Fever pitch
Elvis is Baz Luhrmann’s biopic of Elvis Presley and it’s cradle to grave but told at such a gallop you’ll…
Naughty but very nice
Sir David Pountney, it appears, has been to Prague. He’s booked himself a mini-break, he’s EasyJetted out, and after (one…
All’s calm on my morning train — but it won’t be by autumn
Here I go again, in my occasional role as your intrepid transport correspondent. Last week I reported on airport chaos,…
Shooting star
Tanjil Rashid on the polymathic Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray, who spearheaded a new school of Indian cinema
Read his lips
Of all the photos of artists in the studio, the one of Glyn Philpot being served a martini by his…
This will end badly
I don’t think it’s my imagination: it really is getting harder and harder to find anything worth watching on TV.…
The Spectator’s Notes
If anyone was suitable to be the Prime Minister’s adviser on ministerial interests, it was Lord Geidt. Self-effacing, professional, unself-righteous…
Labours of love
An Oxford don has raised the prospect of producing a cocktail of hormone pills that would help you to fall…
The horror unfolds
No one had prepared the Allied soldiers, as they began their invasion of the Reich early in 1945, for what…
Central bank rate hikes are pathetic
Check out these hyperventilating headlines from last week: ‘What the Fed’s largest interest rate hike in decades means for you’…
The turf
In a disintegrating country, stuck for the moment with a Prime Minister who can’t see the difference between a proliferation…
Will my kitchen be designated a ‘safe space’?
As the father of four children who will be entering higher education in the next few years, I’m worried that…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. My girlfriend and I have started using a personal trainer for some joint sessions at our local gym; the…
What took you so long, Seb Coe?
There’s a left-wing internet advocacy group called 38 Degrees which suggests to its followers that all they have to do…
The shame game
In this most holy month of Pride I have been making my observances by thinking about shame. After all, shame…
Sea fare
One could get used to this. I come from seafaring stock, albeit distant. ‘Anderson’ suggests Viking antecedents, especially as my…
Why secondhand cars are first-rate
The Department for Transport recently ended a £1,500 subsidy towards the price of new, lower-priced electric cars one year earlier…
British politics is stuck
One of the favourite phrases of British political commentators is ‘oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them’. As with all…
Barometer
Striking differences This summer’s strikes are unlikely to erupt as badly as the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 in the…
Bridge
At a bridge tournament about 15 years ago, I started chatting to a friendly, eccentric woman in her mid-sixties, wearing…
Low life
Nothing in the beach hotel was made of plastic. It wasn’t advertised as being a plastic-free hotel, but we noticed…
