Born comics die laughing
Evolutionary theory is primarily about survival but, as Jonathan Silvertown makes clear in this intriguing book, as well as having…
2019 Thawley Essay
Runner-up: ‘Sink the subs’
On the Vatican and China
Qui tacet consentire
Sean Connery
Sean Connery outlived all of them, those great British actors who came to such prominence in the early Sixties: Richard…
Simon Fieldhouse Mozart Statue, Vienna
Simon Fieldhouse is a Sydney- based artist who has developed a very particular area of expression. Typically, he uses watercolour…
Aussie Life & Language
Tony Letford In a recent article in the Weekend Australian, Alison Broinowski refers to ‘America’s unjustified atom bombing of Japan’…
Trial dictatorship?
Constitutional review overdue
Real life
The cyclist pulled into our gateway, got off his bike and grabbed hold of the electric fencing. Installing game cameras,…
Alas
Boris Johnson looked unhappy, as well he might, standing at his indoor lectern last Saturday to announce the new lockdown:…
Fabulous fabrics
On the weekly ‘opinions’ afternoons, the public would arrive with carefully wrapped parcels holding items to be identified, writes Claire…
Raw, ruthless politics
Hours after Benazir Bhutto arrived back in Pakistan on 18 October 2007, two bombs exploded near the bullet-proof truck carrying…
Driven mad
Why is buying a car such an ordeal?
High life
New York Back when people used to read newspapers, they called it a ‘human interest’ story. Now it appears as…
Nous sommes tous Emily in Paris – why can’t we admit it?
A frothy new drama called Emily in Paris arrived on Netflix last month. Starring Lily Collins — daughter of Phil…
Hyper deflation
In Competition No. 3173 you were invited to give a fresh twist to a well-known single line of poetry by…
Searching for points of light in the darkest of weeks
Aviation, nuclear power and public transport — along with good restaurants, golden retrievers and hand-knitted bed socks — are, as…
The Spectator’s Notes
Monday night’s murderous gunman in Vienna is officially described as ‘Islamist’. Brahim Aioussaoi, the man accused of murdering worshippers in…
Low life
Everything is happening so fast. First we were put under a night curfew. A few days later M. Macron announced…
France vs Islamism
How does Macron hope to prosecute his war?
Painting vs sculpture
In an extract from their book, Antony Gormley tells Martin Gayford that the 3-D will always trump the 2-D
Solution to 2479: Shielded
The unclued lights are heraldic terms. First prize J.P. Carrington, Denchworth, OxfordshireRunners-up David Shields, Merthyr Vale M.E. Bosence, Bournemouth Got…
This lockdown is much riskier
Keir Starmer has his first attack line of the next general election campaign. He will say that England’s second lockdown…
2482: Perm all five
The unclued lights (one of two words) display a common feature, different in each case. Across 1 Fundamentalist group keeps…
Quince
I recently bought some quinces in our local farmshop as part of my new policy of investing heavily in right-wing…
The Queen’s Gambit – Accepted
‘It’s chess. We’re all prima donnas.’ You can hear it spoken with a wink in the Netflix miniseries The Queen’s…
