Notes on…
Mugs
Rishi Sunak found himself in hot water last week, though fortunately it was not too hot. Just the right temperature,…
Cricket balls
The Prime Minister recently blamed the delay in the resumption of amateur cricket on the ball itself, calling it ‘a…
Online chess
How have you been filling these listless homebound hours we’ve been given by the government? I’ve been frittering them away…
Football without fans
Football is back — but the fans aren’t. Covid means that clubs have to play their games behind closed doors.…
Scouts
Police were no match for the Black Lives Matter mob that pulled down a statue of Edward Colston last week…
The Field of the Cloth of Gold
This week marked 500 years since the beginning of the two-week festival of jousting, feasting and general splendour that came…
Coach holidays
Amid all the Covid-19 coverage, it’s hardly surprising that the collapse of a coach-tour operator last week didn’t make too…
Band names
You wouldn’t have thought that Starbucks’s pricing policy could influence rock history, but that’s what happened. In the early 1990s,…
Bats
‘You’d like me to write about bats? I’ve not held one in earnest for years,’ I said, although I did…
Puttanesca
The lockdown could have been the moment I was waiting for: a chance to make those long, slow recipes whose…
Owls
My tawny owl has been self-isolating. I say mine but in truth she chose the nest box in my neighbour’s…
Slippers
Tartan, monogram, moccasin, clog. What do your slippers say about you? Trick us all you like with your office Manolos,…
Beards
Viewers of the BBC News channel, now that Zoom shows talking heads in their own homes, want before anything to…
Boxed wine
Picture the world before the invention of the bottle: if you wanted a nice glass of claret at home, you’d…
Walking around the garden
What’s the best way to keep in shape during the lockdown? That’s the First World problem I’ve been using to…
Hens
Is there nothing people won’t panic-buy during this crisis? Having stripped shelves of food and toilet roll, shoppers are now…
Working from home
Working from home has been on the rise for years. No one expected the latest surge to happen in the…
Pub lockdowns
Pubs are fascinating at the moment. On the day that the Prime Minister advised us not to attend them, I…
Blind wine-tasting
The cellar room is almost silent save for the sound of slurping and spitting and the odd gentle sigh. One…
Galway
I was still digesting my delicious breakfast (kippers, poached eggs and soda bread — all local) when the sad news…
Rockall
In 1978, an invitation was sent to some 200 members of Oxford’s Dangerous Sports Club, which simply read: ‘Tea, Rockall,…
Bread boards
It’s not known which inspired Victorian first had the idea to take a chopping block and carve it into a…
Chesterton’s homes
It’s a quiet Wednesday afternoon in Britain’s most expensive market town, and there’s a sense of foreboding in the air.…
Monopoly
I’ve been playing a lot of Monopoly recently. My son got his first grown-up set for Christmas and, even after…
Big Ben
The debate over whether Big Ben should bong to mark Brexit isn’t the first time the famous bell has caused…
