Lifestyle

Wine Review - Christmas is coming

Dominic Regan and Sean Jones recommend wines for the festive season.

At Christmas, even those who don’t drink, do. Here are our recommended buys for the season ahead and there is something for everyone. We anticipate a repeat this year of the internecine warfare between the big supermarkets. Keep your eyes open for buy 6 and get a 25% discount, something that all the big chains did last year. Majestic Wine now only insists that you buy a minimum of 6 bottles and their staff are very well informed.

Spanish treasures

John Maher recommends the wines from Valencia.

They make a perfect accompaniment to every dish, he enthuses.

Vintage Rumpole

A seasoned troupe of actors performed two radio plays, Rumpole on Trial and Rumpole and the Right to Privacy, for this year’s Kalisher Scholarship fundraising event, writes Melissa Coutinho.

Sunday, 15 May 2011 was a beautiful balmy evening that saw Middle Temple host what has become an annual Kalisher Scholarship fundraising event. We were entertained by a seasoned troupe of actors, some of whom had generously given their time at previous events: Martin Shaw, Maggie Steed, Philip Franks, Patricia Hodge, Anthony Howell, Maxine Peake (fresh from Silk), Duncan Bell, Daniel Hill, Tim Frances, Nicholas Le Prevost and Mark Farrelly.

Whisky - Just Reward

A look at the distillation process of whisky and how to enjoy the perfect dram at the end of a long day in chambers.

After a long and arduous working day we all appreciate some “self” time in which to relax, unwind and contemplate. Having a dram of a good single malt whisky must surely be one of the finer accompaniments to these moments. However, if the ‘wee dram’ is consumed too quickly and is not savoured, the full benefit of what we have in the glass will be missed.

A private education

Strategic planning can ease the burden of escalating school and university fees. Elizabeth Davidson considers the financial weaponry on offer

There’s no denying the high cost of bringing up children. The thought of unnecessarily adding school fees sends shivers down backs. The potential tripling of university fees, regardless of when they need to be paid back, is creating yet more anxiety. Given proper planning and preparation, however, it may all be far more affordable than anticipated.

A classic retold...

The Inner Temple recently put on a rehearsed reading of “Theseus & the Minotaur – What Really Happened”. The playwright, Andrew Caldecott QC, explains the background and the play’s narrator, Nigel Pascoe QC, discusses his experience

The power of The Forgiveness project

Marina Cantacuzino explains the work of The Forgiveness Project

One evening back in 2002, local ITV news reported the story of a three-year-old girl who had died in a London hospital after mistakenly being given the wrong drug. As the parents, lawyers and hospital staff emerged from the coroner’s court the interviewer thrust a microphone under the father’s nose and asked him how he felt about the doctor responsible for his daughter’s death.

In the Editor’s Hot Seat…

Stephanie Hawthorne picks out her favourite features from her tenure as Editor

Liquid Assets

From investment management to investment madness?

Graham Nutter, the owner of the Chateau St Jacques d’Albas vineyard in France, on why and how he got into the wine business.

Music at the Inns

roundtower The Inns are alive with the sound of music. Vanora Bennett explores the world of the other dedicated professionals of the Inns of Court

At about five o’clock on any day of the week, the Inns of Court will be busy with preoccupied men and women in black, trundling wheelie bags of documents back to chambers after a busy day in court. Yet even the most hurried barristers may slow and smile as they pass the honey stone of Temple Church. The sound that prompts this reaction is the pure treble voices of the Temple’s choirboys drifting out into the evening air – the other dedicated professionals of the Inns, still practising.

A thriving music scene

The Temple Choir – 18 boys serving an apprenticeship lasting five or six years, and 12 professional choirmen – is (in my possibly prejudiced view as the parent of a Temple choirboy) one of the most remarkable features of the thriving music scene at the Inns of Court. The CD released by the choir this summer – “The Majesty of Thy Glory” – reveals an extraordinary musical combination of poise and passion. The choir’s repertoire ranges from cantatas to Christmas carols. This might not be so astonishing if the only performers were the knowledgeable choirmen, building up their London singing careers – but it is an almost incredible achievement for the schoolboys who, whenever sighted in the flesh, dodging between long thin black-clad legs outside the church, seem to have nothing more remarkable than football or skateboards on their minds.

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