it – especially with a child – adds an urgency to my concern. I’m starting to wonder what August will look like, or next year, or ten years from now. Lisbon has always been hot in the summer, but now it feels like it’s teetering on the edge of something much more serious. The conversations we used to have about “someday” and “elsewhere” are here now, on our doorsteps, in our sweltering living rooms. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vesper 30,212 Posted August 4 Share Posted August 4 Wtf https://www.instagram.com/reel/DHZGAvkzLwj/?igsh=MWE2eGx6N3V6bXZ0ZA== Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vesper 30,212 Posted August 7 Share Posted August 7 30 years on, Jonathan Edwards’ world record triple jump still stands Described as “like watching a pebble being skimmed across a lake”, it is 30 years to the day since Jonathan Edwards combined speed, grace and power to hop, step and jump his way to athletics immortality with a world-record triple jump of 18.29 metres. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vesper 30,212 Posted August 9 Share Posted August 9 SheerLuxe's Shopping and Dining Weekend This August, Carnaby Street and Soho have partnered with SheerLuxe and SLMan to bring you a weekend of exclusive shopping and dining discounts. https://www.thisissoho.co.uk/whats-on/sheerluxe/ Exclusive SheerLuxe Offers Fashion & Accessories Carnaby Street 39 CARNABY STREET Abercrombie & Fitch *Quote SL SOHO at checkout to get an additional 20% off almost everything at checkout from August 16, 2025 to August 17, 2025. Offer valid in Abercrombie & Fitch Carnaby St store only. Exclusions apply. 24 BERWCK STREET A Day's March 15% off in-store. 15 NEWBURGH STREET Aubin 20% off in-store for full price items only. 32 BERWICK STREET Clarks Originals 20% off in-store for the whole weekend. Pop-up 36 MARSHALL STREEET De La Vali 20% off in store. 61 BROADWICK STREET FINLAY London 10% off in-store. This offer is valid on FINLAY sunglasses, not collaboration collections or other brands. 36 BEAK STREET GANNI Receive a gift with purchase when you spend £250 or more, available while stocks last. Carnaby Street 51 CARNABY STREET Levi's 20% off in-store. Carnaby Street 56 CARNABY STREET Missoma 15% off all products and services in-store. 37 BEAK STREET MOSCOT Receive a mini travel case when you purchase two frames or more, and a zip case with the purchase of a complete pair (one frame and lenses). Carnaby Street 47 CARNABY STREET Nobody's Child 20% off in-store on full price items and sale products. Third party brands are not included and the offer cannot be applied to past purchases, is not transferable and doesn't hold cash value. Carnaby Street 16 CARNABY STREET OFFICE 10% off in-store. Carnaby Street 57 CARNABY STREET PANGAIA 20% off in-store. 37 UPPER JAMES STREET Rejina Pyo 15% off in-store. 18 BROADWICK STREET Salomon 20% off in-store. Offer excludes the XT-6 - standard and Goretex, JJound, Orava and Ama collaboration products. Pop-up 13 NEWBURGH STREET Speltham 15% off in-store. Carnaby Street 3-4 CARNABY STREET TALA £10 off when you spend £60 or more in-store. Carnaby Street 8 CARNABY STREET The North Face 20% off full price items in-store. 100 BERWICK STREET Wolf & Badger 10% off in-store alongside a glass of Maison Mirabeau Rosé from 1pm. Beauty Bonuses 20 FOUBERT'S PLACE Sculpted by Aimee 15% off in-store. 7 KINGLY STREET Fella 20% off services and products in-store. 23 BEAK STREET Ffern Receive a pot of Pinky Sky at Night Sorbet with every purchase, a delicious sorbet inspired by Ffern's Summer 25 fragrance. 35 BEAK STREET Grown Alchemist 20% off in-store excluding kits and bundles. Use the code GASL20 online for a discount. 9 NEWBURGH STREET Skin Laundry Book your first time facial at Skin Laundry for £50 with their First Time Offer and receive a free product when you present the SLSOHO code. 9 NEWBURGH STREET So.Shell 10% off and complimentary prosecco. Dining Discounts 19 KINGLY STREET Bar Crispin 15% discount on food and drinks (excluding service) when you quote SLSOHO when booking online. KINGLY COURT Cahoots 10% off in Cahoots Ticket Hall or Underground. KINGLY COURT Crumbs & Doilies 10% off in-store. KINGLY COURT Dirty Bones 20% off. 22 KINGLY STREET Dishoom SheerLuxe readers are invited to quench thirsts at Dishoom Carnaby with a Summerhouse Negroni or a Sober Negroni for only £5. A heady holiday of Beefeater Dry Gin, Campari, sweet vermouth, Manzanilla dry sherry, apricot liqueur, and Calvados. Carnaby Street 50 CARNABY STREET Donutelier Enjoy a free coffee when you purchase a donut or pastry. KINGLY COURT Goldies 20% off. 21 KINGLY STREET Kolamba 20% off food when you quote SLSOHO and a complimentary round of drinks for the table. Visitors will also receive an additional 10% of future visits. The first 10 bookings will receive a goodie bag filled with Sri Lankan treats. 