Latest news with #Hamlyn
The Guardian
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Cocktail of the week: JM Hirsch's tropical coconut pie – recipe
This one is for summer, and for any time you're in the mood for something a little trashy. Lean into it. You're going to take white rum and coconut rum, and infuse them with lime zest. Then you're going to add coconut water. Are you feeling tropical yet? Throw in some orange bitters, because why not? Then pop that sucker in the freezer (you'll need a 750ml resealable bottle) and grab a lounge chair by the pool. That's the vibe. Serves 5-7 315ml white rum 315ml coconut rum Zest of 1 lime, pared off in wide strips 1 pinch sea salt 120ml coconut water Lime rounds, to serve Put the two rums, lime zest and salt in a blender, then pulse until the zest is finely chopped but not pureed. Leave to sit for three minutes, then strain through a muslin-lined fine sieve into a clean 750ml bottle. Add the coconut water, cap the bottle securely, then shake well to mix. Store in the freezer. To serve, pour into cocktail glasses and garnish with lime rounds. This is an edited extract from Freezer Cocktails: 75 Cocktails That Are Ready When You Are, by JM Hirsch, published this week by Hamlyn at £14.99. To order a copy for £13.49, go to
The Irish Sun
28-05-2025
- The Irish Sun
Inside tiny UK village where cars are BANNED, donkeys make deliveries & you must pay entry – but drivers love visiting
A VILLAGE in the South of England offers the perfect tranquil getaway - with donkeys and sledges instead of cars. It is one of few places in Europe that has a total ban on cars, as its steep topography makes it impossible to drive there. Advertisement 5 Clovelly, Devon, is built into the side of a cliff Credit: Getty 5 Visitors can enjoy the cobbled streets, as well as a range of independent shops Credit: Getty 5 The village has approximately 440 residents Credit: Getty Clovelly Village in North Devon offers visitors a Home to around 440 people, the remote village boasts cobbled streets, medieval-style properties, and no chain stores. The village was The Hamlyn family have managed the village since 1738, as it was largely "unknown to the outside world" according to the village's official website. Advertisement Read more Motors Its For those looking to escape modern life, Clovelly is one of few places in Europe that enforces a blanket ban on road vehicles. Historically, donkeys were responsible for transporting goods to the town although locals have mostly relied on sledges since the 1970s. There are, however, still a group of donkeys living at the top of the village. Advertisement Most read in Motors Its stunning To explore further, visitors can embark on a boat trip around the bay, a chartered fishing trip, or take a boat to Lundy Island. The English holiday resort that families say is a 'fancy Center Parcs' For those looking to keep their feet firmly planted There is also a hotel with a restaurant, a tea room, and two museums to keep visitors entertained. Advertisement Rather than the Depending on when you go to the village, you could visit its annual festivals, including the Seaweed Festival, the Lobster and Crab Festival, or the Herring Festival. Its also rumoured to be the home of a cave where Merlin, the magician of Arthurian legend, was born. Visitors can access the village through the visitor centre which charges £9.50 for adults, and £5.50 for children. Advertisement Funds raised from the charges goes towards local tree planting and conservation, helping to maintain the area. 5 It boasts a range of picturesque coastal walks Credit: Getty 5 Its steep cliffs mean that cars are banned from the village Credit: Getty Its Advertisement "Like most historical landmarks (e.g. National Trust sites), we heavily rely on entrance fees for the essential maintenance and upkeep that comes with an ancient village perched on a 400 foot cliff, with no vehicular access." Those driving to the village can also use the free parking included with the ticket price.
