Colombia is a better place to watch football than Loftus Road
I’ve just returned from Colombia, where I’ve been visiting my daughter. She’s doing a modern languages degree and has to…
Aristotle and the leisurely pursuit of education
Nearly six million people are on out-of-work benefits. It is claimed that, for most of those, going back to work…
Should you bother decanting wine?
We were almost having a symposium and I was invited to define Toryism in one sentence. I replied that one…
What does your name say about you?
In 2015, an orthopaedic surgeon called Limb, with three other doctors called Limb, wrote a paper on whether people’s names…
How I found my way to my half-brother
Kenya In my dream my father is sitting next to me in the car as we drive around our hometown…
A game of hide-and-seek with the Queen
One of the best things about growing older is being far less easily embarrassed. You have dealt with so many…
What the rise of the AfD means for Germany
In the Thuringian city of Weimar, opposite the theatre where the National Assembly hashed out Germany’s constitution in 1918, stands…
Brace for an outbreak of Trumpist investor activism
If the new Trump era has a theme, it’s one of quixotic disruption with random consequences. In that spirit, stand…
How to write a piano concerto
My Piano Concerto, The World of Yesterday, began with an email during one of the darker days of the pandemic:…
Have I been blacklisted by the binmen?
Monday, and Camden council have yet again failed to empty my food waste bin. They never miss my rubbish or…
Starmer’s Scottish headache
What does a party get after nearly two decades in office, collapsing public services, an internal civil war and a…
Who lost Ukraine?
In the America of the 1950s, one question dominated foreign policy: ‘Who lost China?’ The Communist victory in the Chinese…
Portrait of the week: US and Russia talk, Chiltern Firehouse burns and Duchess of Sussex rebrands
Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said that, to guarantee the security of Ukraine, he was ‘ready and willing’…
I’ve had it with Pina Bausch
My patience with the cult of Pina Bausch is wearing paper thin. She was taken from us 16 years ago,…
My Valentine’s Day car crash
Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, is not a MAGA groupie, but a believer in the Nato alliance. He…
Proudly dumb – and all the better for it: The Monkey reviewed
The monkey is an organ-grinder’s monkey toy. Wind up the key jutting out of its back, and its lips will…
Get real: the harsh lessons of our new world disorder
Sir Roger Scruton may not be the Prime Minister’s favourite author. Apparently Keir Starmer prefers Victoria Hislop. But as he…
Soothing and glorious: Fashion Neurosis reviewed
Sometimes the mind needs to take a break. And I can’t think of a better stopping-off place than the soothing,…
I was convinced by the cholesterol sceptics
It’s never a good thing when your cardiologist sounds alarmed on the phone. Come in tomorrow, he said: we’ll get…
It’s time to scrap the asylum system
Whatever you think of the blizzard of executive orders howling from the White House, at least the new President doesn’t…
Keep Britain blasphemous
In its infinite wisdom, the Labour government appears to be reconsidering the introduction of a blasphemy law in the UK.…
