What’s love got to do with it?
Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades is probably his greatest opera, certainly the one in which his characteristic strengths are on…
Tick tock
Since the Prime Minister’s petulant and angry election night spray, he and his government have looked anything but in control.…
Business as usual
I should probably nail my colours to the mast and state that The Office is possibly my favourite TV sitcom…
Aux bien pensants
Why do some governments behave as if they’re little more than thieves in the night? Why is it that the…
Words of wisdom
Dominic Frisby is an actor best known for voicing the booking.com adverts (‘Booking dot com, booking dot yeah’). Voiceover specialists…
Checking out
Religion has no part to play in public policy, according to TV producer Andrew Denton — even when it comes…
Rio, Rio
Stuff I have learnt after two solid weeks watching the Olympics on TV. 1. Tennis and golf shouldn’t be Olympic…
Unlike Zwingli
Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531) the great Protestant reformer of the sixteenth century would have been impressed with the determination shown by…
WARNING: This article contains ideas that offend
Disgracefully, an Australian university is introducing ‘trigger warnings’
Annastacia Palaszczuk and the latest city-country divide
Nothing reveals the clear divide between inner city and regional Queensland than the long, tumultuous history of land clearing. The…
Those upper house blues
Here’s a question for all you readers. Of course I don’t expect anyone who’s gone through an Australian high school…
Portmeirion blog
Jonathan Ray heads to north Wales and braves both Welsh rain and Welsh wine in search of the fabled Welsh…
Lindt II: Death by multiculturalism
Ideas about nations matter – especially when those ideas shape the attitudes and actions of those in positions of authority.…
The Lindt siege: our lives are in the best of hands
In early December, Sydneysiders and Australians in general will remember the second anniversary of the deadly Lindt chocolate café siege.…
Cover 20 August 2016
The post Cover 20 August 2016 appeared first on The Spectator. Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment…
Peggy Guggenheim
She had come a very long way from the shtetl, but Marguerite ‘Peggy’ Guggenheim was still the poor relation of…
Adams apple
Grandmaster Michael Adams turned in a superlative performance earlier this month to win the British Championship for the fifth time.…
no. 422
White to play. This is a position from Adams-R. Pert, British Championship, Bournemouth 2016. What is White’s most direct route…
Act of contrition
In Competition No. 2961 you were invited to submit limericks that might have been written by Boris Johnson in an…
Dear Mary
Q. My partner and I have been living together for 26 years, but now that he’s asked me to marry…
Magic at St Michael’s Mount
The Sail Loft is under a castle on a mountain on an island in the sea; for that, I could…
Defending Brexit
One of the many incorrect predictions about this year’s referendum was that those who voted for Brexit would soon regret…
High life
An item in an American newspaper had me thinking of my father all last week. Old dad died 27 years…
Long life
In the four months since I had a brain haemorrhage I have had several tests to find out how my…
