Losing faith
A landmark in national life has just been passed. For the first time in recorded history, those declaring themselves to…
High life
New York Let’s face it, sleaze is to professional party-givers what jail is to a burglar, an occupational hazard. I’ve…
Long life
When your mind suddenly goes wonky, you may be the one person who doesn’t realise that there is something wrong…
Long life
When your mind suddenly goes wonky, you may be the one person who doesn’t realise that there is something wrong…
Low life
We cleared the kitchen table for a game of pick-up sticks. Remember them? Thirty long, thin bamboo sticks, their differing…
Low life
We cleared the kitchen table for a game of pick-up sticks. Remember them? Thirty long, thin bamboo sticks, their differing…
Concept
‘It was nothing special, but it was a pub,’ said my husband, looking up from his copy of Bar magazine…
Real life
After a tense two week stand-off, the Balham Airbnb Crisis has been resolved. My upstairs neighbour and I have drawn…
A blueprint for English cricket
No place for the faint of heart, Headingley, and certainly not for some sketchy Sri Lankan batsmen at the back…
The only Eurosceptic in the room
I was in Paris last week to take part in an EU referendum debate at Sciences Po, a French university…
The only Eurosceptic in the room
I was in Paris last week to take part in an EU referendum debate at Sciences Po, a French university…
Numbers game
‘After a few decades of marriage a man ought to be able to recognise his own wife,’ Mrs Oakley observed…
Numbers game
‘After a few decades of marriage a man ought to be able to recognise his own wife,’ Mrs Oakley observed…
Plutarch and the EU
Boris Johnson argues that the current European Union is yet another failed attempt to replicate the golden age of a…
Barometer
A man in full A relic said to contain a fragment of St Thomas à Becket’s elbow arrived from Hungary for…
The dogs of peace
From ‘Food dictatorship’, The Spectator, 27 May 1916: Nobody would like to see the whole race of dogs exterminated, but…
Australian letters
Not gay Sir: Ian Thompson in his review of Freedman’s book “ The Murderous History of Biblical Translations …” (Spectator…
Letters
Leave’s grumpy grassroots Sir: James Delingpole should join us at a Remain street stall. He would soon be disabused of…
Portrait of the week
Home The government published a Treasury analysis warning that an exit from the EU would plunge Britain into a year-long…
Giving Tate Modern a lift
Tate Modern, badly overcrowded, has built itself a £260 million extension to spread everyone about the place more. This means…
The great pretenders
There is fakery in the air. And maybe the French are done with deconstruction. A drone operated by a French…
Jane Austen on speed
Love & Friendship is based on the little-known Jane Austen epistolary novella, Lady Susan, which was not published until after…
Punk turns 40
There have been many punk exhibitions over the years so I can’t help but chuckle at the ‘experts’ who are…
Royal Court Theatre
If there were an Eddie the Eagle award for theatre — to recognise large reputations built on minuscule achievements —…
Royal Court Theatre
If there were an Eddie the Eagle award for theatre — to recognise large reputations built on minuscule achievements —…
