Decency personified
The life of Paul Ramsay shows that business people don’t have to be ruthless to succeed. Many will find this…
Australian arts
For artists, writers and creative people in general the isolationist directives make very little difference. As usual, we go about…
Wendy Bowman, 2019 by David Darcy Darling Portrait Prize 2020
She is not a theoretical or idealogical environmentalist. Wendy Bowman became an activist when her crops were ruined by polluted…
Aussie Life
It has been brought to my attention that the rename Victoria suggestion I made in these pages two weeks ago…
A drive on the wild side
When a 90-minute documentary is introduced with the words ‘This is the M25’, you’d be within your rights not to…
Driving force
Alan Johnson pays tribute to Ernest Bevin, a towering political figure too often forgotten
The pandemic’s invisible victims
I sometimes pick up some food at Tesco for an 86-year-old pensioner who lives a few streets over. At the…
The good, the bad and the ugly
Most monuments are literally set in stone — or cast in bronze to better survive the weather. Being enduring, they…
Criss cross
It has been three years since Amanda Craig’s previous novel, The Lie of the Land, the story of a foundering…
Empires strike back
From ancient times, empires have risen and fallen, driven by war, territorial acquisition, trade, plunder, religion, ideology, technology, culture and…
I’ve resorted to cooking
We cannot bear more drive-through or take-out or near-fatal snack. I am convinced of the boredom of my female ancestors,…
Dear Mary
Q. Just before Covid, we moved out of London with the intention of having a quiet life in the country.…
Swathe
At Glastonbury in 2017 ‘a whole swathe of young people had a political awakening’, chanting ‘Oh, Jeremy Corbyn’, said the…
Bridge
What do we want? We want to play bridge. But who anticipated Covid-19 was going to close every bridge club…
Dysfunctional music by dysfunctional people
A star is born, but instead of emerging into the world beaming for the cameras, he spits and snarls and…
Low life
Avid Spectator reader Mr Brown had endured the very strictest of lockdowns for family health reasons in Tunbridge Wells. Since…
The Bard in the bedroom
Nicholas Hytner’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream opens in a world of puritanical austerity. The cast wear sombre black costumes and…
Hats off to Liverpool
Where were we? Oh yes, Liverpool were running away with the Premier League and a mere three months later have…
Audio onanism
In Beeb-dominated Britain, the commercial triumph of podcasting — epitomised by Spotify’s recent £100 million deals with Joe Rogan and…
