Aussie Life & Language
Giles Auty While clearing our cellar recently my wife and I came upon a compact printing press which her late…
Arcadian repose
A friend of mine, a bit of a watermelon really like most of the cultural milieu, asked me why I…
Cynical Theories
They are possibly the most politically incorrect authors in the world. And they have universities squarely in their sights. Helen…
Paradis regained
Selina Mills on Maria Theresia von Paradis, the gifted but forgotten 18th-century composer, whose story will finally be told in a new chamber opera
Being a do-gooder did me no good
Michael J. Sandel, the Harvard political philosopher, has a lot to answer for. Some armchair psychologists think the reason I…
Real life
A man without a mask appeared to be dying of Covid, or something quite like it, on the London to…
In praise of today’s young footballers
You suspect that a bar of duty-free Toblerone, no matter how supersized, wouldn’t really do the trick when hapless England…
A flash of life
A ghost review, now, of a ghost restaurant: the Connaught Grill, which is yet to reopen after pandemic shuttered its…
Low life
The old dog was in a companionable frame of mind and she trotted along at my side, glancing up now…
Bridge
The bridge world has lost some glittering stars this (ghastly) year, the latest being France’s Catherine d’Ovidio — multiple world…
Return of the native
Conservationists are frequently criticised for focusing on glamorous species at the expense of others equally important but unluckily uglier —…
Wrecking final Brexit talks won’t help our fishermen
‘Every country has a political problem with its fishermen,’ wrote Peter Walker, the Conservative minister who negotiated the first effective…
The Spectator’s Notes
Large parts of the senior civil service regard Brexit as almost illegal. Some of them regard loyalty to the EU…
Wet wet wet
It has roughly the same proportions as Shakespeare’s Globe. The Roman Theatre in Verulamium (St Albans) is an atmospheric ruin…
The skeleton is key
One hot summer’s morning, as a nine-year-old girl living on the rim of a Scottish loch in the hotel owned…
Letters
Referendum risk Sir: James Forsyth’s excellent analysis (‘To save the Union, negotiate independence’, 5 September) has one flaw: it is…
Me time
‘You may think our modern world was born yesterday,’ said Simon Schama at the beginning of The Romantics and Us.…
Beyond Bayreuth
Wagner gripped the communal mind for decades after his death. Philip Hensher examines his enduring influence
Under the jackboot
‘Free Tibet!’ used to be a rallying cry for Hollywood A-listers and rock stars. Richard Gere hung out with the…