8 BROADWICK STREET Miznon 20% off the total bill, along with a complimentary drink on arrival. Guests can choose from signature cocktails including the Fig Leaf Negroni, Tomatini or Erev Sour. 2 NEWBURGH STREET Nagare Coffee 20% off. KINGLY COURT Nightjar 20% off your first drink. 19 GANTON STREET Pastaio Enjoy a complimentary drink from the Allora Summer Menu when you buy a main pasta dish. One drink per person and not to be used in conjunction with any other offers. 26 KINGLY STREET Patty & Bun 10% off. 41 BEAK STREET POLPO 10% off. KINGLY COURT The Life Goddess Choose between 15% off your total bill or enjoy a complimentary glass of Greek wine or a Cocktail with any main course. 9 KINGLY STREET The Little Violet Door 20% off. Discount applies to bottomless brunch only. 2-4 KINGLY STREET Two Floors 10% off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vesper 30,212 Posted Wednesday at 20:06 Share Posted Wednesday at 20:06 Chef Adam Byatt Shares His Little Black Book Adam Byatt is the man behind Clapham’s Michelin-starred restaurant Trinity. Fresh from launching Brasserie Constance at the new Fulham Pier development, he spoke to SLMan about the staples that have come to define day-to-day life… https://slman.com/culture/chef-adam-byatt-shares-his-little-black-book Let’s start at the top, Adam. What are your three favourite restaurants in London right now? Plates is up there. It’s an exceptional, ground-breaking restaurant doing something that no one else is doing. I also love Perilla. Ben Marks has a way with food and style of food like no one else. He has an incredible foundation, having worked with the likes of Phil Howard, so he understands cookery. His food is just unique – I’m excited to be going there on Friday. I also have to shout out Wildflowers in Newson's Yard, which is headed up by ex-Trinity chef Aaron Potter. It’s brilliant. Where do you go for a special-occasion dinner? It would be very hard not to go to The Ritz, but I’d love to go to Ikoyi. What’s your go-to spot for something casual with friends? Juliet’s Quality Food is perfect for brunch, with amazing coffee and the best champurrado ever. These guys feed you, make you feel cool and send you packing. Love it every time. Also, Peckham Bazaar – chef-owner John Gionleka has been at the stove forever and it shows. The hospitality is purist local and the cooking true to John’s heritage. It proves that first-class hospitality doesn’t have to come with finery and pomp. This place is dear to me and long may it continue. Peckham Bazaar; Celia Topping Is there a hidden gem we should all know about? There is a little café just off Northcote Road called Tierra Verde – no one knows about it. It’s fantastic, and I go for a soup and cheese on toast. Where do you go for coffee? I’m going to say Blank Street because my daughter goes mad for it. To be honest I don’t really drink much coffee – one at home does it for me. And for a stronger drink? The best cocktail spot is The Donovan Bar at Brown’s – they serve the best drinks in London. I don’t care what anyone says. The Connaught Bar? Where’s that? I don’t really go to many pubs, but if I do it has to be the Prince of Wales in Clapham. It’s a proper boozer. That said, I also like The Nightingale near Wandsworth Common. The Donovan Bar; Janos Grapow Do you have a favourite food market? Yeah, Maltby Street Market is fantastic. There are lots of shops and St John has a big presence. The hams, the cheeses – all epic. Also, Next door to Tierra Verde, there’s a little deli where I buy loads of stuff from. Otherwise, the deli counter at Moen’s Butchers is pretty hard to beat. How do you spend a day off? Fishing. Where do you go for a long walk? Wandsworth Park, which is