Why space is the perfect subject for podcasts
The podcasts I’m recommending to everyone at the moment are Nasa’s Curious Universe and the Royal Astronomical Society’s The Supermassive…
This Muslim playwright believes Yorkshire is headed for civil war
Expendable, at the Royal Court, is an urgent bulletin from the front line of the grooming gang scandal in the…
The many faces of pigs in blankets
There are not many phrases that offend me more than ‘pigs in blankets’. The correct name for this dish is,…
The joy of the Turkish barber
Just as you always hope will happen, I knew I had met the man of my dreams almost on sight.…
The Ginger Rogers theory of information
I had a friend whose approach to entrepreneurialism was to take two separate things that seemed stupidly popular and somehow…
Labour’s confidence tricks
There is nothing new, nor necessarily fatal, about making a poor start in government. Margaret Thatcher had a torrid first…
Why Elon Musk shouldn’t be kicked out of the Royal Society
In a notorious interview in the Sunday Times in 2007, the Nobel Prize-winning geneticist James Watson said, among other things,…
Portrait of the week: Labour’s ‘plan for change’, falling productivity and 20,000 wolves in the EU
Home The Labour government announced a ‘Plan for Change’ that it refused to call a reset. Sir Chris Wormald was…
In Mumbai, everyone asks about Rishi and Boris
Mumbai is my kind of town, a party town. In my first weeks living here, I was out most nights…
Can Labour’s reset see off Reform?
Arriving on stage to accept ‘Newcomer of the Year’ at The Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year awards, Nigel Farage gave…
Chanel should be led by a woman
Since I’m considering giving a small Christmas drinks party, I’ve been reading all the festive entertainment features. There are recipes…
The origin of The Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year Awards
Forty years ago, a whisky company, Highland Park, which advertised its Famous Grouse in The Spectator, approached us with a…
Warhol, Rauschenberg, Johns and Tinguely all started out as window dressers
Christmas, and in every city already crowds congregate around the festive department store displays in defiance of the apparent disappearance…
World war twee: the hideous triviality of our times
I remember the moment I first understood that we, the British, had a national character. It was in the mid-1970s…
Letters: In defence of Radio 3
Vote of no confidence Sir: Rod Liddle is too harsh on those calling for another general election (‘I hope you…
Wuhan wager: the $400 ‘bio bet’ that predicted the pandemic
At the end of this month, one of the world’s most renowned scientists will send $400 to a charity to…
Spellbinding: Herbert Blomstedt’s Mahler 9 reviewed
Ivor Cutler called silence the music of the cognoscenti. But there’s silence and there’s silence, and a regular concertgoer hears…
The BBC vs Gregg Wallace
The last time I took my wife to watch Millwall play a home game, a gentleman a few rows in…
Dear Mary: How do I avoid my friend’s gropey partner?
Q. I have a dear friend who is in a newish relationship. The partner – whom I hardly know –…
Macron is the author of his own despair
‘Notre-Dame has been restored to its full level of glory, and even more so,’ said the President-elect Donald J. Trump…
