Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2024 i Saga Magazine

Our August picks…

COMPETITIVE VEGETABLE GROWING August is a tense time of year in the world of giant vegetable growing. With a month to go until the national championships, the would-be winners are diligently nursing their marrows, carrots and swedes. These last weeks are full of potential, but also of worry. At any point, a promising pumpkin could crack, a star squash could rot, and hopes could be dashed. Plus, there’s no way of knowing the competition that lies elsewhere, expanding in secret on a plot miles away. ‘I’ve thought, “This is a winner” with no doubt at all,’ says Graham Barratt, 65, an experienced grower from Gloucester. ‘Then one of my mates will turn up, pull down the side of his wagon, and reveal an absolute monster. It’s hilarious. You’d cry if…

Rarely can a delayed flight have resulted in such a fairytale ending. Stranded in Mykonos on holiday, Peter and Susan Marston killed some time by visiting the sleepy nearby island of Tinos. There, they fell in love with a ramshackle, near-derelict 17th-century bishop’s house clinging to the rocky mountainside – and ended up buying it. ‘Some of the rooms had no roof and it hadn’t been lived in for at least 30 years,’ says Peter, now 75. ‘There was wonderful old junk from the 1950s and 1960s lying around – ancient beds, bits of lace, religious icons, wood. We’ve reused as much as possible.’ The project, started in 2016, took 18 months, and Peter, an architect and designer, was amazed at how little he changed the original layout. ‘The traditional…

What do Kylie Minogue and Queen Victoria have in common? Well, their height – 5ft-ish – but they also have a claim to be the greatest wine influencers of their age. In the past four years Kylie has sold more than 15 million bottles of her rosé. And rosé is very much the wine of the moment. In the late 19th century, Queen Victoria was ‘the face’ of German wine – and German wine was all the rage then. In 1854, Victoria and Albert visited the vineyards of their favourite wine – Hochheim am Main. It’s why we still sometimes call German wine ‘Hock’. Rather than branding the wine, à la Kylie, they renamed the vineyard: Konigin Victoriaberg. What followed showed the power of celebrity endorsement before we really knew…

Only a few times during 30-plus years keeping tabs on technology have I been surprised by how a particular genre of gadgetry has appealed chiefly to a specific age group. One such is the way older people swiftly embraced eBook readers like the Kindle – and later took to tablets, especially Apple’s iPad. The surprise for me was that tablets are tricky to handle if your hands are not nimble. For writing more than a short email, they are not ideal compared to a laptop or desktop. But for websites and streaming video, seeing photographs to their best advantage, video calling and shopping online, tablets are superb. But choosing the right one is crucial. You can get a serviceable small tablet for under £60, or pay up to £2,599 for…

In January 2023, like many roused by the new year, Fiona Lambert made a resolution – to become fitter than she’d ever been before. Having finished her full-time job as managing director of clothing brand Jaeger at Marks & Spencer in December, she found herself with more free time as her 60th birthday loomed, just nine weeks away. Her son’s recent kidney transplant also meant she no longer took her health for granted. Encouraged by her personal trainer, who she had seen once a week for the previous four years, she set herself a goal: to get stronger by building muscle and to lose the weight that had crept on in the past few years. Her birthday – 5 March – acted as a deadline. ‘I wanted to prove to…

The time is 6.30am on a Wednesday morning and I’m standing in the heart of the Welsh countryside wearing headphones and dancing to rhythmic music as the sun is coming up. My two best friends are either side of me and we’ve formed part of a circle around a firepit at this sunrise ceremony known as ‘Celestial Blessings’. The lambs in the lush fields around us bleat as if joining in with the music and we move to the beat while breathing in the incredible view. This crack-of-dawn silent disco wasn’t what instantly sprang to mind when we first started planning a trip together to celebrate our 50th birthdays but as we sway to the music, we find we’re thoroughly embracing the experience. We’re at The Dreaming, a bucolic retreat…

PODCAST To Catch a Scorpion Barzan Majeed – aka Scorpion – is a ruthless people trafficker with a reputation for violence. He’s the sort of person you’d want to avoid, but in a gripping BBC series, To Catch a Scorpion, reporter Sue Mitchell and ex-soldier turned aid worker Rob Lawrie try to track him down. Their dogged search reveals much about a ruthless trade in desperate people who will pay more than £10,000 to cross the Channel. They visit a car wash where young Majeed took his first UK job; they meet a middle-class Belgian woman who lets 40 migrants sleep in her bedrooms; and they hear the terrified testimony of a child who crossed one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes in a rubber dinghy. Rob has impeccable contacts…

