In all seriousness
Amazon’s much-heralded Tolkien prequel The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power began by answering a question that has…
A fine romance
One swallow might not make a summer, but it certainly helps rounds the season off. ‘Perhaps, like the swallow, you…
Rhapsodic banalities
‘Trans people are sacred. We are divine.’ The first line of I, Joan at the Globe establishes the tone of…
Health warning
It’s hard to think of any Prime Minister who has entered office surrounded by such low expectations. Liz Truss was…
Historian’s Notebook
I have done absolutely nothing this past year except pound away at a book. For complicated logistical reasons that are…
Factory setting
When Maurice Broomfield left school at the age of 15, he took a job at the Rolls-Royce factory, bending copper…
Plough boy
On retiring from office, Boris Johnson described himself as a sort of Cincinnatus, returning to his plough. This famous story…
All the world’s a cricket pitch
So farewell to cricket’s The Hundred tournament, or what seemed by the end to be beefy South Africans in ‘Butterkist’…
The BBC’s new direction
I am becoming terribly worried about the people of Sunderland with regard to how they will cope in this coming…
A cocktail of misfortunes is hammering the pound
My predecessor Christopher Fildes looked at exchange rates through a cocktail glass: three negronis for the Italian lira equivalent of…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. We have made available our mews cottage – 30 yards from our main house – to a woman with…
Barometer
In they come, out they go Liz Truss is the 15th prime minister to have served under Queen Elizabeth II,…
Real life
The ladies in the bank now wear badges telling you to Be Kind and not do anything that might upset…
Now I know how social justice warriors feel
I went to the O2 on Sunday night to see the comedians Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock. Chappelle, who survived…
You eat what you see
Farmer, restaurateur, critic, foodie activist, traveller (he’s worked in Zimbabwe as well as South Africa), cookery book writer, longtime TV…
Fine diner
Electric Diner is from the Soho House group, which has done terrible things to private clubs, luckless farmhouses, domestic interior…
Portrait of the week
Home Liz Truss, the new Prime Minister, said in a speech outside 10 Downing Street: ‘Boris Johnson delivered Brexit, the…
Corn
‘Wha, wha?’ said my husband in a slack-jawed way, throwing over a copy of the Guardian, as though it was…
Kill badgers to save hedgehogs
Until last month I hadn’t seen a hedgehog for close to 30 years, though they were part of everyday life…
