And on it goes
A question looms throughout this book: is it better to die rather than experience the wrath of a publicly shamed…
The turf
The engine wasn’t what it was, they said. At ten years old the spark that had once made him a…
Med winter warmer
The larger islands of the Mediterranean all have their glories. Fought over for millennia, they now seem to have attained…
Seeing is believing
In Jake’s Thing, Kingsley Amis gave it a name: he called it ‘the inverted pyramid of piss’: ‘One of [Geoffrey…
Boris’s existential drift
Tory MPs only have one topic of conversation: the fate of Boris Johnson. They huddle together in offices in Portcullis…
The Spectator’s Notes
In answers to questions following his statement in the Commons on Monday, Boris Johnson let drop an interesting statistic. He…
Late capitalism
‘More to my taste is Trockenbeerenkapitalismus,’ said my husband with an intonation that indicated a joke. The joke was a…
Two reasons not to let Sir Tony rest on his Garter laurels
I’m picturing Sir Tony Blair enjoying a fitting of his Garter robes after watching Boris Johnson stagger through PMQs. ‘I’m…
Once upon a time in the South
To write a first novel of 800 pages is either supremely confident or crazy. Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, a professor of…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. My husband and I have made friends with two distinguished, although fairly eccentric, writers whose company we thoroughly enjoy.…
The great divide
According to Nina Power’s forceful and rather unusual What Do Men Want?, we in the West are currently engaged in…
Where’s my trigger warning?
Last week brought the news that some universities have attached more ‘trigger warnings’ to certain books, concerned that students may…
Mirror of distortion
Vesna Goldsworthy’s finely wrought third novel explodes into life early on with a shocking scene in which Misha — the…
Words of advice
The Prime Minister has been having some trouble with his inner circle of advisers. Tacitus supplies fine examples of how…
Low Life
Harley Granville-Barker, actor, director, playwright, manager and critic, was a pasha of the Edwardian London stage. As a director, his…
Barometer
Borderland Few countries can have passed through as many kingdoms and empires as Ukraine — the ‘borderlands’. These are just…
The cowpat myth
He is caricatured as a populist and purveyor of ‘folky-wolky’ melodies, says Richard Bratby, but Vaughan Williams was a modernist master of uncompromising originality
Daffodils
Spring is the season of supermarket daffodils. At a pound a bunch, you can deck out your home like Elton…
2541: Beastly
The unclued lights are to be resolved into four (unrelated, non-thematic) phrases which share a common format. Across 12…
Letters
Naysayers needed Sir: I was struck by James Forsyth’s observation that in 10 Downing Street, ‘hard truths and hard choices…
Puzzle no. 688
White to play. Dardha–Shuvalova, Tata Steel Challengers 2022. The 16-year-old grandmaster from Belgium found a crisp way to finish the…
Portrait of the week
Home Sue Gray, the second permanent secretary in the Cabinet Office, in a 12-page ‘update’ on her investigation into 16…
