London
Smock and awe
Somerset House, a handsome Georgian palace on the Thames, was once the office of the Inland Revenue, and the courtyard was…
Cornish and pasty
Mousehole is a charming name; it is almost a charming place. It is a fishing village on Mount’s Bay, Cornwall,…
The bill that keeps on building
Giving London’s Olympic stadium a ‘legacy’ is proving to be a very costly business
The real French embassy
Semper eadem. There is some basement in a Mayfair street that is forever France. It is not far from the…
Devolution vs democracy
Imagine if, in one of her first acts as First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon announced that, in spite of…
Diary
Do fish have loins? Last Tuesday, in a pretentious restaurant, I ordered a ‘loin of sea trout’. It looked just…
Ukip is a party for people who hate London. That’s why Labour should be scared
It is interesting that neither Scotland nor Wales have been much bitten by the Ukip bug. The supposedly sensible view…
Italy takes the stress-test booby prize as the old Spanish fox emerges the winner
Continuing last week’s theme, it was the Italian banks — with nine fails, four still requiring capital injections — that…
Dining with death
Beast is next to Debenhams on Oxford Street and it is not conventionally beast-like; rather it is monetised and bespoke…
Diary
In order to promote the Dylan Thomas in Fitzrovia festival, I am trying to persuade Jason Morell, the director, that…
Death to hipsters
Take heart: the age of the stupid beard is coming to an end
Low life
What a beautiful day, I thought, as I nodded to the porter in the bowler hat and stepped out of…
Putting words on the map
I stopped using London buses when some coward put doors on them. Twenty years ago, you could board any bus…
Colonial cringe
Gymkhana is a fashionable Indian restaurant in Albemarle Street. It was, according to its natty website, ‘inspired by Colonial Indian…
Diary
It was quite fun being named as the new writer of 007 — although actually I’d make a lousy spy.…
Barometer
How to deal with a troll In Scandinavian mythology, trolls were shady creatures who lived below ground and varied in…
Ahead of the pack
A casino drama worthy of a Bond film arrives in the High Court
Diary
Last Tuesday I tried to sign up to a new life. My wife and I argued, slightly. ‘I don’t think…
Why my friends love the idea of a nasty, stupid mansion tax
I see all the flaws with a mansion tax, I really do. And yet some little piece of me, some…
Whose side are they on?
Qatari money has flooded into London – but also into much less savoury places
Letters
Breaking the unions Sir: By the time this letter appears we shall know whether the land of my birth has…
A Cubist in New York
The American Jewish artist Max Weber (1881–1961) was born in Belostok in Russia (now Bialystok in Poland), and although he…
My little plutocrat
Rextail is a restaurant for billionaire children, such as Richie Rich. Its owner, Arcady Novikov, has already opened a restaurant…
Applause for the Beeb’s new leading lady – but did the male runner-up deserve such a kicking?
Hats off to Rona Fairhead, the former Financial Times executive who will succeed Lord Patten as chairman of the BBC…
Vienna without the Austrians
Fischer’s is Austria made safe for liberals, gays, Jews and other Untermenschen riffraff, because it is a restaurant, not a…
