Long life
One of David Cameron’s last decisions as prime minister was to get the brass doorbell of No. 10 cleaned. I…
Long life
One of David Cameron’s last decisions as prime minister was to get the brass doorbell of No. 10 cleaned. I…
Low life
I sat down at the metal table on the shaded terrace to write a column. In front, ripening vines receding…
Low life
I sat down at the metal table on the shaded terrace to write a column. In front, ripening vines receding…
Definitions
What is a bee? ‘A well-known insect,’ says the Oxford English Dictionary, passing the buck rather. Similarly, an ash is…
Real life
Market day in Bergerac and the streets are paved with chicken bones. As a spaniel, I am bound to say…
Way off track
What’s going on with athletics? Do you know anything that’s happened in the sport this year? Has a sport ever…
The best way to bring back grammar schools
Could grammar schools be about to make a comeback? That Theresa May went to one, and that the number of…
The best way to bring back grammar schools
Could grammar schools be about to make a comeback? That Theresa May went to one, and that the number of…
The Brexit effect
Perhaps the most surprising thing about Theresa May’s arrival at No. 10 is that it has given us back a…
The Brexit effect
Perhaps the most surprising thing about Theresa May’s arrival at No. 10 is that it has given us back a…
Sophocles vs the luvvie Remainers
Is the Labour leadership hopeful Owen Smith, who longs to reverse the obviously undemocratic outcome of the recent referendum, aware…
Barometer
How Britannia got her trident Parliament voted to renew Trident as Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent. But what about Britannia and…
Diary
These days, you only need to turn your back for five minutes and you’ve missed another horror. The Turkish coup…
Over the top
From ‘The Battle of the Somme’, The Spectator, 22 July 1916: What we seldom hear about is what Milton called the ‘raw…
Letters
Our terrified youth Sir: Both Claire Fox’s ‘Generation Snowflake’ and Mary Wakefield’s recent column (What’s to blame for a generation’s…
Australian letters
Dumb ox Sir: I am surprised that Noreen from Queensland would expect to find balanced opinion in the pages of…
Portrait of the week
Home Theresa May made a speech in the open air in Downing Street after kissing hands with the Queen as…
Losing their religion
Scriabin once suggested that the audiences for his music should be segregated according to their degree of personal enlightenment, with…
Dahl by Spielberg
Nobody who witnessed it can have forgotten Mark Rylance summoning giants to his aid in Jerusalem. As Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron,…
All in the mind
Mark Morris, the most musically communicative and naturally lyrical of choreographers of the past 30 years (and an absentee from…
First impressions
The last boat I saw in the galleries on the Mound was a canoe that the Scottish painter Jock McFadyen…
Power failure
Fracking is a British tradition. Since 1969 more than 200 sites have used hydraulic fracturing ‘without environmental catastrophes’ according to…
Power failure
Fracking is a British tradition. Since 1969 more than 200 sites have used hydraulic fracturing ‘without environmental catastrophes’ according to…
On full beam
What’s the best first opera for a sceptical adult first timer? It’s a favourite topic among opera buffs, and once…
