Family
For now, age isn’t just a number
When I told my seven-year-old granddaughter, over Zoom, how much I missed being with her, I added: ‘Maybe it won’t…
Lullabies and lockdown
I laughed when my Spanish midwife mentioned in passing that in Latin American countries they have a custom for new…
Stranger than fiction
Salman Rushdie on writing in the Age of Anything-Can-Happen
Stinky Malinky is growing on me
Since the beginning of the lockdown, Caroline has been congratulating herself for having bought a puppy ‘just in time’. She…
The world of make-believe is stranger than we realise
Last summer, in the bc era, I took my then three-year-old to a new group play session: ‘Lottie’s Magic Box.’…
My grandfather, the hero
In tough times, people often discover their dauntlessness
Quarantine with our new puppy will send me barking
When the news leaked at the weekend that the government was considering telling those aged 70 and over to self-quarantine…
Life in lockdown
Italy is being consumed by panic
Can we have a pet instead?
When you’re not a mother it’s hard to imagine what motherhood is like. Anyone you know who becomes one assures…
Dear Mary
Q. I see a lot of two of our grandchildren because they live in our London house. We are centrally…
Deborah Orr rages against her small-town upbringing
Unlike a lot of people in the media, I didn’t personally know Deborah Orr, but I know many who did,…
Christmas with my brother
Ever since I was a child, I’ve associated Christmas with my mentally disabled brother Chris. Technically, he’s my half-brother —…
Tame family dramas: Christmas in Austin, by Benjamin Markovits, reviewed
My partner’s brother once found himself accidentally locked into his flat on Christmas Day, which meant having to spend it…
Should I return to the land of my Italian ancestors?
When I was growing up, my Italian grandfather was my favourite person. He taught me to play a mean game…
Why no one ever moves back to London
In last week’s Spectator, Martin Vander Weyer replied to a couple with a baby who had sought his advice on…
Cressida Bonas’s diary: Why do I find wedding hats so tricky?
Monday morning. Sitting in Ed the physio’s waiting room. He is theatreland’s go-to man for fractured bones and torn muscles…
Dear Mary
Q. I’m shortly to host a very large family gathering. Everyone will be related to the same ancestor, so we…
High Life
Greece I am surfing along the Cycladic islands on Puritan, a 125ft classic that was launched in 1929 by…
Permanent ink
Brooklyn Shall I have my sister’s skin peeled off for display after she dies? Specifically, the tattooed bits — the…
In praise of doctors’ handwriting
My baby and I excel at blood tests. He (tiny, jaundiced) stretches out naked under the hospital’s hot cot-lamps like…
Clumber spaniels
For the first time in more than 30 years we have no Clumber spaniel. We have had five: Henry, Judith,…
The game of the name
How Wolf and Skylar pushed out John and Mary
The delights of Hieronymus Bosch
If you hope to inspire an appreciation of Renaissance art in your children, look to Hieronymus Bosch. Ideally, your children…
Illegitimate
‘The Archbishop of Canterbury has discovered he is the illegitimate son of Sir Winston Churchill’s last private secretary,’ Charles Moore…
Diary
I’d like this to have been one of those Spectator diaries that gives the ordinary reader a glimpse into the…