More puzzles! There are loads more puzzles on the Saga Magazine app. Download from your app store today! £250 prize PRIZE CROSSWORD ACROSS 1 Scottish football team founded on 6 November 1887 (6) 5 Art movement that featured works by Georges Braque and Robert Delaunay (6) 10 Bird of prey of the family Accipitridae (5) 11 Late 8th-century earthwork built by Mercia Saxon king (5,4) 12 Flat rock for sharpening chisels and other tools (8) 13 Incendiary mixture much used in the Vietnam War (6) 15 Brief word for a global trade fair (4) 16 Italian inventor of the mercury barometer (10) 18 Spanish king from 1975 until his abdication in 2014 (4,6) 20 Small inflamed swelling of the eyelid (4) 23 Coastal town ten miles east of Middlesbrough (6) 24 Surname of female star of the 1992 film Batman Returns…

EDITOR’S LETTER By the time this issue arrives many of us will be preparing for a 19-day TV marathon, watching the Olympics in Paris. There’s nothing like the Olympics for becoming suddenly fixated on sports you knew nothing about ten minutes ago (you can’t beat a bit of Greco-Roman wrestling). Then there are all the memories it stirs up: my dad pulling into a French lay-by so we could all listen to the epic 1,500m battle between Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett in 1980, and staying up into the early hours watching a barefoot Zola Budd collide with Mary Decker in the 3,000m at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. It’s just one reason why the BBC’s top sports anchor Gabby Logan is a perfect August cover star. Another is that…

VIEWPOINT Over the past few months, I’ve gained a lot of pleasure from regular tweets posted on what is now known as X by Tony Blair’s former press secretary, Alastair Campbell. He’s been out with his camera around his part of green and beautiful north London taking pictures. He’s put up a regular ‘Tree of the Day’ and they’ve been delightful. Delightful that is until one recent snap. No beautiful bark and gorgeous green leaves to be seen on this Tree of the Day. It’s just a wooden door with the words ‘Gender Neutral’ engraved upon it. His explanation runs thus: ‘My tree of the day is the one that was made into this door. I mean, honestly, what is the problem? You go into a communal space, there are…

INTERVIEW 'Oh yes, I can still do the splits,’ says Gabby Logan confidently, as she gears up to host the 2024 Paris Olympic Games for the BBC. ‘It’s not something I’m training for, I just want to keep doing them.’ The broadcaster was a competitive rhythmic gymnast in her teens and once said her ambition was to still be able to get down on the floor like that at the age of 60. There are nine years left to go. ‘The point is, I don’t want to decline. Now I know from all the amazing experts who’ve come on my podcast that there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be able to do them at that age.’ She certainly looks like it might be possible, sitting straight-backed in khaki combat trousers,…

WILD LIFE ‘Head out at dawn or dusk anywhere with suitable habitat and watch for that ghostly shape floating over the fields’ It’s dusk and a pale bird is quartering the fields. Even at a distance, the erratic flight – dipping, hovering, wheeling – is clearly not a gull’s. Binoculars confirm what I’d hoped: a barn owl. I can see its big head and heart-shaped face and my heart races: it feels magical, a vision, almost. Today, barn owls are a reasonably regular sight near my south coast home. But this wasn’t always the case. As a wildlife-obsessed child in the 1970s, I was puzzled by my inability to see one. According to the nature books I’d grown up with, barn owls were ubiquitous – emblematic of rural Britain. So…

MEMORIES This has been what political observers might describe as a season of elections. In the first few months of 2024, hundreds of millions of people have gone to the polls in India, South Africa, Europe, more recently here in the UK and by the end of the year in the US. There, one of the candidates is a former President, who claims, with no recognised authority, that the last time Americans voted he lost due to widespread fraud, and who has since been tried and convicted on 34 criminal charges. This current presidential campaign has been laced with poisonous rhetoric and has divided the US, perhaps as never before. The other candidate is the sitting President who in a rare presidential debate on CNN appeared rambling, disconnected and unable…

