The perfect pub
Whenever one of those news stories appears about how many pubs have been forced to close in the last year,…
Political memorabilia
My first reaction on hearing of Margaret Thatcher’s death in 2013 was: ‘Great — now my autograph from her will…
Father’s Day
No man ever watched a £20 note flutter from an opened Father’s Day card and thought: ‘How disappointing — not enough…
Egypt
Egypt’s revolution of 2011 didn’t just get rid of President Mubarak: it did a pretty good job of clearing out…
Comfort in melancholy
Geoff Nicholson is the Maharajah of Melancholy. The quality was there in his novels, it was there in his non-fiction…
Comfort in melancholy
Geoff Nicholson is the Maharajah of Melancholy. The quality was there in his novels, it was there in his non-fiction…
Look back in laughter
Britain is still an essentially Victorian country (see Daily Mail for details). So it’s no surprise that we keep returning…
Look back in laughter
Britain is still an essentially Victorian country (see Daily Mail for details). So it’s no surprise that we keep returning…
A wicket way with words
We were never going to get ‘come to the party’ or ‘a hundred and ten per cent’ from The Authors…
A wicket way with words
We were never going to get ‘come to the party’ or ‘a hundred and ten per cent’ from The Authors…
Reasons to be angry
As a teenager in the 1980s I liked Jimmy Connors. This meant parking my not inconsiderable jealousy that he’d once…
On the snail trail
Snails are supposed to hate eggshells. Not the ones in Ruth Brooks’s garden. They clamber over the barrier as though…
On the snail trail
Snails are supposed to hate eggshells. Not the ones in Ruth Brooks’s garden. They clamber over the barrier as though…
Down to a T
There are normally three problems with reviews of books which, like This is the Way by Gavin Corbett (Fourth Estate,…
Down to a T
There are normally three problems with reviews of books which, like This is the Way by Gavin Corbett (Fourth Estate,…
Knowing your onions
Having fried your leeks in butter, form them into a poultice and apply it to your backside. No, not Heston…
Knowing your onions
Having fried your leeks in butter, form them into a poultice and apply it to your backside. No, not Heston…
Rock solid
Rod Stewart once tried to convince his mother that he had made a lot of money, and wanted to buy…
Classic Coe
You sense that writing Seb Coe: The Autobiography (Hodder, £20) must have been a pleasurable task for the Lord of…
Our national obsession
If Britain is serious about this Olympic legacy thing, we should get ‘talking about the weather’ added to the list…
Bookends: Down on the farm
Can we please have an inquiry into why already talented people are allowed to go off and be brilliant at…
Bookends: A metropolitan menagerie
London has always loved its animals. James I kept elephants in St James’s Park (allowed a gallon of wine per…
Bookends: Circling the Square Mile
You want the two-word review of this new book about the City? ‘London porn.’ For those of you with more…
Bookends
One day in the late 17th century, goes the legend, a French monk named Pierre called out to his colleagues:…
Bookends
‘Owl?’ said Pooh. ‘What’s a biography?’ ‘A biography,’ replied Owl, ‘is an Important Book. Such as an Interested Person might…
