Among the many dubious gifts the digital age has endowed us with is an abundance of new ways of expressing…

Big oil, coal and iron ore producers are flooding the market to knock out rival - and China-friendly - suppliers

Watching the American Eagles get slaughtered by the All-Blacks proved too much for the home crowd

Peru is a delight to the senses, from its fusion of ancient native and European, principally Spanish, cultures. This is…

Thanks to a foolish Bob Hawke decision, our constitution now allows shady backroom deals to determine the Upper House

It is because of the ABC, not in spite of it, that the networks produce such low brow telly

With friends like Greens...

With friends like Greens...

Pity the healthcare professionals who dare to speak out about problems in the NHS

Whatever has or hasn’t happened over the last 63 years and seven months, we have shared a single blessing of ‘steadiness, staying-power and self-sacrifice’

The President is heir to a mistaken sense of America’s place in the world. But he has played a bad hand poorly

To grasp the real shape of recent history, you have to stop using yourself as a measure

An eccentric English tradition acquires some new academic firepower

And as for carrying a clutch bag made in the image of a book…

Soaking in piping hot springs, the tranquillity, the beautiful settings, the deep sense of relaxation — I can’t get enough

There’s no better way to see Bulgaria’s mountains

Ed Cumming seeks a seething city’s quiet side

The more you pay for your Maldives holiday, the more privacy you can expect, and the less chance there will be of dancing

That famous painter George W. Bush must fit right in

Around a safari campfire, they’re still telling tales of Jeremy Clarke

The island’s image as a new-age nirvana isn’t much older than the middle-aged hippies who love it

Kenya has the rush hour of ungulates, the gang bang of predators — but Botswana offers consistently superb encounters with wildlife

The Prime Minister has the tools to triumph in 2015. Will he use them?

Home King’s Cross railway station was out of operation, stranding thousands, and Paddington saw badly delayed services after Network Rail…

Plus: a case for a posthumous VC, and the return of the Cross of St George

Plus: the fates of fourth parties, and voting ages

Bribery and corruption were valued parts of the ancient games

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 2 January 1915: The first German aeroplanes which have visited us since the…

Plus: compensation for HS2; and airport architecture

There is simply no appetite for the reformation of our national religion

It’s been an amazing year for complete idiocy – perhaps the best ever

It’s a shocking discovery – now you can use it too

Plus: Companies who get the basics right, and the notable business obituaries of 2014

Reviewing the latest Penguin series on our monarchy, Nigel Jones witnesses kings gradually morph into cabbages

In a novel as convoluted as Ben Lerner’s 10:04 it’s difficult to know when to laugh, according to Ben Hamilton’s review

For a marvellous unravelling of women’s minds read Infidelities by Kirsty Gunn, suggests Sophia Waugh in a review of this latest volume of short stories

In a review of The Immortal Evening by Stanley Plumly and Poets and the Peacock Dinner by Lucy McDiarmid, Richard Davenport-Hines relives two feasts of literary legend

In a review of The (Un)Documented Mark Steyn, Julie Burchill sympathises with the author’s profound distrust of Islamism and the risk it poses to peace, progress and piano bars

A review of In America by Geert Mak suggests that John Steinbeck’s experiences during his famous journey across America were largely invented

by Simon Drew

As the forthcoming Goya, Rubens and Dumas shows at the National Gallery and Tate prove, painting is in rude health

Still, it might resurrect Michael Keaton’s career, says Deborah Ross

But Lloyd Evans is pleasantly surprised by the Royal Court’s latest piece of political theatre, Hope.

Stephen Gould and Nina Stemme were not ideal but Iain Patterson and Sarah Connolly were

A good castrato today would without question become the richest singer of his time

This Theatre du Chatelet production is much better than the movie, says Ismene Brown

A starry cast cannot rescue this Roald Dahl adaptation, which sees Richard Curtis combine the implausible with the entirely foreseeable

Plus: I hate the current storylines on The Archers but am listening more avidly than ever

I’m a bit perplexed about a current Christmas (perhaps I should say Xmas) craze. This is not a moan from…

If the trigger warnings are to be believed those of a sensitive disposition should avoid The Great Gatsby

I expected to be pushing up the daisies in 2014, but it was a year of stubborn good health and, well, euphoria

Posting a letter through your neighbour’s door in anger could ruin your marriage prospects

Get yourself to the nearest greyhound track

It’s surprising how many perfectly good bridge players lack confidence when it comes to squeeze plays. They seem to think…

2014 was the year in which Magnus Carlsen confirmed his position as world champion, and also the year in which…

White to play. This position is from Caruana–Ponomariov, Dortmund 2014. The structure is symmetrical but White’s pieces are very active.…

In Competition No. 2878 you were invited to submit a poem composed of three haikus that looks forward to the…

Eight unclued lights are of a kind; as is, fancifully, the ninth. Across 6    Hurry up to fill space with…

‘ROCK OF AGES CLEFT FOR ME’ (1D/19) is a work by AUGUSTUS TOPLADY (18/13). ELIZABETH WINDSOR (4A/26) and MICHELLE OBAMA…

Bringing the Tories and Ukip together to nix a Labour victory at the general election proved beyond me

Plus: Miliband could solve all his problems by appointing Ed Balls to be his grilled tomato

Plus: Rules for flirting, and a smoking 21st birthday

Knowing Californians, a hasty and impatient lot, we can be sure that a lot of this is drunk far too young

A slide in certainty about singulars and plurals