Dial Q for Cold Case
By the time this is published, your columnist will have seen the students of the National Theatre perform their chosen…
Aussie life
Last week my contacts at Latrobe Valley Law Courts sent me a digital scan of one page of the Leongatha…
Language
Speccie reader (Joshua) asks about the expression ‘unrealised capital gains’ and in particular that worrying adjective. Well, ‘unrealised’ has been…
Elon Musk and the art of flattery
Flattery will get you everywhere, as the sycophants that surround Donald Trump, Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping know.…
Spectator Competition: First thoughts
Competition 3403 invited you to provide an extract from a prequel to a well-known work of prose or poetry. It…
Letters: How ‘Nick’ could save the Tories
Dying wish Sir: As a 99-year-old with, presently, no intention of requesting assistance to die, I am struck by the…
The lure of St James’s
Procrastination may be the thief of time, but in the right circumstances, it can be fun. The other day, I…
Is Xi Jinping’s time up?
Stories about Xi Jinping’s father, Xi Zhongxun, are blowing up on social media. He died in 2002, so why the…
I’ve lost control of the kitchen
Looking back, I can pinpoint my fatal blunder. It was lunch. It was like the West allowing Vladimir Putin to…
The Sizewell delusion
The Chancellor’s promise of £14 billion for the Sizewell C nuclear power station in Suffolk is hardly news. The project…
Ingenious: the Globe’s Romeo & Juliet reviewed
Cul-de-Sac feels like an ersatz sitcom of a kind that’s increasingly common on the fringe. Audiences are eager to see…
I love sausages!
‘Sausages,’ my son says to me, leaning forward from the back of the car, with the authority and confidence only…
The depressing rise of ‘direct cremations’
Twenty per cent of last year’s funerals in Britain were direct cremations – up from 14 per cent in 2020.…
How many countries have banned the burqa?
Behind the veil How many countries have banned the burqa? At least 24 have placed some restrictions around the wearing…
My plan for Prevent
In the autumn of 1940, British cities were being bombed every night by large aeroplanes whose provenance was apparently of…
How to ruin a city
Why would you choose to make a city crappy? Plenty of cities don’t have much going for them. But when…
Summer opera festivals have gone Wagner mad
Another week, another Wagner production at a summer opera festival. This never used to happen. When John Christie launched Glyndebourne…
How to game the social housing system
Westminster council has announced that every single social housing tenant in the borough will receive lifetime tenancies. No test of…
Why OnlyFans has young British women in its grip
The porn star Bonnie Blue offers a straightforward explanation for her decision to join OnlyFans. She was in her early…
