Low life
‘I’ve lost my phone,’ yells Trev. We’re in a club. He’s come charging on to the dance floor to tell…
Charon
‘What about the moon Tracey?’ asked my husband facetiously when an astronomer on the wireless, talking of Pluto’s moon Charon,…
Real life
‘Cydney, we are not moving to Cobham!’ I told the spaniel in my best outraged Margot Leadbetter voice. What a…
Australia’s comeback kids
I have never met an Aussie I didn’t like, but, crikey, their sporting indefatigability is exhausting. Don’t they ever give…
Why I voted for Jeremy Corbyn
Is the ‘Tories for Corbyn’ campaign politics at its most infantile? As one of the few conservative commentators willing to…
Why I voted for Jeremy Corbyn
Is the ‘Tories for Corbyn’ campaign politics at its most infantile? As one of the few conservative commentators willing to…
Easy does it
For all their formidable physical presence, racehorses spook easily. A sudden gust of wind flapping a plastic sack, a page…
Vespasian vs Islamic State
As Ahmed Rashid argued last week, it is hard to see what the West is doing in the Middle East,…
Barometer
Gesture politics A royal home movie from 1933 apparently showed the future Queen, aged seven, and her mother giving a…
Diary
There’s nothing quite like a First Night — and last Friday we launched the Proms, the most celebrated classical music…
Profiteering in the pits
From ‘Coal and its problems’, The Spectator, 24 July 1915: Instead of attempting to regulate prices, the government ought to have…
Portrait of the week
Home Parents would be able to have their children’s passports removed if they were suspected of planning to travel abroad…
Sweeney Plod
The Legend of Barney Thomson is the directorial debut of actor Robert Carlyle, and it’s one of those black comedies…
Wish list
Compilation schompilation. Having been in music for as long as I have you would think I had a good idea…
Wish list
Compilation schompilation. Having been in music for as long as I have you would think I had a good idea…
Austin diary
Visiting accountant turned property investor Kate Braybrook and building tradie husband Mark, who have relocated from Melbourne. Looked at 20…
Amanda
When I didn’t recognise the number and saw the text with kisses, but no name — ‘Thinking of you: they’re…
Last day
None of the teachers who taught us were around that final afternoon at Grammar school — probably frightened of being…
Don’t raise taxes, cut them
While the media’s attention is distracted by Madam Speaker’s and other politician’s curious choices in executive travel, this week is…
Farewell to the City’s stroppy regulator: a modest sop for the new bank tax
A City insider at last month’s Mansion House dinner told me the Financial Conduct Authority had become ‘a bit of…
Building this lay-by is all I can think about now
Many years ago I was encouraged to read Roger Hutchinson’s Calum’s Road. The small and quirky book made a deep…
Why MPs can’t switch off this summer
There are few quicker ways to annoy an MP than to suggest that they are on holiday when the House…
Institutional feminism
Some revelations, it seems, are capable of being endlessly repeated while still remaining revelations. Think of all the books, articles…
The left pillories Tim Farron for his popular view
I wonder who will win the battle for Tim Farron’s soul — the Guardianistas or God? This is assuming that…
