Palm Beach is stuck in a gridlock
Palm Beach is never happier than when it’s making news – the more unexpected the better. The latest opportunity to…
Remembering Jackson C. Frank
Before venturing to the North Park Theatre in Buffalo to catch a one-night-only showing of Blues Run the Game: The…
Is everything political?
I first heard the slogan “Everything is political” from a left-wing reporter for Wyoming’s statewide newspaper in the mid-1980s, at…
I tried the world’s worst drink
I am standing in a sunny courtyard in the little town of Gijduvan, waiting for a drink. Just in case…
How I flouted a cardinal French gardening rule
“C’est ma faute,” I called up to the local old boys as they strolled past my potager, chuckling among themselves.…
The joy of preparing freezer jam
July, and the morning sun blazes over fields of pick-your-own strawberries. The black bears scope out the blueberry patches in…
The decadence of seafood towers
Whether or not it is your intention to see and be seen, you cannot avoid the latter when you order…
Wine highlights from a weekend shooting party
Do you know Charlotte Mulliner’s charming poem “Good Gnus”? It was transcribed by P.G. Wodehouse in his short story “Unpleasantness…
Why I’m ditching ‘authentic’ travel
I’ve always heard Americans describe the food in Rome as “authentic,” though maybe that’s only relative to our three square…
Strava is the last good form of social media
If a man runs through a forest but doesn’t post it on Strava, it didn’t happen. I won’t believe it,…
No one won the Hamilton by-election debate
‘How useful are TV debates anyway?’ a Labour figure scoffed when I asked why their candidate in the Hamilton by-election…
Jews in America are under attack
In Boulder, Colorado, eight elderly Jews were torched alive in a park. They wore red T-shirts bearing the names of…
Get your Pride month Kevin the Carrot, while stocks last
Please consider this a sort of public service announcement. I mention it because sadly, you may have been unaware of…
What was the point of the Strategic Defence Review?
This weekend has not been a masterclass in political communications by the government. Selected morsels of the Strategic Defence Review…
Mad about the climate
When my wife and I visited Japan in springtime a few years ago, we first stayed in Ueno, near Tokyo.…
Doctor Who needs a break
Twenty years on from its spectacular revival it looks like Doctor Who might not be returning to our screens again…
Hamit Coskun’s life will only get harder now
Hamit Coskun has been found guilty of a ‘religiously-motivated public order offence’, after he burnt a Quran in front of…
Climate indoctrination is not an education
While the LNP election campaign was ineffective and amateurish one positive was the slogan ‘education, not indoctrination’. As countless parents…
Watch: Speaker slams Sir Keir over defence review leaks
Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour lot are in the bad books with Speaker Lindsay Hoyle after details of the government’s Strategic…
Reform’s Scottish surge continues
Nigel Farage’s first trip to Scotland in six years hasn’t lacked drama. In Aberdeen this morning, the Reform UK leader…
England now has a blasphemy law
Officially, blasphemy was abolished by New Labour in the 2008 Criminal Justice Act. But today, with the conviction of Hamit…
Is Jonathan Powell unaccountable?
For the past three months there has been an exchange of bureaucratic fire across the 600 yards that separate the…
Why is the SNP resurrecting full fiscal autonomy for Scotland?
John Swinney’s strategy for retaining the office of first minister after next year’s Holyrood election was fairly straight forward. All…
