The Spectator
Australia
Will Morrison fight?
To ‘culturally appropriate’ General George S. Patton: No bastard ever won a war by refusing to fight the battle. Slowly,…
Australian Columnists
Fighting fires
The richest man in Rome at the time of Julius Caesar was Marcus Licinius Crassus. Crassus made his fortune through…
Simon Collins
‘A very merry Christmas,’ sang John Lennon in 1971, ‘and a Happy New Year; let’s hope it’s a good one,…
Brown Study
STOP PRESS We have just had to stop the presses that were printing the new edition of Brown’s Political Dictionary…
Australian Features
Entebbe: the sequel
Arab reaction to Trump’s plan strengthens Israel and further isolates the Palestinians
Features
Chesterton’s homes
It’s a quiet Wednesday afternoon in Britain’s most expensive market town, and there’s a sense of foreboding in the air.…
The Week
Borrowed time
The nature of the Johnson government is still not clear, but has become more so with the announcement this week…
Portrait of the Week
Home The Department of Health classified the novel coronavirus (named by the World Health Organization Covid-19) as a ‘serious and imminent…
Beyond impeachment
An impeachment trial is overseen by Congress and Senate, who both make the law and (in this case) sit in…
Columnists
The Spectator’s Notes
How depressed should one be about the HS2 go-ahead? The cost is stupefying. The offering to the north — considered…
Boris and the ticking clocks
‘The clock is ticking.’ It is surely only a matter of time before Michel Barnier returns to his notorious catchphrase…
Citizenship is a privilege, not a right
A couple of people in the Hornsey and Wood Green Labour party have come up with a fascinating suggestion —…
Can Bernie go the distance?
Manchester, New Hampshire Democrats almost all agree that Donald Trump is ruining America and must be removed from the White…
Why I’ll never become an MP
Every now and then someone asks me if I have ever thought of becoming an MP. My response tends to…
Never mind the numbers – the gender battle has barely begun
It’s the way the world’s going, but still it looks quite impressive that the number of women directors of FTSE100…
Books
Out of order
In his autobiography, John Bercow takes his peerage as a given. But that might be scuppered by accusations of bullying, says Lynn Barber
Escape into war
What compelled three well-known British writers to leave their homes and travel 6,000 miles to participate in a nasty late-19th-century…
Cooking up miracles
Georgina Landemare cooked for the Churchill family in all their kitchens, during the 1930s and 1940s. She got as close…
Crowning glories
When an American describes a woman as wearing a ‘Park Avenue Helmet’ you know exactly what is meant. This is…
A matter of detail
This is a very nuanced and subtle novel by Philip Hensher, which manages the highwire act of treating its characters…
Acting the part
Actress is the novel Anne Enright has been rehearsing since her first collection of stories, The Portable Virgin (1991). It…
He who dared
Of the many bleak moments that have lodged in my mind since reading this extraordinary book the most unshakeable is…
Homage to Pieter the great
There is a vogue at the moment for books which use art as a vehicle for examining the writer’s wider…
From the lake of dreams…
Kapka Kassabova’s previous travel book, Border, was rightly acclaimed and won several prizes. The author travelled to the edge of…
… to endless wakefulness
The insomniac may come to dread the night’s solitude, but the next day poses the greater challenge. That’s when you…
Arts
Lost in translation
You won’t find much Jane Austen in the myriad adaptations of her novels, says Claire Harman
Vol-au-vent horror
Not much was clear in the opening scenes of The Pale Horse (BBC1, Sunday), which even by current TV standards…
Family matters
History will record Leopoldstadt as Tom Stoppard’s Schindler’s List. His brilliant tragic-comic play opens in the Jewish quarter of Vienna…
Local hero
Blood Wedding, by the Spanish dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca, is one of those heavyweight tragedies that risks looking a bit…
Wigging out
British Baroque: it was never going to fly. Les rosbifs emulating the splendour of le Roi Soleil? Pas possible. Still,…
Fellatio-free
Calixto Bieito’s Carmen: three words to make an opera critic’s heart leap. Until quite recently, Bieito was the operatic provocateur…
Tinkerbell Regency
‘Too pretty,’ blithers Miss Bates in the Highbury haberdasher as she plucks at a silken tassel. ‘Too pretty’ goes for…
No Pay? No Way!
As a sort of protest, I am not going to the opening of No Pay? No Way! at the Sydney…
Life
Beasts of the board
The Dutch artist Theo Jansen has a unique speciality. His ‘Strandbeest’ (beach animals) are kinetic sculptures, which he likes to…
no. 591
White to play, Dubov–Artemiev, Wijk aan Zee 2020. White is pressing here, but Black seems to have everything covered. Which…
Just the job
In Competition No. 3135 you were invited to submit an application letter for a job at No. 10 from a fictional…
2444: Ones in the country
The unclued entries (three of two words, and two hyphened) share an origin Across 1 Put an end to…
to 2441: To and Fro
FRANCIS THOMPSON, born in PRESTON, wrote THE HOUND OF HEAVEN and a poem, AT LORD’S, remembering the run-stealers that flicker…
Even the Oscars parties have lost their shine
Reading about the Oscars this week, I couldn’t help thinking back to a time when they actually meant something. When…
Eight lessons from the world of sport
What we have learned in the past few weeks: 1) Don’t play rugby in a howling gale, even though for…
Criminally good
The Yard is a defiantly themed restaurant in Hyatt’s new Great Scotland Yard Hotel, an Edwardian red-brick block which once…
At pace
In Arnold Bennett’s Tales of the Five Towns, a young dog called Ellis Carter takes a girl for a drive…
