Barometer
Isolated cases Large numbers of people are still being ordered to self-isolate in spite of having been vaccinated — 137,560…
A time for New Zealand wines
‘The doors clap to, the pane is bright with showers.’ With ‘summer’ determined to do its worst, there is one…
Pigeon racing
Pigeon racing isn’t much of a spectator sport. Race birds are driven to the ‘liberation point’, where they’re released to…
Will surging house prices send the English young to save Scotland?
Nicola Sturgeon depresses me and seems to be having the same effect on Scottish house prices. In a housing market…
Immigration figures don’t add up
Journalists filing to deadline are apt to dig only so deep when googling for statistics, which in themselves are sometimes…
A word to the wise
The delicious hypocrisy at the heart of today’s cancel fraternity is that it is strongly opposed to censorship. Romans grappled…
The Spectator’s Notes
Is Winston Marshall — guitarist, banjo player, composer of Mumford & Sons, and father of the west London ‘Nu-Folk’ music…
Bridge
I have a confession to make. I did something I haven’t done for over 20 years: I went on holiday.…
A boat trip back through time
I was looking forward to my dinner at Daquise in South Kensington, a Polish restaurant that’s been there for ever…
2513: Golden anniversary
1A, on 23 17, 41 1D 8 in this 31 was 21D. This anniversary announcement consists of eleven words and…
An imaginative interpretation of the past
Antiquaries have had a bad press. If mentioned at all today, they are often derided as reclusive pedants poring over…
Where’s Leni?
Leni Riefenstahl was a film-maker of genius whose name is everlastingly associated with her film about the German chancellor, Triumph…
Broadmoor tales
True crime is having a moment: every day there’s a new documentary, book, podcast, or blockbuster film announced, detailing the…
Dishing the dirt
Even by James Ellroy’s standards, the narrator of his latest novel is not a man much given to the quiet…
So near and yet so strange
This pleasant volume, the author announces in the introduction, is ‘not a nature book, or even a travel book, so…
Diary
It turns out that if there’s one thing more expensive than making theatre, it’s not making it. Empty buildings haemorrhage…
City of dreams
I’ve never been to Barcelona, but Rupert Thomson makes it feel like an old friend. The hot, airless nights and…
Pop culture
In Competition No. 3205, you were invited to supply a rigorous literary-critical analysis of a well-known pop song. Thanks to…
Solution to 2510: Prom Session
Twelve symmetrically disposed unclued entries comprise three pairs of Spoonerisms (an anagram of the title): POURING RAIN/ROARING PAIN, FRYING PAN/PRYING…
High life
Wimbledon is here at last, after its absence in 2020. What struck me watching the French Open on television a…