Sport
Sunday night on the Beeb was an orgy of virtue-signalling and third-rate sport
After its new costume drama You Go, Girl! (Sundays) about how amazing, empowered and better-than-men women are, especially if they…
The joy of jousting
Emperor Maximilian I liked to say he invented the joust of the exploding shields. When a knight charged and his…
Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, master of the seas and model Englishman
Something very odd happened on the Today programme the other morning. Amid the mountains of bombast that usually fill the…
I watched Jadon Sancho grow up. That’s why I know he’s Britain’s next footballing megastar
How much is Jadon Sancho worth? Fifty million? A hundred million? As the speculation mounts, the numbers keep growing. Jadon…
Meet Chris Gayle, the coolest man in sport
It can’t be a coincidence that two of the coolest sportsmen on the planet are from the same place, Jamaica.…
The balletic, bum-baring rituals of sumo
An early morning in late November in the peaceful glades that surround an ancient temple complex. A Shinto priest in…
A short history of ice skating
In landscape terms, the Fens don’t have much going for them. What you can say for them, though, is that…
Farewell to cricket as the archetypal English game
At the beginning of August this year, the England test team played what is supposed to have been the 1,000th…
The great thing about the World Cup is you don’t even have to watch it to enjoy it
Even though I don’t watch much football I love the World Cup because it’s my passport to total freedom. I…
Twenty20 is making cricket great again
Blame it on a marketing survey. In 2001, the England and Wales Cricket Board commissioned the biggest piece of market…
Two perfect kicks from Johnny Sexton destroyed England’s rugby’s dream
Which would you least like to see coming towards you? An Uber driverless car, Ant McPartlin in his black Mini…
Toby Young: I’ve been unmanned by a tennis brute in bright pink
As regular readers will know, Caroline has developed a fanatical interest in tennis and is currently captain of the ladies…
The straight dope
It’s not easy to get hold of Ángel Hernández, the legendary Mexican chemist who for a decade provided illicit performance-enhancing…
Our big fat problem
The good news is that Theresa May has dropped the threat to withdraw universal free school meals. Thank God (and…
Game changers
Have you been cheering for the excellent Johanna Konta at Wimbledon? Go, Jo! Or should that be Go, Yo? Johanna…
Match made in heaven
Tennis is best played with a wooden racket on a shady lawn somewhere close to Dorking. There is no need…
Jeeves and a Man called The Donald
The Secret Service said it would investigate Donald J. Trump’s longtime butler over Facebook posts laced with vulgarities and epithets…
Cycling in Lycra is bad for the soul
Spring is here and the air is alive with the sound of sweaty manmade materials rubbing together, as middle-aged cyclists…
Sport is a fairytale factory – as Leicester City remind us
It’s one of the oldest stories of them all, deeply embedded in our nature and our culture. In some ways…
The secret to doing better at darts – and life
I have always been intrigued by the scoring systems for different sports, and the degree to which they contribute to…
I adore sport. I can no longer stomach boxing. Here’s why
In the course of a queasy hour in Harley Street 30 years ago I learned a great deal about the…
Staines, Pile o’ Bones and other towns that changed name
Name that town The representative of Slough in the UK Youth Parliament called for the town’s name to be changed…
No golf, no bridge, scared of champagne – it’s tough being a leftie
At a party recently I started talking to a friendly, charming woman and we established early on that she was…
What does it take to have someone declared dead? £480, for a start
Matters of life and death Lord Lucan is now officially presumed dead. How do you have someone declared dead? In…
A former England international on the meaning of the Six Nations
Back in 1882, exactly 100 years before I was born, the Four Nations rugby competition was formed. It was originally…
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