Moss Market

Stores are employing even more gimmicks to get us through their doors.

Playing To win

New Tory treasurer Michael Spencer is super-rich, super-generous and super-confident of getting David Cameron into Downing Street. Photograph by Nicky Johnston.

New money chases Old Masters

One of the only rational markets is coming under pressure from buyers of ‘brand’ art.

Beyond belief or Catholic taste

On a Sunday, there’s mayhem at Tate Modern. There are so many people milling about that you can hardly move; what with babies screaming, kids running up and down, mobiles ringing and people chatting, these are the worst possible circumstances in which to view art. And yet the hordes keep coming, but why?

Sick Lit

When Bridget Jones’s Diary was first published in 1996, the voice was fresh. With its self-effacing catalogue of sins prefacing every entry, the novel acknowledged: ‘Everyone thinks that contemporary young women obsess over boys and shoes, shopping and food, fags and booze, to the exclusion of everything else. Well, you’re right.

Question:How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Answer: Fish

Even in an absurd age, surrealism retains an edgy appeal. Bryan Appleyard looks forward to the V&A’s exhibition, Surreal Things, and proof that design can be seriously funny.

Modern art on a plate

Fine dining in trainers is how Bacchus, Hoxton Market’s contribution to the passing fancy that is molecular cooking, suicidally advertises itself online. Which is the last time you’ll hear mention of ‘trainers’ from me. Ditto ‘fine dining’. We eat, we don’t fine dine, and we eat appropriately shod.

On the road with Venus and Bacchus

Long ago we decided against plundering the more famous and well-trodden slopes of Burgundy and Bordeaux, where tastings are often only by appointment and bargains are thin on the ground, preferring instead the more obscure (Alsace, Touraine, southern Rhône), or those areas in the process of glorious reinvention (the Languedoc, Roussillon, Cahors, Madiran).

Philanthropy

In the financial year 2005/06, the Charities Aid Foundation and National Council for Voluntary Organizations estimate that individual donors gave a total of £8.9bn to charity.