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The Covid Macguffin
Why do current events read like a bad movie?
Being pro-Trump has caused me more grief than being Bin Laden’s niece
Americans are, in my experience, the warmest, most kind-hearted and open-minded people in the world. I have found this to…
How to get into a club and on to a plane
Disaster struck the Young family last Friday. My 12-year-old son Charlie woke up with a temperature. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t matter,…
Rules for a deconfinement dinner party
The most visible local landmark is a solitary two-headed Jurassic mountain called Le Bessillon, six miles long and 800 metres…
What no one tells you about owning a horse
When people ask me what I did during lockdown, I would like to give an inspiring answer, apart from growing…
Switzerland is now an enemy of the rich
Gstaad The staff are back and all is well, as they used to say long ago in faraway places. The…
Envy is the greatest blight of all
Gstaad Hippocrates is known as the father of Western medicine and he discovered and named a disease known as ‘micropoulaki’…
My first post-lockdown party
France is divided into a red zone and a green zone. We’re green. Green for go. From this morning we…
Lockdown is making a Lib Dem of me
If this lockdown doesn’t end soon we are all going to turn into hairy lefties. I have just cut the…
I salute Professor Neil Ferguson
Gstaad Let me begin with a salute to the winner of this year’s Sir Jimmy Goldsmith prize: Professor Neil Ferguson.…
In praise of French doctors
They made a better job of sorting out my waterworks
My toilet ultimatum to the builder boyfriend
The rain showers had a strange and wondrous effect. All the cyclists, joggers and dog walkers that were coming from…
I’m imposing a one-woman trade embargo on China
Without making any efforts in that direction, I now know all about a certain telecom firm’s future business plans. My…
The night I danced with Ginger Rogers
Gstaad When indolence becomes intolerable, remembrances of things past become a lifesaver. Charles Moore’s SpectatorNotes also helps. His recent…
How the French view their weekly clap for carers
Once a week we break French emergency law and have a friend round for drinks on the terrace. The terrace…
Writing my High Life column made a man of me
As Cole Porter might have said, only second-rate people go on and on about their inner lives. Self-analysis, according to…
Vodka, kaolin and morphine: my welcome drinks at The Spectator offices
In 2001, aged 44, I was hired to write a weekly column for this august paper, and for the first…
We don’t have lockdown in Surrey
The man was unloading cycles from the boot of his car just as I was about to take the turning…
Would my success in growing cannabis plants translate to nasturtiums?
In a cave once used as a stable and now abandoned, I found a wooden crate containing a dozen tiny…
The joy of pumping iron at 83
Gstaad So the days — and months — drift by. This once peaceful Alpine town is packed with rich refugees…
Why I joined the Jehovah’s Witnesses
The toad who lives at the bottom of the garden in the pile of bricks beneath the potting table was…
This pandemic is showing us for who we really are
The spaniel curled up in her basket with one of my shoes, one of his socks and a packet of…
Had the entire village population been wiped out since last week?
With my signed and dated laissez-passer in my pocket, I trotted down to the village to see if I could…
Covid-19 shows us that virtue trumps freedom
Look at it this way: we’re all doing Desert Island Discs nowadays, and unless you’ve got the bug, it’s a…
How tennis went socialist
Desperately boring times but very healthy ones. No parties, no girls, not too much boozing, lots of smoking and reading…
