Latham’s law
What is it about Q&A? People who despise the show feel compelled to watch it every Monday night. It has…
Wild life
Indian Ocean On Hassan’s dhow, shaped like Vasco da Gama’s caravel, I can forget about dry land for a fortnight…
Bookends: Laughing by the book
Comedy is a serious business. The number of young people who seek to make a living making other people laugh…
Bookends
Of all the great cultural shifts of recent years, the rise to respectability of American comics may be the strangest.…
Latham’s law
In re-reading William Shawcross’s biography of Rupert Murdoch I was struck by the ideological extremism of its subject matter. In…
Bookends: Corpses in the coal hole
Ruth Rendell has probably pulled more surprises on her readers than any other crime writer. But the one she produces…
Bookends: A friend of mine
A friend of mine was throttled by Pete Postlethwaite once. It was outside a TV studio, people were smoking and…
Latham’s Law
One of the dubious techniques of political feminism is to construct false standards for the behaviour of men. The objective…
Bookends
I like books with weather and there’s plenty in this one, all bad, which is even better. Set in London…
Latham’s Law
Australia’s experiment with a female prime minister has failed. When she took the job 12 months ago, Julia Gillard needed…
Bookends: Scourge of New Labour
Like all politicians, Bob Marshall-Andrews is fond of quoting himself, and Off Message (Profile Books, £16.99) includes a generous selection…
Wild life
‘So much sorting to do,’ said my Aunt Beryl. We stood in the middle of her home in Sussex. I…
Bookends: Not just for Christmas
Sticky at Christmas, packed in serried rows around a plastic twig in an oval-ended paper-wrapped box with a picture of…
Latham’s law
With the sad passing of Rex ‘the Moose’ Mossop, it is at least comforting to know that his long lost…
Bookends: Venice improper
Books about Venice are almost as numerous as gondolas on the Grand Canal, but Robin Saikia is the first to…
Latham’s Law
The Great Depression was a golden age for sporting heroism, confirming the importance of inspiration in times of adversity. On…
The art of architecture
Leighton House, studio-home of Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830–96), is one of my favourite museums, and always a treat to visit.…
Bookends: When will there be good news?
I am in love with Jackson Brodie. Does this mean that, in a literary homoerotic twist, I am actually in…
Bookends: Lowe and behold
It is 1979. You are a 15-year-old boy starring in a hit US television show. You’ve seen the crowds of…
Latham’s law
Lindsay Tanner’s book Sideshow continues to receive mixed reviews. Lindsay Tanner’s book Sideshow continues to receive mixed reviews. Australia’s political…
Wild life
Aidan Hartley’s Wild life Laikipia I had enjoyed a boozy lunch and afternoon in the Men’s Bar of the Muthaiga.…
Bookends: Bloodbath
It may have been first published in 1973, but reading it again in Persephone Books’ elegant re-print, Adam Fergusson’s The…
Bookends
In the summer of 2003, in a bar in Malta, George Best was approached by a man holding a paper…
Latham’s law
In reading Lindsay Tanner’s new book Sideshow, the words of baseball Hall of Famer Yogi Berra came to mind: ‘It’s…
Bookends: The voice of the lobster
In existence for over 250 millions years, lobsters come in two distinct varieties, ‘clawed and clawless’. Human predators tend to…
