Everyday life
Familiar and strange
Each story circles around events both big and small, such as lunch at a simple trattoria, a birthday party, a summer holiday or the funeral of a friend
As time goes by
There were many moments in Early Morning Riser that made me laugh out loud in recognition. An episode where the…
Wonderful waffle
It is hard to explain the contents of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s vast series My Struggle because not much happens. Or…
A last time for everything
Life is full of little endings. We should pay them more attention
The reassuring triumph of Big Mother
Feminism in modern Britain is not for the faint-hearted. Only the smartest, mouthiest girls on the social media scene dare…
Dear Mary
Q. A friend regularly hires a stall at a general neighbourhood market in order to sell surplus second-hand clothes and…
Dear Mary
Q. My dear English husband has never mastered the knack of timing his interventions in conversation. He hesitates politely, and…
The triumph of the bores
Being boring was once the worst of all social sins. Now it’s practically compulsory
Yes, Britain is a Christian country
I can’t say it was a great surprise to read a letter from a group of well-known authors, academics, comedians…
You can buy happiness
If you are reading this article online, perhaps you could go to the comments section and let us know what…
Your problems solved
Q. It’s only April and yet I am being emailed by parents who have already taken charge and are drumming…
How was it for you?
Everyone’s a critic, but that doesn’t mean we want to fill in a survey every time we buy a meal
The wrong kind of granny
When I told a friend that my nine-year-old son was staying with his grandparents for the whole week of the…
Children with a severe case of the excuses
There is a beautiful symmetry to all things, I think, and probably related somehow to the concept of karma. Only…
Here come the dog police
Feral bureaucrats are banning dogs from places they’ve been walked for generations. But now owners are fighting back
Dear Mary
Q. Is there a tactful way to keep one social offer on hold while waiting to see if you have…
Dear Mary
Q. One of my best friends, who knows I don’t have a great social life at university, has a brother…
Diary
My surgery has been calling in all those over 75 for a special session with their doctor — a sort…
Dear Mary
Q. Recently a cousin and I gave a small drinks party in the USA. She had invited a very elegant…
Dear Mary
Q. Over New Year I stayed with a man who combines being a generous and exciting host with a punctilious…
Bully laughs
The comedy club theory of dictatorship
Forgive me, Father
What Catholics really talk about in the confession box
Dear Mary
Q. I gave a copy of Dan Russel the Fox by Somerville and Ross to a couple I know to be…
Stop that cab!
It’s time to end the archaic privileges of London taxi drivers
America’s war on sleep
The relentless rise of ‘you snooze, you lose’
