Life
My beef with David Cameron
Insufficient attention has been paid to the history of naughty girls, who deployed allure to prosper in a male-dominated world.…
High Life
Greece I am surfing along the Cycladic islands on Puritan, a 125ft classic that was launched in 1929 by…
The Battle for Britain
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Low life
‘We are always waiting for somebody,’ observed a vexed British journalist. Usually it was me they were waiting for, but…
Real life
Quite stoically, I was mountaineering on my hands and knees over a sea of rubble to get to the temporary…
Now I get it – Corbyn is the new Murdoch
For our 16th wedding anniversary, Caroline and I went to the Almeida Theatre to see Ink, a new play about…
2320: Crossings out
The unclued Across lights become thematic when a suffix is appended. The individual unclued Down lights (one a proper noun)…
2319: Poem III
Unclued lights are words from a famous poem whose title will appear in the completed grid and must be shaded.…
No. 2316: Divine alteration
Redundant words were 12A virgin, 16A crazy, 38A mammal, 18D state, 21D greed, 25D tendon, 34D extremist. These respectively defined…
Dear Mary
Q. Last summer a friend of my brother-in-law’s house-sat for us while we were in Greece for a week. We…
Salt-beef delirium
Katz’s Delicatessen, established 1888, is a theme park of Jewish-American food, with tribute gift shop, on the lower east side…
The Battle for Britain
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Low life
Valencia was a furnace. During the short ride from the airport, the taxi driver supplemented his chat about the weather…
Support
The Foreword didn’t bode well. This was on the first page of The Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices. It…
Real life
Two months after I cancelled Sky, a strange letter arrived in the post. ‘We are writing to you because we…
Rog apart, Wimbledon 2017 was a disgrace
For obvious reasons this column always welcomes ‘King Roger Rules The World’ headlines on the back pages. And the front…
Winter is nearly here – bring on the body count
As a Game of Thrones fan, I feel ambivalent about the fact that the saga is finally wending its way…
The turf
A woman I once encountered at the dining table whose prime years were clearly behind her described herself as ‘approaching…
Bridge
The first week of July is heaven for those of us who don’t normally hear the words ‘bridge’ and ‘holiday’…
New in chess
New in Chess is one of the world’s leading chess magazines. At one time or another, every contemporary champion and…
no. 466
White to play. This position is from Quparadze-Uzunoglu, Cesme 2017. Black is hoping for counterplay on the a1-h8 diagonal but…
Cat call
In Competition No. 3007 you were invited to submit a poem about Larry, the Downing Street cat. Larry came to…
High life
I switch personalities at Spectator parties, depending who the guests are: for our readers’ tea party, I am a warm…
My wife’s revenge has me at break point
Fifteen years ago, when I was The Spectator’s drama critic, Caroline used to complain that she had become a ‘theatre…
To buy cheap art, buy architecture
Of the 375,000 listed buildings in England only 2.5 per cent are Grade I. Half are churches; many are otherwise…
