The Spectator
Australia
Funny things at the forum
Every pandemic has a silver lining. This week, we were spared the spectacle of Davos Man (and Woman) jetting into…
Australian Columnists
Brown study
If Australia had not been blessed with its small black community, we would have had to invent them. And we…
Australian Features
Biden’s brave new transgender world
Activists are trampling the rights of biological women and girls
Court short
The tyrants of tolerance attack the right of Christians to freedom of religion
Features
Doc Martens
Doc Martens are one of those quintessentially British things that, like the royal family and lorries queuing on the M20,…
Pilgrim’s Notebook
A few of the hip young things sitting along the Lisbon quayside turned their heads my way as my walking…
The Week
Cicero, mutuality and BLM
The Black Lives Matter website (different from the new Black Liberation Movement) mostly presents an image of an organisation of…
Portrait of the week
Home Supplies of the Pfizer vaccine (made in Belgium) were feared to be at risk from a declaration by the…
The freedom paradox
Who would have thought, this time last year, that the British government would be planning to detain British nationals at…
Columnists
Amid the mayhem of today, an upbeat tale from 50 years ago
The online fashion retailer Boohoo is buying Debenhams without its stores and staff, confirming the demise of the high street.…
The Spectator’s Notes
A seemingly obscure battle in an ecclesiastical court could threaten the security of every historic monument in the care of…
The Capitol assault was a gift to Democrats
As events recede, they change. When Donald Trump’s unhinged endgame culminated in a popular assault on the Capitol, most Americans…
A salute to the ‘inessential’
A common sight across Britain these past ten months has been those rainbow flags fluttering in urban and village streets:…
The big tech bullies
I was in the kitchen preparing the family’s dinner when the inauguration of Joe Biden was on TV, so I…
What’s next for the Special Relationship?
This is a crucial year for the UK’s two most important relationships. The Anglo-American alliance, our strongest diplomatic and security…
Books
Queer Teen Craze
It is remarkable how quickly the cause of transgenderism has moved from being a strange object at the back of…
Unlived lives
Francis Spufford was already admired as a non-fiction writer when he published his prize-winning first novel, On Golden Hill, in…
It wasn’t rocket science Jay Elwes
In the summer of 2012, a man was walking near Jabal Shashabo, a Syrian rebel enclave, when he spotted a…
The triggers of memory
Can you remember when you heard about 9/11? Chances are you’ll be flooded instantly with memories — not only where…
In no woman’s land
As a child, I loved the Ladybird ‘People at Work’ series. I had the ones on the fireman, the policeman,…
Cold and inhospitable
Like this author, I was happily snowbound at a beloved grandparent’s house during the big freeze that began on Boxing…
A bundle of woe
It seems to have become a virtual orthodoxy of the academic and publishing worlds that history and fiction now have…
Escape into reality
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was an ambitious, passionate, determined woman – not the sad-eyed invalid of legend, says Robert Douglas-Fairhurst
Arts
On The Beach
The aftermath of Australia Day seems like an appropriate time to watch On the Beach, for a belated first time,…
Elijah Moshinsky
Earlier this month, the opera world sadly absorbed the news of the death of Elijah Moshinsky. Born in Shanghai in…
Sitting pretty
With the arts world still largely in hibernation, the launch of a big podcast is as close as we get…
Into the jaws of hell
Southwark Playhouse is beating the latest lockdown with a zingy new musical about social media. The performers, Francesca Forristal and…
Life in the fast lane
DeLorean: Back from the Future was one of those documentaries — for me at least — that takes a story…
The bimbofication of art
Galleries are awash with gimmicky paintings that look like they’ve been designed by algorithm. Dean Kissick on the rise of zombie figuration
What lies beneath
Just before the outbreak of the second world war a discovery was made in a riverside field at Sutton Hoo…
The KLF: Solid State Logik 1
Grade: A What a miracle the KLF were: an elaborate practical joke at the expense of the music industry, seemingly…
The rise of opera film
I’m still waiting for the Royal Opera to step up. Nearly a year into the Covid crisis and what do…
Life
Aussie Life
Has any speech by an American politician ever received more attention in the Australian media than Joe Biden’s inauguration speech?…
Aussie Lingo
Every other day some minor celebrity complains of being ‘trolled’ on social media. The answer is to get off social…
Remembering Kavalek
‘I began my escape from the communist Czechoslovakia 42 years ago, on Sunday, September 1, 1968. According to Wikipedia, I…
The death of Mid-Atlantic Man
As an ambitious journalist making my way in Fleet Street, I dreamed of becoming a Mid-Atlantic Man. Tom Wolfe came…
2491: Recycling
Ten unclued lights comprise a septet with a common theme. Across 1 Running article perhaps subject to trial? (7)…
Kind regards
Suzanne Moore, the Telegraphcolumnist, found it ‘deeply annoying’ when perhaps five years ago she noticed people putting ‘Kind regards’ at…
Urban legends
In March last year, the world made an interesting discovery. We found that a high proportion of knowledge-work could be…
to 2488: Clueless
Unclued lights were games played in I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue: SOUND CHARADES, SWANEE KAZOO, CHEDDAR GORGE, PICK UP…
Adverbial
In Competition No. 3183 you were invited to submit a short story entitled ‘My Year of Living [insert adverb of…
Puzzle no. 638
Kokkoris–Kavalek, Athens 1968. Kavalek’s next move initiated a beautiful forced mating sequence. What did he play? Answers should be emailed…
Argentine conquests
When Napoleon III proclaimed himself Emperor of France in 1852, he unwittingly kickstarted quality wine production in Chile and Argentina.…










































































