21st-century Belloc
In Competition No. 2898 you were invited to give an update on one of the children in Cautionary Tales who…
Your problems solved
Q. How can I discipline inconsiderate people who do not reply properly to wedding invitations? I am being driven demented…
Let’s drink to a Tory majority
Most of my friends are still on a cloud of post-election euphoria. There is one exception: those involved with opinion-polling.…
Isis rising
Listen http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/michaelgovesfightforjustice/media.mp3 In recent months, as the country went through a general election, our focus has been on our own…
High life
This is as good as it gets. A light rain is falling on a soft May evening and I’m walking…
Long life
I have rather a poor record for speeding over the years. I have been caught by cameras quite often, sometimes…
Long life
I have rather a poor record for speeding over the years. I have been caught by cameras quite often, sometimes…
Low life
From somewhere in the tree canopy, a nightingale song. The virtuoso trilling and warbling, the underwater bubbling, the teetering on…
Low life
From somewhere in the tree canopy, a nightingale song. The virtuoso trilling and warbling, the underwater bubbling, the teetering on…
Heritage
Benidorm has applied for World Heritage status. To achieve this, says Unesco, a site must have ‘outstanding universal value’ in…
Real life
You can’t always get what you want. And you can never get what you want if you want a phone…
Freedom for free schools
I was disappointed to hear Andy Burnham on Marr last Sunday declare his opposition to free schools. He put plenty…
Freedom for free schools
I was disappointed to hear Andy Burnham on Marr last Sunday declare his opposition to free schools. He put plenty…
The importance of selective inefficiency
Readers of a certain age may remember choosing a cassette player in the 1980s. In theory the process was simple:…
Wild life
Nairobi Trout were first introduced into Kenya’s highland streams in 1905. Men like Ewart Grogan, ‘baddest and boldest of…
The Roman trade unions
With Len McCluskey, general secretary of the union Unite, keen to ensure ‘his’ members choose the next Labour leader, and…
Barometer
Cake discrimination A bakery in Northern Ireland was found guilty of discriminating against a gay couple for whom it refused…
National government
From ‘A National Government’, Spectator, 22 May 1915: When we wrote last week there seemed little possibility that our hopes…
Portrait of the week
Home The annual rate of inflation turned negative in April, for the first time since 1960, with deflation of 0.1…
Dedicated follower of fascism?
The ‘revelations’, 50 years after he drowned, that Le Corbusier was a ‘fascist’ and an anti-Semite are neither fresh nor…
Sexed-up pacifism
Big-screen documentaries never change the world. Blackfish has not shortened the queues to see maltreated killer whales leap through hoops…
Woolf haul
People have been saying that Wayne McGregor’s new Woolf Works has reinvented the three-act ballet, but not so. William Forsythe…
Moving pictures
About six years ago the first section of the now celebrated High Line was opened in New York and made…
Moving pictures
About six years ago the first section of the now celebrated High Line was opened in New York and made…
Two batons better
The morning after the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra failed to elect a music director, I took a call from Bild-Zeitung, Berlin’s…
