Food for adults remembering childhood: Dover Street Counter reviewed
Dover Street Counter is the tiny sister of The Dover, a very good restaurant on – who knew? – Dover…
What makes a politician a ‘grandee’?
To me, grandee goes together with Tory. So it was a surprise to find Lord Mandelson called a Labour grandee…
Being kind to my parents means saying no to them
After a week in Coventry dealing with two parents with dementia, it would have felt like a nice spa break…
Tales from the Jeremy Clarke Memoir Club
Provence The other Monday I hosted the third annual meeting of the Jeremy Clarke Memoir Club on what would’ve been…
2742: The Hobbit
Eight unclued entries (three of two words) possess a property implied by the title’s other title. Across 8 King stops…
Spectator Competition: The borrowers
For Competition 3439 you were invited to build an undiscovered poem around a phrase lifted from an earlier poet. The…
If only Britain was as important as Iran thinks we are
I am becoming rather fond of Prime Minister Starmer’s major foreign policy announcements. In early January, after US forces swooped…
Is this Starmer’s finest hour?
A friend met Mary Wilson on the Isles of Scilly, where she and her husband, Harold, had a home. She…
Screens in schools have been a catastrophic failure
About a decade ago, the people I dreaded meeting most at parties were the ed tech evangelists – men and…
The uncomfortable truth about the new Mental Health Act
Three years ago, Nottingham University students Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Barnaby Webber, along with caretaker Ian Coates, were murdered by Valdo…
Iran’s tradition of martyrdom is key to understanding this conflict
One word stood out in the florid and overwrought announcement of the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader by a tearful…
The homoeroticism of looksmaxxing
‘Did you ever think that maybe there’s more to life than being really, really, really, ridiculously good-looking?’ So asks Derek…
Letters: There’s no defending Robert Maxwell
Bring back wisdom Sir: Douglas Murray is right that reducing the educational attainment of politicians is not the answer to…
