Fright night
Good evening! Come shivering on in through the garden side door, my friends, and distance yourselves in a semi-legal fashion…
Theresa May’s festive cake
This recipe was given to me years ago by an old friend — hence the imperial measurements — and I…
The Red Hand Files
Two years ago, the songwriter Nick Cave told his fans that he’d speak to them directly — not through an…
My cure for the common cold
You really don’t want to know about my coughs and sneezes, particularly during the festive season, but bear with me…
A brief history of luck
One of the staples of crime drama is the ‘cold-case squad’. This allows programme-makers to add period detail to the…
Letters
Joy Sir: Alexandra Coghlan identifies the coincidence between the rise of recording and broadcast technology and the flourishing of the…
Word of the year
In 2015 smombie became the Youth Word of the Year in Germany. In January 2016 a survey found that 92…
Ring out, wild bells
Save for those old enough to have lived through the second world war and its immediate austere aftermath, it would…
A toast to Lebanon
I was thinking about tragedy. Could one use the term ‘chronically tragic’? My first instinct is against. Tragedy is the…
A romcom with very little com
In Black Narcissus, based on the novel by Rumer Godden, five nuns set off for a remote Himalayan palace in…
Unhampered pleasure
There is straw inside the Fortnum & Mason Christmas Treat Hamper (£100). As the straw drifts through the house, it…
Whodunnit?
The Master of Flémalle was one of the first painters to depict in detail the reality of ordinary things. But who was he? Martin Gayford finds a prime suspect
Empty seats and silver linings
The best thing about sport in 2020 was that any happened at all. And how good much of it was.…
Chance of a lifetime
As I gaze at my four children on Christmas morning, clambering on to the bed with their stockings, I will…
Wild life
Laikipia I was drinking in the fresh air on the high earth wall of my farm dam last week, when…
The Spectator’s Notes
Many ingenious ways of evading Covid-19 have been devised to assist commerce, fewer to assist worship. In our next-door village,…
For many of us charity begins in shops
When everything re-opened after the first lockdown, I didn’t immediately head to a restaurant, bar or hairdresser. I went to…
