Life
Do voters really prefer Starmer?
Rishi Sunak has been widely ridiculed for trying to spin the local election results as bad news for Keir Starmer.…
How to solve ‘range anxiety’
In ‘The Adventure of Silver Blaze’, Sherlock Holmes mentions ‘the curious incident of the dog in the night-time’. ‘But the…
Dear Mary: what should I do if a fellow passenger is reading porn?
Q. On a recent short-haul flight, I had the misfortune to be seated next to a much older man who…
Do sparks really fly?
‘Sparks,’ said my husband, after a short pause. I had asked him what one could spark. His answer was true…
How to become an old soak
Drink and longevity: there seems to have been a successful counter-attack against the puritans, prohibitionists and other health faddists. Indeed,…
My battle with the dreaded ‘black cotton’
Laikipia, Kenya By the time I set off from the farm before dawn we’d had 22in of rain in the…
Do charities really deserve my mum’s data?
A letter from Archie Norman, chairman of M&S, popped into my inbox after I complained that I had run over…
My vote winner? Banning ‘fun’ runs
One of us must once have told a political pollster: ‘I really have no idea at all who I’m going…
Aussie life
From a nation that gave us riot police, rude waiters, baguettes and non-negotiable submarine contracts we have a new word,…
Language
The expression ‘non-racist’ is still missing from most of the world’s major dictionaries (Oxford, Merriam-Webster, Collins, Macquarie) but perhaps this…
Who decides which politicians are liars?
This week the Welsh parliament has been debating a law that would ban politicians from lying. Assuming it ends up…
Dear Mary: how can I help pay for an expensive lunch without seeming rude?
Q. My husband and I (both in our eighties) recently visited a carpet shop with a view to replacing the…
The strikers giving Southgate a headache
Poor Gareth Southgate. Having three outstanding finishers is giving him a thumping headache ahead of the European Championship. Harry Kane,…
Can MPs really defect?
‘He did it years before William Donaldson did The Henry Root Letters,’ said my husband querulously, as though I had…
The real reason I don’t drink
It’s been 30 years this month since I last touched alcohol and I still can’t face the prospect of a…
How to make ham and parsley sauce
Poor old parsley sauce. As someone who writes regularly about old-fashioned food, it often feels that we are living through…
