Life
Spectator Competition: Lines of beauty
For Competition 3427 you were invited to write a paean on a place traditionally considered to be ugly. In an…
Is bet365 punishing me for being a peer?
On my way to the QPR game against Hull last Saturday, I was astonished to discover that Ladbrokes had made…
Aussie life
The Victorian government’s ‘treaty’ with the one per cent of its citizens who purport to be Aboriginal is unjust and…
Language
It is probably time to unpack the word ‘communism’. Zohran Mamdani has been elected Mayor of New York, and he…
‘The food is not the point here’: Carbone reviewed
People say that Carbone is Jay Gatsby’s restaurant – Gatsby being the metaphor for moneyed doomed youth – but it…
Bridge
I first met Susanna in 1987 when Ed Victor, the late literary agent, invited both of us for lunch at…
Only the Tote can save British racing
For the past 30 years Robin Oakley has taken you through the front door of the horse-racing world and kept…
The art of having no friends
Apparently it’s easy to make money on YouTube by teaching a course in your specialism. Mine is having no friends.…
Why is Westminster Cathedral leaving Jesus in the dark?
Sitting beneath the looming darkness of the unfinished ceiling of Westminster Cathedral, I found myself praying. I didn’t even know…
Judges need fewer powers, not more
In my brief career as a parliamentarian I have developed a rule of thumb when it comes to evaluating legislation:…
Dear Mary: How can I catch a ‘re-gifter’ out?
Q. I live in a small house in Hampstead and have taken in a friend of a friend as a…
Ben Stokes will go down as the greatest captain of modern times
And so it begins, as Donald Trump likes to say, though not usually about cricket. He was offering his thoughts…
Aussie life
‘Celebrate Spring in Nature’, is the call to action on the Parks Victoria website, which urges us to visit the…
Language
Over the past few weeks I have been collecting media clichés – those empty, meaningless, padding words that have turned…
