London
One vast, blaring cultural circus
In the late 1980s Peter Ackroyd invited me to meet Iain Sinclair, whose first novel, White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings, I…
Grills just want to have fun
The Beaumont Hotel is a bright white cake in the silent part of Mayfair, where the only sound is Patek…
Which behaved worse: callous Thomas Cook or cynical Barclays?
Which is worse, morally and reputationally — to be Thomas Cook, shamed by its refusal to show proper human concern,…
High anxiety
Fenchurch is a restaurant that is scared of terrorists. It cowers at the top of 20 Fenchurch Street, a skyscraper…
Labour must estrange its awful voters
And so now we have to suffer the epic delusions, temper tantrums and hissy fits of the metro-left. They simply…
Why won’t the lefties show London a little more love?
London is a bad thing. Everybody knows this now. Britain has had enough of London. Ed Miliband failed in part…
Full employment, Prime Minister? What exactly do you mean by that?
‘Two million jobs have been created since 2010 — but there will not be a moment of rest until we…
Servants of the super-rich
There is a huge industry catering to London’s foreign plutocracy
Goulash and whiplash
Ed is a plank. He was always a plank — and now he is in Ibiza being a plank. Plankety–plankety-plank:…
In praise of the pit bull
Last night I saw a woman dancing with a pit bull terrier. It was about 9 p.m. and her curtains…
Why estate agents aren’t dying out
I don’t like to make business predictions, but — barring some apocalypse — I suspect there will be plenty of…
Your problems solved
Q. As a writer I find working at home too distracting. I am a longstanding member of the London Library…
Mansion migrants
The super-rich can shrug off Labour’s big tax idea. People like me will be forced out
Tinder feelings
Can mobile dating apps move beyond the promise of a one-night stand?
Square meal
The Portrait Restaurant lives at the top of the National Portrait Gallery, London. It is fiercely modern, but likeable. You…
Quarter
‘No quarter given,’ yelled my husband as he stabbed at a cushion with his stick, spoiling the cavalier effect a…
Palace Notebook
The day of my investiture at Buckingham Palace dawned bringing freezing rain and fierce winds, which lashed at the windows…
High life
A recent column in the FT made me mad as hell. The writer, Simon Kuper, calls Vienna a backwater, which…
Boris’s London legacy
Jack Wakefield on the Mayor’s ambitious, not to say whimsical, vision for the Olympic Park
Sharing Caring
The Ivy Chelsea Garden is a restaurant inside an Edwardian house disguised as a Tudor house on the King’s Road;…
Diary
So far, what an infuriating election campaign. We have the most extraordinary array of digital, paper and broadcasting media at…
Cross rail
Conversations with a ticket inspector on the Norwich train
Wait until dark
James McConnachie discovers that some of the greatest English writers — Chaucer, Blake, Dickens, Wordsworth, Dr Johnson — drew inspiration and even comfort from walking around London late at night
Kitty corner with the PM
David Cameron is too cowardly, or too cynical, to debate with Ed ‘Two or Possibly Three Kitchens’ Miliband — which…
Going large on Park Lane
The Dorchester Hotel, Park Lane, is a cake floating in space. All grand hotels create a parallel universe in which…
