Notes on…
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…
Kent’s sparkling wine
Driving home through Kent the other day, I was struck by how much the topography has changed. When I was…
What is the only London Underground station to share no letters with ‘mackerel’?
Don’t worry, this isn’t a piece about fishing quotas. It’s about the word ‘mackerel’ itself. Specifically, the fact that St…
The faded charm of the Isle of Wight
I was worried my first trip to the Isle of Wight might be too late. These days, a holiday island…
Away from the manger: the holy relics of Bethlehem
‘No crib for a bed,’ says ‘Away in a Manger’ rather puzzlingly, since a crib is a manger. ‘No one…
Is St Edmund’s body buried beneath a Suffolk tennis court?
Here in St Edmundsbury cathedral, a bunch of clerics and local bigwigs are preparing for a most unusual anniversary. Throughout…
The unwritten rules of sending Christmas cards
No one sends Christmas cards any more. Except that I do, and you might, and a few other people do…
The big burly blokes who make infinitely precise pointe shoes by hand
Pauline, Petrova or Posy? Which Fossil sister are you? Or, rather, which Fossil sister did you hope to be when…
Starling murmurations are a display more dazzling than fireworks
It’s late afternoon in the car park of Workington Asda. A little crowd is gathering in one corner, most of…
The joy of rummaging through Gladstone’s annotated books
Gladstone’s Library began as that most English of things: a great man’s visionary idea. William Gladstone, at the age of…
The war heroes of Northolt Airport
At 6.50 p.m. on 31 August 1997 a plane touched down at Northolt Airport. It was a lamentable and dismal…
The unlikely beauty of urinals
In 1966, just as he was becoming famous, Michael Caine met John Wayne. The Holly-wood veteran offered him some advice:…
The Grand Union Canal, a serene sanctuary amid the urban sprawl
It was a Saturday afternoon in September, the end of summer, and I was feeling sorry for myself. I’d gone…
