Oblique and long but never boring: About Dry Grasses reviewed
About Dry Grasses is the latest film from Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan and it had better – I thought…
Why Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed in fairies
Sherlock Holmes fans will be delighted to know that there is a new play featuring the great man. In it…
Watching the Euros final in Italy was a bad idea
There was not a Spaniard in sight, I was pretty sure of that. But I was surrounded by the enemy,…
Dear Mary: How do I keep my phone safe on the beach?
Q. My husband and I have just been on a wonderful long weekend abroad to a friend’s 60th birthday. We…
The intersectional feminist rewriting the national curriculum
The appointment of Becky Francis CBE to lead the Department for Education’s shake-up of the national curriculum is typical of…
Why Keely Hodgkinson is the one to watch at the Olympics
The Olympics have been creeping up on us through the forest of top-class sport this summer. But now they’re here,…
Letters: You can grow to hate Wagner
Disappearing England Sir: Rod Liddle’s reference to Labour’s intention to build 1.5 million new houses (‘The great bee-smuggling scandal’, 13…
The hidden depths of ‘deep dive’
My husband has taken to crying out or braying ‘Haar, ha!’ at the wireless whenever he hears something particularly foolish,…
How many summers do you have left?
If the new government’s ‘pensions review’ takes forward last year’s ‘Mansion House reforms’ – credited to chancellor Jeremy Hunt but…
Shapeless and facile: The Hot Wing King, at the Dorfman Theatre, reviewed
Our subsidised theatres often import shows from the US without asking whether our theatrical tastes align with America’s. The latest…
How a market town in Hampshire shaped Peggy Guggenheim
On 24 April 1937 Marguerite Guggenheim – known as Peggy – of Yew Tree Cottage, Hurst was booked by a…
A visit to the world’s worst capital city
Nouakchott in Mauritania is often referred to as the ‘worst capital city in the world’. That may be a little…
Spectator Competition: Pitch battle
In Competition 3359 you were invited to present an account of a historical event as football commentary. There were enough…
The plotting to find the next Pope
The Hollywood adaptation of Conclave, Robert Harris’s thriller about a conspiracy to rig a papal election, won’t be in cinemas…
My shameful shortcut to perfect pesto
Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It has been… too long since my last confession. Picture the scene. I…
Will we always have Paris?
There are times when you might be fooled into believing all is well. I had a moment of such weakness…
Has there ever been a jockey like Oisin Murphy?
We are blessed these days with a rare stream of jockey talent including the likes of William Buick, Ryan Moore,…
Olympics on steroids: the millionaire behind the Enhanced Games
Aron D’Souza likes to celebrate the new year with Peter Thiel, the venture capitalist billionaire who is good friends with…
After Rwanda: what will Labour do now?
Keir Starmer is advertising for someone to head his newly created Border Security Command. The salary is higher than his…
