Family
At age two, my August-born son is already being marked out for failure
My August-born toddler is being marked out for failure – thank God the rules are changing
Yvette Cooper interview: ‘It’s not going to be my style to vote against the Labour whip 500 times like Jeremy!’
An interview with Yvette Cooper
Losing my son and the end of my life’s summer
Hedonism, tragedy and me
Breast-feeding isn't always best
New mothers who can’t keep to the breast-feeding orthodoxy face needless misery and shame
Wealthy, cosmopolitan – and sometimes rough: the secrets of Hamburg (and my grandmother)
‘What was it like growing up in Liverpool?’ a journalist asked John Lennon. ‘I didn’t grow up in Liverpool,’ he…
Prue Leith’s diary: When did weddings stop being for parents?
My Cambodian daughter and her husband have just got married again. Wedding One was a Buddhist affair in our drawing…
‘I was facing truths I didn’t particularly want to look at’: Michael Moorcock interview
Cult novelist Michael Moorcock on fantasy, his father, and the London he loved and lost
A six-year-old sharpshooter and a New Zealand white – both bound to improve with age
The Honourable Society of Odd Bottles began proceedings with a report on the activities of our junior branch. These youngsters…
Dear Mary: My husband has shaved his head for a newspaper feature
Q. My partner, a leading political commentator on a national newspaper, recently agreed to shave off his hair at the…
What Aristotle would have made of Cambridge’s Lego-sponsored professor
So Cambridge University has accepted £4 million from the makers of Lego (snort) to fund a Lego chair (Argos sells…
Driving test advice from 80 years ago
First test The driving test celebrated its 80th anniversary. The first person to take the test, R.E.L. Beene of Kensington,…
How to buy a father’s day present (if you must)
No man ever watched a £20 note flutter from an opened Father’s Day card and thought: ‘How disappointing — not enough…
My Brasenose college reunion was great (even if David Cameron didn’t turn up)
A couple of weeks ago I returned to my old Oxford college for a ‘gaudy’ — posh, Oxford-speak for a…
Fatherhood is killing me
Not a day passes when I don’t look on my father’s record with shock and awe. I’m not talking about…
I went looking for a used car – and found my inner boy racer
A bit late, I know, to put in a bid for Jeremy Clarkson’s old job. But I think I might…
Meet the Skype Dads: a new sorrow of divorce in the internet age
What happens when a divorce court accepts video calls as a substitute for visiting your children
Dear Mary: How can I keep my retiring husband out of the house?
Q. For ten years, I have made a reasonable freelance income working from home. During this time my husband has…
In praise of messy old kitchens
Against sterile modern kitchens
Danny Alexander’s diary: Trying to put an undercover reporter at ease, and the unicorn poop question
It’s dangerous, in my line of work, to promise you’ll be anywhere by 8 p.m. I made this mistake recently,…
How we drive our children mad
If Britain has a crisis in children’s mental health, it’s easy to see why
The end of childhood - what we lost when we dropped the age of consent
When the state excuses underage sex, what chance do our children have?
Miriam Gross’s diary: Why use Freud and Kurt Weill to promote Wagner?
Last week I went to the exhilarating English National Opera production of Wagner’s The Mastersingers — five hours of wonderful…
Dear Mary: How can I stop my neighbour pacing the ceiling?
Q. The woman who lives above me has insomnia and walks around all night. I’m also disturbed by her rather…
The benefits of breeding like a rabbit
Why I’m glad to have five children, with a sixth on the way
Why tomorrow’s parents won’t want their children to go to university
Why being a graduate is about to lose its prestige
