There’s something about Mary
So, Mary Poppins returns, and I was, of course, primed to be spiteful, as is my nature. Not a patch…
You’ll have shivers down your spine and tears in your eyes: Royal Ballet’s Nutcracker reviewed
Not another Nutcracker, I thought on the way to the Opera House. Haven’t we had our fill of Sugar Plums?…
I couldn’t wait to escape this opaque, witless horror show: True West reviewed
Sam Shepard was perhaps the gloomiest playwright ever to spill his guts into a typewriter. The popularity of his work…
Could it be that Jimmy McGovern was getting into the festive spirit? No… Care reviewed
Jimmy McGovern’s one-off drama Care (BBC1, Sunday 9 December) began with a loving grandmother called Mary having a lovely time…
Remembering the 1968 Apollo mission – when the world was reaching to the future rather than drawing in
Take yourself back to (or try to imagine) Christmas 1968; a year full of disturbances, dashed hopes and extreme violence…
It’s Christmas. You don’t want Götterdämmerung. You want a waltz-operetta
Grade: A– 1898: two Parisiennes and a housemaid secretly invite each other’s partners to the Paris Opera ball and… c’mon,…
Why I have fallen out of love with Donald Trump
Here we are, 41 years down the road, and I’m once again writing for The Spectator’s Christmas issue. This is…
Why you should never read your own diary
At the turn of the century, I started a diary. I’ve mostly typed it on old typewriters, bashing out a…
How Ebenezer Grayling destroyed the Kite family Christmas
Ebenezer Grayling sat busy in his counting house. It was a cold, bleak day at the Department for Transport. Big…
Me vs an eight-foot spitting cobra
Laikipia, Kenya ‘The End,’ I typed. The book that had taken me 14 years to write. I rose from…
‘Concussion doesn’t count’: memories of a racing dynasty
The Scudamores are one of the bedrock families of jump racing. After being shot down and spending two years as…
Bridge
The other day, I opened a Christmas card showing Santa carrying a sack full of presents, and was immediately reminded…
Christmas quiz
You don’t say In 2018, who said: 1. ‘I have the absolute power to PARDON myself, but why should I…
Word of the year: shouty
‘Remind me what incel means again,’ said my husband. There was no point, since he’d forgotten twice already. I suspected…
Leviathan
Last week I compared the Norwegian world chess champion Magnus Carlsen to a lurking crocodile, ready to grab its oblivious…
Puzzle
White to play. This is a variation from Carlsen-Caruana, World Championship (Game 11), London 2018. Carlsen set a small trap…
O come let us adore zhim
In Competition No. 3078 you were invited to submit a politically correct Christmas carol. One of Donald Trump’s election…
Christmas spirit
Unclued lights (six of two words, one of three), correctly linked, make ten members of a seasonal set, one light…
to 2386: Outside what we know
ROUND THE HORNE (32/40/37) starred 6/37, 6/23, 1A, 14 and 8/13. The title suggested their other comedy show, Beyond Our Ken.…
Why the end of 2018 is also the end of a sporting era
It may be the end of the year but it’s also the end of some major sporting eras. Alastair Cook…
How to lose more friends and alienate more people
This used to be the busiest time of the year for me. If you do anything in public life —…
This is capitalism as its most gaudy: Fortnum & Mason reviewed
I admit I had a falling out with Fortnum & Mason a few years ago over its new brasserie on…
The most underpriced Christmas gift you can buy
During the second Gulf war, simply out of curiosity, I found myself visiting the website of a giant American mercenary…
In the midst of Brexit agony, one thing remains certain: disputation needs drink
It is enough to drive a fellow to the bottle. I am not given to agnosticism. My view is that…
