No wonder Omicron’s debut made the FTSE 100 wobble
‘So you think it’s all over? Ho ho ho!’ That’s the message from Satan’s dark laboratory (twinned with Wuhan’s) where…
The life of the party
Readers of this magazine will have enjoyed Joan Collins’s diaries, and her Past Imperfect was one of the funniest showbiz…
Why punish a scientist for defending science?
As a defender of free speech, I sometimes feel like a man falling through a collapsing building. Just when you…
The Spectator’s Notes
As this paper has argued since the time of the Tiananmen Square massacres, this country should offer Hong Kong people…
Animal magic
If one of the purposes of art is to help us see the world around us, then Sebastião Salgado’s photographs…
Low Life
Every year Vernon celebrates the gathering in and pressing of his olive harvest by inviting friends to a ceremony at…
Foreign parts
There are, perhaps, two types of exhibition visitor. Those who read the texts on the walls and those who don’t.…
High life
New York It’s party time in the Bagel, and it’s about time, too. Good restaurants and elegant nightclubs are…
I saw a film today, oh boy
My late friend Alexander Nekrassov loathed the Beatles, which I used to think was a wantonly contrary position akin to…
Infected with doubt
Up until a few days ago, ministers could see how the government might regain its footing in the polls after…
Puzzle no. 682
Black to play. Plat-Esipenko, European Team Championship, 2021. The 19-year-old Russian playing Black found a way to force mate in…
Kings of the dung heap
One of the best episodes in Wole Soyinka’s third novel (his first since 1973) takes place not in Nigeria but…
The type of person who makes the world work
I’m not sure how many readers know the name of Anthony Smith, who died on Sunday aged 83, but a…
The reel deal
Hand of God is the latest film from Paolo Sorrentino, the Italian filmmaker who won an Oscar with The Great…
Above the laws
Fairly early in the pandemic it was widely accepted in scientific circles that the likelihood of outdoor transmission of Covid…
Raising a glass to Grey Gowrie
A group of us had gathered together to raise a glass, tell stories, to laugh and to mourn. It was…
Farmer’s Notebook
I’m avoiding the village pub. Since Clarkson’s Farm I constantly get asked: ‘Are farm economics really as bad as that?’…
Liquid silk
That strain again… it’s the morning after the concert and one tune is still there, playing in the head upon…
Is this the best we can hope for?
For all its faults and foibles, its busts and bailouts, modern market capitalism demonstrates a remarkably bullish resilience. We don’t…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. We have moved into a terraced house in a seaside town. Our joy is confined, however, by the fact…
The National is the graveyard of talent
Somewhere in the wilds of England a stately home is collapsing. Rising floodwaters threaten the foundations. Storms break over the…
