Diary
Diary
The only female writers of importance I have personally met are Margaret Atwood and Joan Didion, both of whom are…
Diary
I moved to this country from the USA 30 years ago and this year I’ve finally understood why: it was…
Diary
This is a very British story. Because we Brits are often warlike but never militaristic, we often make a balls-up…
Diary
It’s never a good sign when you’re watching a scene of street terror in yet another gut-churning YouTube video and…
Diary
Staying in Britain for the summer has been, in many ways, entirely glorious. We have zigzagged from Shropshire through Derbyshire…
Diary
It’s three days since rumours swirled around France that President Macron was going to impose a ‘tit-for-tat’ quarantine on UK…
Diary
I have known Ghislaine Maxwell for more than 40 years, since she was a student at Balliol. I always liked…
Diary
It is a particular pleasure to be returning to the columns of The Spectator, more than half a century after…
Diary
Four years ago, I bought a ranch in Wyoming. Not that I was tired of New York, but I’m fascinated…
Diary
I’ve been a regular runner for 40 years, pounding my way across Hampstead Heath to Kenwood House and back. This…
Diary
A rare illness has broken out in Westminster. Last week a case of what was known before Brexit as ‘consensus’…
Diary
‘Musician’ is how I described myself to the nice Latvian lady interviewing me the other week for an ONS survey…
Diary
Do you remember where you were when the BBC showed a rerun of Bowie’s Glastonbury set? When we ask each…
Diary
‘Pray for us St Sebastian that we may deserve to pass through this pestilence,’ reads the inscription on a 15th-century…
Dairy
Reality seems thinner these days. As I walk along the high street, passers-by drift apart as though afraid of crossing…
Diary
A lockdown diary is an oddly negative thing. At the dinner parties that we aren’t going to, we aren’t discussing…
Diary
One victim of police brutality is police decency. Our son has a tutor, J., who works with autistic kids in…
Diary
I can’t remember the day I realised Santa Claus wasn’t real but I will never forget the moment I lost…
Diary
The choir of Notre Dame made a recording of Howard Goodall’s beautiful version of Psalm 23. Unlike cathedral choirs here…
Diary
Entering my 54th day of quarantine, I recall how much I was looking forward to this spring in England. There…
Diary
Never have I stared at my own face so much. Not because I want to, it’s just always there now,…
Diary
When the post office and stores closed in our village on Exmoor, my youngest stared out of the car window…
Diary
The vocabulary of Brexit has passed into oblivion. Now there’s fresh work to be done. We all know about ‘flattening…
Diary
When two members of my family went down with what appears to be Covid-19, I felt concerned. What I hadn’t…
Diary
Week five… which is to say I’ve been self-isolating in the country since 6 March. Meanwhile, engagements which threatened a…
