Scotland

Game on! The Winter Olympics are under way. Big events like alpine skiing and ice hockey dominate the television schedules, but it's worth taking time to check out the less popular sports — especially the one with its own medieval language.

Robert Crawford, who wrote The Bard: Robert Burns, A Biography, says that Scotland's national poet shares with the best hip-hop artists a genius for rhymes that are completely "liberated from the hegemony of standard English".

Britain is experiencing the lowest winter temperatures for decades. People badly need something warm to drink, and an enterprising Norfolk farming family has got it: St. George's, the very first English-distilled whisky since the 19th century.

"Travel" sounds expensive, but it need not involve going to strange places or spending a lot of money. And that's why we're ending our travel year with Danny MacAskill cycling around Edinburgh to the soundtrack of a group called Band of Horses.

Visit the Scotch Whisky Experience on the Royal Mile and you'll learn that each single-malt has its own personality. And because hundreds of years of knowledge go into making great whisky, you'll be told that it's best not to mix it with Red Bull.

Focus: Iron road to the Highlands
The West Highland Railway

English at work
The perfect presentation (p. 55)