Halloween hire
To use a vulgar phrase, I can’t get my head around this exhibition. It seems anything but ‘vulgar’. Daintily laid…
Romantic modern
In 1932 Paul Nash posed the question, is it possible to ‘go modern’ and still ‘be British?’ — a conundrum…
Going Dutch
In debates about what should and should not be taught in art school, the subject of survival skills almost never…
March of the makers
Until earlier this year, a squat sculpture nestled rather unobtrusively outside 20 Manchester Square in Marylebone, an address once made…
March of the makers
Until earlier this year, a squat sculpture nestled rather unobtrusively outside 20 Manchester Square in Marylebone, an address once made…
Sweet and sour
Great subject, terminal illness. Popular dramas like Love Story, Terms of Endearment and My Night With Reg handle the issue…
Sweet and sour
Great subject, terminal illness. Popular dramas like Love Story, Terms of Endearment and My Night With Reg handle the issue…
A night at the circus
The Royal Opera’s latest production is Shostakovich’s The Nose and to paraphrase Mark Steyn, whatever else can be said about…
A night at the circus
The Royal Opera’s latest production is Shostakovich’s The Nose and to paraphrase Mark Steyn, whatever else can be said about…
Identity crisis
You may not listen to them every year. Or even to every lecture in the current series. But the survival…
Identity crisis
You may not listen to them every year. Or even to every lecture in the current series. But the survival…
Q&A diary
Spring returned to Sydney for the long weekend, just in time for me to spend three days incarcerated indoors packing…
Bridge
The Gold Cup Finals were played in London this year and proved to be very exciting but ultimately unsuccessful for…
Gunshot wounds
Regardless of who said or emailed what to whom, libertarian Senator David Leyonhjelm’s Adler shotgun blasted a big hole through…
Gunshot wounds
Regardless of who said or emailed what to whom, libertarian Senator David Leyonhjelm’s Adler shotgun blasted a big hole through…
Despite what Big Bang destroyed, there’s still nowhere quite like the City
As the 30th anniversary of Big Bang loomed, I found myself back at the scene of my City demise. Ebbgate…
Free speech and the right not to bake a cake
Let us consider the case of the Ashers family bakery in Belfast which, in 2014, refused to make a cake.…
The absent opposition
Oppositions don’t win elections — governments lose them. This has long been the Westminster wisdom. But the truth is that…
The Spectator’s Notes
World leaders are preoccupied nowadays with what is known as their ‘legacy’. In practice, this means being linked with moral-sounding…
The lying game
‘Adam Curtis believed that 200,000 Guardian readers watching BBC2 could change the world. But this was a fantasy. In fact,…
How Pete Burns helped to create our fatuous modern world
So RIP Pete Burns, transgendered Scouse popstar. His indescribably awful song ‘You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)’ — clever…
Will you take The Red Pill?
In the The Matrix, the protagonist Neo is offered a choice of taking the red pill which will wake him…
Malcolm’s example inspires military mutiny
Australian military-political intrigue claimed its first victim on January 26, 1808 when the NSW Rum Corps arrested Governor William Bligh.…
Official: the moment The Age died
Check the date on the screengrab below, good people. Look at the time. It is a snapshot of the exact…
Policy consistency: The Conversation last year, the ABC today?
Last year the government withdrew its funding from the pseudo-academic website The Conversation, saying its aggressive expansion appeared to indicate it…