Torta salata di asparagi (Savoury asparagus tart) This is a delicious savoury tart. If you don’t have Parma ham, use cooked ham or, if you don’t eat meat, omit it altogether. Serve with a potato salad. Serves 4 YOU WILL NEED • 375g ready-made shortcrust pastry • 200g asparagus • 150g ricotta • 4 eggs • 30g grated Parmesan • 100g Parma ham, roughly torn • sea salt and freshly ground black pepper • crunchy mixed salad, to serve METHOD 1 Preheat the oven to 200°C/ fan 180°C/gas mark 6. Grease and line a 22cm (8½in) round tart or quiche tin with baking paper. 2 Roll out the pastry and use it to line the prepared tin. Cover the pastry with baking paper, top with baking beans and bake blind…

GARDENS Standing in front of a camera in a rain shower, talking gardening, remembering your lines and encouraging viewers isn’t an easy task. Particularly when you’re naturally shy. But for Bob Russell, horticultural lead at Blooming Inverkip, creating video tutorials is part of the new life he’s built since being diagnosed with chronic epilepsy. ‘I had a lot of difficulty with my health and was in a bad space, mentally,’ he shares. ‘I was off work, feeling sorry for myself, until I got out in the garden and got the gardening bug. It was literally a lifesaver for me.’ Finding a new joy in life through gardening, Bob took the plunge back into education and studied for a Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) qualification in horticulture. This gave him the confidence…

Awise person once said that truly great things never get done in a hurry. Take fake tanning. I once had to learn the hard way that a fake tan done in haste is one destined for disaster. In fairness I was a desperate woman. One facing a week in Morocco, with limbs so drained of colour I looked like something you see when the sheet gets pulled back in Silent Witness. The thing about desperate people? We make very poor choices. Which is how I found myself googling ‘quick spray tans near me’ 24 hours before my flight. Cut to me standing outside a building that bore no resemblance to a beauty salon. Maybe that’s because it wasn’t. It was a flat above a chicken shop accessed via a bell…

Nightmares and daytime hallucinations (‘daymares’) could be signs of the early stages of autoimmune rheumatic diseases like lupus, University of Cambridge and King’s College London scientists discovered. They interviewed 676 lupus sufferers (and 400 clinicians), and found disrupted dream sleep was a sign of an impending flare-up for 60%; a third of them noted vivid nightmares more than a year before onset of the disease; ‘daymares’ tended to happen after that. It’s not known why, but the findings could be useful as an early warning system, said lead researcher Dr Melanie Sloan. By Rachel Carlyle…

1 FORWARD LUNGE WITH ROTATION Bring one leg forward into a lunge. Keep the other leg – and your back – straight. With your elbows out and fingertips touching, rotate your torso to one side without moving your legs, return to centre, then turn to the other side. ‘This is a good exercise to get your muscles warmed up. It gets your bottom and legs working, and helps back mobility.’ 2 STEP UP WITH KNEE RAISE Stand in front of a step or sturdy box. Mount the step with one foot and bring your other knee up to your waist before lowering that raised foot back on to the ground. Dismount the step and repeat on the other leg. ‘This could be done on the stairs. It will help you…

FINANCE Tax credits turned off If you or your partner gets tax credits, as some older people still do, then you will be getting a letter shortly about what is called ‘managed migration’ to another benefit. That’s because tax credits will end in March 2025. If you – or your partner if you have one – are under 66 the change will be to Universal Credit. But if you are over 66 it will be to pension credit. The word migration is misleading. What it means is that on a date between now and March next year your tax credits will stop, and it is up to you to claim the alternative benefit. That may be worth less than the tax credits you have been getting, but there is some…

WHAT’S ON / STAYING IN Sherwood BBC ONE AND iPLAYER our pick A TV highlight of recent years (still available on iPlayer) is James Graham’s devastating drama about divisions in a Nottinghamshire town dating back to the miners’ strike. Now the series returns for a second season, with some stellar names, including David Harewood, Monica Dolan and Robert Lindsay, joining returning cast members David Morrissey, Lesley Manville, Lorraine Ashbourne and Philip Jackson. Graham’s great skill as a writer, the ability to weave excoriating social and political commentary into moving human storylines, is evident once again as he tackles themes of forgotten communities, corruption and revenge. Two new families become embroiled in the complex and murky orbit of the Sparrows, the local crime family led by Daphne (Ashbourne) and Mickey (Jackson).…

