Notebook
Wallace Arnold: Pity the hard-pressed Snuff Community
Could it really be 40 years since one was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature? Borne up…
Cressida Bonas: My perfectly imperfect lockdown wedding
I had a lockdown wedding. A 30-person, socially-distanced, sanitised church service was organised in under two weeks. Restrictions meant no…
Joan Collins: The politics of Christmas trees
To say that the past nine months have been tough is like saying a hurricane felt like a spring shower.…
Mick Fleetwood: Why Peter Green was the greatest guitarist
In a normal week, I would jam with local musicians, but that stopped in March and we musicians miss the…
Jonathan Biss: The sadness and euphoria of playing to an empty room
My November was bookended by two characteristic displays of grace. I ushered it in by falling on all fours while…
Petronella Wyatt: I’m not surprised Michael Gove is a lockdown fanatic
What this government needs is a good dose of the London mob, which at its height in the 18th century…
Quentin Letts: The unstoppable rise of June Sarpong
Eton’s free-speech rumpus must surely become a David Hare play, Goodbye Mr Had-Yer-Chips, starring Jeremy Irons as the headmaster and…
The rotten legacy of communism in Albania
Our heavily laden taxi turned off the main highway from Tirana and started to negotiate the rough, one-track road. The…
How the NHS has coped with the second wave
Across Europe, hospitals have been filling up again with the second wave of coronavirus. France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and the…
Bangkok’s unravelling was easy to see coming
Three years ago I sat down to write a novel set in my adopted home city. Placing its claustrophobic action…
Trump’s humour is his weakness – and his strength
Earlier this summer left-wing activists announced a ‘semi-autonomous zone’ in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle. Denuded of law enforcement…
Being pro-Trump has caused me more grief than being Bin Laden’s niece
Americans are, in my experience, the warmest, most kind-hearted and open-minded people in the world. I have found this to…
Bas Javid: Why I joined the police
There’s no such thing as a typical week in policing and this last one was no different. It started on…
In Madagascar, more will starve than die of the virus
Earlier this month, in his weekly address to the nation, our President, the former DJ and coup leader Andry Rajoelina,…
The joy of eating birdseed
Rather like unpacking after a holiday, when you take unworn clothes from the case still neatly folded because the occasion…
I’d never seen a princess wear statement socks – until Anne
Not since the befuddled twilight of George III has a monarch been confined to Windsor Castle for such a duration.…
We’re spending lockdown defending a family of mice
Austin My first Independence Day in the US for many years. Usually I’d be in Paris avoiding Texas heat. My…
The bluff and bluster of Boris’s bland boy Brexiteers
From the balcony where I take my daily exercise there is a view of the commercial centre of London that…
I thought I’d left looting mobs behind in the Middle East
Last week shattered all my sense of stability and permanence in New York, the city I’ve called home since 2012…
Why is it that age limits never apply to men?
I’d never have thought I’d be good at doing nothing. Or rather walking the dogs, loafing in the sun, trying…
Why is the WHO so worried about Tanzania?
Dar es Salaam The World Health Organisation has drawn up a shortlist of countries it’s most concerned about during the…
How to go clubbing without leaving your living room
To my surprise, what I miss most about life before the lockdown are parties. As others pine for restaurants and…
I hate joggers more than ever
Empathy and kindness in these difficult times come more easily to some than others, but I’m trying. I had heart…
Faith, hope and charity: how I survived coronavirus
I write this on Easter Sunday, sitting comfortably at home, recovering from my brush with Covid-19. I was hospitalised for…
In New York’s hospitals, we need all the help we can get
New York I hear it said now and again that Covid-19 is just a nasty winter bug, nothing more than…