I leave a sunburnt country
After six years, the BBC’s Australia correspondent bids farewell to ‘the Antipodes’
Brown Study
It was probably inevitable that my stay in the United States should coincide with another of the volcanic eruptions of…
Battle of the buildings
A rare jewel sits in the middle of the Hyde Park Corner roundabout. The Quadrant Gallery, run by English Heritage,…
Walking
One moment basking in the sun, the next knee-deep in snow astonished at the way these tracks must have filled…
Walking
One moment basking in the sun, the next knee-deep in snow astonished at the way these tracks must have filled…
Eating the Shard
What to say about the Shard that isn’t said by the fact it is 1,020 feet high and looks like…
Can anyone save Aussie cricket?
Insomniacs, invalids and cricket obsessives (step forward yours truly) were probably the only people who stumbled on it, but BBC4…
Wild life
Kenya Home is beyond the perimeter of modern Kenya and way off the grid. When the ancient generator goes off…
Wilful expression
‘Lounge suit’ is normally a reliable signifier of supine gentility. But there it was on the invitation to Richard Rogers’s…
Battle of the buildings
A rare jewel sits in the middle of the Hyde Park Corner roundabout. The Quadrant Gallery, run by English Heritage,…
No one else will say it. But right now, both Milband and Cameron are heroic
It is within the experience of even the humblest of MPs that those who oppose what you do will berate…
The cash myth
According to popular wisdom on the left — and even among some in the Conservative party — this ought to have been…
Portrait of the week
Home Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, put into ‘special measures’ 11 hospitals among the 14 with the worst death rates…
Barometer
Running scared Three participants were gored at the Pamplona bull run. The event has reputation for danger, but how risky…
Letters
Wild weather Sir: Weather and climate science is not an emotional or political issue — even though emotions and politics run…
Why Egypt needs a Socrates
No one seems to know, or is willing to say, whether the Egyptian army’s intervention in Egyptian democracy was legal…
The EU’s new army of diplomats
The Prime Minister recently professed himself shocked at waste in the European Union. In particular, he was incensed by an…
The Spectator’s Notes
Attending the funeral of Margaret Thatcher in April, the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, was much impressed by the bit in…
The jury in the Zimmerman case paid too much attention to the evidence
I wonder what possessed the jury in the Trayvon Martin case to return two not guilty verdicts when they knew…
It’s sport that really matters in life. Now where’s my surfboard?
What a glorious sporting summer it has been so far. For some the highlight will have been Andy Murray at…
It’s the summer of the topless man,and there’s nothing we can do to stop it
Topless men. What does that mean, then? I was opposite one on the tube the other day, heading north from…