On the money I had a chuckle at Susie Dent’s article about people’s names appropriately connected to their jobs (July). In my first job after leaving school over 60 years ago, I exchanged my salary cheque for cash each month at a local bank. The bank had three cashiers regularly on duty with their names displayed formally on signs placed on the counter. They were Miss Leedom (mislead ’em), Mr Tricker, and Mr Rich. I have always thought that these were inappropriate names for bank staff dealing with their customers’ money. Paul Jarrett Cranleigh, Surrey Hilarious read Susie Dent gave me the best belly laugh I have had in these times where there is little to laugh about. Her list of hilarious coincidences of people with names and their professions…

Each number in the grid represents a different letter. We’ve given you two letters to start you off, which show that 12=U and 15=N. Write these letters wherever their corresponding numbers appear in the grid and then begin to work out the identity of the other letters. All 26 letters of the alphabet will appear in the finished puzzle. SET SQUARE Place each of the digits 1-9 in the grid to make the sums work. We’ve started you with two numbers. Note that the mathematical rule of BIDMAS/BODMAS does not apply to Set Square puzzles. ADD A LETTER Rearrange the letters and add one to these words to make five-letter words that fit the clues. The added letters will spell a word. WORD WHEEL See how many words of four…

Is there anyone who doesn’t appreciate the bursts of blossom and blooms at this time of year? On my long summer walks, I’ve been marvelling at the array of colour in the hedgerows and gardens, and (of course) pondering the wonderful history of some of our plant and flower names. In fact, their stories would make a gorgeous anthology – a word that came to us from the Greek for a posy of flowers, before extending its reach to colourful collections of verse. Given the magic of our flora, it makes total sense to me that much of its vocabulary originated in legend. If you enjoy the aromatic herb tarragon, for example, you might be curious to discover that its name is a relative of the English ‘dragon’. Apparently, the…

Elisabeth Hoff ✽ Cover An awardwinning photographer, Elisabeth works in beauty, fashion and entertainment. With clients worldwide, her expertise includes photography, film and art direction. Kate Andersen Brower ✽ Rebel with a cause, p99 The author of the first authorised biography of Elizabeth Taylor, Kate was also a consultant on an upcoming BBC series about the Hollywood icon. Gennaro Contaldo ✽ Recipes, p58 Born and raised on the Amalfi Coast, the Italian chef moved to England in 1969, where he became a mentor to Jamie Oliver, and presented the BBC Two series Two Greedy Italians. Mishal Husain ✽ The World According To…, p129 She once swore seven times in an interview with James Cleverly but, when she’s not holding our politicians to account, the presenter likes to unwind in a garden full…

You grew up in Chatham, Kent. What are your first childhood memories? My mother holding me up to the stars watching the doodlebugs buzzing everywhere. I was born in 1940 in the middle of a World War II air raid. When she was in labour, Mummy had to walk two miles to the hospital with my father with bombs going off - there were no taxis. What kind of a child were you? Very boring. I’d sit at home drawing and watching my mother on her sewing machine. She was very exotic. I loved dressing up in clothes she made me. Children would throw stones at me because I didn’t look like anyone else. At 83, do you love still having a unique look? Of course. I still dye my…

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My wife and I have always voted Conservative and, although I didn’t agree with everything they’d done in the past 14 years, I still believed them to be preferable to Labour, so I voted for them again this year. However, my wife recently told me that she voted Labour and I’m completely shocked, as in the 45 years I’ve known her she’s never even mentioned that she felt any agreement with Labour’s policies whatsoever. I fundamentally disagree with her reasoning and it’s still causing a lot of arguments and it’s actually making me feel like she’s not the woman I thought she was. I know she has the right to vote whichever way she wants to, but I feel a bit blindsided by this and I’m struggling not to feel…

