The Spectator’s Notes
When Sir Tony Brenton writes a letter to the Times, as he frequently does, it always says at the bottom…
The whine of the Ancient Mariner
I was a bit irritated by all the millennials saying the Superbowl half-time show made them feel old. The 15-minute…
Live and learn
German archaeologists have found ancient Egyptian tablets covered in repetitive writing exercises and ask — were they pupil punishments? But…
Mystery
In The Archers, Ambridge put on its own set of mystery plays dramatising the Nativity and Passion. BBC Radio 4…
Vintage years
Across oceans and continents, less favoured nations produce more history than they can consume. In these islands, the English —…
Royal standards
Prince Andrew’s decision to settle his case with Virginia Giuffre means he will be spared the potentially humiliating ordeal of…
Beyond a joke
Charlie Chaplin is one of the most famous movie stars ever and is certainly the most famous movie star with…
Boris’s surprising saviour
Boris Johnson has a lot of people to thank for his survival in 10 Downing Street, but Keir Starmer should…
Clown prince
Never Not Once has a cold and forbidding title but it starts as an amusing tale set in an LA…
Work is no place for your ‘whole self’
One of the few things I have learned in this life is that Dante Alighieri was wrong. In the Inferno…
What Russia really wants
You have the advantage over me. It may be that you are reading this now in your makeshift fallout shelter,…
Why should we save Putin from himself?
‘Never interrupt your enemy,’ said Napoleon, ‘when he is making a mistake.’ A Russian invasion and occupation of Ukraine would…
Such sweet sorrow
We gathered on a freezing Sunday night, inside a barrel-vaulted church designed in the 1890s by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, to…
Black Country, New Road: Ants From Up There
Grade: A+ It is not true, fellow boomers, that there is nothing new under the sun nor no good new…
Star power and spectacle
London felt like its old self on Friday night. Possibly it was just me; when you visit the capital once…
‘I fear people adapt too much’
The psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer on how to stay ahead of the algorithms
Bad news, Governor: the wage-rise spiral is already raging
I’ve had the opportunity recently to take part in wage-rise discussions for several small entities in which I’m involved. The…
Gothic horror meets Acorn Antiques
Louise Bourgeois was 62 and recently widowed when she first used soft materials in her installation ‘The Destruction of the…
Making a meal of it
‘The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. As if it wasn’t bad enough to overhear one side of a conversation as it’s bellowed into a mobile…
