Nissan Sway Previews Future Supermini Design in Geneva
Big things are happening over at Renault-Nissan, things that could reshape the European automotive market. While the French copied the Qashqai’s success and made their own crossover, Nissan looked at the Clio in order to design a superior supermini. Its…
Porsche Mission E Gets RS Treatment in Wild Rendering
We’ve been drooling over the Porsche Mission E Concept ever since the vehicle made its silent debut on the Frankfurt floor yesterday, and we can’t help but imagine what would happen if the four-door 911 would enter production. Well, for…
Subaru BRZ STI Performance Concept Revealed in New York
It’s hard… not to get excited at the sight of a concept car like this one, the Subaru STI Performance Concept shown at the 2015 New York Auto Show. After all, this is precisely what the wet dreams of every…
BMW 7 series range will get a 740d model this november, with a new 320 hp engine
The 2016 BMW 7 Series is celebrating its world debut as we’re writing this article, on the floor of the Frankfurt Motor Show 2015. We were there to snap photos of the cars brought out by BMW, but we’re still…
New Infiniti Q30 2015 review
Infiniti has been trying to establish itself as the alternative luxury brand for some time now, but despite its best efforts, hasn’t exactly shaken up the market just yet. However, its new British-built Q30 compact hatchback – a first for…
The new mini wins top spot in its segment in customer satisfaction study
A recent study carried out by ADAC, the biggest car club in Europe, shows that owners of the new MINI are the most satisfied with their purchase within the small car segment. The study revealed that the British model earned…
Peugeot 308 GTi review
There’s more choice than ever in the hot hatchback class – alongside this new Peugeot 308 GTi, Renaultsport’s Megane 275 Trophy has been released, Honda massaged 306bhp out of the new Civic Type R and Ford will break new ground…
New Range Rover Evoque SE Tech 2016
If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. That’s certainly the philosophy Land Rover has applied to the new Evoque. Only now, almost five years since the baby Range Rover was first launched, has the brand decided to update it. But…
Audi Q7 e-tron 2015 review
This is the plug-in hybrid Audi Q7 e-tron. Everyone’s at it: from pioneers Nissan to latecomers like Volvo, almost every manufacturer has an electric or hybrid model in its range. It comes as no surprise, then, that Audi’s e-tron family…
Ford F-150 Raptor 2017
Truck enthusiasts and journalist alike have long swooned over the Ford F-150 Raptor. Introduced in 2010, the Raptor proved Ford could make a Baja trophy truck and sell it to the average Joe. First equipped with the old 5.4-liter V-8…
On oat flour and elephant garlic
While not coeliac, I am wheat-/gluten-sensitive, yet I can tolerate porridge oats. Having lived in Australia for many years, I enjoyed oat bread, but can’t find it here. I’d bake my own if I could only get oat flour and…
Making fresh pasta is a rite of passage
Leo Tolstoy thought it was good for the soul to make your own shoes. As a result he spent his later years hobbling around with terrible corns. Some things are better left to the experts. For most people, pasta falls…
Do ‘superfoods’ really exist?
In the early 1990s, a cookbook called Superfoods appeared in the bookshops. It was co-written by the alternative medicine practitioner, Michael Van Straten, who is one of a handful of people said to have coined what has become one of…
A well-done steak isn’t a food choice: it’s a crime
Ido so love animals, especially dead, sliced up and roasted ones, their very life blood oozing out of them to the rim of my plate; the colour of conker on the outside, of velvet plush within. Stop wrinkling your nose…
The secret of the Mediterranean diet? There is no secret
Whoop-de-doo, researchers at King’s College London and the University of California claim to have identified the “secret” underpinning the oft-quoted healthfulness of the Mediterranean diet. From their lab tests on mice (not just any old mice, genetically modified ones) they…
Eat more anchovies, herring and sardines to save the ocean’s fish stocks
Cut back on tuna and salmon and load your plate instead with herring and sardines if you want to help save the world’s fish. So says the scientist who led the most comprehensive analysis ever carried out of fish stocks…
Summer prawn salad
This is a lovely fresh, crunchy salad with a hint of spice. You can substitute the prawns with crayfish meat, which is delicious and sweet, and should be cheaper too. Good delis and fishmongers stock it: opt for fresh UK-caught…
Make your own bacon
Buying bacon’s a lottery. There’s no telling the quality of pork that went into it, or the quantity of water added to bulk it out. If you want something that’s guaranteed to please, you’ll have to make it yourself. Start…
How to eat a persimmon
Our fruit bowls are becoming more adventurous. Having embraced the kiwi, the mango and the pomegranate we are now, it seems, passionate about persimmons. Supermarkets including Asda reported sales of the yellowy-orange, usually tomato-shaped fruits more than doubled last year…
Cornish blue: the greatest of cheese
General de Gaulle is famously said to have remarked of France “How can you govern a country that produces 246 varieties of cheeses?” The same can probably be said of Britain these days, and one of those cheeses, Cornish blue,…
Homemade yoghurt: something for the live-culture vultures
Yoghurt. We get through masses of it in our house. In fact, most things I cook for my children go well with yoghurt – breakfast, lunch or dinner. There’s the blob of fruity yoghurt my six-year-old likes to perch on…
Should I give a four-month-old baby solids?
When should babies start solids? My first child was gobbling up runny baby cereal at three months. Two decades later (my child-bearing was spread out), the rules had changed to nil by mouth except breast milk until six months. Not…
Why eating more fruit and veg doesn’t always help you lose weight
Will eating more fruit and vegetables make me thin? Want to get thin? Eat more fruit and vegetables – they’re a low-calorie way of filling up, right? The health site WebMD has “eat more fruit and vegetables” as one of…
Why walking is good for you
Pilates, yoga and the classic treadmill get all the attention when it comes to popular ways to stay healthy. There is, however, a more unassuming workout that might not get the column inches, but has all the benefits: walking. Certified…
Text neck: how smartphones are damaging our spines
Are smartphones a pain in the neck? According to new research carried out by a US doctor, they are far worse – “text neck” is becoming an epidemic that could lead to permanent damage. The posture we adopt as we…
Vampire of the uplands
At first I thought it was a thorn from a rose. I ran my hand up the back of my calf and could feel it caught in my skin. Something small, sticking out, it could be flicked back and forth…
How to cure my allergy
It was an egg biryani that started it. I had spent Easter hooked up to an intravenous drip in India – after a curry turned out to be housing a potent strain of E coli – and left the hospital…
Eat, drink and be … healthy?
It is a bright, autumnal Tuscan morning. Woodsmoke rises poker-straight into the sky, the village church jangles the quarter-hours and green-cloaked hills wrap the horizon. I’m in the walled garden of my private villa – vine pergola to the right,…
Teeth problems are top reason for young children’s hospital admissions
The number one reason for primary-school-aged children being admitted to hospital is to have multiple teeth taken out, newly released figures show. The number of children aged from five to nine needing hospital treatment for dental problems rose by more…
Exercise is good … but it won’t help you lose weight, say doctors
Being dangerously overweight is all down to bad diet rather than a lack of exercise, according to a trio of doctors who have reopened the debate about whether food, sedentary lifestyles or both are responsible for the obesity epidemic. In…