One Afternoon
In Aljezur we took a walk And paused above the river where, Among the rushes, swifts and fish, We saw…
Title Stories: Winnie The Pooh by A.A. Milne
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You’re never too old, they say. But I am
For my 49th birthday treat, I went to see Shakespeare in Love at the Noël Coward theatre in London. Expensive…
Australian Notes
The Quadrant dinner in Sydney was held in ‘a semi-secure, undisclosed location.’ Or so Roger Kimball, tongue-in-cheek, blogged back to…
Portrait of the week
Home The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge joined 50 heads of state at the St Symphorien cemetery near Mons to…
Bread, circuses and Hamas
What responsibility do Gaza's rulers feel for its people? Very little, it seems
Letters
Poor treatment Sir: Jane Kelly’s article (‘No tea or sympathy’, 2 August) on the lack of empathy and emotional support…
The Spectator’s Notes
Plus: An undervalued curator, the death of Margaret Thatcher’s first boyfriend, and the secrets buried in email spam
Tread carefully: your garden’s saturated with race
A sociologist who makes Malcolm Bradbury’s History Man look balanced
I found my inner fascist in a letterbox
If you want to bring out my statist side, give your house a name and make it hard to post a leaflet through your door
A challenge for Centrica’s new boss: persuade the public we need to get fracking
Plus: The French catastrophe, One North and your bankers’ oaths
Nearly there, Darling
The Scottish referendum battle still has six weeks to run. But right now there's no doubt who's ahead
Where have all the leaders gone?
The only countries willing to pay the price of leadership are ones we'd really rather didn't have it
Don’t blame the blob
As chairman of the National Trust, I’m part of the collection of green groups the former Environment Secretary blames for his sacking. He’s wrong
Disciplined exoticism
A review of Goldeneye: Where Bond was Born, by Matthew Parker. This biography of Bond's creator reveals an Ian Fleming who was cruel, vain and racist
What the eye don’t see
A review of Invisible: The Dangerous Lure of the Unseen, by Philip Ball. Scientists and occultists held hands in their quest for the invisible
Soothing the savage breast
A review of H is for Hawk, by Helen Macdonald. It’s when describing the murderous, sulky, fractious birds themselves that this story comes alive
Why don’t any of my friends own holiday homes?
It will soon seem as strange that the middle classes owned empty villas and cottages as it does that they used to have domestic staff living in the attic