Modern manners
Click and flick
Romance is being killed off by the brutal marketplace of dating apps such as Tinder
Saint Joan and the treacherous phone
My time with Joan Collins was wonderful – except for one mortifying moment
Your problems solved
Q. The woman who lives above me has insomnia and walks around all night. I’m also disturbed by her rather…
Why are volunteers so mean to one another?
I watched the video with some trepidation. Stonewall (the campaigning gay and lesbian equality organisation) had just sent me the…
Gagging order
Why has politics turned into stand-up?
Uni’s out
Why being a graduate is about to lose its prestige
Lapsing into a comma
Modern manners and the fear of the full stop
Dear Mary
Q. A neighbour is hosting a party for his daughter’s 21st birthday. Adequate provision has been made for anyone who…
In Dracula’s local
Quaglino’s is an ancient subterranean brasserie in St James’s, a district clinging to the 18th century with cadaverous fingers. It…
Singles match
The rise of ‘living apart together’ – and why I’ve stopped doing it
Litter is a class issue
David Sedaris is my new hero. Not because he’s such a funny writer, but because he’s obsessed with litter. He…
When did we become a nation of narks?
There’s a danger that in what follows your columnist may seem to be recommending an attitude. Please don’t think that.…
Dear Mary
Q. We enjoyed the Christmas University Challenge series featuring mature graduates, some of whom were more in the public eye than…
Sugar rush
The Cereal Killer Café is a temple to cereal on Brick Lane, east London. It serves only cereal — and also…
Dear Mary
Once again Mary has invited some of her favourite figures in the public eye to submit personal queries for her…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. There has been a marked increase in the number of people who have pristine flooring and are so keen…
Diary
Oh God, it’s happened again. Another evening where I’m surrounded by people I know personally or have interviewed, and I…
Without patriotism, there’s no civilisation
Is it racist to be patriotic? Is patriotism, by definition, small-minded and exclusive? When you strip away the onion layers…
Button down
An irrational fear that has reshaped the technological world
I’m a celebrity, get me in there
I had thought that my days of being approached by reality show producers hoping to put together a cast of…
Marrying money
Marriage has emerged as a serious – and perhaps surprising – social divide
The bookshop and the bump
‘You are like my cat.’ So I was told when eight-and-a-half months pregnant, just before going on maternity leave from…
Dear Mary
Q. My future son-in-law has been successfully house-trained in the use of upper-middle-class English over the years that he has…
The cult of mindfulness
Separating meditation from faith might not be as harmless as it seems
Mandatory fun
Forced, studenty wackiness has taken over our culture. It’s time to take a stand
