How will Britain survive without Sally Rooney?
I am not sure there are numbers small enough to capture the net literary loss to Britain of Sally Rooney’s books…
The inevitable downfall of Salt Bae
Nusret Gökçe, the Turkish social media sensation known as Salt Bae, has a restaurant empire built around the fan base…
Taylor Swift is increasingly horny and increasingly mean
Time was, posting anything negative about Taylor Swift would be personally dangerous, given the famous passion, obsessiveness and sheer numbers…
Emma Watson is utterly unoriginal
For a long time it was handy dinner party fact that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One (2010)…
How can Gwyneth Paltrow bear so much ridicule?
The frail-looking movie star turns out to surprisingly thick-skinned as well as shrewd: a curious combination of entrepreneurial survivor and woo-woo artiste
One issue I can’t stop snubbing the left over
Before I’d established my tiny crew of fellow local moms, I aggressively befriended – or tried to befriend – any…
Why is the Michelin Guide launching in Saudi Arabia?
Having only a short time ago been synonymous with the terrors of its Wahabiist regime, the temptations and pleasures of…
Saudi Arabia’s soft power art attack
From roughly the 1970s to the mid-2010s, Saudi Arabia was the stuff of nightmares, referred to now, with understatement, as ‘the…
‘No peens in our pond’: the ‘Pond Terfs’ manning Kenwood ladies’ pond
For a century, Kenwood ladies’ pond on Hampstead Heath in north London had been a haven for women – gay,…
Homosexuality will be illegal in Disney’s new UAE park
One month after Kristallnacht, in 1938, the Nazi film director Leni Riefenstahl was an honored guest at Walt Disney’s studio.…
Could Maga’s baby boom policies backfire?
If there is one thing that Trump appointees, and most Trump voters, can get behind, it’s that marriage and babies…
The trouble with Harvard
Harvard is in trouble, but I’m finding it hard to have any sympathy. In the aftermath of October 7th, Jewish…
Skype was a relic of happier times
Sometimes epics end with a whimper not a bang. This is the case for Skype, whose demise Microsoft has announced…
Sadiq Khan and the truth about Brick Lane curry
Sadiq Khan is exceedingly fond of ‘diversity’, not least the word itself. Perhaps as a result, London’s Mayor is willing…
The Gen-Z fliers obsessed with maximising their air miles
Oscar, 26, joins me on Google Meet from Buenos Aires, having arrived earlier that day from New York – by…
Bridget Jones is no feminist
Bridget Jones isn’t what she used to be. The latest film, Mad About the Boy, features Bridget as a grieving widow…
Shoppers like me will pay the price for Waitrose’s free coffee perk
Freeloaders rejoice: Waitrose is bringing back free coffee for customers even if they don’t buy anything. This is a bad…
Where Wales went wrong
There is no land more lovely than Wales. I have walked through a magical forest to splash in the shallow,…
The tragedy of Jocelyn Wildenstein
When I saw that Jocelyn Wildenstein, aka the Bride of (art dealer Alec) Wildenstein, had died at the age of…
Spare us from ‘amber’ weather warnings
With quiet, sinister inevitability, the health and safety edifice has been marching through the festive season, capturing new terrain. Arguably…
Women would be wise to avoid the streets of Lambeth at night
Being a woman walking on the street at night, especially on your own, is still scary. No matter that we…
Young people are ruining Guinness
James Joyce called Guinness “the wine of the country.” Now it feels a bit more like the Coca-Cola of alcohol…
How the Groucho lost its lustre
This week, the Groucho Club in Soho had its licence suspended by Westminster Council after a request from the Metropolitan…
There’s nothing worse than an entitled restaurateur
Going to restaurants used to be fun. So much so that in the first two booze-sloshed decades of the 21st…
Flying isn’t what it was – but don’t blame British Airways
It is tempting, confronted with the news that British Airways is to swap out lunch on long-haul flights leaving between…