Revive… your roses Wondering why your climbing roses don’t flower? You may have a rambler rose, which is typically more vigorous than the climber type and blooms once in June – if pruned at the right time. Now is that time, because next year’s flowers are formed on this year’s growth – so when you prune in spring, it’s easy to cut off buds. Prune to the base the oldest stems and leave at least 5-6 of the newest ones, reducing these by half, fanning them out and tying down horizontally on supports to stimulate buds. Add a granular rose feed, water well and mulch round the base with compost or rotted manure. Prepare… the plot for holidays Take the stress out of trips away from the garden with some…

going places BHUTAN / WELSH RETREAT / LETTER FROM AMERICA TRAVEL James Hilton’s 1933 novel Lost Horizon sees the survivors of a plane crash stumble upon utopia, hidden away from the world, deep within the mountains of Tibet. Called Shangri-La, what they found could just as well have been the stunning Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan – it means ‘Land of the Thunder Dragon’ – with its fluttering prayer flags, lush valleys and mountain vistas dotted with remote Buddhist monasteries perched on high ledges. The landlocked country, which borders India, China and Tibet, is only accessible at ground level through challenging mountain passes, and that’s kept it uniquely untouched for millennia. The international airport was built in 1968, and the government opened its doors to foreign visitors in 1974. Thanks to limitations…

what’s on EVENTS /THEATRE / MUSIC / FILM / RADIO / PODCAST / TV Eighty years have passed since Elizabeth Taylor first became a celebrity. Back then, in 1944, at the tender age of 12, her role as the indefatigable Velvet Brown in National Velvet turned her into a star. She was famous for 67 years after that. But behind the myth she was not as fearless as she seemed, as I discovered when I went through her letters and diary entries for the first ever authorised biography of her life. She struggled first against a relentlessly controlling studio system, then a media primed to attack outspoken women, and finally a society which discriminated against the people she loved most in the world, prompting her to become an HIV and…

TURNING 50 Amy Adams actor, below centre Brian Harvey singer (East 17) Michael Shannon actor, right Natasha Henstridge actor TURNING 60 Barry Venison footballer Melinda Gates philanthropist, right Mike Brewer TV presenter TURNING 70 Derek Warwick racing driver Elvis Costello singer, below left George Galloway politician James Cameron director, right Joe Jackson singer-songwriter John Lloyd tennis player TURNING 80 Sir Clive Lloyd cricketer, below Lord Conrad Black newspaper proprietor Duke of Gloucester British royal John Simpson news reporter, right TURNING 90 Billy Boston rugby league player Sir Chris Bonington mountaineer John Standing actor Renée Richards tennis player, right Tom Mangold TV presenter…

our pick THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH HER Kate Weinberg Poleaxed by a mystery illness, Vita lies in her basement flat, with the companionship of a goldfish called Whitney Houston, and the sporadic attentions of her faintly sceptical surgeon fiancé. An occasional visitor, 16th-century aristocrat Luigi Da Porto (flesh or figment?), author of the original Romeo and Juliet, sits and chats, counsels her, snacks on Twiglets and is marvellously entertaining. If only Vita can find the strength to get upstairs to see widowed Mrs Rothwell and her gorgeous son, Jesse, maybe she can recover her health. An inventive, witty and questioning novel from a young author who herself spent months sunk in the Long Covid ‘pit’. GULTY BY DEFINITION Susie Dent Cryptic letters signed only ‘Chorus’ arrive at the Oxford offices…

1 The three witches in Macbeth. ‘Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and…’ What comes next? 2 The most northerly motorway in Britain is the M90. Which Scottish city is at the northern end of it? 3 Which Italian painter died in 1610, having spent the last four years of his life as a fugitive, wanted for killing a man in Rome? 4 If you referred to someone as ‘callipygian’, what part of their body would you be complimenting: their nose, their eyes, their legs, or their bottom? 5 Eric McCormack and Debra Messing were the stars of which American sitcom between 1998 and 2006 and again between 2017 and 2020? They played the title characters. 6 Which fashion house was founded in 1985 by two…

I’m in bed by 8pm on the evenings before I’m presenting the Today show. I have an alarm on my wrist which buzzes at 3am so I don’t wake my husband [Meekal Hashmi], and I creep into the bathroom. I’ll watch the previous night’s 10pm news back and listen to the midnight Radio 4 news bulletin. I get to work at 4am and those two hours until the show starts go so quickly. After ten years I’m still figuring it out. You have to be disciplined: I’m writing my own intros, trying to find fresh angles and prep questions while eating breakfast from my Tupperware. It’s intense, but the most rewarding job I’ve ever had. Hitting the headlines I’ve never courted the headlines so when an interview I’ve done –…