New Statesman
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
Ah, baking, the only hobby I've really stuck to
Illustration by Charlotte Trounce There's a running joke among my friends that if there was a crafting version of an EGOT – The Great British Bake Off, The Great British Sewing Bee, The Great Pottery Throw Down – I would be first to raise the bunting-adorned trophy. This is categorically nonsense. I could probably have a good run at the Sewing Bee, but the speed it demands would soon undo me. And my adventures in pottery throwing were fairly short lived once I discovered that a) it is a prohibitively expensive hobby, and b) I was considerably less naturally gifted than I'd hoped – or perhaps expected. The Bake Off, however… As a teenager I often forced my mother to spend her Saturday mornings driving me to my favourite specialist baking shop on the A3, and repaid her efforts by covering her kitchen in icing sugar and failing to adequately clean up. But really she asked for it, because she set me off on this sticky path. It was my mother who let me, as an unsteady toddler, transfer eggs from their cardboard nests to the plastic tray in the fridge; who taught me to use a skewer to test if a cake is cooked; how dough should spring back once proved; that 'stiff-peak egg whites' means you should be able to hold the bowl over your head without them falling on it (a high-stakes test). She gave me confidence, and I took it, tended to it, fed it, and it rose into something more. From the flapjacks in my Hamlyn's children's cookbook I graduated to friands and eclairs, croissants and plaited loaves. I learned to mould flowers and leaves from fondant icing; to pipe delicate butterflies out of royal; to shape round buns, sealed beneath, from unwieldily wet doughs. I made increasingly and unnecessarily elaborate cakes for my friends' birthdays, even my own birthdays, and eventually graduated to making wedding cakes: stacking tier upon tier, reinforced with plastic dowels and cakeboards, decorated with spun sugar, edible flowers, candied nuts, oven-dried thins of peach and pear. By the early days of lockdown I baked near daily – to pass the time, to self-soothe. In those first, solitary weeks, I heated sugar to just the right shade of copper for salted-caramel brownies, strained fruit for curds with which to sandwich macarons, brushed honey over delicately thin sheets of filo for baklava. I relished running out of a key ingredient: I guess I have to go to the supermarket now, that most precious of outings. Each week I'd parcel up packages of baked goods to drop on the doorsteps of friends who lived nearby – less out of genuine generosity, more out of the true impossibility of eating it all myself. In my early twenties, in those wilderness months after university and before getting my first staff job at a newspaper, I had filled the days and hours between freelance shifts and unpaid internships running a baking blog, which gave me not just something to do, but a place to write. But slowly, as work became more demanding, as I found creative outlets in other crafts, as I encountered terrible oven after terrible oven in my long series of rental flats, I stopped baking. I retired the blog, and my considerable stash of tins and turntables and palette knives was consigned to boxes in my grandmother's garage. I was, on occasion, persuaded to make a birthday cake, but the desire to bake anything more challenging rarely took me. Until Good Friday, when, after a night of little sleep, I rose at 4.30am with certainty: today was a day for hot cross buns. I worked until a more sociable hour arrived, and then walked to Sainsbury's to gather what I needed: caster sugar, mixed peel, eggs and fresh oranges, to add to the strong white bread flour, yeast, butter, milk and sultanas I had at home. I was craving once again the rhythm of proving and knocking back; the steps laid out simply before me, demanding little more than time and attention. Into the oven went flour and yeast and hope, and out came hot cross buns, golden and glorious – and a little of my old self, too. [See also: Joan Didion without her style] Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Related
Telegraph
17-04-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
Walking with Michael Watson – stricken boxer remains an inspiration
Michael Watson remains 'a medical miracle' according to Peter Hamlyn, the consultant neurosurgeon who performed seven life-saving brain operations on the fighter after his collapse in the 12th round of his second fight with Chris Eubank at White Hart Lane in 1991. Watson was left in a coma for 40 days and could not walk for 14 months, but with Hamlyn's care he staged a remarkable comeback. Watson, Hamlyn and Eubank were reunited in London on Wednesday as I joined them in walking from Wellington Arch at Hyde Park Corner to Horse Guards Parade and down The Mall. The walk – dubbed the 'magical mile' by Watson, who is now 60 – was to celebrate the shift in medical care for neurological patients that is offered by artificial intelligence. They are calling it 'i-Neuro'. 'It can revolutionise the diagnosis and treatment of the most under-resourced and complex medical challenge we, and all countries, face,' said Hamlyn. 'And Michael, who is still a medical miracle, can be at the forefront of this with us. 'We now have the science to use mobile phone data to diagnose neurological disorders years before they strike. Walking this mile today in London, with its nostalgia, and love for a special human being with a special spirit, will benefit many, many people around the world. Huge changes are afoot.' Also taking part in Wednesday's walk were a host of British boxers including Nick Blackwell, Julius Francis and Derek Williams, along with Olympic 400 metres champion Christine Ohuruogu. It was an afternoon of nostalgia, memory and delight at the majesty of Watson, who remains 'the people's champion'. It evoked powerful echoes of how 22 years ago Watson paced the London Marathon route to highlight his physical fightback and to raise funds for the Brain and Spine Foundation, which was founded in 1990 by Hamlyn. On that occasion Watson was joined by more than 60 walkers and there were visits from the comedian Ricky Gervais, footballer Ashley Cole, boxers Audley Harrison and David Haye, and the promoter Frank Maloney. The 'longest marathon' captured the hearts and minds of the British public and raised £250,000. We did not realise, at the time, the wider impact it would have for Hamlyn's charity. In subsequent years the Telegraph team running in the London Marathon, with team captains including the likes of Zara Phillips, James Cracknell, Frank Warren, Gabby Logan, Des Lynam and others, year on year, raised almost £2 million for the foundation that contributed to groundbreaking research into neurological conditions. I recall Hamlyn once telling me that 'when Michael walks, every light in the house is on in his brain'. Hamlyn's words have stuck with me ever since. Watson and Hamlyn have changed the course of medical history in boxing, the fighter becoming the barometer for medical care when injuries occur on fight nights. As Hamlyn told me: 'It led to all the governing bodies of all of our sports realising their duty of care, not just in the UK, but across the world. No surprise that the NFL upped its game and settled benefits on its former players for damages they had incurred.' Watson was ebullient after Wednesday's walk. 'It feels amazing,' he told Telegraph Sport. 'This is a an amazing moment for me, it is bringing back so many memories, and I can't believe it is over 20 years ago that we brought many of the roads in Central London to a standstill. It means so much to me to be loved by the British public.'
