Life
The sword of Damocles is hanging over Cheltenham
What better way to limber up for the Cheltenham festival than lunch with Richard Phillips? Thirty years ago, Richard was…
Why I’m a proud Zionist
The bomb shelter reserved for ‘volunteers’ at Kibbutz Dafna near the town of Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel was definitely…
Dear Mary: do I have to give my cleaner a payrise?
Q. A new neighbour (a weekender from London) asked me if I’d be prepared to pass on the contact details…
Food for adults remembering childhood: Dover Street Counter reviewed
Dover Street Counter is the tiny sister of The Dover, a very good restaurant on – who knew? – Dover…
What makes a politician a ‘grandee’?
To me, grandee goes together with Tory. So it was a surprise to find Lord Mandelson called a Labour grandee…
Being kind to my parents means saying no to them
After a week in Coventry dealing with two parents with dementia, it would have felt like a nice spa break…
Tales from the Jeremy Clarke Memoir Club
Provence The other Monday I hosted the third annual meeting of the Jeremy Clarke Memoir Club on what would’ve been…
2742: The Hobbit
Eight unclued entries (three of two words) possess a property implied by the title’s other title. Across 8 King stops…
Spectator Competition: The borrowers
For Competition 3439 you were invited to build an undiscovered poem around a phrase lifted from an earlier poet. The…
Aussie life
Now that Mr Albanese seems finally to have woken up to the problem of Australian antisemitism, nobody should be surprised…
Language
Speccie reader Reona writes to ask where the expression ‘peppercorn rent’ comes from. Well, there once was a time when…
Spectator Competition: Hope stings
Competition 3438 was inspired by the 1986 film Clockwise, in which John Cleese is constantly impeded in his attempt to…
Dear Mary: How can I stop people pitying me for being made redundant?
Q. I have just got off a nine-hour overnight flight from Miami to Heathrow. I was in premium economy in…
Does The Spectator hate the Welsh?
This St David’s Day weekend, I devote this column to a celebration of the world’s most under-appreciated ethnic group. Under-appreciated,…
‘Both things can be true’: The creep of an annoying cliché
‘It’s lunchtime and it’s raining. Both things can be true at the same time,’ said my husband, putting on the…
Hell is Dry January
‘Earth has not anything to show more fair.’ I have always believed that the notion of a Dry January must…
