How to become an old soak
Drink and longevity: there seems to have been a successful counter-attack against the puritans, prohibitionists and other health faddists. Indeed,…
Tom Cruise and the art of falconry
Last week, the Hollywood team making the latest Mission Impossible film was desperate to clear Trafalgar Square of its superabundant…
There are passages of considerable eloquence in Royal Ballet’s The Winter’s Tale
There’s no escaping Christopher Wheeldon – a modest, amiable fellow from Yeovil of whom anyone’s mum would be proud. Reaching…
My battle with the dreaded ‘black cotton’
Laikipia, Kenya By the time I set off from the farm before dawn we’d had 22in of rain in the…
Do charities really deserve my mum’s data?
A letter from Archie Norman, chairman of M&S, popped into my inbox after I complained that I had run over…
How to bottle Britishness
The US crackdown on trade finance for Russia from international banks – designed to impede imports needed for the continuing…
How universities raised a generation of activists
It was only a matter of time before America’s student protests spread to the UK. In Oxford, tents have been…
Bugs, biscuits, trench foot: from the front line of the uni protests
On the grass in front of UCL’s main building, on Sunday night, there were about 30 tents and the portico…
The battle of the pollsters
There was plenty for Rishi Sunak and his cabinet to discuss on Tuesday morning. The Conservatives had lost half of…
The science behind Olivia Colman’s left-wing face
The new hunting year formally began last week. Should I resubscribe? Politically, the outlook is bleak. In February, Steve Reed,…
My Britney Spears Theory of Action
Every week I check the weather in Longyearbyen, the main settlement in Svalbard. It’s about as close as you can…
Portrait of the week: Tory defections, local elections and a China defence hack
Home The local elections proved dreadful for the Conservatives but not quite perfect for Labour. The Conservatives lost 474 of…
Tories for Starmer
Nick Boles was once at the heart of a mission to renew Conservatism. He was one of a small number…
In defence of my friend Kevin Spacey
I am looking for a way to get £80,000. The sum would come in handy. I could put it towards…
Across Britain punters are lapping up ultra-trad opera – the Arts Council will be disgusted
Another week at the opera, another evening with an elitist and ethically dubious art form. I love it; you love…
The Israeli-Hamas negotiations are fraught with complexity
Jerusalem For weeks the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had been preparing for an assault on Rafah. Yet when the order…
Letters: the Tory party has gone mad
Right is wrong Sir: Katy Balls’s article ‘Survival Plan’ (4 May) starts from a false premise. The problem is not…
Why do people make excuses for surly staff?
‘You grab that table, I’ll get the drinks.’ I did as bid. A couple of minutes later, Paul was back,…
Minority Report is superficial pap – why on earth stage it?
Minority Report is a plodding bit of sci-fi based on a Steven Spielberg movie made more than two decades ago.…
I hate hate speech laws
I originally intended to observe that American universities’ anti-Israel protestors and Hamas terrorists deserve each other, because they’ve so much…
