Entertainment
The day I went to Noel Gallagher’s house for tea
In front of me, a sea of lads in bucket hats and Adidas, with pints. Behind me, a sea of…
My night at the Spectator summer party
The first rule of the summer party is do not hold your summer party on the same night as The…
I’ve lost control of the kitchen
Looking back, I can pinpoint my fatal blunder. It was lunch. It was like the West allowing Vladimir Putin to…
We’re spending the children’s inheritance on the dog
After we bought a place on my father’s hill farm in 2000, I’d study the notices pinned to boards in…
The Lady vanishes
The moment I stepped out of the Covent Garden sunshine and into the regal offices of the Lady magazine, it…
I’ve started a memoir club – in memory of Jeremy
Provence Molly MacCarthy launched the Bloomsbury Memoir Club in the spring of 1920 with two aims. The first was to…
My secret Ukraine trip with Boris
Kyiv On the morning of 24 February, I woke just before seven as a tentative apricot dawn was spreading over…
What I can’t tell you about Lamu
Lamu Ever since we arrived on the syrupy, sweltering Swahili coast – where else would your Best Life columnist be…
The hell of bra shopping
It’s probably haram to quote Cecil Rhodes these days, but he was bang on when he said: ‘Remember that you…
The Parties of the Year: my verdict
As the editor’s brief for this column is ‘Fomo-inducing’, I must push the boat out for my debut and am…
At Las Vegas’s Sphere I saw the future of live arts
Does Elon Musk have a good eye for the aesthetic? Earlier this month, the Tesla magnate took a break from…
My fight with Viagogo
My wife had a brilliant idea for my 12-year-old daughter’s Christmas present: tickets to go and see Sigrid (a pop…
Capital entertainment
The West End was always something a little apart. Some years ago, I used to go drinking with a man…
Broken dreams
In the expensive realm of musical comedy, it’s impossible to predict what will take off and what will crash and…
Shopping and viewing
Some time in the 1960s, a group of people in an advertising agency (among them Llewelyn Thomas, son of Dylan)…
Send in the clowns
Nell Gifford joins a colourful troupe of acrobats, contortionists, lion-tamers, freaks and funambulists
