Low life
My favourite YouTube video clip this week shows a chap sitting at a desk typing. All you can see of…
Low life
My favourite YouTube video clip this week shows a chap sitting at a desk typing. All you can see of…
Mind your language . . . on commit
My husband struck out with his stick at an advertisement in the street that said: ‘Commit to winter.’ He doesn’t…
Real life
Go on, they said. Go on a date. Let your friend fix you up with a nice eligible man. Nothing…
The politics of envy has failed
Last week I put £25 on Lady C to win I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here. At 25/1,…
The politics of envy has failed
Last week I put £25 on Lady C to win I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here. At 25/1,…
The other side to the division of labour: the concentration of attention
Adam Smith’s theory on the division of labour first appeared in 1776 in The Wealth of Nations. The idea was…
Puppet statecraft
‘Please do not mistake democracy for division. We’re now allowing people to express their views in a way in which…
Barometer: Who was the first warmist?
The first warmist The first attempt to quantify the link between CO2 in the atmosphere and global temperatures was attributed…
Diary
First, an apology. Thanks to me, all journalists at BBC Radio’s ethics and religion division are being sent for indoctrination…
Let unions pay MPs
From ‘Payment of members’, The Spectator, 4 December 1915: If the country could be polled at the present time, there is…
Portrait of the week
Home The House of Commons voted on air strikes in Syria. Labour MPs had been allowed a free vote by…
The still point
Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song is the best-remembered title of a short career. Born in 1901, he was dead by…
New word order
In the basement of a busy café in Hockley, Nottingham, which may not have known exactly what it was letting…
Bird brained
For all the billing and cooing on public forums about the Royal Ballet’s The Two Pigeons revival, there’s a silent…
In a class of their own
Painters and sculptors are highly averse to being labelled. So much so that it seems fairly certain that, if asked,…
Lost in translation
About 15 minutes into act one of Jenufa, the student in the next seat leaned over to her companions and…
Lost in translation
About 15 minutes into act one of Jenufa, the student in the next seat leaned over to her companions and…
Men behaving badly
Jamie Lloyd’s production of Pinter’s The Homecoming is a pile of terrific and silly ideas. Mostly terrific. The action takes…
Men behaving badly
Jamie Lloyd’s production of Pinter’s The Homecoming is a pile of terrific and silly ideas. Mostly terrific. The action takes…
There will be blood
It was a stroke of genius to invite Glenda Jackson to make her return to acting as the star of…
There will be blood
It was a stroke of genius to invite Glenda Jackson to make her return to acting as the star of…
Bequest
Knowing he was ill he offered a free choice of the books on his shelves, but for every one wanted…
Heron
Walking to the bus stop after a hospital visit, in an unfamiliar, dusty suburb, I pass a small park on…
Bridge
If you don’t play bridge, you really should avoid gatherings of bridge players — you’ll find us excruciatingly dull. I’ve…
