Alcohol
Getting on – and falling off – the wagon
Radio 3 tries to distract listeners from music by posing little quizzes and hearing quirky details of history from a…
Who was the first suicide bomber?
The first suicide bomber Boris Johnson was criticised for likening Theresa May’s Chequers deal to a ‘suicide vest’ around the…
Dr Toby’s booze advice: the better the wine, the less bad it is for you
I don’t hold out much hope for Drink Free Days, a new campaign launched by Public Health England and the…
Remembering Soho: A conversation on debauchery, drunks and Francis Bacon
Christopher Howse has just written a book about Soho. He drank there regularly with Michael Heath, The Spectator’s cartoon editor,…
Who knew that Arabic has more than 30 words for wine?
You know you’re in good hands when the dedication reads: ‘To the writers, drinkers and freethinkers of the Arab and…
My Burns Night haircut
At three o’clock I took half a bottle of Glenmorangie with me to Jimmy’s. That it was Burns Night, and…
Did a vodka ban precipitate the Russian Revolution?
It’s one of the more mysterious features of human history that people of every era and in almost every place…
Jeremy Clark: Was this a cruise ship — or Colditz?
We ascended the gangplank and were smartly directed to the ship’s library, where the seated purser swiped my debit card…
Oxford is full of overindulged whiners. It wasn’t like that in my day
I was in the attic killing some Taleban on Medal of Honor when Girl interrupted and said: ‘Dad, what’s this?’…
Confessions of a Saga lout
Baby boomers like me aren’t giving up irresponsible hedonism as we age. We’re just getting worse at it
The poetic power of Patrick Hamilton's pubs
Nice airport was more or less deserted. Two-and-a-half hours early for the easyJet flight to Gatwick, I had a leisurely…
Mark Twain was right: it is our redeeming petty vices that make life worth living
Here I go again. I have stopped smoking. Until recently I had been smoking about 40 cigarettes a day, but…
Banish the canapé and give me a cocktail sausage!
Let’s get rid of these ridiculous thimble-sized offerings
Charles Moore’s Notes: Jeremy Corbyn, fanatic
When Jeremy Corbyn says it is better to bring people to trial than to shoot them, he is right. So…
A soothing Negroni for la dolce vita
The first draft of the famous story was called ‘A Martini as Big as the Ritz’. That’s not true, but…
Siena shows that northern Italy is just better at getting drunk
The Indian summer was still fending off the mists and mellow fruitfulness. But the autumn term was about to begin;…
Giving up alcohol is not as much fun as I’d hoped
Two months ago, I set myself the target of losing 11 pounds in time for the Spectator’s summer party on…
Drugs, whipping, decomposing bodies and fighting in toilets: so that’s what Spectator readers get up to
Ninety-two readers (thank you!) sent accounts of their worst debacles on drink or drugs. I printed out each one and…
Jan Moir’s diary: In search of the female Viagra
Down here in west Cornwall, the days are long and summer is on the wing. Like the Tories in Scotland,…
Call myself a Low life? You lot put me to shame
The entries are crawling in on their hands and knees for the ‘drunkest I’ve ever been’ competition to win a…
Five more MPs making Malcolm Rifkind’s day rate
Golden league Some MPs who earn Sir Malcolm Rifkind’s rate of £5,000 a day: — Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury): £3,333…
The elderly are society’s new baddies
The gulf in understanding between the old and the young has widened with the news that the young are beginning…
Help me become an addict
When the White Queen told Alice she had sometimes believed as many as six contradictory things before breakfast, she spoke…
‘Rape is rape’ serves no one well, least of all rape victims
When Mary Jane Mowat remarked recently that rape conviction statistics would not improve ‘until women stop getting so drunk,’ the…
Why don’t more non-smokers try e-cigarettes?
I was waiting on an office forecourt recently puffing on an e-cigarette when a security guard came out. ‘You can’t…
