Writing on the fly
Bogotá airport, immigration form in hand. Tourist, migrant, businessman? Andrés Neuman ponders the descriptors, unsure which to tick. He opts…
Pirramimma, Wentworth Falls
Gardens are one of the indicators of civilisation. It is said that the first references to gardens occurred about 4,000…
Smaller than life
For Jonathan Safran Foer fans and sceptics alike, Here I Am comes as a wonderful gift, a truly painful, honest…
Cover 10 September 2016 AU
The post Cover 10 September 2016 AU appeared first on The Spectator. Got something to add? Join the discussion and…
Exit the Tsar
Helen Rappaport’s new book makes no claim to be a complete account of the Russian revolution. Instead it presents a…
The intolerant Left
Three recent events have exposed the hypocrisy of the Left. While trumpeting civility and tolerance, and parading its hatred of…
Digging deep into history
The year is 1963. A girl is walking around Stepney with a pack of index cards, visiting old residents in…
Hypocrisy and free speech in sports
For those of you who don’t follow US sports, let me tell you that there is currently a big brouhaha…
No regrets, really?
Never speak on the same platform as Sir Malcolm Rifkind. I tried it once, at a Spectator debate held during…
The kids are alright
At sixteen, almost half of my classmates from the year before had already left school and were either working or…
Champagne all the way
A more appropriate subtitle to this homage to the queen bees of the interwar years might have been ‘How to…
High life
I have a question for you, dear readers: is it me, or is there no newspaper or network in America…
Towards the best of all possible worlds
The flour is what matters, and not the mill, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg wrote in his notebook in 1799. ‘When we…
Real life
What is happening to estate agents? Or let me put it another way. If the professional classes thought they were…
Paths to fulfillment
You could say that this book contradicts itself. Robert Moor’s chosen topic is trails — not just walking, where you…
Migrant benefits
Calm is slowly returning to the debate about Britain and Europe. The shrillness of the referendum campaign, and the hysteria…
Blair witch project
I had been wondering where Gorgeous George Galloway might pop up next. Defenestrated from his seat in Bradford West, humiliated…
The Douro Valley
They’re called quintas, Joana tells us, because the rich families who owned the land along this stretch of the Douro…
Back to Baku
The 42nd Chess Olympiad is now underway in Baku, Azerbaijan, and English grandmasters are making their best efforts to recapture…
No. 425
White to play. This is a position from Short (England)-Pasaribu (Indonesia), Baku-Olympiad 2016. How did White win material? Answers to…
No idea
In Competition No. 2964 you were invited to suggest a really bad idea for one, or several, of the following:…
Dear Mary
Q. We recently stayed for a Saturday night with an old friend and were warned before we arrived that my…
Grouse rules
The autumn bank holiday is like the five-minute bell at the opera. The shades of the prison house loom. All…
Migrant benefits
Calm is slowly returning to the debate about Britain and Europe. The shrillness of the referendum campaign, and the hysteria…
