Smashing South Africa’s last relationship taboo
Cape Town As a young FT stringer in Dar es Salaam in the 1980s, I used to hang out with…
The real cost of the bureaucratic mindset
If you ever want to drive online commenters insane, all you need do is write an article headlined ‘Why it’s…
Dear Mary: how can I shut down my husband’s screaming yawns?
Q. I run a busy company with a workforce of 150, where I need to have short, to-the-point discussions with…
Me, myself and the i
Misuse of myself ‘should be a capital offence’, suggests Oliver Duff, the editor of the i Paper. ‘As reflexive pronouns,…
I broke my phone… and then the repairman
The man in the phone repair shop smiled all too confidently and told me that there was nothing I could…
When did gyms become so unfriendly?
One of the drawbacks of being on the jabs is that you can lose muscle mass as well as body…
Spectator Competition: Love is…
For Competition 3436 you were invited to submit a poem whose first line is ‘O my love is like [fill…
Puzzling it out
‘This is why you don’t do puzzles, kids,’ drawled Magnus Carlsen, after a lucky escape in a recent blitz game…
British politics has become a Devil’s Wheel
There is a moment in Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall which has been much on my mind lately. It is…
How Andrew could save the royal family
The tsunami of Jeffrey Epstein material released this month has been both horrifying and gratifying. It makes clear the extent…
Who doesn’t want a better life?
Every couple of years a columnist-cum-novelist will inevitably stoop to shameless self-promotion. In my defence, at least the novel released…
The stakeholder class needs blowing up
In February 1974, a frustrated Ted Heath, unable to achieve anything in government against constant opposition by the mighty trade…
What explains the weird military hype around Al Carns?
If Keir Starmer resigned tomorrow, the Labour party would be thrown into confusion. None of its factions has an obvious…
Why not privatise tax collection?
Twice a year the taxman comes to call, exhibiting all the bossy incompetence one expects from the government machine. Why…
Meet the Jellycat kidults
On the fourth floor of Selfridges, in London, is the children’s toy department. Most of the vast space is given…
