Life
Aussie life
Off the beach of Ipanema where the tall and tanned girls go, they’ve found Brazilian sharks with cocaine in their…
Free speech stops riots
With depressing predictability, the riots have led to calls for more censorship. Historically, it was the authoritarian right who blamed…
Dear Mary: how do I set up two young people?
Q. I have invited some younger friends to stay with me at a family house in Spain. Among the party…
This Olympics belongs to the female athletes
You knew it was going to be a superb Olympics from the moment Celine Dion belted out an Edith Piaf…
What is ‘thuggery’?
The word that Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, chose to describe the action of rioters was more interesting than…
Being mugged changes you forever
Being mugged changes you forever. My encounter with highwaymen occurred three decades ago in a south London street, in the…
Spectator Competition: To the letter
In Competition 3361 you were invited to submit a passage or poem whose meaning was affected by some missing, substituted…
British Championships
The stench of burning rubber hung in the air as I trudged back to my hotel in Hull city centre last…
Yorkshire curd tart: a well-kept, delicious secret
There are many old dishes in the UK that are hyper-regional, whose reach has never extended beyond geographical boundaries but…
The glory of Glorious Goodwood
You wouldn’t want to have been collecting the empties from Robins Farm, Chiddingfold, last week. There is no more sociable…
Bridge | 10 August 2024
What can you say about the Rimstedt brothers that hasn’t already been said? They returned from the American Nationals in…
An ode to the builder boyfriend
Relationships are about compromise and no wonder so many of us come a cropper in this department when we don’t…
A French restaurant Glastonbury would be proud to host: Café Lapérouse reviewed
I am working my way around the restaurants of the Old War Office (OWO), now an acronym and Raffles hotel…
Aussie life
Imagine if, instead of returning to the USA to become its third president, Thomas Jefferson had died in France on…
Language
A fellow Speccie writer asked me about what he called the ‘absurd equivalence’ being drawn between ‘anti-Semitism’ and ‘Islamophobia’. He…
The summer of Brat
The singer Charli XCX (or ‘Ninety Ten’ as my husband insists on pronouncing it) has endorsed Kamala Harris, in a…
Welcome to the new global theocracy
I had a revelation while watching the Olympics opening ceremony. It was during the infamous section that I (and almost…
Nothing beats a 1980s brick phone
In the late 1980s, a story entered advertising folklore. A group from an ad agency had boarded an evening train…
When in doubt, have a drink
Most Tory MPs enjoy leadership elections. There may be an element of what the trick-cyclists call ‘displacement activity’. Equally, it…
The secret language of horses
‘Horses – beautiful, noble, intelligent creatures,’ said the neighbour I was having tea with. ‘There speaks someone who has never…
