THERE'S something quite dreary about those who have to be different for the sake of being different. You know the type-often found at parties standing smugly in a corner wearing corduroys, talking about how Radiohead's music is 'rather derivative', the YBAS (Young British Artists) weren't actually all that interesting and how, actually, no, they didn't go skiing in France this year, or last year, as they 'just love the Dolomites. These people are often to be avoided.
But you hear it more and more, don't you? 'The Dolomites'. What are they? Who are they for? The name: floating in the background static of middle-class discourse, like one of those pictures that you have to squint at to see the true image behind all the nonsense.
One of the few things I like less than tediously reactionary people is being left out of the loop. Why are so many people eschewing the tried-and-tested destinations of Val soand-so? Has Chamonix lost its touch? What did everyone know that I, and seemingly all of the people that I regularly enjoy imbibing vast amounts of rosé with, didn't? There was a secret out there, in them thar Italian hills, that I needed to discover. And so, I found myself, on a Sunday morning in March, squinting into the sun at Innsbruck airport, destined for Corvara, the heart of the Alta Badia ski resort in South Tyrol. It was there that I met my transfer driver, a man whose name I cannot remember because I was too busy staring at the flying cap and goggles on his head when he introduced himself. When he led me to his Mercedes, rather than his bi-plane, I finally started to relax.
Denne historien er fra January 03, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra January 03, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
