Diary
As I was leaving the sweaty Q&A set at the Docklands Studios in Melbourne, a lefty dweeb in the audience…
My fascist moment on the ship of failures
There are no roads from the Peruvian river port of Iquitos, but the rich take aeroplanes. Those who cannot pay…
Simon Collins
It’s a little know fact that when French aristo Baron Pierre de Coubertin averred that ‘the important thing is not…
Dear God, am I going to start liking Ed Balls?
What the hell is going on with Ed Balls? Back in the horrible doldrums of the last Labour government, he…
Northern brag
The last thing we need right now, in these divisive times, is a series that spends all its time crowing…
Stalled EU-US talks offer a reality check for our own post-Brexit trade hopes
Should we care two hoots whether negotiation of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP, pronounced ‘Tee-tip’ by cognoscenti) has…
Long life
Americans want a president with the steadiest possible finger on the nuclear button, which is why they worry about the…
Sweden’s refugee crisis
Stockholm For a British boy to be killed by a grenade attack anywhere is appalling, but for it to happen…
No. 424
White to play. This is from Palucha-Skettos, Bhubaneswar 2016. Here White destroyed the black position with a typical tactical thrust.…
The Clinton problem
′Love Trumps Hate’ has become one of Hillary Clinton’s official campaign slogans. It’s a clunky pun but you get the…
A rotten windfall
It’s strange that, even now, the Brexit vote is routinely referred to as an expression of anger or frustration —…
Warrant for alarm
A concerted effort is under way to make sure that, when it comes to the European Arrest Warrant, Brexit does…
Real legs and fake people
The Soho Hotel is an actors’ hotel. They come for press junkets and interviews that reveal nothing because there is…
Save the whale-hunt!
Toftir, Faroe Islands Almost twenty years ago I founded a heavy metal band called Týr. Our songs, with titles such…
‘I have become their voice’
When the model and actress Anastasia Lin was crowned Miss World Canada last year, a fairly easy and lucrative career…
Gay marriage notes
I hate to say it, but the Age made some solid points about the gay marriage plebiscite in their August…
Italian Notebook
Lido di Dante, Ravenna When the earthquake struck in the dead of night at 3.36 a.m. — the Devil’s Hour…
Taking offence
It was Victor Hugo who wrote that ‘an invasion of armies can be resisted; an invasion of ideas cannot be…
Bare ruined choirs
We’re so used to looking at the abbeys smashed up by Henry VIII — particularly Rievaulx and Byland, in north…
Spectator Australia Wine Club September
Some people carry a terrible burden: they have an indubitable duty to drink wine. Through family, profession and the overarching…
First aid
In the 1980s, supermarkets stocked a fruit juice named ‘Um Bongo’ with the strapline ‘They drink it in the Congo!’.…
Tomorrow’s world
It may be difficult to believe when you think of Donald Trump, but the age of super-humans is almost upon…
High life
Just about this time of year, 42 years ago, Dunhill’s of London, the famed tobacconist, had a bold idea. Its…
Thoroughly modern Melanie
This exhilaratingly lowbrow first novel concentrates on money and lust or, to put it more bluntly, sex and the City.…
Real life
‘Oh no, I can’t bear it,’ said the builder boyfriend when I told him I wanted to look at one…
