Language
A reader (Rosie) has drawn my attention to a new(ish) word: ‘coddiwomple’. Rosie wrote to say that she has been…
Diary
Oscar week is intense – and it’s been a while since it’s been as intense. The red carpet is full…
Why Y-fronts show that recession risks are rising
Should you happen to spot me these days lurking outside a Calvin Klein boutique, notebook in hand, I assure you…
Man up
For an art form that once boldly set out to question conventional divisions of gender, ballet now seems to be…
It’s so hard to do the right thing
Delighted though we all are that Benedict Cumberbatch has decided to allow a Ukrainian family to live in one of…
Lessons from the ice queen
Spring commonly augers a quickening warmth, but for Britons this year the season coincides with a chilling marker: a 54…
Safe and sound
This year the Oscar for best film went to the drama Coda– ‘Child of Deaf Adults’ – but the ceremony…
Letters
Nuclear future Sir: It is refreshing to see Martin Vander Weyer note that, properly and fully costed, nuclear power is…
Low life
‘I love this old watering can,’ said my sister, sprinkling the miniature rose. ‘Though I do worry about soaking Mum.…
Author’s notebook
On the day before my seventh birthday, which I spent at my grandma’s in Yorkshire, a young man named Raymond…
In the land of the subtitle
The iron law of TV these days is that if you want to avoid series that are suffocatingly right-on the…
Band of Horses: Things Are Great
Grade: B That thing, ‘indie rock’, is so well played and produced these days, so pristine and flawless, that it…
High life
Something has been bothering me of late, and that is my total lack of schadenfreude. The malicious pleasure at someone’s…
The turf
For Barbara and Alick Richmond, Living Legend’s game 12-1 victory in Kempton’s 1m 2f Magnolia Stakes last Saturday was their…
Crisp sandwiches
A crisp sandwich is a private and personal endeavour. In my experience (and I have considerable experience in this particular…
Shaw thing
It’s good of Nicholas Hytner to let Londoners see David Hare’s new play before it travels to Broadway where it…
Bridge
I don’t play rubber bridge nearly as much as I used to, but I still enjoy the occasional game at…
Portrait of the week
Home Twenty fixed-penalty fines were issued after the police inquiry into Downing Street parties that broke Covid rules, but the…
The price of youth
In evolutionary terms, it is obvious why we get more conservative with age. Two strong forces, acting in the same…
Bird brained
Blame it on Serge Diaghilev. Rimsky-Korsakov died in 1908 and never saw the première of his last opera, The Golden…
Deathly silencing
Is there a woke case to be made for freedom of expression? Jacob Mchangama certainly seems to think so. This…
