Life
How to exploit a crisis
The phrase ‘never let a good crisis go to waste’ is often attributed to Winston Churchill, but it’s something the…
Dear Mary: How do I avoid my neighbours on holiday?
Q. We have some neighbours who we don’t mind at all – they are perfectly nice, just not part of…
Lucy Letby and the problem with statistics
First Fred West, now Lucy Letby. At this rate, it won’t be long before Herefordshire has produced more serial killers…
When did monkeypox become ‘mpox’?
Writing about monkeypox in The Spectator in May 2022, Douglas Murray repeated a formula he had put forward in 2020,…
The treasures of sherry
We were talking Spain and drinking Spanish. The UK and Spain are very different societies, but we did find points…
How I lost my faith
God used to exist. He doesn’t any more, but back in the early 1970s he was a major presence in…
My hopes for Africa
Lake Malawi As we speed southwards along the potholed road near Lake Malawi’s shores, I tell my colleague Helen that…
Why can’t I just buy a boardgame?
The little toy shop stood at the highest point of a steep winding lane of shops all painted different colours,…
Kiwi life
New Zealand’s overwhelmingly left-wing news media remain in a collective sulk over last year’s election of the centre-right government led…
Language
Kamala Harris keeps telling us she wants ‘equity’ not ‘equality.’ What does she mean? She is using ‘equality’ to means…
What’s the right way to voyage?
My husband has ordered a copy of Craig Brown’s new book, out next week, a bit late for my birthday.…
I was wrong about staycations
I hadn’t intended to go on a ‘staycation’ this summer. Quite the contrary, I’d booked a family holiday to Norway.…
Dear Mary: how do I hide my pregnancy from my boozy friends?
Q. We love having friends to stay at our house in Cornwall. One particular guest has the habit of arriving…
The simple beauty of the Hundred
Time to come clean: I really like the Hundred. This is the sort of view that normally makes people look…
A slice of Paris in Crouch End: Bistro Aix reviewed
There is a wonderful cognitive dissonance to Bistro Aix. It thinks it is in Paris but it is really in…
2668: Obit VII
Clockwise round the grid from the square between 3 and 4 run the names (forename and surname) of four eminent…
The fun of the Shergar Cup
Gary Lineker once summed up football as ‘a simple game. Twenty-two men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at…
