Low life
The beauty of military cemeteries
They are starting to cut the corn. But apart from combine harvesters and tractors, the roads up here on the…
My Great War obsession
Bernafay Wood B&B, Somme, France I came up on the TGV yesterday from the Midi to northern France and it…
Nuns, a maquisard and the Devil’s Own Rum: a Provençale pilgrimage
Avid Spectator reader Mr Brown had endured the very strictest of lockdowns for family health reasons in Tunbridge Wells. Since…
What angry young French men want
Chatting on the café terrace with my new friends Didier and Emile made me aware that certain political ideas, which…
Is left the new right?
I took a table on the terrace of the reopened bar and ordered une pression from the waitress. ‘Back to…
My hairdresser cured my depression
I walked to the salon in fiery sunshine. Gorgeous, zaftig Elody was wearing a short satin dressing gown of silver…
An 11-year-old’s birthday party was hijacked by Brexit
Saturday night we ate outside next to the floodlit rock face. Four adult guests came puffing up the path and…
We have a communist bar and a fascist bar. If only I could remember which is which
When I first came to this village, I was told that one of the bars was a ‘communist’ bar and…
Rules for a deconfinement dinner party
The most visible local landmark is a solitary two-headed Jurassic mountain called Le Bessillon, six miles long and 800 metres…
My first post-lockdown party
France is divided into a red zone and a green zone. We’re green. Green for go. From this morning we…
In praise of French doctors
They made a better job of sorting out my waterworks
How the French view their weekly clap for carers
Once a week we break French emergency law and have a friend round for drinks on the terrace. The terrace…
Vodka, kaolin and morphine: my welcome drinks at The Spectator offices
In 2001, aged 44, I was hired to write a weekly column for this august paper, and for the first…
Would my success in growing cannabis plants translate to nasturtiums?
In a cave once used as a stable and now abandoned, I found a wooden crate containing a dozen tiny…
I was relishing the lockdown a week ago, but now I need urgent hospital treatment
In France the rule for going for a walk stipulates an hour in duration or a kilometre in distance. We…
Had the entire village population been wiped out since last week?
With my signed and dated laissez-passer in my pocket, I trotted down to the village to see if I could…
I am socially isolating in a cave in France
This Provençal village clusters around the base of a cliff 300 feet high and a kilometre wide surmounted by two…
My love affair with Hannah Arendt
The three of us — me, Catriona and her daughter Skye — were having a wash and brush-up before going…
The joy of Xanax
The greater the enervation, it is said, the greater the appreciation of a work of art. There was no place…
Shrieks, shots and broken china: a visit to my rural French GP
On a hard chair next to the waiting-room door, I sat for an hour defusing thoughts of my own demise,…
The film that shaped my vision of the world
Joyce Marriott of Pyrton, Oxford, has written a letter to the Times on the subject of how a person’s imagination…
How to sample your own urine
Seven round the table for dinner. Wild mushroom risotto. I was told to sit next to Michael. Good. Michael makes…
How I found salvation in a church in Torquay
Last Tuesday a Mistral wind blowing across the Bay of Angels jerked the plane all over the shop as it…
Is gluttony no longer a sin?
I’ve no interest in food. None. But for the three other journalists on our press trip, eating was a consuming…
The horror of Heathrow
There are no stairs or escalators to take you up to Terminal 4 from the underground Heathrow Express platform. Beyond…
