The novel Silicon Valley’s tech moguls won’t be amused to read
Silicon Valley moguls might not find Zed a particularly amusing read. Joanna Kavenna’s latest mindbender features the CEO of a…
From the NHS to Bayreuth: Norman Lebrecht talks to midwife-turned-opera singer Catherine Foster
Every summer for the past six years, Bayreuth has risen to its feet to acclaim an English Brünnhilde. Catherine Foster,…
A brief history of tea
It had to happen. Since almost everything became either ‘artisan’ or ‘curated’, conditions have been ripe for a curator of…
A sonic masterclass: the Silesian String Quartet at Wigmore Hall reviewed
Of all the daft notions about the classical music business, the daftest is that it’s a business at all. Seriously:…
Pure hagiography – the BBC’s Extinction Rebellion: Last Chance To Save The World?
I’m beginning to feel like Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers: almost the last person on Earth who…
How to talk to astronauts
Television has the pictures but the most spine-tingling moments in the recordings from the Apollo space missions are the bursts…
The greatest actor in the world couldn’t salvage David Hare’s batty adaptation: Peer Gynt reviewed
The National Theatre’s boss, Rufus Norris, has confessed that he ‘took his eye off the ball’ when it came to…
Completely and utterly and entirely blown away: the Lion King reviewed
The Lion King is Disney’s photorealistic CGI remake of the beloved, hand-drawn 1994 original that, for many children, offered a…
Let’s choose our politicians by random selection
Athens Standing right below the Acropolis, where pure democracy began because public officials were elected by lot, I try to…
Italy, in seven hours and five trains
The train standing at platform 1A had no air-conditioning and the heat was stupefying. Latecomers pressing into the carriage reacted…
Why won’t the police acknowledge that speeding coppers are a liability?
For a while, it seemed as if the only words my beloved would ever say again were ‘chicken Kievs’. Two…
One to watch: the 5lb claimer Theodore Ladd
Newmarket’s wisest trainer, Sir Mark Prescott, once noted: ‘The greyhound is propelled through the pain barrier by its desire to…
Bridge
I have always thought the term ‘bridge holiday’ was an oxymoron. When I travel with my team to various events,…
Tal story
Sixty years ago, the great Mikhail Tal won the Candidates tournament by a massive margin to qualify for a world…
no. 563
White to play. This position is from Tal-Rantanen, Tallinn 1979. This game features a typically brilliant Tal finish. Can you…
When two becomes one
In Competition No. 3107 you were invited to provide an extract that is a mash-up of two well-known works of…
2417: Six Nations
One of the unclued entries (two words) can be followed by each of the others (two of three words, one…
to 2414: Matchplay
Conrad HILTON (2), Michael WILDING (37), Mike TODD (24), Eddie FISHER (3), Richard BURTON (30), John WARNER (31) and Larry…
I’m starting a trade union for intellectuals
I have just returned from Minneapolis after attending the annual conference of the International Society for Intelligence Research. That’s ‘intelligence’…
Why extravagant things don’t have to feel expensive
‘Suppose you bought a case of claret a few years ago for £20 a bottle. It now sells at auction…
Dear Mary: How should one react when someone invites you to an expensive restaurant — then lets you pay the bill?
Q. Further to your advice about how to refuse invitations, I had a friend, who sadly died young, who disliked…
The tastes of summer: polo, Pimm’s and plenty of Champagne
England. On a glorious summer afternoon in the Sussex countryside, I had been invited to watch polo at Cowdray Park,…
Must Harry and Meghan’s son really learn to ‘essentialise’ race?
‘Ha, ha,’ said my husband, as though he’d made a joke. ‘Here’s one for you.’ He waved a page of…
Brown study
As you know, The Spectator Australia Political Research Bureau scours the globe searching for new ways in which the democratic…
