Diary
The only female writers of importance I have personally met are Margaret Atwood and Joan Didion, both of whom are…
The front line of hell
Christopher Hitchens once said that women just aren’t as funny as men and Caitlin Moran believed him. But that was…
Real life
The Volkswagen Passat was parked next to my field gate, sticking out into the lane, blocking larger vehicles from getting…
Low life
Scotching my bright idea of a stiff gin for Dutch courage in the bar across the road, Catriona bounded straight…
Some beliefs are more equal than others
Kristie Higgs, a 44-year-old school assistant, didn’t realise that criticising the sex education curriculum at her son’s school on Facebook…
Fish out of water
In the Pacific Northwest, Native Americans paint images of salmon on to stones. They say that if you rub those…
A novel sort of novel
Inside Story is called, on the front cover, which boasts a very charming photograph of the author and Christopher Hitchens,…
Barometer
It’s electrifying! Who invented the circuit-breaker? Thomas Edison patented it in 1879, realising what damage could be caused to electrical…
Yusuf/Cat Stevens: Tea for the Tillerman 2
Grade: B– Time has been kind to Cat Stevens’s reputation — his estrangement from the music business and rad BAME…
Five-star blarney
The Old Vic refuses to reopen. Director Matthew Warchus says the social distancing rules make it impossible for him to…
Letters
Disastrous decisions Sir: In his otherwise excellent analysis of Boris Johnson’s premiership (‘The missing leader’, 19 September), Fraser Nelson suggests…
Dumb and dumber
I think I am supposed to say that Bill & Ted Face the Music, the third in a franchise about…
One for the road
The email from English National Opera was blunt: ‘Your arrival time is 18.25. If you arrive outside your allocated time…
Spirited away
The mediumistic art of various cranks, crackpots and old dowagers is finally being taken seriously – and about time too, says Laura Gascoigne
Crowds
London, writes Dr Watson in the first Sherlock Holmes story, is ‘that great cesspool into which all the loungers and…
Cooking up a storm
You can’t say he didn’t warn us. In the final sentence of his previous book, Heat, a joyously gluttonous exploration…
Who rules supreme?
Within hours of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, Democrats and Republicans began fighting over how to fill her…
The police’s picky attitude to protests
I’ve never been a great fan of public demonstrations. When I was at university, one of the great causes du…
In and out of the magic circle
Ten years ago, reviewing Alastair Campbell’s diaries for The Spectator, I concluded as follows: Who will be the chroniclers of…
Years in the wilderness
When reviewers say that some new book reminds them of some famous old book, it often ends up as a…
Worth doing badly
The greatest pain of lockdown has been, for me, the absence of am-dram. In one half of my life I’m…
Covid has ended the rail franchise fiasco at last
Good riddance to the passenger rail franchise system which has finally been killed off by Covid, though a majority of…