very special to my me and my wife. We spent a lot of time there before we had kids and you can see my new restaurant, Brasserie Constance, from the top. We’re very lucky in south London to have spaces like that. I also like to go for runs that are long, onerous and hard – completely cleansing to a point where I wash away everything that’s clogging my mind. @Fursac.Paris Plates Talk to us about menswear brands… Fursac is up there – I’m a big fan of those guys. I recently picked up a few pieces from NN.07, who are doing some great things. I also love Maharishi, but I’m too old for that now. If I’m going fishing, I like Fera for outdoor gear, and if I’m running, I’m in SaySky or Salomon trainers. What’s your off-duty uniform? It sounds a bit crackers, but I love M&S, especially for trousers. They’re doing good gear right now. Don’t knock it! You’ll usually see me in a sweater and a nice pair of trousers, and I never go anywhere without my Golden Goose trainers. Are you a watch guy? I wear Garmin 90% of the time, though I bring out the Rolex my wife bought me for special occasions. I reckon my dream watch would be a baby blue Datejust Rolex in 24mm. Ikoyi Where do you get your hair cut? I have a wonderful lady called Charlotte Cave in Clapham who’s been my hairdresser for the last decade. She’s a great friend, a mentor and a bit of a style guru – she makes sure I’m on point when it matters. Do you have a signature fragrance? Most of the time I wear ‘Ink’ by Perfumer H. They also do one called Dandelion, which I like to wear during the day. Finally, Adam, tell us about your own new restaurant… That would be Brasserie Constance. Fulham approached me over two years ago to ask if I’d put a restaurant in the new development at Fulham Pier. There’s a ton of stuff going on there: hotel, members club, event spaces etc. It’s one of the most awesome projects that’s been built in London within the last decade. I just thought, I can’t not be representing there. Fundamentally, Constance is a neighbourhood restaurant – because that’s my jam. Come on down and check it out. Follow @AdamByatt on Instagram – and visit TrinityRestaurant.co.uk & BrasserieConstance.com Trinity Brasserie Constance Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vesper 30,212 Posted 5 hours ago Share Posted 5 hours ago my type of tents https://www.westgate-farm.co.uk/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vesper 30,212 Posted 4 hours ago Share Posted 4 hours ago 15 best rosés for the bank holiday weekend Our wine critic picks her favourite pink wines and fizz — from just £5.49 https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/food-drink/article/best-rose-wine-august-bank-holiday-3l662mkhx It’s been a tricky year for pink wine, too hot in some places, too cold in others, but the 15 rosés here are all tip-top. Take your pick from the cheapest place I’ve found for the uber-popular pink “chicken wine”, 2024 La Vieille Ferme Rose, down to £7.50 at Morrisons until September 2, right up to one of the poshest pinks on the planet, the gorgeous, part barrel-fermented and aged 2024 Rock Angel, Whispering Angel’s way more sophisticated, mineral and mandarine-scented elder brother. Not everyone wants a bone dry rosé and if that’s you and yours, Waitrose’s fruity, fizzy 2024 Recato Vinho Verde Rosé with lashings of sweet, pomegranate is what you should have in your glass. Sparkling pinks make the celebratory perfect bank holiday sip and there are four to choose from here, with two lovely, crisp, summery, champagne-method crémants from the Loire to whet your whistle for under a tenner. 2024 Costellore Italian Primitivo Rosé 12.5 per cent, Aldi, £5.49 Even cheaper than it was in the spring, this pale pink rosé is made exclusively from hot, arid Puglia’s primitivo grape, hence its off-dry, bold, zesty, crystallised lemon peel fruit. 2024 La Vieille Ferme Rosé, France 12.5 per cent, Morrisons, £7.50 down from £8.50, until Sep 2 Morrisons is the cheapest stockist of the “chicken wine” this bank holiday and, frankly, I’d buy long to see you through the winter of this uber-popular, light, herby, citrus-fruited mouthful. 