I’m getting my coronavirus bunker ready
We have now got past the absurd stage of glaring in a reproachful manner at Chinese people on the tube.…
Pyramid of piffle
The Prince of Egypt is a musical adapted from a 1998 Dreamworks cartoon based on the Book of Exodus. So…
The SFO as a deterrent? Not in the Barclays-Qatar case
Hit-and-miss, heavy-handed, but a necessary use of justice to deter repetition. That was my summing-up, last year, of the Serious…
Sisters are doing it for themselves
Military Wives is a British comedy drama starring Kristin Scott Thomas and Sharon Horgan. It is based on the true…
The unbearable lightness of Boris Johnson
Months ago, not long after Boris Johnson’s 2019 general election triumph, I wrote a Times column of a cautiously hopeful…
Bridge
I love the French expression esprit de l’escalier (‘wit of the staircase’); it perfectly captures that moment of frustration when…
Naughty boy
In seven short years, Aubrey Beardsley mastered the art of outrage. Laura Gascoigne on the gloriously indecent illustrations of a singular genius
Barometer
Heathrow’s nine runways When was a third runway for Heathrow first proposed? Heathrow was always planned to have multiple runways.…
Behaviours
‘Somebody loves me,’ said my husband, waving a copy of The Spectator above his head as though pursued by wasps.…
The Budget’s corona contagion
When Sajid Javid resigned in a row with No. 10, there was much speculation about what would be in the…
The alienation effect
‘People may say I can’t sing,’ said the soprano Florence Foster Jenkins, ‘but no one can ever say I didn’t…
Why the BBC licence fee makes sense
A consensus seems to be forming that the BBC licence fee is for the chop. In a digital age, the…
Viral hysteria
Last week Ross Clark expatiated on the hysteria and panic generated by Covid-19 that threatens to send the world into…
Solution to 2444: Ones in the country
The unclued answers are all words inChambers, having their origin in Indonesia (clued by wordplay in the title). First prize…
Instapoetry
In Competition No. 3138 you were invited to submit a poem entitled ‘Lines on a Young Lady’s Instagram’. Thanks to…
puzzle no. 594
Black to play. Puranik–Sjugirov, another spectacular game played at the Aeroflot Open. Puranik was perhaps counting on 1…Rc1 2 Qa3…
Green Day: Father of All…
Grade: B+ It is an eternal mystery to me why Britain has never had much time for power pop, seeing…
In his own sweet way
On 8 November 1954, Dave Brubeck’s portrait appeared on the cover of Time magazine, accompanied by the words ‘The Joints…
The Spectator’s Notes
The government is trying to get onshore windfarms going again, defying the damage they do to unique environments. I am…
The battle still to come
In Ladies Can’t Climb Ladders, the social historian Jane Robinson — whose previous books include histories of suffragettes and bluestockings…
‘I feel compelled to be disgraceful’
Miriam Margolyes chews the fat with Tanya Gold about mother love, anti-Zionism and too much shagging
