Real life
Diamonds are for ever. Plumbers take a lifetime. They never finish. No job is too big or small for them…
Jones the dragon-slayer
The return heavyweight bout between England and Wales lived up to its billing as the most thumping rugby match of…
The miracle of Michaela
It was like being on the set of an inspirational Hollywood film about a visionary teacher who transforms the lives…
The miracle of Michaela
It was like being on the set of an inspirational Hollywood film about a visionary teacher who transforms the lives…
Farewell to Fergie
Writing a Turf column before the Cheltenham Festival, as the Spectator schedule requires, which you are reading only after the…
Farewell to Fergie
Writing a Turf column before the Cheltenham Festival, as the Spectator schedule requires, which you are reading only after the…
Safe space in ancient Athens
Brilliant Oxford undergraduates argue that it is right to prevent us saying things they object to, because speech they do…
Barometer
Name that town The representative of Slough in the UK Youth Parliament called for the town’s name to be changed…
Diary
To while away the time at airports, I like to spot celebrities. But pickings have been slim. Where is everyone?…
Portugal’s choice
From ‘Portugal and the war’, The Spectator, 18 March 1916: Portugal in coming into the war may seem to have taken…
Letters
More things to ban Sir: In the light of Mick Hume’s piece about politically correct students (‘The left will eat…
Australian letters
Christ you know it aint easy Sir: Andrew Bolt has allowed his vision of what happened to Cardinal George Pell…
Portrait of the week
Home In the Budget, George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, kept talking of the ‘next generation’. He outlined cuts…
Rebel angels
This is the first exhibition I’ve been to where the Prime Minister joined the hacks at the press view. A…
Building block
High-Rise is Ben Wheatley’s adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s novel, and it is deeply unpleasant, if not deeply, deeply unpleasant. (Ideally,…
Second thoughts
You revisit an old love with wariness. Time’s passed for both of you — sharp edges have been smoothed, and…
Repeat prescription
Walter Sickert was once shown a room full of paintings by a proud collector, who had purchased them on the…
Time out of mind
The Maids is a fascinating document. Written in 1947, Jean Genet’s drama portrays a pair of serving girls who enact…
Time out of mind
The Maids is a fascinating document. Written in 1947, Jean Genet’s drama portrays a pair of serving girls who enact…
Original sin
The Royal Opera has bitten the bullet so far as Musorgsky’s Boris Godunov goes, and opted to stage the original…
Original sin
The Royal Opera has bitten the bullet so far as Musorgsky’s Boris Godunov goes, and opted to stage the original…
Home and away
Four programmes, four very different kinds of radio, from a classically made drama to weird sonic ramblings, via the best…
Home and away
Four programmes, four very different kinds of radio, from a classically made drama to weird sonic ramblings, via the best…
Indonesian diary
On a flight to Indonesia, I am seized by trepidation. In a previous life my flights north were often rushed…
Bridge
The past couple of weeks have been the first since the New Year that we haven’t played a tournament of…
