Cock
On the Radio 4 news at 11 o’clock last Saturday morning there was a joky report about roosters in Brisbane. The…
Cock
On the Radio 4 news at 11 o’clock last Saturday morning there was a joky report about roosters in Brisbane. The…
Swastika
There is a nice row of swastikas at head height in Burlington Gardens, behind the Royal Academy. They are carved…
Swastika
There is a nice row of swastikas at head height in Burlington Gardens, behind the Royal Academy. They are carved…
Leap in the dark
‘They all laughed at Christopher Columbus,’ sang my husband flatly, ‘when he said the world was round.’ I wasn’t going…
Leap in the dark
‘They all laughed at Christopher Columbus,’ sang my husband flatly, ‘when he said the world was round.’ I wasn’t going…
Special status
‘Special status?’ said my husband. ‘You mean like executioners, butchers and undertakers in Japan?’ I hadn’t suggested that, but had…
Special status
‘Special status?’ said my husband. ‘You mean like executioners, butchers and undertakers in Japan?’ I hadn’t suggested that, but had…
Creaky voice
My husband, not surprisingly, finds it extremely annoying. It, in this instance, is the use by women of creaky voice.…
Creaky voice
My husband, not surprisingly, finds it extremely annoying. It, in this instance, is the use by women of creaky voice.…
Beware
My husband pointed with his stick, which he carries not to steady himself but to cudgel pedestrians out of his…
Beware
My husband pointed with his stick, which he carries not to steady himself but to cudgel pedestrians out of his…
Not even a thing
Last summer Kim Kardashian, who already had a daughter called North (surname West), announced that she was expecting a boy.…
Not even a thing
Last summer Kim Kardashian, who already had a daughter called North (surname West), announced that she was expecting a boy.…
Peak
Near Victoria Station in London they began to build a tower-block advertised as ‘The Peak’. I expected it to resemble…
Peak
Near Victoria Station in London they began to build a tower-block advertised as ‘The Peak’. I expected it to resemble…
Box set
There is no chance whatsoever of box set being replaced by the more correct form boxed set. So stop seething…
Box set
There is no chance whatsoever of box set being replaced by the more correct form boxed set. So stop seething…
Waybread
‘Did you say “fabric”?’ asked my husband when I was telling him about words that have just been added to…
Waybread
‘Did you say “fabric”?’ asked my husband when I was telling him about words that have just been added to…
Chattering classes
When the much missed Frank Johnson (1943–2006), once editor of The Spectator, wrote in 1980 that ‘the peculiar need for…
Chattering classes
When the much missed Frank Johnson (1943–2006), once editor of The Spectator, wrote in 1980 that ‘the peculiar need for…
Quotations
I couldn’t help laughing when I found that an Australian senator, Cory Bernardi, had deleted all his tweets from Twitter,…
Quotations
I couldn’t help laughing when I found that an Australian senator, Cory Bernardi, had deleted all his tweets from Twitter,…
Why ‘safe’ is Dot Wordsworth’s word of the year
‘Makes me feel sick,’ said my husband, referring not to the third mince pie of the morning (in Advent, supposedly…
