Notebook
Here in freezing Chicago we’re secretly rooting for global warming
One of the few pleasures of advancing age is that, no matter how awful some looming catastrophe may be, you…
Fear and foie gras: a Caracas notebook
A man stopped me in the street in Caracas and grabbed my hand. I was alarmed, but tried not to…
Davos diary: A party conference for the guilty rich
Somehow I had managed more than a quarter of a century in journalism without ever going to Davos. It had…
What happens when the police stop and search a bishop?
I’m not surprised that black people are still eight times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched…
Women, married or single, get a raw deal at Christmas
There’s a Christmas poem of mine, written in the 1980s, that ends with the line ‘And the whole business is…
The best thing about Christmas in France? It’s all over in a day
Just back from a few days in Rome — the perfect small metropolis for ‘street-haunting’, as Cyril Connolly described his…
Cressida Bonas: An actress’s notebook
I’m moving house, parting ways with my beloved friend Georgia. For eight years, the two of us have laughed madly,…
Durban Notebook: a nation in paralysis
No one likes uncertainty and in Britain we’ve got more than our fair share. But spare a thought for South…
As Assad recovers, Syria is returning to stability
In order to avoid the Labour conference and yet more predictable media attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, I escaped late last…
Douglas Murray: I can’t think of a time when more people have lost their minds
Whenever I visit a country I try to pitch high and meet the president or prime minister. In Australia this…
Rory Bremner: Why comedians are getting political
The brilliant Irish comedian Andrew Maxwell describes doing stand-up at the Edinburgh Fringe as ‘exams for clowns’, and even though…
The sensuous thrill of learning to swim in your sixties
Sharing a plate of oysters with a three-year-old: where could this be but France, where children are brought up not…
The view from Paris: ‘Why are Brexiteers so stupid?’
‘Problème est masculin; solution est féminine,’ says Brigitte, the adored French teacher at the British embassy in Paris. Good way…
Donald Trump is coming to Blenheim – and the protesters are ready
For more than 40 years we’ve lived in a beautiful, listed, Cotswold stone, Stonesfield slate-roofed farmhouse in Oxfordshire. The trouble…
Notes from Jerusalem: Everyone is in love with Donald Trump
‘Trump Make Israel Great’ reads the banner on the deserted hotel next to the new American embassy in Jerusalem. Unlike…
What The Spectator’s 48-year-old intern did next
To anyone who has dreamed of becoming a journalist, the thrill of walking into a national newspaper office never goes…
My life in Paris as a Diplomatic Wag
The French President says he wants to rule as a Jupiter — but he doesn’t look like a Jupiter to…
Not one of my Harvard students thinks Brexit is a good idea
My wife laughs that my love of gadgets is a remnant of my Communist upbringing, when western toys were objects…
Gambia is like a real-life Tinder for geriatrics
When Facebook and co stop selling on our details to third parties, will it be the end of spam? For…
I take no pleasure in seeing England get all out for 58
‘Ah, the old man injury!’ That’s what people said when I busted my calf a couple of years ago. At…
I averted the wrath of the students by telling them I’d had a sex change
I went to Australia with my constant companion Hilary, the only woman in England I’m not paying alimony to. She…
Indian weddings are more beautiful – and honest – than British ones
Within an hour of our arrival, someone had tightly tied a turban around my head and I was told to…
South Africa Notebook: After Zuma’s fall, and life on the Little Karoo
In recent years, living in South Africa has been a bit like having cancer. The malaise eating us from within…
Michael Moorcock: Why banning opioids has been a disaster for me
Returning to the United States a short while ago I received a stern talking to from an immigration officer. Why…
How I’d sex down the weather forecast
I have, for utterly explicable reasons, not been asked to guest-edit Radio 4’s Today this Christmas. Had I, though, I would…
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