Notebook
Why I gave up writing fiction
When, three years ago, I announced my retirement from writing fiction, the only thing that surprised me was the surprise…
The challenges of being an England supporter in Italy
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna My fiery Italian wife Carla is not just a passionate patriot but also a devout Catholic, and…
The Prince Harryfication of Boris Johnson
The acting one sees upon the stage doesn’t show how human beings actually comport themselves in crises, but simply how…
How will Carrie cope with the hideousness of Chequers?
Zut alors! The court of King Boris gets more like Versailles each day. With some talcum powder on that ramshackle…
After London lockdown, LA is like Disneyland
When I arrived a month ago, one wouldn’t believe LA was suffering a major pandemic. The roads were still busy…
The joy and suffering of writing a book
Spring is coming. There was snow in the garden till last week, here in Canada, where I have been spending…
Will the Tokyo Olympics go ahead?
Tokyo This week was the tenth anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake, the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in…
Did I give Russ Abbot Covid?
For the past few weeks there’s been a 7 p.m. curfew in Barbados as part of what the government calls…
Here in Texas, Hell has frozen over
Austin ‘If I owned Texas and Hell,’ General Phil Sheridan famously said, ‘I would rent out Texas and live in…
John le Carré’s wild MI6 Christmas parties
In the middle of December, for reasons I’m coming to, I woke early in a posh hotel. I lay semi-dozing…
My taste of lockdown freedom on the Camino pilgrimage
A few of the hip young things sitting along the Lisbon quayside turned their heads my way as my walking…
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,…
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