High life
The Dolly Sisters were off to Davos last week for the World Economic Forum: Nat Rothschild and Sebastian Taylor in…
Long life
No good deed goes unpunished. This is a saying that applies with special poignancy to Olive Cooke, the 92-year-old poppy…
Long life
No good deed goes unpunished. This is a saying that applies with special poignancy to Olive Cooke, the 92-year-old poppy…
Low life
Roy was a superb mechanic, a methodical master of his trade. For an hour I respectfully watched him work to…
Low life
Roy was a superb mechanic, a methodical master of his trade. For an hour I respectfully watched him work to…
Peak
Near Victoria Station in London they began to build a tower-block advertised as ‘The Peak’. I expected it to resemble…
Real life
My attempt to have a small cyst removed from the spaniel was always going to be fraught with difficulty. My…
Is this a golden age of protest?
Are we living in a golden age of protest? A bunch of aggrieved citizens only has to raise a murmur…
Is this a golden age of protest?
Are we living in a golden age of protest? A bunch of aggrieved citizens only has to raise a murmur…
The power of painless payment
I am one of those annoying, mildly claustrophobic people who sit at the end of a row in cinemas. There…
Quintilian on lecturers
Professor Louise Richardson, Oxford’s new vice-chancellor, is worried about a new government plan to judge teaching quality. Her reason is…
Barometer
So near and yet so far Henry Worsley died in a Chilean hospital of peritonitis after being airlifted from Antartica,…
Disciplined brutality
From ‘The Crimes of Germany’, The Spectator, 29 January 1916: It would be a relief, a partial solution, if only…
Letters
Levelling the cricket pitch Sir: As a cricket addict and believer in state education, it pains me to agree with…
Portrait of the week
Home Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, prepared a paper on the four areas of concern between Britain…
Magnetic north
‘Edvard Munch, I cannot abide,’ wrote Nikolai Astrup in a letter to his friend Arne Giverholt. ‘Everything that he does…
Doing the wrong thing
Like The Revenant and The Big Short, Spotlight is yet another Oscar contender ‘based on true events’ — although it…
Show me the Monet
Philip Larkin once remarked that Art Tatum, a jazz musician given to ornate, multi-noted flourishes on the keyboard, reminded him…
Sound and fury
No one is consulted. No one is held to account. No one has the authority to turn it off. How…
Sound and fury
No one is consulted. No one is held to account. No one has the authority to turn it off. How…
Fine vintage
A beautiful crumbling theatre in Notting Hill is under threat. The Coronet, which bills itself as the Print Room, faces…
Fine vintage
A beautiful crumbling theatre in Notting Hill is under threat. The Coronet, which bills itself as the Print Room, faces…
Northern lights
Opera North continues to be the most reliable, inspiring, resourceful and enterprising opera company in the United Kingdom, and all…
Northern lights
Opera North continues to be the most reliable, inspiring, resourceful and enterprising opera company in the United Kingdom, and all…
Lessons in the surreal
The new season of the Serial podcast (produced by the same team who make This American Life) was launched last…
