Christmas notes
Put some coal in our stockings Santa will be busy this year because 2020 marks the final year of the…
George Pell: behind bars
This is the prison diary that should never have been written because Cardinal George Pell should never have been in…
Orson Welles
It seems on the face of it the oddest proposition on earth. David Fincher, the famous Hollywood director of Fight…
The Australian Ballet
It is indeed a new era. The Australian Ballet announced its 2021 season under the new artistic direction of David…
Language notes
Word-of-the-year of the Year It’s that time of year once again – the season when dictionaries announce their choice for…
The pleasures of four-play
One of the few social activities not yet prohibited under lockdown laws is four-handed piano playing. I don’t mean sitting…
Merry blooming Christmas
No one captures better than Raymond Briggs the ambivalence that many of us feel towards the festive season, says Daisy Dunn
Respect vs rigour
Professor Toope, the vice-chancellor of Cambridge university, had proposed a motion ordering all members of the university to ‘respect’ each…
Matters of fact
What is truth? You can speak of moral truths and aesthetic truths but I’m not concerned with those here, important…
High life
New York Here we go again, the annual holiest of holies is upon us, although to this oldie last Christmas…
Portrait of the Year
January Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, signed the EU withdrawal agreement, sent from Brussels by train. Sajid Javid, the Chancellor…
Dear Mary
From Joanna Lumley Q. We receive a huge number of Christmas cards every year. When I take them all down…
The year of living obediently
I wonder if British universities will follow Cornell’s innovative approach to ensuring students are protected from wretched viruses? The American…
Soft-centred satire
There was an acidic bravura and beauty in P.J. O’Rourke’s early journalism and a gleefulness in the ease with which…
Yes man
Rod Liddle talks to Rick Wakeman about lockdown, the Sex Pistols, and how you can’t have opinions any more
