Family
I left my heart in Lake Como
Lake Como It doesn’t take long for me to fall in love. A young Adonis with a six-pack bounced on…
A broken bond: Gaining Ground, by Joan Barfoot, reviewed
An absentee mother is tracked down to a remote Canadian cabin and held to account for abandoning her family many years earlier
How Rio helps us Johnsons find love
My youngest son, Oliver, has asked me to make a speech at his wedding. I am very flattered even to…
My beef with Bruce Anderson
My beef with the columnist Bruce Anderson began, as beefs do, at the Spectator summer party. Not this year’s –…
God save The World Tonight
We were driving to the V&A summer party, windows down, scent of jasmine floating on the liquid June air, prospect…
The horror of being offered a seat on the Tube
It would have been my mother’s 84th birthday on 29 May. I thought about her as I clattered down the…
Remembering my gloriously unfiltered father
Nothing can prepare you for the death of your father because, by definition, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime event. You have these…
Is my plumber right about Armageddon?
The plumber was shouting hysterically at me down the phone because I had asked him to install a heated towel…
How far would I go for oil?
The oil delivery man had way too much swagger and, as he waved his nozzle about, I realised that he…
A revival of Alan Bennett’s early work is long overdue
Until the archive is made available, the diaries will have to do. But some superb dramas from the past century are sadly missed
I’m stuck in a house of madness
‘I want to learn Iranian,’ said my father, resolutely, as he watched the bombing on the television. ‘Farsi,’ I said,…
Things still seem oddly disorientating without Seamus Heaney
But at least there’s now a complete edition of the poems, which feels right for a man who never lost himself, but always remained centred, concentrated and uncorrupted
Say hello to your AI granny
Doing the rounds on social media is the most disturbing advert I’ve ever seen. And I’m telling you about it…
Admit it: most wedding speeches are awful
Perhaps the most traumatic part of attending an American wedding – much worse than the bridesmaids coming in the wrong…
How do I feed my children now my wife has gone on strike?
Caroline has gone on strike. At least, as far as cooking is concerned. Her case for downing spatulas is that…
My hunt for the perfect ‘mum van’
I spent my childhood being ferried around in my mom’s minivan, a hunter green Ford Windstar. Compared with most family…
Middle-class parents are creating a new breed of brat
I recently reconnected with an old friend; I went to his house and met his children for the first time.…
Why is the NHS pushing pregnant women towards sterilisation?
It was a routine antenatal appointment. I’d done it twice before and knew the format. The obstetrician runs through the…
Are you too middle-class to adopt?
Too many books? Yes, we had too many books. That’s what our social worker told us when we were being…
The truth about surrogate babies
I was a twin when I was born, but this was in the days before decent scans and proper neonatal…
Cornwall’s gypsies face eviction
‘Don’t use our real names,’ says the teenage gypsy. ‘Other gypsies will laugh at us.’ Even in a tracksuit, the…
A painful homecoming: The Visitor, by Maeve Brennan, reviewed
Returning to the family house in Dublin after the death of her mother in Paris, 22-year-old Anastasia expects a warm welcome – only to be steadily spurned by her embittered grandmother
‘I’m a new kind of Christian’: Jordan Peterson on faith, family and the future of the right
Professor Jordan Peterson is a Canadian psychologist, author and commentator whose latest book, We Who Wrestle with God, is about…
The nuclear family? We blew it up years ago
Now that John Lewis has produced a Christmas ad that celebrates family, starring white people as humans, all sorts of…
The deep sorrow of losing a sibling
My sister died last summer, before her time, at 58. Her death has left me shaken with sorrow and remorse:…
