Something special
Bob Dylan has always toyed with audiences. He plays what he wants, how he wants, letting his mood dictate tempo…
Candles
Under the sink. That’s where most of us will be keeping a stash of candles in case the lights go…
Business and markets offer Sunak a tentative welcome
Let’s hope Tuesday’s partial eclipse of the sun was a good omen for the return of Rishi Sunak to Downing…
Southeastern’s on the wrong track
A few years ago I wrote here about the unexpected symbiosis between economy passengers and business travellers on commercial flights.…
Sail away from the safe harbour
Here’s a treat for Christmas: a bona fide literary treasure for under a tenner. And a handsome little hardback, too,…
Will the Tory truce hold?
During the summer leadership race between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, Sunak’s team were braced for a bloodbath if he…
When money rots
Punters and pundits alike reacted to rising mortgage rates in the wake of Truss’s mini-Budget with indignant horror. Leaving aside…
Diary
After the shale gas vote, I was literally sent to Coventry – to visit the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre. It…
Barometer
Prime numbers At 42, Rishi Sunak is Britain’s youngest PM since Lord Liverpool took office the day after his 42nd…
Sick at heart
The latest film from Ruben Ostlund received an eight-minute standing ovation after its screening in Cannes and also won the…
Clown or vicar – who cares?
London has a brand-new theatre – yet again. Last summer, a cabaret venue opened in the Haymarket for the first…
Dog days of the USSR
Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone – even the title makes you want to scream – is Adam Curtis’s Metal Machine Music: the…
2579: Destructive plot
One unclued entry (three words) gives the theme, and five others give two-word names directly connected with it. Remaining unclued…
The real cause of all the chaos
Theresa May’s premiership is now a memory. Boris Johnson’s time in office assumes the status of a rather brief, if…
Low life
The day British media commentators were christening Rishi’s coronation as Britain’s ‘Obama moment’, French ones were calling the particularly horrible…
Licence to kill
So much is happening on the surface at the moment that it can be difficult to notice certain undercurrents. Since…
We are all stardust
It seems something of a disservice to a work of this seriousness to say how beautiful it is, but that…
Real life
By the time I got through to someone at British Gas to complain about them holding £491 of my money…
Playing at morality
The pop-up ad I get most frequently these days is David Beckham’s promotional video for the Islamic sandpit of Qatar,…
The Spectator’s Notes
I have seen it suggested that because Rishi Sunak is a Hindu, it would be wrong for him to have…
A dog’s life
Nine exceedingly passive ‘activists’ glued themselves to the floor of a Volkswagen factory in Germany and complained about being humiliated,…
