Long life
There are already people camping outside St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, to await the birth shortly of another royal baby, the…
Long life
No sooner had I written last week’s column about the sad disappearance of the two tortoises in my care than…
Long life
It’s April. It’s spring. The daffodils and the cowslips are in flower. The birds are chirping merrily. But where are…
Long life
It is hard to know how a tragedy is going to move a person who is not directly affected by…
Long life
I sometimes try to imagine what it would be like being a political leader. I find this difficult because I…
Long life
In 1993, when I was living in Manhattan working for the New Yorker magazine, I was chosen as ‘distinguished visitor’…
Long life
Of all the election promises politicians make in the run-up to a general election the one most certain to remain…
Long life
The Oldie magazine — of which, until otherwise advised, I appear to be the editor — runs an occasional article…
Long life
I went last week to see the justly praised production of Wagner’s The Mastersingers at English National Opera, and I…
Long life
The gulf in understanding between the old and the young has widened with the news that the young are beginning…
Long life
I was listening to the radio the other morning to hear people complaining about the huge cuts in the number…
Diary
An excellent test of character is a person’s response to being offered an Oldie of the Year Award. There have…
Long life
Whether or not you believe in the afterlife, death remains an impenetrable mystery. One moment a person is making jokes…
Long life
I have been having trouble with my dishwasher. It’s seven and a half years old, and it’s manufactured by a…
Long life
It’s 15 years since I first wrote an article about the threat to the nation of the wild boar; but…
Long life
For the past two and a half years my brother John has been living next door to me in the…
Long life
I’ve had various ailments during my first 74 years — the worst being those induced by smoking, such as emphysema…
Long life
More than ever this year I find friends planning to go abroad for Christmas, some to countries such as India…
Long life
This is a tremendous time for ‘ordinary’ people. The elitists, the members of the ‘establishment’, are all on the run.…
Long life
The Times has given way to the Daily Telegraph as the bastion of the established order, for— with the one…
Long life
I thought that this week I might write about memory loss, but couldn’t remember if I’d written about it last…
Long life
Last Sunday night 8,000 illuminated balloons, tethered along eight miles of Berlin’s former inner-city border between East and West Germany,…
Long life
On 21 October Ben Bradlee, the famous ex-editor of the Washington Post, died, aged 93. The day before that, on…
Long life
I always dread Hallowe’en. It may have originated in Europe as a Christian celebration for remembering the virtuous dead and…
Long life
Perhaps it is because newspapers are going through such hard times that they fill their pages with items that cost…
