Society
The sad death of the pony ride
Pony rides were once a staple of every village, church and primary-school fête. A brusque, horsey mother would swing you…
Second sight
What I learned from going blind
Divide and rule
A long tradition in the Liddle household on a Saturday morning is to read aloud sections from the Guardian Weekend…
My lonely heart
Was a Guardian Blind Date the answer?
The case against conkers
Trying to work in my garden shed at this time of year is tricky. I will be crouched over my…
Portrait of the week
Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, proposed reaching net zero in 2050 ‘in a better, more proportionate way’ such as by…
The price of honesty
This is my brother’s story and, like many telling stories, it’s small. Tim lives in Iowa, as our mother’s family…
Letters
Whose victory? Sir: Politicians are often accused of engaging in doublespeak, and I fear in the case of Boris Johnson’s…
Dear Mary
Q. Scrolling through my WhatsApp contacts, I have found a name I don’t recognise but when I click on the…
The full English conundrum
Among devotees of the full English breakfast, few things polarise more than the inclusion of baked beans. Some people are…
Biddy Baxter and the perils of remembering the past
I’ve been reading the cracking, crackling new biography Biddy Baxter: The Woman Who Made Blue Peter by Richard Marson (he’s a friend,…
Why Britain needs more marriage
Hungary is something of a bête noire in the international community. Viktor Orban and his government have had much-deserved condemnation…
Written out
How success kills friendships
Anti heroes
Why this mad insistence that everyone has special powers?
The rise of the sex bore
You know you’re getting old when your friends start going to sex parties. In our twenties, there were parties, and…
Parenting matters. It’s about time we were brave enough to say so
The Duchess of Cambridge has been out and about hosting roundtables with very important people, discussing what can be done…
Why the Bible still matters
If you look to our schools and universities, you will not see a serious engagement with the Bible as part…
