Born comics die laughing

7 November 2020 9:00 am

Evolutionary theory is primarily about survival but, as Jonathan Silvertown makes clear in this intriguing book,  as well as having…

2019 Thawley Essay

7 November 2020 9:00 am

Runner-up: ‘Sink the subs’

On the Vatican and China

7 November 2020 9:00 am

Qui tacet consentire

Sean Connery

7 November 2020 9:00 am

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

7 November 2020 9:00 am

Simon Fieldhouse is a Sydney- based artist who has developed a very particular area of expression. Typically, he uses watercolour…

Aussie Life & Language

7 November 2020 9:00 am

Tony Letford In a recent article in the Weekend Australian, Alison Broinowski refers to ‘America’s unjustified atom bombing of Japan’…

Trial dictatorship?

7 November 2020 9:00 am

Constitutional review overdue

Real life

7 November 2020 9:00 am

The cyclist pulled into our gateway, got off his bike and grabbed hold of the electric fencing. Installing game cameras,…

Alas

7 November 2020 9:00 am

Boris Johnson looked unhappy, as well he might, standing at his indoor lectern last Saturday to announce the new lockdown:…

Fabulous fabrics

7 November 2020 9:00 am

On the weekly ‘opinions’ afternoons, the public would arrive with carefully wrapped parcels holding items to be identified, writes Claire…

Raw, ruthless politics

7 November 2020 9:00 am

Hours after Benazir Bhutto arrived back in Pakistan on 18 October 2007, two bombs exploded near the bullet-proof truck carrying…

Driven mad

7 November 2020 9:00 am

Why is buying a car such an ordeal?

High life

7 November 2020 9:00 am

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?

7 November 2020 9:00 am

A frothy new drama called Emily in Paris arrived on Netflix last month. Starring Lily Collins — daughter of Phil…

Hyper deflation

7 November 2020 9:00 am

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

7 November 2020 9:00 am

Aviation, nuclear power and public transport — along with good restaurants, golden retrievers and hand-knitted bed socks — are, as…

The Spectator’s Notes

7 November 2020 9:00 am

Monday night’s murderous gunman in Vienna is officially described as ‘Islamist’. Brahim Aioussaoi, the man accused of murdering worshippers in…

Low life

7 November 2020 9:00 am

Everything is happening so fast. First we were put under a night curfew. A few days later M. Macron announced…

France vs Islamism

7 November 2020 9:00 am

How does Macron hope to prosecute his war?

Painting vs sculpture

7 November 2020 9:00 am

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

7 November 2020 9:00 am

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

7 November 2020 9:00 am

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

7 November 2020 9:00 am

The unclued lights (one of two words) display a common feature, different in each case. Across 1 Fundamentalist group keeps…

Quince

7 November 2020 9:00 am

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

7 November 2020 9:00 am

‘It’s chess. We’re all prima donnas.’ You can hear it spoken with a wink in the Netflix miniseries The Queen’s…