Dear Mary: How do I stop my friend’s banal WhatsApp messages?
Q. I have a very dear friend who lives in Scotland, so we rarely see each other. Before the internet…
Why the young are fleeing to Portugal
The legendary music producer Rick Rubin once asked me why I had never moved to the United States. The answer,…
Do you ‘cock a snook’ – or snoot?
‘This is interesting, darling,’ my husband called out from beside his whisky while I was doing the washing-up. The interesting…
The lessons of the Chris Kaba case
I wonder if we should join with the radical campaigning organisation Buy Larger Mansions (BLM) in order to protest about…
Is Wes Streeting the Hamlet of the health service?
Is Wes Streeting the Hamlet of the Health Service? Is this undoubtedly talented and thoughtful young Labour prince fatally irresolute…
Albania has long lived in Italy’s shadow
Albanians are descended from the most ancient of European peoples, the Illyrians. The country came into existence only after 1912…
Portrait of the week: Budget leaks, prisoners released and Israel kills Hamas leader
Home Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was expected to freeze tax thresholds in the Budget on 30 October,…
Is it really too much to ask students to read children’s books?
The Shakespeare scholar Sir Jonathan Bate recently claimed that students are struggling to read long books. Depressingly, he’s right. I…
You’ll even hate the cat: Disclaimer, on Apple TV+, reviewed
Sometimes spoilers can be your friend. For example, I have just cheated and looked up on the internet the shocking…
Mandy Rice-Davies saw the Profumo affair as an adventure, not a scandal
In the decades since the Profumo scandal gripped a nation, Mandy Rice-Davies has been fixed in the public imagination largely…
Kemi vs Robert: who would be the best Tory leader?
Ed West on Robert Jenrick It’s a testimony to the sheer unpopularity of Keir Starmer’s government that only three months…
At Japan House humanity has arrived at the perfect future: food for ogling, not eating
There is a popular Japanese television show that features a segment called ‘Candy Or Not Candy?’. Contestants are presented with…
Great knits – shame about the film: Almodovar’s The Room Next Door reviewed
The Room Next Door is Pedro Almodovar’s first film in the English language and if it is his last we…
