It’s not only the crazies from Extinction Rebellion who have deliberately buried their heads in the sand lately. So, too,…

For aesthetic reasons I did not participate in this year’s Sydney Skinny, the all-nude fund-raising harbour swim organised by my…

I need your help. I am applying to the Australia Council for a literary grant and I need a few…

Despite the old saying and the best efforts of Qantas, you can go home again, even if home is New…

Age of appeasement We can be thankful to the Hong Kong protesters for highlighting the moral conflict at the heart…

Sent naked to the negotiating table The British public are absolutely fed up with Brexit. But not for the reasons…

‘After defeating 100 per cent of the ISIS Caliphate, I largely moved our troops out of Syria,’ tweeted President Donald…

It’s the world’s oldest bigotry and it’s on the rise again. Antisemitism is associated with the darkest chapters of human…

In what may seem a strange request, I recently replied to a government department asking to be addressed in English,…

You might be surprised to know that Harvard University, along with other American tertiary institutions, routinely and explicitly discriminates on…

What do the years 700, 800, 900, 1000, 1100, 1200, 1300 and 1400 AD have in common, asks British Professor,…

Jacob Rees-Mogg sits at a mahogany table in his office drinking black coffee from a Spode cup. Across from him…

Next week my compatriots will cast their votes in what has arguably been the worst Canadian election ever. By ‘worst’…

While American troops were hurriedly leaving north-eastern Syria, a young female Kurdish politician called Hervin Khalaf was pulled from her…

Here is my ideal scenario. Having failed to push through a deal to leave the European Union, either in the…

Exit through the gift shop. Pick up a postcard, a magnet, a novelty eggcup in the shape of Queen Elizabeth…

We saw two different worlds, or at least two different value systems, collide in the High Court in Birmingham this…

When I was young, from about the age of nine to 13, I went through what my parents recall with…

Before the referendum, David Davis thought that the Brexit process would be straightforward. ‘The first calling point of the UK’s…

Home Brexit teetered from uncertainty to uncertainty. Parliament had been summoned to sit on Saturday 19 October to debate what…

The start of term at Oxford University is bittersweet for the close-knit Morrisseys; we have just ‘lost’ three offspring to…

Parliamentary days Could one of parliament’s longest sessions be followed by one of its shortest? — The shortest was between…

Dominic Cummings, chief adviser to the Prime Minister, thinks that there is no ‘better book than Thucydides as training for politics’. But…

From The Spectator, 15 July 1922:   It is true that things so small as postcards cannot give one the…

Bad sport Sir: At last a respected member of the shooting community has popped his head above the parapet. Patrick…

There are so many problems confronting our polity this week that it is almost impossible to write about any of…

Expect the unexpected has been the rule in British politics these last few years. But even so, few would have…

I’ve nearly finished my latest screenplay, Drift. It’s a reimagining of a British imperial atrocity which took place in Natal…

Over the past few weeks, rumours have swirled in Westminster that the Labour party has acquired a new leader —…

When Facebook announced details earlier this year of a global digital currency called Libra — backed by a roll call…

Paul Hendrickson’s previous (and very fine) book was Hemingway’s Boat, published in Britain in 2012. It was a nice conceit…

This outstanding biography comes to an end, not in an atmosphere of triumph and achievement, but in a welter of…

Zadie Smith’s first collection of short stories shows that she can pack all the astute social commentary of her novels…

Richard Mabey is the grand old man of nature writing. He has produced 40 books in his noble crusade against…

Double identities have never been rare: Norman French conquered England. Anglo Irish led its armies to victory. German Jews helped…

‘She’s only a bird in a gilded cage, a beautiful sight to see. You may think she’s happy and free…

In the early 1660s, Pieter de Hooch was living in an area of what we would now call urban overspill…

Manon: minx or martyr? There are two ways to play Kenneth MacMillan’s courtesan. Is Manon an ingénue, a guileless country…

Never meet your heroes, they say. But if you grew up with classical music in the 1980s, there was fat…

Deep in the guts of Russian library stacks exists what remains — little acknowledged or discussed — of a dead…

It’s amazing what the movies can do. In 1986, the John Hughes teen flick Pretty in Pink — the one…

One of the many great things about The Capture was that we could never be sure whether the British authorities’…

There was something really creepy about listening to the ten-minute countryside podcast released last weekend by Radio 4 supposedly transporting…

The Man in the White Suit, famously, is a yarn about yarn. A brilliant young boffin stumbles across an everlasting…

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is the sequel to the 2014 film Maleficent, and it will certainly come as a relief…

A woman working on a thesis about Shirley Hazzard is a character in A Life to Come, the award-winning novel…

New York   A strange thing happened to me here in the Bagel last week. Having read the recent review…

Catriona and I had agreed that a terrace for smoking, eating, drinking and painting was a necessity rather than a…

Just before Tara left us, the old chestnut mare used to enjoy standing at the bottom gate watching the sun…

I’m just back from Beijing, where I’ve been playing in the Hua Yuan Cup, an invitational tournament for the eight…

‘Poor indoor air quality hampers cognitive performance significantly’, concluded a recent study in the IZA (Institute of Labour Economics). Of…

White to play, Black to win. Shirov-Caruana from the Isle of Man. Caruana threatens 53… d1=Q 54.Qxd1 Qxb2 mate. Shirov…

In Competition No. 3120 you were invited to submit a poem reflecting on the Apollo 11 moon landing written in…

19 October marks a milestone (hinted at by 19/26/20) for a person whose real forenames are given by 1A (three…

The unclued lights are all constructed (as opposed to natural) languages, also known as conlangs.   First prize Magdalena Deptula,…

Nicola Sturgeon, who claimed this week that ‘Scotland is rich enough, strong enough and big enough’ to take its place…

Proud son of Wexford he may be, and of doughty farming stock too, but the heart sinks at the prospect…

Q. I sing soprano in a small church choir, ten to 12 singers. The woman I am placed next to…

The sandwich restaurant Pret A Manger is accused of harbouring centrists. Those are words I never thought I would type,…

In the Times, Janice Turner wrote that she had been watching Remainers and Leavers ‘like degenerate gamblers, double down, bet…