Life
My secret Ukraine trip with Boris
Kyiv On the morning of 24 February, I woke just before seven as a tentative apricot dawn was spreading over…
Cracks are appearing in the Cathedral walls
Is the ‘Cathedral’ about to fall down? That’s the name given by the right-wing blogger Curtis Yarvin to denote the…
Aussie life
If you’ve ever suspected that left-wing crusaders are whingers with a chip on their shoulder and a negative outlook on…
Language
‘Palindrome’ has been part of the English language since 1636 and means (as you know) a word or phrase that…
How to get your husband to do the vacuuming
This column nearly didn’t happen. Just as I sat down to write, disaster! My dishwasher lost its connection to the…
Dear Mary: How do I get my friend’s wife to keep her distance?
Q. Every year my husband takes two weeks’ prime salmon fishing on a Scottish river. It’s a really nice holiday…
RFK Jr and the curious birth of ‘brainchild’
‘No, RFK didn’t have a tapeworm eating his brain,’ declared my husband in the rare tone he adopts when he…
Colombia is a better place to watch football than Loftus Road
I’ve just returned from Colombia, where I’ve been visiting my daughter. She’s doing a modern languages degree and has to…
Should you bother decanting wine?
We were almost having a symposium and I was invited to define Toryism in one sentence. I replied that one…
How I found my way to my half-brother
Kenya In my dream my father is sitting next to me in the car as we drive around our hometown…
A game of hide-and-seek with the Queen
One of the best things about growing older is being far less easily embarrassed. You have dealt with so many…
The secrets of the perfect potato rösti
You may be forgiven, if you are a regular reader of this column, for thinking that my primary motivation in…
I won’t let my mother be sent to a care home
My mother was about to be taken to a care home called Willow Trees, and the first thing my instincts…
Aussie life
In the UK, where I have just spent a few weeks, Christmas officially starts when you can’t enter a supermarket…
Language
As Joe Biden rushed (sorry, stumbled) out of the doors of the White House, he flung around things called ‘pre-emptive…
