Life
Aussie life
‘You’ve come a long way, baby,’ said the slogan which positioned Virginia Slims as the cigarette for the emancipated American…
Language
It was one hundred years ago this year that the great Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova toured Australia and New Zealand…
White port is the new G&T
Spring is here and, as the garden blooms, readers might find themselves reaching for the Pink Diesel to enjoy in…
The perils of being a coffee snob
It was when I was staying recently with the Frums in D.C. that, for a dizzying moment, I thought my…
Is a ‘link-up’ a modern ‘flash mob’?
The public disturbances in Clapham, achieved by social media link-ups, have their precedents. ‘You can imagine what an exhilarating week…
The cattle rustlers have returned
Kenya When a mob of Somali cattle I bought in Kenya’s far north arrived on the farm in February, we…
How far would I go for oil?
The oil delivery man had way too much swagger and, as he waved his nozzle about, I realised that he…
Dear Mary: how can I tell a friend she has Mounjaro face?
Q. Like many women of a certain age, I’m ‘on the pen’. I’ve lost about 20lb on Mounjaro, which I…
The real reason we should be burning our own gas
Regular readers of this column will be familiar with my promoting an idea called a ‘Paceometer’ (pictured). Rather than presenting…
Spectator Competition: Take heed
Comp. 3444 invited you to submit a Hilaire Belloc-style cautionary tale for our times. This one was last set in…
The noble work of chairlift diplomacy
In 1956, three British MPs encountered a group of Swiss politicians in the bar of the Hotel Fluela in Davos…
Aussie life
The middle-class leftist activism that you now encounter every day in Australia and the West has a major flaw. It…
Language
There is a bit of water in the Persian Gulf that is in the news almost every day now –…
Food to slake boredom: Le Café by Nicolas Rouzaud reviewed
Burlington Arcade on Piccadilly has a caff down from Charbonnel et Walker, where you can buy a box of chocolates…
It’s time to let go of Tiger Woods
It’s not the newest joke in the world, but worth a quick rerun right now after the latest in a…
‘I always have a smile on my face up there’: jockey Sam Waley-Cohen on the art of winning
Last week, I had a commuter-hell day. The Great Western train to London was standing room only, horribly delayed, and the…
Has Airbnb just declared war against its hosts?
The Airbnb help centre chatbot kept telling me that she understood how frustrating it must be for me to have…
The joy of meeting ‘randomers’
Provence Life was complicated when I fled to Provence in November 2014 with no job and very little money. At…
2746: Chain letters
The unclued lights can be arranged to form an unbroken chain with the last three letters of one word becoming…
