Life
Dear Mary: How do I ditch my slow-walking friend?
Q. I recently attended an opera on a friend’s estate in Kent. It was a multi-generational, non-ticketed, invitation-only event. The…
The (nearly) lost art of the Test match
If you can bear to turn away from the Fifa Club World Cup, take a moment to ponder cricket and…
The politics of ‘rocket boosters’
Sir Keir Starmer said the other day that he wanted to put rocket boosters under AI. It’s not the only…
A man’s restaurant: Victor Garvey at the Midland Grand reviewed
The Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras Station is George Gilbert Scott’s masterpiece: his Albert Memorial in Hyde Park (a…
Is racing becoming too predictable?
An inquest into the Derby in the Oakley household was to be expected. Mrs Oakley, who bets about as often…
My first ever blind date
Four of us go for lunch once a month. My hippy ceramist neighbour, Geoffrey, is a foodie and one of…
No. 855
White to play. Grischuk-Firouzja, World Blitz Team Championship, London 2025. A bishop up, Firouzja seems to have everything covered. Which…
Why must B&B guests give us advice?
‘You could mow all this lawn here and it would look a treat,’ said the arborist, returning from a stroll…
Aussie life
Last week my contacts at Latrobe Valley Law Courts sent me a digital scan of one page of the Leongatha…
Language
Speccie reader (Joshua) asks about the expression ‘unrealised capital gains’ and in particular that worrying adjective. Well, ‘unrealised’ has been…
Spectator Competition: First thoughts
Competition 3403 invited you to provide an extract from a prequel to a well-known work of prose or poetry. It…
The lure of St James’s
Procrastination may be the thief of time, but in the right circumstances, it can be fun. The other day, I…
I’ve lost control of the kitchen
Looking back, I can pinpoint my fatal blunder. It was lunch. It was like the West allowing Vladimir Putin to…
I love sausages!
‘Sausages,’ my son says to me, leaning forward from the back of the car, with the authority and confidence only…
The guest who robbed me of my five-star rating
Bolting down the back hallway, I realised I was running away from the guests. I shut the door marked private…
Wild horses
Magnus Carlsen slammed the table with such force that the pieces jumped from the board. Immediately, he resigned his game…
In praise of camels
Laikipia, Kenya For decades now I have kept only cattle, goats and sheep on the farm, but for the first…
