Diary
I only voted in one no-confidence motion. The leader was Iain Duncan Smith, and it was a bit awkward. I…
Mutiny on the Bounty
‘I can’t put into words how awful this is’ remarks one Tory MP. The party is split not on the…
Portrait of the week
Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, told the Commons that Britain was prepared to send troops to protect Nato allies…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. I treat myself to a manicure every ten days. It’s a 30-minute appointment and the girl I use is…
Everywhere and nowhere
The second most interesting thing about this digital exhibition is that it is not for art critics like me. I…
There will be blood
Say what you like about that Duke of Mantua, but he’s basically an OK sort of bloke. A bit of…
A great leap forward
The single thing you don’t want when you are beginning a run of four shows in a prestige venue, with…
Highway to hell
I did a speed awareness course on Monday. For the uninitiated, you have the option of doing one of these…
Good cop, bad cop
Older readers may remember a time when people signalled their cultural superiority with the weird boast that they didn’t watch…
Solution to 2537: My Lord!
The exchange that gave rise to the expression CURATE’s (19 Down) Egg was ‘I’m afraid you’ve got a bad egg,…
Mr and misses
In Competition No. 3233, you were invited to invent a new character for the Mr Men/Little Miss series by Roger…
Letter from Odessa
‘God Save the Queen’ trended on Ukrainian social media over the weekend. ‘As a Brit in Kiev I have never…
Pixel this
When Magnus Carlsen won last year’s Meltwater Champions Tour, they made two trophies. One was for Carlsen, and the second…
Cher options
The singer Cher, now 75, has announced that, because she refuses to appear old, she is not going to allow…
Change or decay
Climate change may be the central challenge of our century, but almost all attention has focused on its consequences for…
The least Soviet-friendly artist imaginable
The KGB might not have known much about modern art, but they knew what they liked. For instance, at what…
Fur
We in Britain have long been much more squeamish about fur than other Europeans. I still well remember the snide…
The heart of the matter
Kathleen Stock describes how four women undergraduates in 1940s Oxford challenged an arid, modish philosophy
We were warned
Her name has faded, but the British author and editor Kay Dick once cut a striking figure. She lived in…
