Uncovering the female past
Isn’t it irritating when your ancestral manuscript collection gets in the way of your ping-pong tournament? That was Colonel Butler-Bowden’s…
Filmericks
In Competition No. 3257, you were invited to summarise a film in limerick form. A nod to Ezra Haber Glenn,…
Has identity politics had its day?
Have we reached peak woke? In Hollywood, that seems to be the emerging consensus. Thanks to the box office success…
Silver and gold
The ‘English chess explosion’ that began in the 1970s produced a bumper crop of grandmasters, which meant that by the…
Grim prospects ahead
We live in discombobulating times, economically speaking. We know we’re descending into the highest inflation for half a century and…
The Battle for Britain: Michael Heath
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The outlaw river
It may not be the grandest of the world’s waterways – the Nile and Amazon are ten times its length…
Territorial battles
The word ‘colony’ meets with a sharp intake of breath these days, but ‘province’ raises no eyebrows. How very odd.…
Siege mentality
Take the Red Line north, heading out of St Petersburg, and you’ll eventually reach Courage Square on the city’s outskirts…
You name it
The problem with ‘apostrophe laws’
Oil on troubled waters
Is Biden ready to let MBS get away with murder?
High life
Now that the weakest Wimbledon since 1973 – the year of the boycott – is over, a few thoughts about…
Low life
My days pass largely in a state of inanition. The fit and able-bodied express their sympathy, claiming it’s much the…
Bridge
The return to pre-Covid normality has been slow and a bit dispiriting. Attendance at the popular English tournaments has been…
The Spectator’s Notes
If you had said, even ten years ago, that there was no chance of a white male cabinet minister becoming…
Boom time
Liz Truss on Brexit, internet censorship — and what she’d do in No. 10
Is anything off limits in politics?
Scandal is such a wonderful driver of human emotions. Just think of the number of things you get to feel…
Who needs the metaverse?
Big tech might tell us it’s what’s coming next but as yet there’s no real use for it, says James Ball
Why I adore Nick Kyrgios
I’ve always had a thing for bad boys and if ever there was a bad boy of tennis, Nick Kyrgios…
The Tory leadership debate – as it happened
On Friday night the Tory leadership candidates faced-off in the first televised debate of the contest, hosted on Channel 4.…
Freedom: the peak of achievement
As we watch with varying degrees of disgust, impotence, and annoyance at the events in Eastern Europe – where a…
Boris Johnson will be a hard act to follow in Ukraine
‘Every human life has many aspects,’ said the novelist Milan Kundera. ‘The past of each can just as easily arranged…
Mario Draghi is not a normal politician
Is it all over for Mario Draghi’s recovery government? His attempted resignation yesterday – which was rejected by President Sergio…
Watch: Biden puts his foot in it (again)
Oh dear. It seems bumbling ‘Uncle Joe’ has done it again. Fresh from his Holocaust gaffe, President Biden has now…
The anti-drinking lobby’s twisted logic
In 2018, the Lancet published a study from the ‘Global Burden of Disease Alcohol Collaborators’ which claimed that there was…