The Independent
15-04-2025
- Sport
- The Independent
Michael Watson's next miracle? Walking a mile with the doctor who saved his life
In late 2002, Michael Watson was told that the London marathon was a fight too far even for him. He was told that people hit the wall at 20 miles, and that he would hit the wall after 100 metres. He never listened to the advice from Peter Hamlyn, the neurosurgeon who saved his life. Watson never listens to people telling him 'no". 'I told Peter that the hardest part would be the victory celebration at the end,' Watson told me. He was not joking. Watson did complete the 2003 London marathon, finishing in six days, two hours, 27 minutes and 17 seconds, and adding the iconic race to his list of outrageous achievements, which include somehow surviving the night of 21 September 1991, when he was rushed from the ring unconscious after his catastrophic rematch against Chris Eubank. The survival all those years ago was a team effort: Watson and Hamlyn, the miracle team. Well, they are back together and both are walking a mile this Wednesday (16 April) to raise money and awareness for the Brain And Spine Foundation. Watson is now 60, an impossible age for a man with his chances all those long and lonely midnights ago. Hamlyn is the man in charge of fantasies; together they are a rare double act. In 1991, Watson collapsed after his world-title rematch with Eubank had been stopped in the 12th and final round. The time was 10.54pm at White Hart Lane, but Watson's life was now operating outside normal measures of time. He was in the Golden Hour, the 60 minutes of hope that exist for people with a head trauma. Watson, who was 27 at the time, was first rushed to the wrong hospital, and then at 11.55pm – outside the Golden Hour – he was transferred to St Bartholomew's. He was in another brutal race and so was Hamlyn, who had been alerted about the stricken boxer and was making his way from home to the hospital and his team in the operating room. His journey on that night was truly amazing. Hamlyn had twice previously operated on and saved boxers on his table in that blue-lit operating theatre. He was the best man for the job, but the clock was ticking. Hamlyn arrived at Bart's, but the front door was surrounded by media. The fight was massive, front and back page with relentless coverage of the bad blood. I was inside on the night, in a room praying with Michael's mother and his trainer, Jimmy Tibbs. It is a lost weekend, a visit to the twilight zone of life. Hamlyn directed the taxi to the side of the Victorian hospital, searching for an open door, a glimpse of hope. He stopped, got out and looked through a locked door and this is where this story gets strange. Very strange. It was about 12.30am, Watson was already inside the building – Hamlyn was outside in the dark, separated from the boxer. Watson told me he truly believes he died in the back of the ambulance; he was certainly edging closer to death upstairs, with his salvation stranded outside in the dark. Hamlyn peered through the window of a locked door. Perhaps sensing movement, he lingered, and then the door opened. It was the famous Bag Lady of Bart's, a woman who lived like a ghost inside the ancient building and was fed tea and biscuits by the nurses. She opened the door and stood back as Hamlyn charged up the stairs to join his colleagues. It was just before 1am when Watson, silent and still and close to death, was wheeled in for surgery. Hamlyn performed his miracle and added Watson to his record of three wins from three with boxers; it is a boxing record that nobody wants. It was also the start of the long, long comeback. Watson's relentless faith and struggle to survive against ridiculous odds is all in his book, Michael Watson's Story: The Biggest Fight. Looking at it again, two decades after it was written, is still inspiring. Hamlyn and Watson have been close ever since their first meeting that bloody night at Bart's. On Wednesday, they walk again, the Miracle Men, and you can join them. Walk a Mile with Michael on Wednesday 16 April. 1pm in London, from Wellington Arch to Horse Guards.
