Soul-dead crypto world
Some things are explained so many times that they become unexplainable: we can only relate to them as something complicated…
Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil… the Art of Starting Over
Grade: Z If you wish to experience the full hideousness of Now, of our current age, condensed into one awful…
Ladies of misrule
General Secretary is a new drama with a dull title and an off-putting poster. A pair of angry women in…
Cheerleaders, cultists and King Kong
Social distancing continues to put the kibosh on large-scale productions, but Jo Stromgren has a nifty workaround in Rooms, which…
Our mental health is going up in smoke
As we creep back into the open, as the Covid wards empty and the mental health clinics fill up, how…
Wicked wit
The title alludes to Jonathan Meades’s first collection of criticism, Peter Knows What Dick Likes, and to the album by…
From beyond the grave
Give dead bones a voice and they speak volumes: George Saunders’s Lincoln in the Bardo was clamorous with the departed…
The time of our lives
Gay bar, how I miss you. Barely any lesbian joints have survived the online dating scene, and Grindr has replaced…
2502: Nay-sayers?
The unclued lights (two of two words) are of a kind, verifiable in Brewer. Across 4 High-handed relation in…
Royal standard
Fourteen prime ministers; 18 general elections; seven changes of government. Even in a stable country like Britain it is remarkable…
Portrait of the week
Home The Duke of Edinburgh, who was married to the Queen for 73 years, died at Windsor Castle, aged 99.…
Diary
The files arrived marked ‘STRICT EMBARGO’ and ‘CONFIDENTIAL’ and ‘FORTH BRIDGE REVISED’ and stamped with various crests and insignia. My…
The Spectator’s Notes
The recent Sewell report on Race and Ethnic Disparities has been much abused and little read. It is full of…
A certifiable plan
As I’ve written before, the thing I’ve missed the most in the past 12 months is going to see QPR…
Land Rovers
The Duke of Edinburgh’s coffin will be carried in a Land Rover. Not any old Land Rover, but a Defender…
Barometer
D of E awards A few of the late Duke of Edinburgh’s lesser-known titles and honours: — Royal Chief of the Order…
Letters
Taking liberties Sir: I feel that Matthew Parris is absolutely wrong about liberty (‘The libertarian case for vaccine passports’, 10…
How I’ll remember Shirley Williams
Shortly after the news of Prince Philip’s death was announced by Buckingham Palace, a woman called Karen Geier tweeted the…
Biden’s party is over
Washington, DC The Democratic party is dying. That may be hard to believe since Democrats control both houses of…
Tutti frutti
In Competition No. 3194, a nod to Keats and Tony Harrison, you were invited to write a poem about a…
