Essential racing books for Christmas
Do horses have souls or a ‘spirit’? When form expert Marten Julian was looking to buy a horse, he asked…
Essential racing books for Christmas
Do horses have souls or a ‘spirit’? When form expert Marten Julian was looking to buy a horse, he asked…
True dedication
Benjamin Clementine, who won the 2015 Mercury Music Prize for his debut album At Least For Now, received his cheque…
The many fights over the Lord’s Prayer
Amen corner Digital Cinema Media, a company which distributes adverts to cinemas, refused to allow an advert which involves the…
Diary
Scientists are experimenting with growing replacement vocal cords in the lab, as well as transplanting them from dogs. That was…
Capitalism for all
From ‘Public loans and private savings’, The Spectator, 27 November 1915: In the nature of things there is no reason for…
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, announced, as part of the Strategic Defence and Security Review, plans for two 5,000-strong…
I wanted to beat it with a stick and cry, ‘Get on with it!’: Carol reviewed
Carol is an easy film to admire — so beautiful to look at; entirely exquisite — but such a hard…
The bicycle may have triumphed but it’s far from perfect
It’s extraordinary that it took civilisation so very long to discover the benefits of putting little wheels on suitcases. We…
Artistic taste is inversely proportional to political nous
‘Wherever the British settle, wherever they colonize,’ observed the painter Benjamin Robert Haydon, ‘they carry and will ever carry trial…
Has there ever been a better time to be a lover of Baroque opera?
Time was when early music was a 6 p.m. concert, Baroque began with Bach and ended with Corelli’s Christmas Concerto,…
Has there ever been a better time to be a lover of Baroque opera?
Time was when early music was a 6 p.m. concert, Baroque began with Bach and ended with Corelli’s Christmas Concerto,…
Why is there no one at the National Theatre preventing these duds getting staged?
Wallace Shawn is a lovely old sausage. A stalwart of American theatre, he’s taken cameo roles in classic movies like…
Why is there no one at the National Theatre preventing these duds getting staged?
Wallace Shawn is a lovely old sausage. A stalwart of American theatre, he’s taken cameo roles in classic movies like…
You can’t forget what Will Self says – even if you wish you could
It lasted for just a few seconds but was such a graphic illustration of the statistics behind the bombing campaign…
You can’t forget what Will Self says – even if you wish you could
It lasted for just a few seconds but was such a graphic illustration of the statistics behind the bombing campaign…
Migration diary
Two days after the Paris attacks I arrive in Vienna for a United Nations meeting on human trafficking. Every one…
Treasure
Walking down the sands to investigate what they might find, shells or stones, flotsam pieces abandoned by tides, two figures…
Consider this …
Hug a Muslim today If the Federal government fails to insist that Christian Syrians alone make up Australia’s…
Consider this …
Hug a Muslim today If the Federal government fails to insist that Christian Syrians alone make up Australia’s…
Bridge
Last weekend saw the qualifying matches for the Tollemache Cup, the inter-county championships for teams of eight. I didn’t play…
Yellow label
The United Nations’ corporate hatred of the nation of Israel and the Jewish people is clear from the ever-growing list…
We must play the blame game over HBOS. How else will bankers learn?
‘Everyone remembers the names of Applegarth of Northern Rock and Goodwin of RBS, but history may judge the HBOS men…
Get ready: these climate change talks might actually do something
The Prince of Wales is right, and I appreciate that this isn’t something people say very often. Now and again,…
Is the Archbishop of Canterbury forsaking God?
The Archbishop of Canterbury, we heard during the BBC’s Songs of Praise broadcast last Sunday, ‘doubted God’ after the Paris…