2024 Finest Côtes de Gascogne Rosé, France 11 per cent, Tesco, £7.50 If it’s a less alcoholic but still assertive, pink grapefruit-sparky sip you want, this night-harvested cabernet-merlot Gascon blend, from the wonderful Plaimont co-op, has your name on it. 2024 Ramón Bilbao Rioja Rosado, Spain 12.5 per cent, Co-op, £7.90 down from £8.75 Ignore the daft new etched bottle, thankfully this intense, oaky-smoky, tangerine and tobacco leaf, salmon pink garnacha rosado, topped up with viura, is as good as ever. 2024 Etna Rosato, Sicily, Italy 12.5 per cent, Marks & Spencer, £14 Etna’s prized volcanic soil slopes and characterful nerello mascalese grape make for a fuller-flavoured, steely, radicchio and fennel big food-friendly pink that loves punchy picnic food. 2024 Miraval, Côtes de Provence, France 12.5 per cent, Booths, £16; Tesco, £17 down from £19 Brad Pitt and the talented Perrin family make a great team and this mouthwatering Provençal pink is as good as ever, overflowing with refreshing yet smoky, savoury, orange peel pizzazz. 2024 Artesano de Argento Organic Fairtrade Malbec Rosé, Argentina12.5 per cent, Sainsbury’s, £10.25 Unusual, easy to quaff yet gutsy, food-friendly red plum and sage-scented rosé, mostly hand-harvested malbec but zhuzhed up with a handy 15 per cent dollop of spicy syrah. 2024 Recato Vinho Verde Rosé, Portugal10.5 per cent, Waitrose, £9 Not everyone wants bone-dry rosé and if that’s you and yours this fruity, fizzy pink, from Casa Santos Lima, with less alcohol but lashings of sweet pomegranate oomph is the bottle to buy. 2024 Domaine Pieretti, Coteaux du Cap Corse, France 12.5 per cent, yapp.co.uk, £22.25 Corsican rosé is having a moment and Lina Pieretti’s unusual sangiovese, grenache and alicante grape pink, from a tiny plot, is all lively raspberry fruit and tea leaf-smoky charm. 2024 Rock Angel, Caves d’Esclans, Côtes de Provence, France 13.5 per cent, Majestic, six for £25.50 each, or £32 a bottle; Waitrose, £27.50 Whispering Angel’s delicious and way more sophisticated, part barrel-fermented and aged, older brother is a gorgeous, mineral, mandarin and softly lapsang souchong-scented star. 2024 Château Vignelaure, Coteaux d’Aix en Provence Rosé, France 13 per cent, thewinesociety.com, £16 Château Vignelaure is best known for its red wines, but this historic estate has made a humdinger of a pink peppercorn and lemon zest-licked syrah and cabernet sauvignon-led rosé. Fizz Crémant de Loire Brut Rosé, France 12 per cent, Lidl, £8.99 A keen price for a bank holiday, champagne-method pink party fizz, with just enough light, zesty cranberry fruit to pop up here. Part of Lidl’s core range, so it should be on theshelf. Extra Special Crémant de Loire Rosé Brut, France 12.5 per cent, Asda, £9.98 Summer parties fuelled by this rose petal and redcurrant-floral, ballet slipper pink bubbly, mostly cabernet franc, topped up with grolleau noir, are guaranteed to go with a swing. 2021 1872 Codorniu Organic Rosé Cava Brut, Spain 11 per cent, Waitrose, £11 Spain’s answer to champagne is cava and while not every Codorniu sparkler works, this superior, ripe, fruity, strawberry-scented organic edition certainly does. 2024 Allini Prosecco Rosé, Italy 11 per cent, Lidl, £7.99 If pink prosecco floats your boat, this jolly, sweet, floral, grapey pop has your name on it. Best served ice-cold it also works well sploshed over summer berries. 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Vesper 30,212 Posted 3 hours ago Share Posted 3 hours ago Ardmore Espresso Martini recipe By The Bank Café & Restaurant, Huntly https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/food-drink/article/ardmore-espresso-martini-recipe-2vkxrd7bs This indulgent espresso martini from the Bank restaurant in Huntly, Aberdeenshire, is made using Duncan Taylor’s Ardmore Octave single malt whisky. It uses Duncan Taylor’s Ardmore Octave whisky, which is matured in a one-eighth-size ex-sherry cask to expand the single malt’s rich hue and flavour profile. Ingredients 25ml Ardmore Octave by Duncan Taylor Scotch Whisky 25ml Mr Black coffee liqueur 1 espresso shot 25ml sugar syrup ice 1 coffee bean, to garnish (optional) Method 1 Add the whisky, coffee liqueur, espresso, sugar syrup and ice to a cocktail shaker and shake well for 15 seconds. 2 Double strain into a martini glass and place the coffee bean on top. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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