Money
It’s easy to sex up the business of paying tax
To fund the war against Napoleon in 1813, Princess Marianne of Prussia invented an ingenious tax-raising scheme. Wealthy Prussians were…
Dear Mary: I won a bet – how do I make my friend pay up?
Q. A delightful but disorganised friend has invited several of our circle for a weekend at his family’s beautiful country…
Does fracking really cause earthquakes?
Great shakes Shale gas commissioner Natascha Engel resigned in protest at what she called ‘absurd’ restrictions on fracking — in…
Gone are the days when the middle class could afford to go skiing
It won’t be news to readers of The Spectator that one of the long-term effects of globalisation is the hollowing…
At sixes and sevens about seven and six
Someone on the wireless was talking about marrying in the Liberty of Newgate before the Marriage Act of 1753, and…
Why cryptocurrency is the answer
The craze for cryptocurrency can be explained by a host of factors: the allure of getting rich quick; the attraction…
Politicians want to move us towards a cashless world. It would be a disaster
What could be more terrifying than a return to the 15 per cent interest rates with which homebuyers had to…
High life
The death of the richest woman on this planet, as the tabloids dubbed Liliane Bettencourt, brought back some vivid memories,…
The great pretenders
Can the beauty of Palmyra be reproduced by data-driven robots? Stephen Bayley on copies, fakes and forgeries
Your problems solved
Q. Is there a polite way of not letting someone hold your baby? I love giving mine to people to…
Your problems solved
Q. I have learned that someone I much admired in youth is about to become single again. I only have…
Ten resolutions that should make my next 50 years pass more smoothly
Very soon now I shall reach my half-century. I would have preferred to keep the horror a secret but there’s…
Diary
Off to prison to visit a writer friend, first jailed led some years ago for trying to find a hit…
Money, money, money
While Mrs Oakley was patrolling the aisles in Waitrose one day recently, I slipped off into my local betting shop.…
Wild life
On the flight into Kinshasa, I sat next to an elderly Englishman who was pallid with fear. He revealed that…
Heston’s brown Dinner
Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, a brown cavern in the Mandarin Oriental hotel, Knightsbridge, has won a second Michelin star. These…
Here’s what’s wrong with the ‘public sector ethos’
Matthew Parris 14 November 2015 9:00 am
An infuriating benefit of readers’ online comments beneath the efforts of a columnist like me is that as you read…