Keep Michelin men out of our hotels!
It’s probably escaped most people’s attention, what with the football, the election, the Ukraine war, the horrors of Gaza, the…
My day in Le Pen land
At first glance, for the visitor driving by, Guingamp in northwest Brittany looks idyllic. It is a typically lovely stone-built…
The day I met a sun priest
Palomino, Colombia I’m in a truly wonderful place: the Caribbean coast of Colombia. It’s got more bird species than most…
AI will change everything – so why is the election ignoring it?
Imagine if you somehow knew a war was coming in the next few years. Imagine if you knew this war would…
Tourists are the new pariahs
Think of Majorca and what do you picture? Maybe it is elegant tapas bars in the Gothic quarter of Palma,…
Sam Altman is not evil
It’s a classic trajectory. You start as a likeable and geeky tech tyro, you morph into a squillionaire with disagreeable…
No tips please, we’re British
I hate tipping, not because I am intrinsically mean but because of the anxiety it induces. You pitch up at…
Paris, city of blight
You know that feeling when you haven’t seen someone for several years and when you do, you really notice the…
The world would be a better place without Facebook
It’s sometimes difficult to remember a time before Facebook, isn’t it? It’s like trying to remember a time before the…
AI just changed the world. Again
Argentine President Javier Milei’s recent speech, to the World Economic Forum in Davos, has caused a stir for several reasons.…
Why wokeness really is like fascism
If you had to choose a political word of the decade you could do worse than ‘woke’. Because these days…
Why the world loves Margaret Thatcher
There are many rituals surrounding the placement of a new Japanese Emperor on the Chrysanthemum Throne. Perhaps the most peculiar…
Why is Suella Braverman doing so well on social media?
As phrases go, ‘Twitter analytics’ is not the most exciting, especially now we are, apparently, meant to say ‘the social…
What BLM and the Remembrance Day protests had in common
Back in June 2020, I attended a quasi-legal Black Lives Matter protest in London, and a widely reviled counter protest,…
Rishi Sunak is too late – the AI monster is at the door
He must be a busy man, Rishi Sunak. When he’s not rescuing the country from inflation, sending the Royal Navy…
AI will destroy TV news
As we all know, the last few days have been filled with terrible news out of Israel and Gaza, and…
Beware interesting politicians
We’ve all been there, haven’t we? One minute you are sitting down, with a cup of tea, ready to listen…
How I saved a baby in Laos’s jungle
I was writing a thriller in northeast Laos about fifteen years ago near a town called Phonsavan, researching a mysterious…
The deep absurdity of HS2 diversity’s agenda
When it comes to British railway history, I can say, without exaggeration, that few places are more iconically located than…
Is your pet killing the planet?
Having a pet is worse for the planet than flying
The unbearable strangeness of the Ukraine war
As a journalist, I’ve been on the periphery of quite a few wars: for example, I went to Bosnia as…
