Twelve to follow
It has been a little like scraping from the plate as slowly as possible the last traces of Mrs Oakley’s…
Rome, racism and Sadiq Khan
‘Racism’ refers to the belief in racially determined inferiority, most often recognised in body-type, about which, by definition, nothing can…
Barometer
Secrets of the stars The astrologer Jonathan Cainer died after beginning his last horoscope for his own star sign: ‘We’re…
Diary
On Thursday morning I’m woken by day three of a tension headache firing tentacles up the back of my neck…
Churchill’s return
From ‘Colonel Winston Churchill’, The Spectator, 13 May 1916: The return of Colonel Churchill to the House of Commons, which we are…
Australian letters
Metal cocoon Sir: Perhaps the most worrying thing not mentioned by James McCann about the submarine announcement is that Australia…
Letters
Europe is already divided Sir: The Archbishop Emeritus of Westminster writes eloquently about the historical purpose of a ‘union’ in…
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, made a speech in the British Museum warning of war if Britain left the…
Death metal
With its loud guitar riffs and even louder fashion, heavy metal has always been ripe for ridicule. In its mid-1980s…
The male gaze
Everybody Wants Some!! is a comedy written and directed by Richard Linklater, which is the good news, but it’s set…
Surreal, strange and scatological
Why do we put one work of art beside another? For the most part museums and galleries tend to stick…
Unsung hero
One of the greatest choral symphonies of the 20th century, entitled Das Siegeslied (Psalm of Victory), has been heard only…
Unsung hero
One of the greatest choral symphonies of the 20th century, entitled Das Siegeslied (Psalm of Victory), has been heard only…
Shaw thing
T.E. Lawrence is like the gap-year student from hell. He visits a country full of exotic barbarians and after a…
Shaw thing
T.E. Lawrence is like the gap-year student from hell. He visits a country full of exotic barbarians and after a…
Divine comedy
You have to be quite silly to take Gilbert and Sullivan seriously. But even sillier not to. G&S is still…
Divine comedy
You have to be quite silly to take Gilbert and Sullivan seriously. But even sillier not to. G&S is still…
The power of song
You might not think that the Eurovision Song Contest (screened live from Stockholm tonight) could have any connection with how…
The power of song
You might not think that the Eurovision Song Contest (screened live from Stockholm tonight) could have any connection with how…
Bridge
It’s the beginning of May and I have a feeling I am about to write the same opening sentence as…
Grand theft super
As the nation embarks on a critical federal election, both sides of politics have decided to launch a brutal assault…
Have we sacrificed a quarter’s growth to answer the European question?
Has the shadow of Brexit already cost us a slice of GDP — and if so, is it a blip…
Vaping’s appeal isn’t about the nicotine. It’s about the gadgets
Probably you never visited the flats of middle-class student drug dealers in the 1990s, because crikey, neither did I, and…
RIP Gussie, my plainspoken llama
Gussie is the name of a grumpy and ill-natured llama, her coat largely white and somewhat unkempt, and much given…
The Spectator’s notes
One of the many problems with David Cameron’s threat that leaving the European Union could plunge us into war is…
