A cinematic offer we could not refuse
Francis Ford Coppola’s superb film The Godfather changed American cinema and, by extension, American culture. The film had it all:…
One night in a Gentlemen’s Club
How fascinating it is to see that Australia’s Brendan Cowell is playing John Proctor in the new English National Theatre…
Aussie life
Australian manufacturers have long been obliged to alert consumers to health hazards. As soon as we found out that peanuts…
Language
Richard Littlejohn wrote recently in Britain’s Daily Mail about an 18-page Inclusive Language Guide which has been sent out to…
The media and the Constitution
After the 2016 presidential elections, it became obvious that the US mainstream media had abandoned its vocation of being both…
The Liz Truss survival plan
At the first stage of the Conservative leadership race, when Liz Truss was trying to win MPs’ support, her message…
From mystery cult to mass movement
Mutilated, strangled, suffocated or beaten to death: these are just some of the methods used to get rid of popes…
High life
New York Rodney Dangerfield was the American Benny Hill: lewd, funny and not exactly politically correct where the weaker sex…
The Spectator’s Notes
In the House of Commons on Monday, someone accused Liz Truss’s government of being ‘in office but not in power’.…
Low life
The grandsons are putting two and two together. Grandad is always lying down and groaning when they video call and…
The truth about corporate taxes
I’ve chosen to write about corporate tax rates this week not because they’re the sexiest subject available but because –…
Solution to 2575: Problem XIII
5 (the number of GOLD RINGS, from ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’: 34/22A) x 103 (the number of the PSALM…
Crisis
In his picture from 1932, ‘Derrière la gare Saint-Lazare’, Henri Cartier-Bresson caught the moment when a man in a hat…
Portrait of the week
Home Liz Truss said in a BBC interview as Prime Minister that she wanted to ‘say sorry for the mistakes…
All muted
The Piazza is not a piazza – a realisation which is always irritating – but a restaurant in the eaves…
State of the union
Dear oh dear, as exasperated kings are known to murmur – just look at the state of rugby union. But…
Signatures
I have a photograph of Queen Elizabeth II and her parents on the wall of my bathroom, not out of…
Diary
It’s been a great week for the powerful fantasies of fiction (see more below), but over the weekend no novel…
Truss and the art of rhetoric
Liz Truss was spot-on in arguing that the only way in which a state can flourish is by combining low…
Dear Mary
Q. My brother, who lives in southern France, uses unsavoury words to gain my attention, such as ‘infernal swine’, ‘schweinhund’…
Letters
Paying the price Sir: Lionel Shriver’s piece about university standards rang true to me (‘University is supposed to be hard’,…
My fall from grace
I had a bicycle accident last week. Not terrible, but not great either. Of the five I’ve had since I…
