London
London calling
Madame Monet was bored. Wouldn’t you have been? Exiled to London in the bad, cold winter of 1870–71. In rented…
Lost in the metropolis
Richard Rogers is to architecture what Jamie Oliver is to cookery. It is not enough for either of them just…
Northern rock
A fortnight ago, the debut album by a young British guitar band entered the chart at No. 6. You might…
A perfect feast with Roger Allam
J Sheekey is one of Richard Caring’s older, and better, restaurants. Since he has dowsed the suburbs of London in…
Tapas but no phantom
I am always surprised to remember that Andrew Lloyd Webber has taste; it must be remembrance of Cats. I was…
A choice of first novels
Remember Douglas Coupland? Remember Tama Janowitz? Remember Lisa St Aubin de Terán? Banana Yoshimoto? Françoise Sagan? The voice of your…
… trailing strands in all directions
Letters of Intent — letters of the intense. Keen readers of Cynthia Ozick (are there any other kind?) will of…
Something nasty in the woodshed
I’ve diagnosed myself with early onset cottage-itis. It’s not supposed to happen for another decade, but at 29 I dream…
Blue plaque blues
One of the great distinctions and pleasures of British life has been devalued by cheap imitations
Northern overexposure
Manchester isn’t downtrodden, whatever Andy Burnham says. Quite the opposite, in fact
Giving Tate Modern a lift
Tate Modern, badly overcrowded, has built itself a £260 million extension to spread everyone about the place more. This means…
Cool and underground
The Keeper’s House sits in the basement of Burlington House, a restaurant in disguise. It is quite different from the…
How Rome did immigration
Last week it was suggested that the questions asked of London mayor Sadiq Khan had nothing to do with racism,…
Bus battles
From ‘The softening of street manners’, The Spectator, 20 May 1916: Generally the public opinion of the ’bus entirely upholds…
Despite rumours to the contrary, the high-speed loco has left the drawing board
There’s a lot of negativity around HS2, and I sniff a Brexit connection. You might think Leave campaigners whose aim…
Gaudy! Bright! Loud! Fun!
Best of postmodernism: is that an oxymoron? Jonathan Meades thinks not
Soho in Somerset
It is summer and the listless metropolitan thinks of grass. It cannot afford to stay at Durslade Farmhouse, Somerset, a…
Sadiq Khan’s virtues
The new Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said he wanted ‘the most transparent, honest and accessible administration London has ever…
Barometer
London’s other mayor How many people could name the capital’s other mayor, the Lord Mayor of London? The office, officially…
Beware the Lycra louts
Cycling in funny clothes is bad for the soul
The axeman next door
What happened when I tried American neighbourliness in London
Tea and honesty
We recently moved -offices from Canary Wharf to Blackfriars bridge. When you move after a long time in one place,…
Polly’s pleb adventure
Down and Out in Paris and London is a brilliant specimen from a disreputable branch of writing: the chav safari,…
Lost in Piccadilly
Batman owned the Criterion in The Dark Knight, but could he do anything about British Telecom? Savini at Criterion, an…
Diary
The Queen’s 90th birthday celebrations start this week with the real thing and barely stop until her official birthday in…
