Notebook
Right-wing comics are bringing variety back to the Fringe
I’ve been coming to the Edinburgh Fringe for five years, but this is the first time I’ve dipped my toe…
Nicky Haslam: How will Boris decorate No. 10?
‘Volcanic temper… suspicious of everyone… irritability, mood swings… terror stalking the shadows… devastating collapse of Europe’s economy… rampant insecurity, unbridled…
Lebanon: the world’s best failed state
Look down from the mountains outside Beirut and, on most days, you’ll see a grey blanket of smog choking the…
Tim Rice: I left Lord’s during that cricket final… to see The Lion King
As I left Lord’s at around 3 o’clock in the afternoon to go to The Lion King European premiere I…
The Saracenic darkness of Sicily – the place where Europe ends
Northern Italians often speak of Sicily as a Saracenic darkness — the place where Europe ends. The Arabic influence remains…
I once fell for Boris’s charm – I won’t make the same mistake again
Someone should write a guide to the best literary festivals. Sydney and Auckland would certainly be there, along with Sri…
Police raids and chanting intruders: The strange things that happen to me in the early hours
Our upstairs neighbours are not the sort of people you want to have run-ins with. They have regular moped deliveries…
Rod Liddle: Tunnelling my way into Gaza
I’m meant to be peering into a tunnel hacked out by Hamas a few hundred metres from Gaza City into…
The day Turkish democracy died
‘It’s official. Turkey is a banana republic!’ My friend Mustapha, a serial entrepreneur, sends me a flurry of doom-laden WhatsApp…
Prue Leith: When did the Samaritans lose their way?
In the past few weeks, on three separate occasions, I have met three different women who for years (one for…
Fraser Nelson: The biggest myth is that editors have control over their columnists
The power of editors is comically overstated. I’m struck by the number of politicians who imagine that there’s a hierarchy:…
We thought New Zealand was safe from extremism. We were wrong
In a blink, everything has changed and yet nothing has changed. Life goes on. The long, hot days of a…
Never Mind The Bollocks: a punk’s view of Brexit
One of the great things about touring with a band is that it gets me away from my little west…
Delhi notebook: Nuclear war is not around the corner
India is not preparing for war, but picking up the newspapers in Delhi you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise.…
There’s no programme in the world like Desert Island Discs
At the end of January, I had the honour and pleasure of being on Desert Island Discs. I liked Lauren…
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…
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