Books
The Ghost in the machine
One of the great joys of the late Brian Sewell’s style of writing was his almost child-like bluntness. He had…
December
The ferns around the badgers’ sett are dying down, and fine webs fret the brambles. By late afternoon the moon…
Spot the line of poetry
Test your knowledge
The smoking diary of Gregor Hens
The link between smoking and self-expression is long-established. The only thing worse than not being able to smoke, says Will…
Larkin’s misty parks and moors — in all their lacerating beauty
When Philip Larkin went up to St John’s College, Oxford, in the early 1940s, he found himself in a world…
Osbert Lancaster: a national treasure rediscovered
True to his saw that ours is ‘a land of rugged individualists’, Osbert Lancaster, in his self-appointed role of popular…
Answers to ‘Spot the Line of Poetry’
1. Ill-met by moonlight (Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream) 2. Hope springs eternal in the human breast (Pope’s ‘An Essay…
The year in books
In an age of white noise Christopher Pyne’s A Letter to My Children (MUP, $33) stands out as a loving…
Answers to ‘Spot the Line of Poetry’
1. Ill-met by moonlight (Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream) 2. Hope springs eternal in the human breast (Pope’s ‘An Essay…
Spot the line of poetry
For the answers click here The post Spot the line of poetry appeared first on The Spectator. Got something to…
All Change
Based on a handwritten notebook of recipes from Dorothy Eliza Barnes, my grandmother, a shepherd’s wife, who had worked as…
December
The ferns around the badgers’ sett are dying down, and fine webs fret the brambles. By late afternoon the moon…
Answers to ‘Spot the Line of Poetry’
1. Ill-met by moonlight (Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream) 2. Hope springs eternal in the human breast (Pope’s ‘An Essay…
Spot the line of poetry
For the answers click here Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.
All Change
Based on a handwritten notebook of recipes from Dorothy Eliza Barnes, my grandmother, a shepherd’s wife, who had worked as…
December
The ferns around the badgers’ sett are dying down, and fine webs fret the brambles. By late afternoon the moon…
George and Martha Washington were an odd first First Couple
Frances Wilson on America’s likeable, if unlikely, first First Couple
Hubris made the 20th century the bloodiest in history
Sir Alistair Horne, like that other great knight of military history, Sir Michael Howard, served in the Coldstream Guards during…
General Anders to the rescue
Until Poland joined the EU in the 1990s, the biggest single influx of Poles into this country was in the…
Richard III: a bad man — and even worse king
When archaeologists unearthed the battered mortal remains of King Richard III beneath a council car park in Leicester in 2012,…
Shakespeare with or without the waffle
30-Second Shakespeare: 50 key aspects of his works, life and legacy, each explained in half a minute sounds trivial, but…
James Klugmann and Guy Burgess: the wasted lives of spies
Geoff Andrews’s ‘Shadow Man’, James Klugmann, was the talent-spotter, recruiter and mentor of the Cambridge spy ring. From 1962, aged…
The real gardeners’ questions answered
Why is it that gardening in the public prints is so often treated as a fluffy subject for fluffy people?…
A companion for life
There can be no good reason why Graham Johnson’s marvellous three-volume encyclopaedia of Schubert’s songs has been so neglected by…
Bad news from paradise
Suddenly, the Maldivians are in the news. Earlier this year, they locked up their first democratically elected president, and just…
