Long life
In olden days, before the internet arrived, shopping was quite simple. You’d go into a shop and buy something, and…
Low life
The first and only time I went to a meeting of Sex Addicts Anonymous, this chap stood up and gave…
Low life
The first and only time I went to a meeting of Sex Addicts Anonymous, this chap stood up and gave…
Critique
‘Americans,’ said my husband in much the same tone that Betsey Trotwood said ‘Donkeys’. It was his way of explaining…
Real life
After a year dealing with estate agents I can only say: a plague on all their houses, except the one…
A good read… but I don’t buy the plot
I’m writing this from the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham where the mood is buoyant, to put it mildly. Everyone…
A good read… but I don’t buy the plot
I’m writing this from the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham where the mood is buoyant, to put it mildly. Everyone…
Let there be light, and at better times of day
We already drive on the left, give road distances in miles and drink pints. So one good feature of Brexit…
Augustus vs Jeremy Corbyn
Jeremy Corbyn has been re-elected leader of the Labour party not by MPs but by his teenage ‘fans’ in Momentum.…
Barometer
Tenement Scots John Cleese referred to the editor of this magazine as a ‘tenement Scot’. Do more Scots live in…
Diary
Any day now, the government will make its long delayed announcement on whether a third runway should be built at…
Conscription in Ireland
From ‘More men’, The Spectator, 7 October 1916: Are we or are we not to apply compulsory service to Ireland? The…
Letters
Studying grammars Sir: Isabel Hardman (Politics, 1 October) states that no reputable research backs up the belief that grammar schools…
Australian letters
Pollies pryorities Sir: If only’ the changes to the upper houses of Parliament recommended by Noreen Pryor could be enacted,…
Portrait of the Week
Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, said at the Conservative party conference that hers was now the party of ‘working-class’…
Kids’ stuff
When a new TV channel calls its flagship food show Fuck, That’s Delicious, we might surmise that the Reithian ideals…
Wrong side of the tracks
You will surely have seen the posters for The Girl on the Train with Emily Blunt staring from a train…
Yes, he Khan
Giselle endures in the collective imagination as a charming, sorrowful, supernatural love story. Premièred in Paris in 1841, this keystone…
All things bright and beautiful
For much of the Middle Ages, especially from 1250–1350, ‘English work’ was enormously prized around Europe from Spain to Iceland.…
Kate Tempest
Kate Tempest, a 30 year old dramatist and poet, has an appeal that’s hard to fathom. Is it all in…
Kate Tempest
Kate Tempest, a 30 year old dramatist and poet, has an appeal that’s hard to fathom. Is it all in…
Top of the Pops with silk tights
Here are three roles all actors love to play. The drunk (no need to learn your lines), the dementia victim…
Top of the Pops with silk tights
Here are three roles all actors love to play. The drunk (no need to learn your lines), the dementia victim…
Hole in the heart
Richard Jones’s new production of Don Giovanni at ENO bears some passing resemblances to the opera as envisaged by its…
Hole in the heart
Richard Jones’s new production of Don Giovanni at ENO bears some passing resemblances to the opera as envisaged by its…
