High life
Gstaad As the great Yogi Berra explained: ‘It’s déjà vu all over again.’ The great one also contributed the following…
Saved from slim pickings
With the major companies largely on their summer breaks, the Edinburgh International Festival struggles to programme a high standard of…
Real life
‘If you think about it, Frankie Dettori is to blame,’ said the builder boyfriend, because when things are really bad…
Low life
Finally rain. None for months, then a violent tropical storm lasting two days. It marked the end of high summer…
Wild life
Kenya After two years of no rain, all colour has drained from the landscape on the farm so that by…
Gothic glories
There can be no clearer illustration of the central role that great cathedrals continue to play in a nation’s life…
The cars that ate Birmingham
During my gap year in 1981, I worked on the 24th floor of Birmingham’s Alpha Tower for the Regional Manpower…
Never let it go
Who doesn’t love Eurovision? All that razzmatazz. The ghastly frocks and gloopy pop songs, the false bonhomie and bare-faced bias…
Struggling
‘Quicksand!’ yelled my husband, flailing his arms wildly. Since he was sitting in his armchair, his dramatic representation of a…
The script is the star
Southwark Playhouse has a reputation for small musicals with big ambitions. Tasting Notes is set in a wine bar run…
Hot cakes
Cakeism is offering the voters everything they desire, knowing you will never give it to them because you live in…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. How can I find out, without making things awkward, whether one of my close male friends fancies one of…
2570: Short story
The unclued entries comprise two authors and a work of fiction, attributed by one author to the other. Each author…
Turf wars
For the past few days I’ve been frantically watering my lawn in anticipation of the London hosepipe ban. True, there…
Man of vision
‘Our generation owes an apology to the shades of Harold Wilson,’ the polling guru Peter Kellner once told me. Had…
Never mind the Bank’s mandate, clear out its board of directors
Liz Truss says she intends to review the Bank of England’s mandate, which has been fixed as a 2 per…
Communing with the dead
Grief leads us down some strange roads. Few, though, can be as peculiar as those charted by Paul Stanbridge in…
Nazi on the run
Who would have thought that someone would write a novel about Josef Mengele, the Auschwitz doctor and infamous experimenter on…
The causes of gout
Medical problems come and go in the media, and at the moment the flavour of the month appears to be…
The return to Flushing Meadow
British tennis fans famously only acknowledge the sport exists for a couple of weeks in the middle of summer in…
Barometer
Finnish lines Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said she had taken a test for illegal drugs after being filmed at…
Rough justice
At 4.38 a.m., one morning in October 2013, the radio presenter Paul Gambaccini was understandably asleep when the doorbell rang.…
Letters
Overhaul the GMC Sir: Max Pemberton’s cogent criticism of the GMC (‘Unfit for purpose’, 20 August). is one of the…
Woodstock this wasn’t
One learns the strangest things at festivals. That, for instance, this summer has been a bit of a blackcurrant disaster…
