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My prescription to make New York happy again

30 March 2019 9:00 am

New York   This place feels funny, a bit like Beirut, where Christians, Jews, Muslims, Druze and encamped Palestinians live…

I’m making a cave disco in the south of France

30 March 2019 9:00 am

I’ve swapped my carer’s tray in Devon for a barrow and spade halfway up a cliff in the south of…

You should train your man like you train your Labrador

30 March 2019 9:00 am

‘This clean sock regime is really annoying,’ said the builder boyfriend, as he rummaged through his newly inaugurated top drawer.…

I’m back in New York: the city that’s perennially offended

23 March 2019 9:00 am

New York   Goodbye, snow-capped peaks; hello, swampy brown East River. So long, fresh alpine air; greetings to choking diesel…

After ten weeks spent caring for my mother, I had to relearn the art of conversation

23 March 2019 9:00 am

I said my goodbyes and went outside with my trolley bag to wait for the taxi. While waiting, I looked…

Professional villagers won’t rest until they have eliminated mud from the countryside

23 March 2019 9:00 am

‘Don’t touch anything sharp. Don’t saw anything or drill anything or sand anything,’ said the builder boyfriend as he left…

Why I’ve joined the SDP (and why you should, too)

16 March 2019 9:00 am

I was down the pub with my wife last week, out in the tiny smoking section, when a woman with…

Hulton Archive

The four times I have lied in 42 years writing this column

16 March 2019 9:00 am

Gstaad   As Emperor Maximilian told his convulsed-by-tears servants as he was about to be executed by the Mexicans: ‘Who…

Christopher Furlong / Staff

The travesties competing in the Terrier category at Crufts

16 March 2019 9:00 am

Does the BBC suppose that it will convert the public to a belief in equality if it does not, in…

Handbags

From a solar-powered bin to HS2: the destruction of my childhood home

16 March 2019 9:00 am

My mother is a classy lady. I have always known this, but it still affected me in a way I…

Credit: oversnap

Watching my grandchildren schussing down a mountain is what makes me happy now

9 March 2019 9:00 am

Gstaad   As everyone knows, the definition of serendipity is searching for a needle in a haystack, and instead finding…

Credit: Sebalos

I hadn’t had a drink in six weeks but that was seven hours, three pubs and a club ago…

9 March 2019 9:00 am

Standing in a messy kitchen at the tendril tip of a county line at three o’clock in the morning, Trev…

Why I hate ‘the n-word’

2 March 2019 9:00 am

One of the depressing aspects of writing a column attuned to social hypocrisy is so rarely running short of new…

Credit: NNehring

I’ve contributed greatly to animal welfare, via the casino

2 March 2019 9:00 am

A rare British species, a womanising ex-foreign secretary, kissed and told about his brief affair with a yellow-eyed temptress last…

Credit: ISO3000

My life as nurse, chief cook and bottle washer for my mother

2 March 2019 9:00 am

My fifth week confined to barracks as nurse, chief cook and bottle washer. I drive to the supermarket about twice…

Credit: SolStock

Farmers get treated like terror suspects by the RSPCA

2 March 2019 9:00 am

‘What do you mean, you have no ID?’ I asked the farmer, starting to feel dizzy with the mind-boggling convolution…

Credit: NNehring

I’m all for abolishing flying: first-class on a liner is far more fun

23 February 2019 9:00 am

Gstaad   It’s party time here. From the richest billionaires down to those impoverished souls with only a few million…

The strange people who keep a nightly vigil over my mother

23 February 2019 9:00 am

To begin with it was mice. The house was overrun with them. She saw them out of the corner of…

From Swarfega to cleanse and polish: my long path to perfect skin

23 February 2019 9:00 am

‘Is it for your daughter?’ said the sales assistant as I pointed to an expensive skincare product. She had glided…

Credit: oneinchpunch

Faithless husbands can be the best husbands

16 February 2019 9:00 am

Gstaad   Who was it that said we always hurt those we love the most? I did just that last…

Credit: Photo by Frank Hurley/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

‘I don’t know how ever Jerry stands it’: diary of a world war one artillery man

16 February 2019 9:00 am

My sister’s boyfriend is a solitary man and easily overwhelmed by another’s presence. On his rare visits he flits in…

Credit: coffeekai

Why I could kiss Mark Zuckerberg

16 February 2019 9:00 am

Since posting some of my research into the RSPCA on Facebook, I now better understand the way social networking works.…

In Gstaad neither poor nor rich worry about inequality

9 February 2019 9:00 am

Gstaad   Here in Gstaad there is no worker alienation. Nor are the rich especially worried. The talk is about…

Oscar is nine, and has largely abandoned speech in favour of gestures and monosyllables

9 February 2019 9:00 am

Just before I left France, Oscar’s mum sent over a photo of Oscar in his classroom at school showing the…

I can’t believe I went online and found the most adorable lodger in Britain

9 February 2019 9:00 am

‘I see you’ve got the posters up then?’ said the little lodger as she came home from work. She’s got…