Life
Spectator Competition: Write Christmas
Competition 3429 invited you to tell the story of the Nativity in the style of a well-known writer. There were…
The Spectator’s 2025 Christmas quiz
Events, dear boy In 2025: 1. Name the singer of ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It for You’ whose concert…
Survival here is about logistics: Disneyland Paris reviewed
Alcoholics know that hell is denial, and there is plenty at Disneyland Paris in winter. This is a pleasure land…
AI will take jobs – the wrong ones
As those of you familiar with this column will know, I am always eager to distinguish between an option and…
One of the joys of wine is the people who make it
Towards the end of the war, a young Guards officer met some Italian aristocrats. They had much in common. Robert…
Dear Mary, from Bernard Cornwell: Should I stop a nightmare couple from coming to a wedding?
From Emma Barnett Q. What do I do about the fact that my friends are all scared of the telephone…
Can Ben Wallace defend racing from Labour?
I met Ben Wallace for the first time the other day. He was pretty well the only minister who came…
Nothing gets rid of friends like the breakdown of a marriage
Kenya An unexpected subplot in the ending of my marriage has been the loss of dear old friends. It came…
The glorious weirdness of Christmas in Thailand
Bangkok Christmas in Thailand is one of the strangest festivities of the modern world. A country that is almost entirely…
On the trail of the White Lady
As we reached the top of the hill and saw the view in front of us my heart thumped so…
How I met Jeremy
In the early 2000s, academics, philosophers, politicians, members of the royal household and business people – including the CEO and…
I’m a Christmas pudding convert
I used to be a Christmas pudding denier. I couldn’t see the attraction of a dense pudding made mostly of…
Aussie life
Like mansplaining and body hair, the ability to hold and express conflicting opinions is probably something most people would hesitate…
Language
In the NSW parliament Premier Minns referred to another member as ‘mate’. Then an opposition member got up and took…
A poignant and perfect send-off
We knew the church would be packed as Shelley had died so young. We knew the church would be freezing,…
A right royal travesty: Lilibet’s reviewed
Elizabeth II was a god and a commodity: now she is gone it is time for posthumous exploitation. Lilibet’s is…
Dear Mary: How do I avoid getting shown up by a more chivalrous bachelor?
Q. My godfather, who has managed to get me a valuable internship in the Far East, has also sent me…
My House of Lords dinner disaster
It was just a straightforward dinner in the bosom of the House of Lords, talking to members of the Jockey…
The power of tear pressure
The smashed pick-up truck was delivered back to us after I burst into tears and began wailing at the recovery…
Ben Stokes’s run-in with Aggers
There’s tetchy, and then there’s Ben Stokes ‘tetchy’ – pulling out his mic and stomping off cursing, or so I’m…
